Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 37 — Thursday, September 18, 2014 (HTML)

Strategy Room 320, Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue
580 W. Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C.

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

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

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	847
P. Bacchus
K. Carrusca
C. Avendano
K. Shortt
M. Horne
R. Waraich
T. Ho
G. Wilson
S. Kiernan
L. MacDonald
R. Archdekin
C. Salas
B. Barrable
P. Berg
J. Davies
R. Ciceri
P. Wood
A. Montani
C. Oliver
P. Malone
A. MacCallum
J. Riley
F. Bodnar
S. Hendsbee
A. Delaplace
W. Pattenden
D. Wright
H. Pastrick
S. McDonald
L. McGuire
K. Sashaw
C. Fritter
W. Hartrick
S. Jenkins-Thompson
W. Booth
Z. Clark
T. Porteous
B. Tam

D. Ashton (Chair): Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for coming this morning.

My name is Dan Ashton. I'm the MLA for Penticton and Peachland 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.

I'll go off-script for a minute. I have to say it's been a great trip up north, and we all work incredibly well together. I think that's very, very important for this committee.

The consultations are based on the budget consultation paper that is released by the Minister of Finance. 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 is also scheduled for October 8 to hear from three additional communities — Dawson Creek, Quesnel and Smithers. This week we've been in Victoria, Prince George, Terrace, Fort St. John, Prince George and now Vancouver.

In addition to the hearings, the committee is accepting written, audio and video submissions and responses to an on-line, very short 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 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 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. Time permitting, we will also have an open-mike period at the end of the meeting. Five minutes are allotted for each presenter. If you wish to speak, please register with the nice young lady at the back, Sarah.

Today's meeting is being recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services. A complete transcript of the proceedings will be posted to the committee's website. All of the meetings are also broadcast via live audio on our website.

J. Shin: Good morning. My name is Jane Shin. I'm the MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, and the files that I'm looking at are trade, immigration and multiculturalism.

G. Holman: Good morning. Gary Holman, MLA, Saanich North and the Islands, democratic reform critic.

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

C. James (Deputy Chair): Carole James, MLA for Victoria–Beacon Hill and Finance critic.

D. Ashton (Chair): Also, assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial and Sarah Griffiths, in the back, from the parliamentary committees office. Hansard Services is also recording the proceedings here. You can see Ian and Alex, two of the hardest-working individuals on this whole tour, sitting over here behind their keyboards and computers.

First up, we have Vancouver school board of education, district No. 39 — Patti Bacchus. Welcome, Patti. Thank you very much for coming this morning. As I said, it's a ten-minute presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning if it looks like you're going to be approaching that — and then we have the five minutes for questions.

P. Bacchus: This is Steve Cardwell. He is the superintendent of schools for Vancouver and is assisting me this morning.

Thank you very much. We're very pleased to be here this morning on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish and having an opportunity to speak to all of you. I think this is our fifth or sixth year coming to make this submission. We try to keep it reasonably brief. We know you have a lot of people with a lot of things to tell you.

For those of you who have been on this panel in the past, it hasn't changed much, really — the messages that we're bringing about the needs of our school district. While I can only speak for the Vancouver school board, many of these themes you'll hear from other school districts and other people in the public education sector.
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As you know, Vancouver is a large and very diverse school district. We have some of the most affluent families, with very high expectations of the school system; we have some of the poorest families, with some of the most complex needs; and you name it in between, and we have it — multiculturally diverse and a very exciting school district but with all kinds of challenges to be met.

Like other school districts, we've given you a bit of background on our fiscal framework, the situation we work in. This will be very similar, as well, to other school boards — essentially, that we do rely on provincial funding for over 90 percent of our operating budget. We are very dependent, obviously, on our provincial funding to be able to deliver services to students.

We have included some pie charts about where we spend our money. That often is a question people have. Of course, over 83 percent goes directly to costs related to instruction, about 12.5 percent for building and maintenance. We have a large stock of aging school buildings with a lot of deferred maintenance and a lot of work required.

We spend, percentage-wise, a fairly small slice, about 0.7 percent on transportation. That's somewhere where we would be smaller than some of the more geographically spread-out school districts.

Our district administrative costs are about 2.8 percent of our budget, which is actually very low. Like everywhere else in the budget, our district admin has faced some pretty severe reductions over the past 12 years, making it increasingly challenging to respond to some of the needs that we have.

To put it together, we did an analysis last April when we were facing yet another what we call a shortfall budget. That's where the funding that we are provided with through our provincial grants and what we can raise locally through international students and rentals….

When we look at that, compared to the cost of providing the same, equivalent level of service the following year, adjusted for any enrolment changes, each year we have a shortfall. The costs of doing business for us will increase by a couple of percent. Our funding may go up a portion of that, but seldom does it go up that full amount.

We often find ourselves faced with additional, unfunded costs. For example, last fall the provincial government, on behalf of school boards, negotiated a new agreement with our support staff unions. That included a salary increase that was not funded at all. We were told to come up with a plan to pay for that out of our existing funds, so that will mean that $4 million has to go from somewhere else in the coming year.

I could list…. I don't have all day, so I won't, but that is just an example of increased pressures on our budget that doesn't increase very much at all, which is why each year you'll hear us out there saying: "We're making cuts." Some of you will say, "But there's more funding than ever," and we will say: "Well, when you put the two together, where costs go up, when those funds don't keep pace at the school district level, it translates primarily to cuts, although we do our best to increase revenue where we can."

Again, I mention international student revenue, which can be a precarious funding source — it's not stable, necessarily — and rentals of our buildings. There are some fees, but as you know, we are very restricted under legislation of what we can charge.

We did an analysis last year, basing it on 2002, where we had some of our largest cuts in operating within the district due to an unfunded contract back then. We would need about $54 million a year just in Vancouver if we were to provide the equivalent level of service and staffing, adjusted for inflation and adjusted for enrolment — so on a per-student level. That is how far the gap has widened.

We are facing…. When we look at what our costs will be — and we have drained every rainy-day budget or local capital reserve budget to get through this year — there's nothing left. In fact, we're in deficit because we have capital projects that were not fully funded by government, and we've had to go in to use capital to complete, for example, our school in downtown Vancouver. So we have a projected shortfall for the next school year. At this point, our best estimates from our accountants are in the neighbourhood of $27 million.

As you may be aware, when we look at page 4 of our brief, we've done some comparisons based on Statistics Canada data. Some of you've heard about this data before. We look at, you know, comparing ourselves across the country. In the four-year period from 2006-07 to 2010-11, the average Canadian province increased their per-student funding by 21.7 percent. B.C. was at 13 percent.

You can see that other provinces have kept pace at a much higher rate than B.C. We have definitely fallen behind from where we used to be, steady in the middle. Now we've really dropped down to near the bottom. The average expenditure per student, through StatsCan, in Canada is $12,557. We spend $11,832.

If we matched the average…. If we were just average — we're not even asking to be above average — we would have $398 million more in the education budget. In Vancouver that would translate to roughly about $40 million.

It would pretty well put us where we feel we need to be to provide what I would say is a reasonably optimal level of service. It's not first-class. It's not the level that we could do even better. But that would be a pretty decent level.

The growth in education expenditures. Again, you probably have heard some of this. In Canada it grew by 19.6 percent. Operating expenditures grew by only 9.6 percent in B.C. Only the Yukon territory has had a lower rate of growth. So we've really seen a shift in that pattern.

At the top of page 5 — and again, StatsCan — B.C. has the most students allocated per educator of all prov-
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inces. You'll see there — when we do the definition, that includes teachers, administrators, pedagogical support — that the average educator in B.C. supports far more students than any other province.

You all hear people discuss the amount of provincial spending. When you look at your own budget, your own pie chart of where your money goes, the slice that was education funding — if you go back and have a look at that — has steadily decreased at a time, I would argue, that while there are fewer students in K to 12, education is absolutely more critical than ever for anyone to really survive in this economy.

I know that when my father graduated…. He didn't graduate. He went off and worked in business. Most people did. These days there's just not a chance. Even if you are going into the trades or some of the areas that traditionally didn't require as much education, they're much more complex. We can't afford to be losing 20 percent of our students not graduating each year — and of course, a much higher percentage of aboriginal students.

The summary of our recommendations. Again, you've heard these in previous years. I was pleased that in the report from this committee last year it included some, I think, really good recommendations on K to 12. They weren't reflected in the budget, but I hope if they're reiterated, perhaps that will have an impact.

The first recommendation — this is true every year: the province must provide stable, predictable and adequate funding to enable school districts to fulfil their responsibility to provide continued equitable access to quality public education. The unpredictability, the constant having to make cuts, is throwing everybody off and not delivering what we should be doing.

At a minimum, all negotiated or provincially mandated increases — including salary, benefits, pension contributions, medical premiums — and new requirements such as carbon emission calculations and carbon offsets must be fully funded by the province. We cannot continue to absorb more costs.

Three, the province needs to review and increase supplemental funding grants for students with special needs. We've heard lots about class size and composition in this latest dispute, and we are still struggling.

For example, on the autism spectrum we have many students who require one-to-one support, plus psych-ed support, plus speech path. The grant for those students, I believe, is under $19,000. That doesn't even pay half of the special ed support work, much less all the other costs, so we are heavily subsidizing. We spend roughly twice as much of our operating budget on supporting students with special needs than is reflected in those grants.

Four, we need to provide funding for increased maintenance and upgrades to address the needs of aging school facilities. We are now at a point where we are at such a fraction of what anyone in industry would spend to maintain their buildings that we spend less than 25 percent of the industry standard on maintenance for equivalent types of buildings. They are deteriorating.

These are public assets. The costs will soon be…. The facility condition is deteriorating so rapidly, and that starts to build up. When you can't fix leaks, as you know, the damage increases. We are really allowing these to devalue and become increasingly unsafe.

Five, sufficient capital funding needs to be provided by the province to upgrade or replace schools that have a high seismic risk by 2020. As you know, government committed in 2005 to seismically upgrading all at-risk schools by 2020. We have been continuing to work with that. We've made some significant progress, but it is still really slow — access and funding. It's been clear in some of the work the Auditor General has done since 2005 that the original estimate of $1.5 billion was simply inadequate to properly upgrade these buildings.

Beyond the seismic upgrades — and you all hear this in your ridings — there are many, many schools in need of upgrades, repair. We simply have not kept up with the capital needs of school districts.

Six, we must have a real plan to eliminate child poverty in B.C. We see this in our schools. We see how the gap between…. The implications for students who live in poverty, coming to school — they're at a real disadvantage coming in the door. No matter what we can provide them in school, what is happening in their homes and communities has a tremendous impact. They're in their homes and communities over 80 percent of the time; they're only in schools 15 to 20.

We need to expand that comprehensive plan to deal with this. We certainly see it in Vancouver, and we can tell you story after story. We really need to do a comprehensive approach to that. I think we're one of the few provinces without one. We know that there is a strong correlation between poverty and student outcomes. We want every student to have the best chance for success.

Finally, we'd just like to reiterate the recommendations from last year, from your own report, from the standing committee. I won't read them out; you've got them there. Page 7, three bullet points. Yes, they are all still valid, and we hope they make it in.

We've just included in your attachment some samples, for when people say: "Well, what does this really mean? What do these cuts mean?" Attachment A — there's a list there.

D. Ashton (Chair): Patti, I hate to interrupt. I've given you three extra minutes into your questions, so we only have two minutes left for questions. I'm quite sure there are going to be some, so I apologize, but we have a long day.

P. Bacchus: Don't apologize. I can talk for hours. Please, I appreciate if you stop me before I bore you all to death. You can read the rest of it.
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D. Ashton (Chair): You're not boring. It's a very good presentation. It's just that I'm sure there'll be some questions, and we have the next delegation.

P. Bacchus: Absolutely. I will stop there and leave you to enjoy the rest at your leisure.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Patti, for your presentation. I want to ask you two questions, because I think they're questions that often come up for the public and often become a contentious point of debate.

One is the discussion around surplus funds that school boards have, and I put that in quotes, having been a school trustee around the table. I'd like you to just talk a little bit about what those funds in budgets are actually there for, because I think that's important.

The second piece you touched on a little bit. It is the dropping enrolment and why costs don't go down at the same time that the enrolment numbers are going down.

P. Bacchus: I'll be quick on this. Surplus funds. I think I've been through five ministers since I've been on the board, and each time we have to go through this, because someone in government keeps giving them talking points that are not very accurate. We've been through this with the comptroller general.

The way school districts are required to report their accounts at the end of the year is that surplus funds are carryovers. So we will have funds that we call "internally restricted." We've ordered the textbooks. The invoice is in the mail. It hasn't been paid. It will show up in that column as a surplus. It's allocated; it is spent. The boiler is being repaired. The bill didn't come in till July, and the year ended…. I don't know. I think the cut-off date is June 30 or July 31.

We refer to those…. They will show up in the forms that the government requires in a fund called surplus, but they are not surplus. They are funds that are spent and allocated. I know that the minister this year…. We had a very vigorous discussion about him talking in the Legislature about us having $23 million in surplus. That would be my dream come true, if it were actually true. However, it's not, and he's not the first minister to say that.

So we had a discussion. We actually had him in to sit down with our secretary-treasurer, who explained this. I think it's something that every minister should be briefed on when they come in, because it doesn't do them any favours to be presenting information that isn't accurate. Obviously, other school board chairs spoke out about this as well.

They are year-end committed funds in the budget, spent in that budget year, but it's often a matter of the work is being completed, the bill hasn't come, or the textbooks aren't delivered. It does not represent money that could be respent. We can't spend it twice, or then we're in big trouble.

D. Ashton (Chair): Patti, I have to cut you off. I'm sorry. I have a question from Mike and a question from George. You have a minute, so 30 seconds apiece. So off you go — and that's for the answer too. Sorry, Patti.

M. Morris: I'm just curious, being relatively new to this world. You make these comparisons with the other provinces and the Canadian averages and whatnot, but not every province uses the same formula to figure out per-student funding.

Part of the other question is…. B.C. has some of the best outcomes nationally. How do you rationalize the amount of money that we're spending — and we're getting the great outcomes that we are — with the way the rest of the country is running?

P. Bacchus: Well, our outcomes are relatively good. I say relatively, but I'll remind you that 20 percent of students still don't graduate, and almost half of our aboriginal students don't. I would say that's not a great thing to be proud of.

This is based on Stats Canada comparisons. I will caution you that the students that are graduating now, on many of the international reports you're reading, are not the students you're seeing the impact of the cuts on. They're kids who started school in sometimes 2000, 2001, and some of these comparisons you're seeing are 2011 figures for kids who started before the impact of these reductions.

Now, I will say that we have outstanding teachers. I think our universities do a terrific job, and I'll say our school boards have done really hard work to focus resources where we can and target and fix things.

But at the same time, there are cracks and gaps. You'll see that in the rates. There are 20 percent of them out there. So while we are doing very well with most students, there's going to be a very high cost for those students. You're not going to see some of those results start to really hit. We know the early years have a tremendous impact. We're focusing resources where we can, but you will see…. I predict that over time that you're going to see a shift in that, if we continue down this road. You won't see the impacts….

G. Heyman: As you were developing your budget for this year, I had a large number of parents come to my
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office to express concern about programs that were being cut back or eliminated, ranging from music to assistance to kids with substance abuse issues to English as a second language to special services for kids who just were not fitting in.

I heard days of presentations at the board hearings when you were doing your budget. You managed to save a portion of some of them. What are the chances of being able to do that in the coming year?

P. Bacchus: Well, they're very slim, unless there is a change in our funding. We've worked really hard to find ways to give things a reprieve. We are trying to look at some alternative service delivery models for some things, like the music programs.

Frankly, we're one of the few districts left that even provides those without a significant fee to parents. I think it's a sad state. Our athletics programs are at risk. Arts programs are at risk.

We have some incredibly successful alternative programs for students who otherwise would be lost out of the system. We are able to bring them back, get them graduated and get them a post-secondary transition plan. Those are fairly expensive to run, because they're intensive. But they make huge differences. A couple of years' investment in those kids can really transform their futures, and those are all at risk.

We have zero left in our capital reserve, which we used. We used some one-time funds that we would normally try to keep, 1 percent…. We often keep half a percent of our budget for contingency. We have no contingency fund now, and in fact, it's in the negative.

D. Ashton (Chair): Patti, I'm sorry I have to cut you off. Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming in. If any of the board members wish to speak to Patti independently, please feel free. But I have to carry on. I'm sorry. Thank you very much for coming this morning.

Up next we have the Cement Association of Canada. Good morning, sir. How are you doing?

We have ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning. We are staying on time today, so please, Ken, carry on.

K. Carrusca: Thank you. I appreciate being here, and good morning again. My name is Ken Carrusca. I'm the vice-president of environment and marketing for the Cement Association of Canada. I'm here with my colleague TJ Parhar, who is the senior director for government and public affairs — again, for the west.

The Cement Association works with cement producers across Canada, and I'm here to provide input on behalf of the members that invest and operate here in B.C. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak at this hearing.

Although TJ and I are new faces with the Cement Association, we're here once again to talk about an issue that has been presented to the committee over the past three years, the B.C. carbon tax.

I wish that we were here updating you all on the positive economic benefits that would come about upon resolution of the carbon tax — benefits such as creating family-supporting jobs and ensuring that B.C. has access to local, reliable, cost-effective cement for all the important projects across B.C. — but that issue has not been resolved.

We're going to continue to advocate on the inequitable and unfair application of the B.C. carbon tax on domestic cement producers and continue to be at a disadvantage compared to cement that's being imported into the province here today free of the carbon tax from the U.S. and from Asia.

Before I go further, I wanted to touch on some of the major infrastructure projects that will hopefully be coming forward in the very near future. These include — and you're very well familiar with — the proposed Site C dam by B.C. Hydro and the several proposed LNG projects that could really change the landscape of B.C.

The Cement Association of Canada wants to make sure that domestic cement producers have a level playing field with foreign producers. Currently local producers have been competing with foreign producers for a market share in B.C. at a competitive disadvantage, since domestic producers are the only ones for which the carbon tax applies.

This hurts local communities, as domestic producers consider these factors when they consider making investment decisions on whether to upgrade or expand their facilities in B.C. versus investing in other jurisdictions. Creating a fair business climate can lead to additional jobs and economic opportunity in B.C. communities.

As an industry, we do want to say that we're supportive of the imperative need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but that has to occur on the basis of a level playing field. The B.C. cement industry has made significant strides in reducing the overall environmental footprint, and in fact, here in B.C. they've been leaders in the development and marketing of a type of cement, Contempra cement, that reduces overall greenhouse gas emissions.

My comments here this morning were a follow-up to a presentation to this committee that Michael McSweeney, president and CEO of the Cement Association, has made over the past three years. The Cement Association has presented several times and has had numerous meetings with both government and opposition MLAs, cabinet ministers and government officials since the carbon tax was implemented in 2008.
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It's important that we get a resolution to this issue. The unintended consequences of the carbon tax has put the B.C. cement industry at a competitive disadvantage. That affects jobs in our sector and our ability to compete with the imports of cement from the U.S. and Asia.

Since the carbon tax was established back in 2008, each year we've seen between 25 and 40 percent of the market share of cement sold in B.C. attributed to imported cement. That's a direct consequence of the carbon tax being applied to the cement producers only in the province. Before the carbon tax, before 2008, nearly all the cement marketed in B.C. and sold in B.C. was made here in B.C. At that time imports were only about 4 percent of the overall market share, with most of that being just specialized cementitious materials.

I note that B.C. is the only jurisdiction with a carbon-pricing mechanism that does not protect energy-intensive, trade-exposed industries, such as the cement industry. Analysis by the B.C. climate action secretariat, in fact, indicated exactly that, that cement manufacturing is the most competitively impacted, energy-intensive, trade-exposed industry in B.C. Other jurisdictions — Europe, as an example — have recognized this problem, and they've implemented programs for industries such as cement to level that playing field to allow domestic producers to compete equitably with foreign producers and importers.

This inequity is affecting the cement manufacturers directly. Those are specifically the Lehigh Cement facility in Delta, the Lafarge Cement plant in Richmond as well as the Lafarge facility in Kamloops. We want to emphasize again that this creates direct local impacts.

The cement that's made right here in B.C. is made out of limestone that's extracted from Texada Island or from quarries in Kamloops, and it's heated with local coal that comes out of Vancouver Island. So in fact, it's a 98 percent made-in-B.C. product. Many of you will know exactly what cement is. We call it the glue that literally binds the sand, the gravel and the water together as a foundation for much of our infrastructure.

The impacts of the carbon tax on cement can lead to cascading impacts on concrete producers. Those are the ready-mix batch plants that you see in your communities, whether that's the Rempel Bros. or the Lafarge facility in Vancouver; Kask Bros. in Burnaby; Valley Rite-Mix in Mission; OK Builders Supplies in Penticton; Ocean Concrete in Victoria, as well as the facility down on Granville Island in Vancouver; and Inland Concrete in Prince George. There are many, many more.

The cement industry has invested billions and billions of dollars in B.C. The industry employs over 3,000 men and women, directly and indirectly, throughout B.C, contributes over $275 million to the provincial GDP and generates over $1.8 billion in local revenue. Our industry — we are responsible corporate citizens who invest actively in our B.C. communities. We know that cement and concrete are essential to the expansion of the B.C. jobs plan.

Let me reinforce again the Cement Association's comments from last year. The B.C. Cement Association does support the government's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We just simply ask that everyone do their fair part.

By not applying that carbon tax to imported cement, the policy not only hurts the domestic producers and the families that are working in that industry, but it does, in fact, nothing to reduce overall GHG emissions and encourage local environmental solutions.

We as the Cement Association ask you as members of the committee to encourage the Ministry of Finance officials and the Minister of Finance to work with the Cement Association to develop a solution that restores a fair and competitive cement sector and market in B.C.

Our industry is not wedded to any one specific solution. We believe that since the carbon tax has left the cement industry in an uncompetitive position, a solution must be found that protects the industry that employs B.C. citizens and an industry that's crucial to the future of the B.C. jobs plan and the development of all this infrastructure that is just coming up soon with LNG and upgrading of all of B.C.'s provincial and municipal infrastructure.

To finish off, I just want to commend the provincial government for acknowledging this issue and the imperative need to address the impacts of the B.C. carbon tax. The item was identified in a Minister of Finance's mandate letter earlier this year. That, as reference, was item 13 of the letter. That item in the letter was "to review the impacts of the carbon tax on British Columbia manufacturers and provide options to cabinet on how to ameliorate the impacts on local manufacturers."

We see this as a positive step in the right direction, and we're looking forward to working closely with the Ministry of Finance to really finally resolve this issue.

G. Heyman: Thank you for the presentation and the thoroughness of it, and let me just simply say that I think you've identified all of the key points.

It's a perverse result in British Columbia's attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to actually increase them by allowing imports of cement that disadvantage B.C. manufacturers, where if we levelled the playing field by having an import carbon charge on it, we then put the B.C. industry in the position that I think you're working towards — to be able to recoup the carbon tax by actually finding every way possible to reduce the emissions foot-
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print of an industry that will always inherently have some greenhouse gas emissions.

When Mr. McSweeney was here last year — actually, George pretty much said everything I was going to frame my question around — he was going to provide us with, basically, a financial argument with respect to relaxation of the carbon tax as it relates to import duties. He was going to put a framework around that and provide it to this committee.

I don't know if we can refer to the Clerk or not. I don't believe we've received anything, and I'm wondering if we could ask you to follow up on that issue. If it could come in front of the committee, it helps to substantiate the argument and give it a little more weight. When we can see it in writing, it draws a pretty picture.

K. Carrusca: Absolutely. As you know, I'm fairly new on this file and this organization. We'll definitely see what materials we have that we can forward to you. I can tell you just as a point of reference in terms of the financials of the carbon tax, just to put it in perspective for everyone around the table, that when you go to the gas pump and you buy a litre of gas, it's around $1.40 a litre. The B.C. carbon tax is 6.67 cents per litre of what you're paying.

When a cement kiln burns a tonne of coal — that's really necessary not just to provide heat but as a constituent of that cement — the carbon tax on a tonne of coal is $53. To put that in perspective, a tonne of coal right now on the market runs for about $70, so the carbon tax is a very significant contributor to the overall cost of that fuel — seven cents on a litre of gas at $1.40 versus $53 on fuel that costs around $70 a tonne. It's just due to the nature of the way carbon accounting works.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, and thank you to your association. You've, I know, over a number of years come forward with I think some progressive ideas and some very specific approaches around how to deal with the unlevel playing field that's there right now.

You mentioned the minister's letter and the acknowledgment that this was an issue that needed to be addressed. Have you been given any kind of timelines from the minister or from the minister's office around that review and any kind of timelines to your association around when that might be completed?

K. Carrusca: Again, I'm going to — I don't know that I need to apologize — mention that I'm fairly new on the file. We have had a meeting with some staff, and we're looking forward to having further dialogue with staff and discussing these options in a two-way dialogue.

My understanding is that this file, obviously, has been underway for a number of years and that there have been a number of options put forward by the Cement Association on potentially looking to address this issue. Somehow addressing the inequity in the carbon tax through a point of sale, where the carbon tax can be collected at sale, is one example — some exemption or some rebate to keep the industry whole as well.

Certainly, my colleague TJ and I are looking forward to continuing to have that discussion with government on resolving the issue.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. I was on the committee last year, and you noted the recommendation that we made. Maybe it's already been said, but I think you said you were flexible in terms of possible solutions. You've mentioned a couple. If you could give us a little more detail on that, we might be able to — maybe — on the committee be a little more pointed about the approach.

And yeah, I think government will be concerned about precedent for other industries. If they make an allowance for cement, what are they…? You know, that kind of thing. If you can help us with the possible reasons for saying no — if you can help us with that a little bit — then it could help our recommendations here on the committee.

K. Carrusca: Okay. Thank you. I do know that there have…. I believe that the greenhouse gas industry did work with government on looking at options for resolving their situation, which is where they use significant amounts of natural gas. We will bring options forward, absolutely.

G. Holman: Quickly, alternative fuels? At one point I recall the cement industry seriously thinking about alternative fuels. Is that part of the solution here?

K. Carrusca: Absolutely. We see that as part of the solution. Right now the cement kilns in B.C., yes, do alternative fuels, and we're looking to do more as well.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ken, thank you very much for your presentation. TJ, thanks for coming also. Could you give us that information as soon as possible? That'd be great.

Next up we have the students union, Vancouver Community College — Christian Avendano.

Christian, we've allotted ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes for questions. Okay? So please start. Thank you for coming. I'm assuming all these folks are here with you.
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C. Avendano: Yeah, I think this beats the records for most eyes on me in a long time.

D. Ashton (Chair): Wow. They've all got your back, so there you go. That's what's important.

C. Avendano: Anyways, good morning. Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge the Coast Salish people whose traditional territories we're on today. I would also like to thank the committee for hearing our presentation today, and our appreciation for the opportunity to participate in this process.

My name is Christian Avendano. I'm a political science student at Vancouver Community College, and I'm also an elected director of the Students Union of Vancouver Community College and a student representative on the VCC board of governors.

The Students Union of VCC was formed in 1974 to become the representative body of 13,000 students at Vancouver Community College. As part of caring about the well-being of our members, the SUVCC is connected to the heart of campus, providing students with access to recreation, events and opportunities to contribute to the community. We're also proud members of the Canadian Federation of Students.

The SUVCC's key mandate is to achieve a goal of post-secondary education which is accessible to all, which is of high quality and which is rationally planned, which recognizes the legitimacy of student representation and the validity of student rights, and whose role in society is clearly recognized and appreciated.

As a membership-driven organization, the SUVCC regularly consults with their members about key issues that matter to them as they complete their education. Last year we conducted a survey which included feedback from 2,000 of our members, as well as we held town hall meetings throughout the year to gather the opinions of our membership.

Our membership has identified four key priorities to improve access to quality education in B.C. The first one is to make VCC the school of access by investing in a comprehensive strategy to ensure long-term provincial funding for ESL programming and to keep ESL accessible and tuition fee–free.

The second is to provide core funding for the construction of a Broadway subway.

Three is to legislate a tuition fee freeze to significantly reduce barriers to accessing and completing post-secondary education.

Four is to provide public post-secondary institutions with multi-year ITA funding in order to ensure better long-term planning for trades training.

VCC is the largest provider of ESL programs in the B.C. post-secondary system, and over half, 53 percent, of VCC's student population has a mother tongue that is another language other than English. The result of that is that each VCC class actually has a degree of ESL embedded in its coursework, and all VCC instructors are cognizant of that and recognize the multicultural and multilingual composition of the classes when they decide their curriculum, class pedagogy and teaching techniques as well as managing the classroom. Then the various English level programs in B.C. all develop basic literacy skills, including aspects of other essential skills, academic skills and sociocultural competency training that really is required in today's job market.

Stats Canada income tax information shows that within ten years of arriving, the majority of immigrants are still earning far less than Canadians with similar education or training, and it correlates with the language acquisition theory that states that it takes up to ten years to really gain that competency on a professional level. At VCC, ESL training is really about investing in immigrants in order to close that income gap with native English-speaking Canadians.

These cuts to ESL programs at VCC have a profound impact on the very fabric of Vancouver's last publicly funded community college. Beginning this January over 2,000 students will lose their seat and their opportunity to ladder into job-ready programs and contribute to B.C.'s economy. These students in VCC also feed into other programs in VCC such as certificate, diploma and degree programs that VCC currently holds. That drop in enrolment will also cause lag at VCC and also cause greater financial strain towards the college.

I want to take a moment to talk about a colleague of mine and a student at VCC. Her name is Saeideh, and she immigrated to Vancouver along with her husband and young child with the hopes of really building a new life in Canada. She taught environmental studies at the University of Tehran. She was a licensed medical doctor, and her husband was a licensed pharmacist.

They came to Vancouver seeking a better life but understood that there would be many sacrifices down the road while they put in their roots. While she was studying English full-time, her husband worked night shifts at the 7-Eleven to support their family. However, while they were making money, they really were just making ends meet and enough to get by and continue on. But then the cuts to ESL happened at VCC, and it made their dream of living in Canada nearly impossible. Then, three weeks ago, she and her family moved back to Tehran because, without free ESL, living in Vancouver would be unaffordable — and Canada.

From an economic perspective, Saeideh's story represents this waste of intellectual skills and resources that are required to build B.C.'s economy. We believe that the B.C. government has an important role to play in securing funding for VCC to continue comprehensive ESL training.

We recommend that the province provide VCC with short-term bridge funding to ensure that ESL programming will continue until the spring of 2015, which is when funding for Douglas College, Kwantlen University and Camosun College will expire.

We also recommend that the province make VCC the school of access by investing in a comprehensive strategy to ensure long-term provincial funding for all VCC ESL programming and to continue to keep ESL accessible and tuition fee free.

I want to talk about transit funding next. On August 31, 2014, the Victoria transport institution published a report, The Future Isn't What It Used to Be, showing a continual trend of youth driving less, and that, on average, the average miles travelled was about 20 percent less in 2008 than in 2001 for each person under the 40-year age gap.

B.C. has an opportunity to build transportation infrastructure and services that encourage students to live en route near transit service without reliance on trips by automobiles.

In June 2010 the announcement of the U-Pass B.C. program was enthusiastically welcomed by the Students Union of Vancouver Community College, and it saved student riders, on average, $1,060 during an eight-month academic year, which does create a large affect on students' lives.

In spring 2013 the B.C. government announced that it would renew its commitment to this important program by funding $34.5 million to help TransLink offset the costs of the U-Pass B.C. program over the next three years. Today I'd like to say that this program has been a staple and has really made a large, positive affect on the lives students in Metro Vancouver.

Our next recommendation is going to be about a legislated tuition fee freeze. The province's recent 2 percent tuition fee increase policy has not really succeeded in reducing the financial burden of students because it only applies to the current programs. At Vancouver Community College, over the past two years, ten new programs have been created with 60 percent of those being revenue-neutral. These programs cost from a range of $5,000 to $28,000, which is a large amount, making it almost impossible for students to afford to study at these programs.

According to Statistics Canada, the data shows that since 1974 tuition fees in B.C. have increased by over 1,038 percent. The Bank of Montreal's recent student survey last September reveals that post-secondary students expect to graduate from school with more than $26,000 in debt, on average, and students in B.C. are expected to be nearly $35,000 in debt.

The reason why B.C. students are saddled with $9,000 more is because we do have the lowest level of non-repayable financial aid in the country, coupled with the fact that a couple of our programs have had tuition rates that have been higher than the 2 percent cap.

D. Ashton (Chair): Christian, you are well into your ten minutes now — actually, at 11. I'm sorry. Will you make sure that we get a copy of your presentation, though, please?

D. Ashton (Chair): But if there are questions…. You did give us the four points, so thank you very much for that.

M. Morris: Very good presentation. Being from rural B.C., northern B.C. — well, actually, the central Interior of British Columbia — I guess my question is…. We have a whole bunch of post-secondary institutions throughout the province, and many of them are underutilized — in Prince George, Kamloops and Kelowna and in other parts of the province here, as well as employment opportunities up in the north. Anybody that comes up there can pretty much get a job.

I'm just wondering whether any thought has ever been given to look at other alternatives rather the province putting a whole bunch of money into transit and all kinds of support services for students attending institutions down in the Lower Mainland here, whether or not you can utilize some of the spaces that are available throughout British Columbia that provide very good educational opportunities.

C. Avendano: Even myself, as a student, has considered the possibility of studying in some of the universities up north. I feel that just the financial strain of having to pay for that as well as pay for living and go to school, away from home and away from my family, would also cause a degree of emotional strain as well as a financial strain for myself as well.

I know that I can't really speak for other students, but I know that a lot of my friends have gone up north or to other parts of the country. It does differ from student to student, depending on where they are currently at in their lives.

J. Shin: I actually just have a comment as opposed to a question. I see my face and my family's face in all of you. I’m the product of public education. I was also a former instructor at VCC, so I just wanted to thank you again for being here. This is an important issue, and I certainly, along with some of my colleagues, will definitely advocate hard for this. Thank you, all of you, for coming today.

I had a young lady in my office, actually, more recently, who was giving me a similar scenario regarding ESL, so that hasn't fallen on deaf ears. I've heard that mes-
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sage loud and clear, and I'll certainly advocate on behalf of that issue.

Have you costed out any of the asks? There's a long list here, not the least of which is a subway line to UBC. Of course, we know there's a TransLink referendum coming up sometime next year. Have you had cause to stand in front of the TransLink board and give them the same sort of dissertation regarding student transportation? Are you going to take an opportunity to do that sometime in the near future?

C. Avendano: I believe that, collectively, a lot of the student associations and unions in the Lower Mainland will definitely have conversations with TransLink as we go along. We've had the opportunity to build a relationship with TransLink through the U-Pass B.C. process. And I'm pretty sure that we can work out that process as the referendum comes closer and the question of the subway line draws nearer.

S. Hamilton: I'd encourage you to do that and, quite possibly, lobby on behalf of the referendum. Thank you.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think you identified very well the waste — and I hate to use that word — of bringing people as immigrants here to British Columbia and then not providing them with the opportunity to use their skills through ESL.

I know from Camosun and the challenges with the ESL cuts in Camosun…. I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about the difference between basic English classes and the ESL that people are receiving at BCC. I think there's sometimes a misunderstanding about the kinds of courses that you're receiving.

C. Avendano: Yes, I can do that for you. Essentially there are two streams of ESL. There's the very basic: "How do I ask for a cup of coffee? How do I get on a bus? How do I talk to my mother or my father in basic English?"

Then there's the other stream of English training, which is more centred around preparedness for work readiness, preparedness for perhaps knowing the English around medical services or professional legal services or to help stream them towards an academic or a more professional level of English training — which is going to be cut as part of this ESL cut funding.

Then there's the other stream, which is the basic "How do I live day to day?" versus the "How do I get a career?" English.

D. Ashton (Chair): Christian, thank you very much for your presentation — a very good presentation. Make sure we get a copy of it. I don't know if all you folks are staying now. If you are….

Christian, thank you. Also, it's my understanding that there are folks that could not get in here today. Would you thank them on our behalf? I'm sorry. We just didn't have the room. It's not that we don't know that they're downstairs. Would you please take our initiative and thank them? Again, on our behalf, thank you for your professional etiquette today. We do greatly appreciate you all showing up. Thanks.

Karen, good morning. Thank you for being here. Ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning if you're up into that category of time. Please, the floor is yours.

K. Shortt: Great, thank you very much. Thank you to the committee for having me here today. I am adjoined here with the faculty and students from Vancouver Community College. We are in a crisis at our college, so I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today at this opportune time.

Everyone that's joined me here today has two things in common: (1) they are all registered voters, and (2) they all are deeply concerned about the provincial government's position to effectively abandon the funding of high-quality English language training programs delivered by Vancouver Community College.

For over 40 years Vancouver Community College has been the centrepiece of ESL programs in British Columbia. As a post-secondary institution, we have excelled at finding sound pedagogical solutions to the complex problem of improving the English language skills of B.C. students.

In fact, VCC is the largest provider of English language training programs in western Canada. We are also an institution that has helped set the standard for how English language training is evaluated to ensure there are common benchmarks across all language training providers, benchmarks that help educators measure the progress of their students and let students see how their language proficiency measures up to the jobs that they want to take.

Unfortunately, all those good things about ESL at VCC are about to come to a crashing halt because the provincial government is not prepared to invest $22 million in ongoing funding for provincially supported ESL programs. As the largest single provider of ESL training, VCC would account for a significant share of that provincial funding, and with the loss of that funding, VCC students will experience the greatest hardship.

Beginning in January — that's a little over three months from now — 2,200 ESL students will be left high and dry because the language programs they were in will be cancelled. Along with those 2,200 students, another 150 faculty, who have been delivering those programs, will be let go.
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All of this is taking place against the backdrop of a growing skills shortage and ever-increasing diversity here in the province and a stated commitment, at least, by the current government that they have a jobs plan.

I could spend the next two days providing example after example of students that have come through our programs and have been successful and are able to get employed and take care of their families. These students include hundreds of health care technicians, care aides, nurses, people in the trades programs who are working to complete their apprenticeships. As well, they include a broad spectrum of professionals such as accountants, engineers and business analysts.

In many cases, these students are B.C. residents who have come to our province because they have the skills B.C. needs, but to succeed in their chosen career, they need to improve their English language proficiency. At the outset I made reference to the complex task involved in English language training, and that's particularly so when it comes to the trades, the technical and the professional programs.

As one of our health care students put it, you don't want someone who is trying to understand a patient's problem struggling with the English language. However, by walking away from its commitment to fund ESL programs across the province, that is the kind of problem that this government is about to encounter in far too many workplaces.

To suggest, as the Minister of Advanced Education has over the last several months — as the impact of his decision to cut funding takes hold — that somehow ESL students can find the language programs they need from other sources in the community is simply wrong. Higher-level language training beyond Canadian language benchmark level 4, which is what many of our students need to succeed in their chosen career, is either in short supply or nonexistent.

Moreover, VCC programs, despite the years of rising tuition fees, are far more affordable than being forced to go to a private language school. Private language schools do not provide the academic English that we do.

The immediate problem that VCC faces in the area of ESL programs is part of a larger problem that every post-secondary institution in the province faces, and that's funding.

The largest single investment that the provincial government makes in post-secondary institutions comes in the form of a provincial operating grant. Every public post-secondary institution receives one. The amount they receive is tied to the ministry's estimate of student enrolments, course offerings and a range of other factors that are specific to the characteristics of that institution.

The reality at VCC, like so many other post-secondary institutions across B.C., is that the operating grants are not keeping pace with either the demands of enrolment or the underlying cost pressures that all post-secondary institutions face.

Our building is very old, and it is falling apart. We need money to keep it up to a safety standard.

When this grant is measured on a per-student basis and adjusted for the impact of inflation, real per-student operating grants to the public post-secondary institution have been in a steady decline over the past 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.

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. First and foremost is the significant impact on students, in having to pay higher tuition fees. The average undergraduate tuition fee has more than doubled since 2001, according to the Canadian Federation of Students. That impact, in turn, forces student debt levels even higher. They are now approaching $30,000.

Higher tuition fees and less provincial funding of our institutions are creating something of a perfect storm. We know from organizations like the B.C. Business Council that three-quarters of all new jobs will require some form of post-secondary education. We know, as well, that currently about 60 percent of the labour force has that level of training. We need to close that gap. If we continue to make it more expensive and continue to cut back on programs that we are offering at our institution, we will be on the wrong track.

The B.C. jobs plan talks about all the employment opportunities that will emerge over the next five to seven years. If we are not going to improve funding and affordability for today's post-secondary students in those institutions, those good jobs will either go wanting or they will go to someone other than a B.C. resident. Both options will be a loss for our province, and that's why we need to see concrete plans to invest in post-secondary education in the February 2015 budget.

K. Shortt: We need a direct and ongoing commitment of at least $22 million to support provincially funded ESL programs delivered by B.C.'s post-secondary institutions.

We need a revitalization of the student grant program, which would help financially stressed students better cope with rising tuition fees and heavier debt loads.

Student support services have suffered as a result of
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underfunding. The 2015 budget needs to provide funding services for those students and provide funds to ensure that students are able to complete their programs. We need to think of students coming into post-secondary as our investment in the future, and we need to help them, because they will pay back as taxpayers for the next 30 or 40 years.

Finally, the funding that post-secondary institutions receive needs to better respond to the cost pressures that they face. Any proposal that reduces the already low levels of provincial funding needs to be reconsidered. A more sensible approach, in our view, is to engage a thorough review of the funding formula so that regional inequities in core funding are addressed specifically to the institution.

We feel at VCC that we have specific needs. We are a community college. We have a college of access. We are located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. We do good work. We respond to our community.

I'm asking you now: please respond to the needs of this community and hear what we are saying. We are in a crisis.

Your comment about the need for grants — I assume that's needs-based grants? I'm comparing that with the previous request for a freeze on tuition. In my view, if the issue is to try and get at the problems of students that have income issues — you know, accessibility — needs-based grants would be a more targeted, more effective way to accomplish that. Do you have a view on that?

K. Shortt: That would certainly help, and ESL students are definitely needs-based. Coming to this country and trying to get your foot in the door and get started…. The best way to help people and to invest is to let them come to school, whatever way. Whatever it takes.

Think of it as an investment. That's all it is, an investment in the future. So whatever it takes — if it's lower tuition, no tuition or if it's needs-based grants — we have to do, as a society, what we can do to help people take care of their families.

G. Holman: Okay. I'm not sure, though, that you answered the question. If you had to make a choice, if you had a certain amount of funding — and aside from the ESL question, which I think has its…. I mean, it's all related, but I'm trying to get at this tuition freeze versus targeted needs-based grants. Do you have a view, if you had to make that choice?

K. Shortt: If I had to make that choice, I would raise taxes so that we were an equitable society that took care of our people.

S. Gibson: Coming out of a university background, I have familiarity a little bit with what you're speaking about. The speaker earlier spoke of somebody working in 7-Eleven, so they obviously have some English skills to be able to work in a convenience store. My question is: can people work full-time and take your ESL programs outside the regular workday so they can work during the day, have a job where they're picking up mastering the conversational skills, the vernacular, and then go to school in the evening? That's my question.

K. Shortt: They do. They do both. They work full-time, and they go to school. We offer ESL morning, noon and night and Saturdays, so we make it accessible.

J. Shin: Thank you, Karen, for being here. The $22 million funding would help us maintain the 2,200 students and of course keep us from displacing 100 faculty at VCC. I'm so sorry that it has come to that, come to a state in which you have to fight to maintain what we have.

I also wanted to ask you to shed some light on the amount of pressure and the demand for the programs and services, because if anything, we should be increasing, not fighting to keep the funding that we have. If you can give us some examples of the kind of wait-list and the demand for the programs that you have, that'd be great.

K. Shortt: Yes, we have wait-lists. In January we had people lined up at the Broadway campus out on Broadway at three in the morning in the rain, in the dark, waiting to get into ESL classes. The word is now out that Vancouver has cut programs in April. The registrar has sent out letters telling people: "Don't even bother coming because the province isn't funding this anymore." The lineups were still there because people are still hoping to get in.

To maintain what we had a year ago, we need $11 million at VCC. The need is there. We see it. It's absolutely heartbreaking to talk to students and know that 2,200 students will not be able to come to school in January. It is almost unbelievable that these people are going to be stalled.

D. Ashton (Chair): Karen and all of you, thank you very much. Appreciate you coming today. If you wouldn't mind, as you file out, if you could just keep the noise down a little bit. We have a real tight schedule today, and we have another gentleman coming forward. Please acknowledge those that could not get in the room. We do apologize for not having the space for them.

We have Matt Horne. Good morning. Welcome, Matt, and thank you very much for coming today. We have a ten-minute presentation allotment. I'll give you a two-minute warning as we get close to it, and then we have five minutes allotted for questions.

M. Horne: Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for the opportunity to present, and thank you for the work you're doing in touring the province and collecting this input. It's very much appreciated.

My name is Matt Horne. I work for an organization called the Pembina Institute. We work on energy and climate change issues in Canada. I wanted to present today on climate action plan 2.0, a little bit about what it could be and how the budget can help make it happen.

I'll start just by defining it. It's a term we've been using. I think it captures a number of pieces that a number of groups and organizations and the government even are talking about around the province. Some principles of what we would see being in there: something that builds on the climate action plan the province instituted in 2007-2008 — so actions such as the carbon tax, the clean energy requirements, the low-carbon fuel standard, the carbon-neutral requirements.

There are a number of pieces in there that have been implemented. I think they've been praised in B.C. and around the world. There's an opportunity and a need to build on those going forward and complement them with other pieces. It may go without saying, but the climate action plan really needs to sort of target and reduce the main sources of carbon pollution in the economy.

One thing that I think doesn't get enough emphasis is the idea that this is also about economic development and really growing B.C.'s clean energy economy. It's not just about reducing pollution; it's about looking at those economic opportunities and growing them over time. It needs to work with other jurisdictions.

B.C.'s agreement with Oregon, Washington and California for the Pacific climate action plan agreement is a good example there, but the more we can work with other provinces, other states, other national governments, the more we are able to achieve. Finally, it works with British Columbians to strengthen support and understanding for what the province is trying to do.

I'd argue that expectations for this climate action plan 2.0 are building in the province. Two specific examples. The province released its climate progress report at the end of June this year, and it clearly acknowledged that next steps are needed. The quote from Minister Polak in that report is: "We have attained our first target, and more action is needed to continue moving forward toward our longer-term goals." I completely agree with that sentiment. Exactly what those are hasn't yet been articulated by the province, but the articulation of the need is there.

Secondly, B.C. last year signed on to this Pacific climate action plan agreement I mentioned with Washington, Oregon and California. That agreement has a number of commitments in it related to net zero homes and buildings, related to electric vehicles. If B.C. is going to meet those commitments with its partner jurisdictions, it's going to need additional actions.

I want to talk a little bit about some of the reasons why we need climate action plan 2.0. I'll offer three to start with.

I think the first one is that the climate action plan that was instituted is working, both economically and environmentally. Just a couple of indicators there. The first one is sustainable prosperity from an economic perspective. B.C.'s per-capita GDP has outperformed the rest of Canada in the period that the climate action plan and those actions were introduced, 2008 to 2013.

I wouldn't attribute that to the climate action plan, but I would use it as a counter for anyone arguing that the climate action is going to impact economic growth in the province. The economy has done fine. Secondly, carbon pollution is dropping. I think this a really major achievement of the province. It met its first interim target. It's something a lot of jurisdictions have not been able to do. So the province does deserve credit for that.

You can see the chart from the province's climate action progress report. You'll also see a bit of a plateau there. Whether or not we're able to keep on the trajectory towards the 2016 and 2020 and 2050 targets is going to depend on whether or not more actions are implemented.

The second is really around, as I mentioned earlier, the economic opportunity of cleaner energy and also, I think, the economic risk of the status quo. The chart here shows the change in global energy supply between 2011 and 2035. This is from the International Energy Agency. This is, again, if we get on the track for a climate-friendly world.

You see on the left, essentially, the fossil fuels — coal and oil actually declining over the next 20 years, gas increasing moderately. Nuclear is increasing moderately, and massive increases in renewable energy and energy efficiency. That's sort of on a global basis, the transition they are anticipating to see if the world gets serious about climate change policy.

My concern is that B.C.'s energy economy is too focused on the left side of that chart and not enough focused on the right side of that chart. We're exposing ourselves to an economic risk of demand that could be declining, and not fully taking advantage of an opportunity for energy growth that could be really expanding over the next 20 years and beyond.
[ Page 860 ]

The third reason. I think there is support across the province for additional action. This is some polling we did with the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions and Clean Energy Canada, testing again the more tangible commitments in the Pacific climate action plan. You're seeing across the board there that British Columbians agree that those should be a priority and want to see the government move forward on the commitments it's made.

I have three recommendations, one more generic and two specific, on areas that the Pembina Institute is working on in B.C. The first: I would really urge you, in your considerations, to recommend that the 2015 budget be used as one of the building blocks for climate action plan 2.0. There's actually a really wide range of opportunities as to how the budget could be used to accomplish that goal. I think in all of these buckets or elements, there are examples that are either currently in place or have been in place over the last five years in B.C. It's not necessarily new items. We've got a lot to learn from, even here in B.C.

Taxation, the obvious example being the carbon tax. Infrastructure investment. I know there's been a lot of discussion around transit needs in the province, and that's sort of a big area of opportunity for the province. Economic development. The province had an innovative clean energy fund that is currently sort of…. There are no dollars in the fund, but the framework is there and an opportunity to build on that going forward.

Government procurement. We've done a lot in terms of investing in hybrid vehicles, one of the next steps in that program. Whether it's electric vehicles or hybrid electrics, there are a number of opportunities there. Incentives. The province's LiveSmart program, I think, was widely praised as being successful for the four years that it ran, but both that and the clean energy vehicle incentives have expired since.

Then government capacity. If we're going to do this, in terms of policy development and figuring out the right way to do it and engage with British Columbians, government does need to invest in itself as well.

So the first specific recommendation is using the budget to support B.C.'s commitment for net-zero buildings. Under the climate action plan with Oregon, Washington and California, there's an agreement that those states along with B.C. are going to be moving towards a transition to homes and buildings that use almost no energy. It's going to take action. It doesn't happen on its own.

Within the budget…. The budget is not the only way to move ahead on this commitment, but the budget is an important one. I've got a few here. One is increasing government capacity, and there are a number of pieces there. I think if you look within the ministry's responsibilities, there's not a lot of capacity to deal with this right now. Whether that is policy development, figuring out what the most economic pathway is to achieve that goal, training for building officials and engagement with different stakeholders, there are a number of needs there that if the province is going to do this successfully, it needs to invest.

The second is investing in the energy performance of new and existing provincial buildings. The province in 2007 did have a fairly substantial investment in the public sector. There have been some top-ups to that over the last few years.

Also, I guess, a commitment that all new buildings are LEED gold. I'd say that for new buildings it's an opportunity to go beyond that, particularly in terms of energy performance. There's an opportunity to renew some of those funds that are investing in the public sector.

Finally, looking back to the LiveSmart program. If we are ratcheting up that transition to net-zero homes and buildings, I think there will be a need for incentives to accompany that. So what are the carrots that are encouraging that leading-edge transition? If those aren't there, it's going to be a very difficult transition, I think, in some ways, as we saw with the backlash against the energy-efficient lightbulb standards in the province.

The final recommendation is to move forward with B.C.'s carbon tax. The specific actions there are broadening the carbon tax to all sources of measurable carbon pollution and scheduling additional $5-per-tonne increases in the carbon tax.

I recognize the province has frozen the carbon tax. I think it's also important just to communicate that it really is probably the most successful policy the province has implemented. It's praised both within B.C and internationally. The OECD recently called it probably the most textbook example of carbon pricing we have globally.

If the province is committed to moving forward towards its target, which it continues to say it is, I think it's important just to keep revisiting that option. It seems a shame to freeze the best option in our toolbox. I'll finish there.

G. Holman: Matt, thanks for the presentation. Just a couple of questions. We had a presentation by the cement industry earlier today — not sure if you were here — complaining about the application of the carbon tax on domestic manufacturers and putting them at a competitive disadvantage. Wondered about your view about their proposal to somehow level that playing field on manufactured imports.

Could you just speak briefly about retrofit versus new? It's my understanding that existing buildings, because the building codes are already pretty progressive…. There's still room to go, but the potential for energy conservation in existing buildings is much higher than for new. Just your view on that.
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And you'll recall the study that you did on Saltspring Island when I was CRD director there. We asked you specifically — for the Islands Trust, which is the land use authority — to compare the impact of more compact settlement patterns versus, say, a stronger building code for new buildings. I think that was it.

It was quite remarkable, the effect of settlement patterns. I don't see that in here. Is that something the institute is thinking about? My personal view, pet peeve, on settlement patterns is that it kind of goes unnoticed, but the implications could be quite substantial.

M. Horne: In terms of the cement sector, generally, on competitiveness, it's a concern we have to stay on top of. All the studies that have been done economy-wide and within specific sectors in B.C. haven't found any impact of economic competitiveness. There's one just recently released on the agricultural sector that couldn't find any evidence of impact on competitiveness.

I wouldn't apply that same conclusion to the cement sector without looking at it more closely. I think we do want to be staying on top of that, sector by sector, and understanding where it is.

I don't know specifically what the cement sector presented to you. I think over the years they've actually had some very interesting and constructive proposals around how you keep an incentive to reduce carbon pollution while also protecting economic competitiveness. I'm not sure what they presented on today, but I think they've had some very interesting proposals over the years.

The question on land use. It's not in here. I totally agree that land use and forests are a big part of B.C.'s climate action plan and need to be there in climate action plan 2.0. It's not something the Pembina Institute has done a lot of work on. I'd have to go back and look at that report for more of the details of it. I'm not sure there's a big budget focus.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have a bunch of questions. Sorry, I'm just trying to get through all of them.

J. Yap: You referred to the carbon tax in maybe considering an adjustment upwards. As you know, the carbon tax here in B.C., which has been praised by others around the world as a model, is a revenue-neutral carbon tax. I didn't see in here that you would offset the increase with a corresponding reduction in other taxes, like personal income tax, sales tax, corporate tax. What are your thoughts on maintaining a revenue-neutral approach?

M. Horne: Pembina has done a fair bit of work on this. From an environmental perspective and a public opinion perspective, we think there's value in not being strictly constrained to the revenue-neutral approach. With the recommendations I've provided there, you're probably looking at about $1 billion of additional revenue. We'd like to see some of that go into projects that reduce carbon pollution.

I think the province would benefit from some additional analysis around the different types of ways they could use revenue, whether that's investing in health care and education, reducing other taxes, investing in carbon-pollution projects. There hasn't actually been a lot of detailed study of what their options are and what the pros and cons are. We'd like to see some movement away from a pure revenue-neutral approach but don't have a prescriptive set of recommendations on how to use the entire package of revenue.

G. Heyman: Thanks for your presentation, Matt. I'd just like to ask a slightly more specific question around the cement industry.

One of the industry's proposals was that producers in other jurisdictions whose cement is imported be subject to the same level of carbon tax that they are or to other methods of, as they said, levelling the playing field.

Has Pembina studied the effect on exporting jurisdictions of being subject to taxes that exist in the importing jurisdiction and if that actually drives carbon reduction in the production in those jurisdictions the same way we'd expect it to do here?

The second question is…. The mayor has proposed a regional carbon tax as one way of funding transit. Has Pembina done any polling to see if very targeted uses of carbon tax regionally, or in any other form, for funding specific projects like transit makes it more acceptable to the public?

M. Horne: On the imports question, I think California is probably the best example. They are taxing carbon pollution on imported electricity, so they didn't want a bunch of electricity generators to run to Nevada, to run anywhere outside of the state. That's part of their cap-and-trade system, and it was part of the same design B.C. had worked through as well. By the early evidence, that's working — at least from an economic competitiveness perspective. It's probably too early to tell if it's really encouraging reductions in Nevada or outside of state.

That's the most notable example I can think of. There are some low-carbon fuel standards that take a similar approach. They're trying to target imported emissions, and I don't think we have a ton of evidence on how well they're working yet.

On the carbon tax question, we've done a fair bit of polling on this over the last four years. I'd say very consistently there comes back a result that British Columbians would like to see some of the revenue go towards projects that reduce carbon pollution.

Probably the highest priority is health care and education, wanting to see some of the revenue go towards those
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areas. Then, as I said, in response to John Yap's question as well, there still is support for protecting low-income British Columbians. There's support for tax cuts. I don't think there's one single right answer on that question.

S. Gibson: Hydro energy is clean energy. What is your institute's opinion on possible expansion of hydro power in the province of British Columbia?

S. Gibson: Well, I did not make it that specific — just the general concept of an expansion of hydro power because it is clean energy, as you would agree.

M. Horne: Yeah. I tend to agree with some of the analysis that's been done by Clean Energy B.C. It's sort of looking at a more flexible portfolio going forward. So we'd certainly be supportive of run of river as being part of that mix. When you look at any really big project bringing on a big chunk of supply, I think it introduces a fair bit of economic risk for the province on whether or not we're going to actually need that over the next 20 years or so, when we have an opportunity to build in smaller increments through wind, run-of-river projects and energy efficiency investments. I'd certainly be supportive of run-of-river projects in the province. I'm not sure really big investments of any type are the best suited.

S. Gibson: I wasn't really asking your opinion about the economic, and I'm sure that's valuable. I was asking more about just the concept of using hydro power as clean energy. You support the principle of it. Is that right? I'm not talking about decisions we would make as government about that.

M. Horne: Yes, I think there are complex trade-offs between a number of them. I think in the mix of things, run-of-river hydro has lots of advantages relative to fossil fuels. Large hydro does as well. You certainly have impacts with all those projects, so they have to be debated.

D. Ashton (Chair): Matt, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming forward. We have your presentation.

Next up we have the Douglas Students Union. We have Tracy and Ruab. Good morning and welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. We have ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes allotted to questioning. I'll give you a two-minute warning towards the end of your presentation so that we can try to cut it off at ten.

R. Waraich: Good morning, everyone. My name is Ruab, and I am a second-year international undergraduate student at Douglas College. Today along with me I have Tracy Ho, who is also from the Douglas Students Union. I am an elected student representative with the Douglas Students Union. I'm the college relations coordinator, and I'm also the provincial representative to the Canadian Federation of Students–B.C.

I came to Canada last year with high expectations and goals that I aim to fulfil in the future. I take this as a great opportunity to present before the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

The Douglas Students Union is a membership organization of more than 12,000 students at Douglas College in New Westminster and Coquitlam. We're local 18 of the Canadian Federation of Students, Canada's largest student organization. Together with the Canadian Federation of Students, we provide services to students while advocating for an accessible, high-quality system of post-secondary education.

The briefing presents to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services a contextualized reality of international students who are part of the current Canadian post-secondary education system. The report specifically refers to the present Douglas College international students. Both students and their families overseas experience the affordability and costs related to post-secondary education. International students are a valuable human resource. We could draw skilled workers from amongst international students in order to solve the issue of significant shortages in the labour market that are now being anticipated by the governments over the next 15 years.

A great number of international students make the transition to the domestic workforce, specifically in key sectors and regions that help to meet the skills shortages. They also make the transition to immigrate and naturalize in Canada and B.C., becoming permanent residents, and contribute to the economy and tax systems over their lives.

Post-secondary education and training are among the most important social programs provided by the B.C. government, and it is indispensable to B.C.'s standard of living. By equipping British Columbians with adaptive skills for a rapidly evolving workforce, education also helps to address socioeconomic inequities.

Research suggests that B.C.'s policy of high tuition fees and large student loans is wreaking havoc on the affordability of B.C. universities and colleges for middle- and low-income families. This brief will review the current research and make recommendations for action in the 2014 B.C. budget.

The value of post-secondary education. Canadian society has recognized the crucial role that post-secondary education plays in driving economic growth, innovation, and increasing social and economic equality. Substantial
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public investments that led to the expansion of universities and the creation of colleges in the 1960s were based on the belief that access to post-secondary education should be dictated by ability and desire, not financial means.

Post-secondary education not only creates better opportunities for future jobs. It also creates benefits for individuals and society as a whole. An educated society benefits a stronger economy. It also creates a fairer society that balances socioeconomic injustices traditionally faced by those in marginalized groups such as women, people with disabilities, aboriginal peoples and other people of racialized backgrounds.

Profile of international students. International students come from all around the world. They have different backgrounds, come from diverse cultures and speak many languages, but they also have one thing in common. They come to Canada and British Columbia to gain experiences and an education to better their lives.

International students bring energy and enthusiasm and are invaluable in creating a lively and vibrant campus environment and communities. They also have diverse and specific needs to ensure their success. The majority of students intend to stay in Canada after their studies and plan to either continue to pursue higher education with another post-secondary institution or seek permanent residency.

Many students are also young, coming directly from secondary school in their home country or as an international high school student in Canada. Those who choose to pursue post-secondary education in British Columbia do so because of the perceived value from an education that is also more affordable than other Canadian options or institutions in the U.K. and United States.

Unfortunately, the majority of international students who wish to seek permanent residency status in Canada are not able to do so because of various reasons. They are often denied jobs on the grounds that they're international students. Such cases are never reported, as international students are fearful of being discriminated against.

International students shape the community and culture across many communities and campuses across British Columbia. The education services, support and our community culture not only shape their academic experience but their Canadian experience as well.

Differential fees for international students. Recommendation No. 1: regulate international fees. Institutions are suffering from underfunding and are turning to international fees as a funding model in the absence of a truly accessible and fully funded post-secondary education system. Unlike domestic fees, international fees are not regulated by policy, and institutions can increase the fees by any rate they choose.

There are myths perpetuated that all international students are wealthy and all have unlimited financial resources from their home countries; that they're given grants to participate in post-secondary education overseas; and that the higher the sticker price of post-secondary education, the higher the quality and value is perceived. This is not the case for the typical international student. In fact, for the majority. the opposite is true.

Students and their families plan and make sacrifices to attend post-secondary education in B.C., much like many domestic students. Increases to tuition fees are not anticipated during the planning process because they're not told when and by how much they will increase. In some countries such as Venezuela, students must receive approval from the government in order to be allowed to take funds out of the country for education abroad.

When fees go up year after year, international students must find a way to make up for the shortfall in which they previously budgeted. As international students do not qualify for student loans, bursaries and very few scholarships, they rely heavily upon credit cards and private debt and take on extra work to finance their education.

The sad reality is that the marginal costs far exceed the marginal benefits that international students receive from post-secondary institutions. If unchecked, this can be a real problem for the Canadian economy in the coming years. B.C. — and even Canada, in general — might lose its competitive edge in the global market, as post-secondary institutions in Europe, the United States and Australia become equally or more affordable to international students.

Financial resources for vibrant campuses. Recommendation No. 2: increase core funding. As government funding decreases, post-secondary institutions are pressured to increase tuition fees or find cost savings as a way to make up these funding shortfalls. The ongoing freeze of institutional operating grants has left many of B.C.'s colleges and universities saddled with program cuts, longer wait-lists for programs, staff and faculty cuts, deteriorating labs and antiquated facilities, leading to a lower quality of education.

International students might switch to alternative options, such as moving to a different province or even a different country, in order to meet their expectations of higher quality post-secondary education. These are reported facts, as inferred from the report of the Task Force on the Needs of International Students.

In order for British Columbia to continue to attract international students to the province and to keep up with national and international standards of quality post-secondary education, core institutional funding must be increased to match the expectations of international students.

Investment now, commitment for the future. Investments in students, colleges and universities are investments in British Columbia's future. Record high tuition fees and growing student debt are major concerns for families who are struggling to make ends meet.
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Making post-secondary education in British Columbia more financially accessible by implementing our recommendation is not only good for the economy overall but will have lasting impacts on society as a whole. Increasing access and affordability of post-secondary education to more British Columbians will help reach British Columbia's economic potential by increasing skilled labour and economic spending and growth.

B.C. must step up its game to maintain its competitive advantage in a world of rapidly growing economies with very limited resources.

J. Yap: You referred to a study, I believe, that kind of shatters the myth of the socioeconomic status of international students. If you have that study, I wonder if you can share that with the committee so that we can understand where that came from.

J. Yap: Secondly, my understanding is the number of applicants and the number of international students arriving in B.C. is actually on an upward trend — right? So in spite of the challenges…. I'm sure that not every international student that comes here is from a very well-to-do family, and many make sacrifices, as you say, to come here. But there is still, from my sense, a huge demand.

We are very competitive. B.C. is very competitive internationally. It kind of goes counter to, a little bit, what you're saying, so I wonder if you have any thoughts on that, because there's huge demand to come to B.C.

R. Waraich: Right. I'm actually talking about the long-term picture. This is a trend that is beginning right now, and it might have significant consequences in the future, which will potentially not be good for the Canadian economy and B.C. specifically.

According to the study we conducted with the reference to Douglas College students, the majority of the students actually are upset about the fee increases, which are totally unregulated, and students are willing to move to a different province in order to finance their education — or even a different country.

I do agree that we are having an increase in the number of international students in the province, but in the future it might not be the case.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Just a question on whether you have any data on the percentage of international students that remain in British Columbia after they've completed their education.

R. Waraich: Currently I do not have any data. I just have the survey that we conducted, according to which, the majority of the students said they would want to stay in British Columbia after finishing their studies. But as your question says, I do not have any specific data on how many students actually do stay in British Columbia.

M. Morris: A very informative presentation. Again, it's the same question I posed to an earlier group and I've posed to other student groups before.

We have a host of underutilized post-secondary institutions throughout British Columbia. The College of New Caledonia in Prince George, for example, has some of the lowest tuition rates in all of the province. It's an older institution. It's been in place since the early '60s.

I'm wondering whether, as an international student, you've given any thought or if other international students give any thought to attending some of these other post-secondary establishments that we have throughout the province that offer these opportunities. Particularly, hand in hand with that is a lower cost of living, a lower cost of accommodation and a more increased access to employment opportunities as well in the rural parts of the province, particularly with the resource sector that we have.

T. Ho: We do have colleagues and work with the students in the students union up at the College of New Caledonia. We do know that there is an increasing number of international students that do choose institutions outside of the Lower Mainland and Victoria, which most students do tend to apply to.

The issue is that with the freeze on funding and the underfunding of these institutions, students that do attend the rural colleges still find that the quality of education isn't what their expectations are because of the reduction and even the freeze in the core funding for institutions.

Yes, there are lots of international students that are actually choosing that option because of the lower cost of living that is associated with going to a rural college. However, they still have high expectations of what their education is.

There are cuts that happen all across the board, whether it's in the Lower Mainland or up in Prince George or some of the campuses out in Nelson from Selkirk College.

There are still institutional cuts. We do know that at
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Selkirk College, as well, there's a huge number of international students that attend there. That's a majority…. Actually, they've seen that that is increasing as well. But the pressure on the institutions to maintain the quality of education is there. International students have high expectations of what they're paying for, and they don't see the value in the increased tuition fees played out when they actually attend classes throughout their stay at the institutions.

M. Morris: Can I just have one follow-up to this? I'm very curious about the quality of education that you talk about. With the reduction in funding, the reduction in quality of education goes down. I'm surprised to hear that, but I'd like to clarify that.

For instance, at the College of New Caledonia last year they were contemplating the decision to close their daycare as one of the services to students at the college. So while perhaps not all international students have their families here and children here, they do see cuts in many of the services that they would be looking for.

That is something that was definitely a concern, and I know that the students there raised that with the governance structures that were there.

The other thing, too. Not only is the international student looking for quality in their education in terms of academic courses; they're also looking for services and supports that are part of the community. Those are the things that are missing from many of the campuses, and with the reduction in the funding, there have to be cost savings found somewhere. Most of it is sacrificed in the service areas versus the academic areas.

M. Morris: Just for your information, daycare has been reinstituted, and it's full-time daycare.

D. Ashton (Chair): Yes, but very quickly, if you don't mind, because we have one follow-up question.

R. Waraich: Okay. I just wanted to say that I want to give my own example. I came here last year, and first I looked at other options, like in the U.K. I compared it with Canada, and Canada seemed more affordable, and the Canadians seemed more welcoming and receptive. That's why international students — this option. But then at the same time, since my time here at Douglas — it's been one and a half years — the tuition fees have gone up by 4 percent, and I don't see any improvement in services at our campus. The reason they give is the cuts in funding by the government.

S. Gibson: Super quick question. Over the years I've taught many international students at the university level. My question is: what's the role of the families in relationship with most international students? Did you come here alone? I don't need to know personally. I don't want to know that.

Do most students come alone, and then their parents fund them from their home country, or did most come with their parents? I see that as a very important consideration for us as a government in terms of funding. Further to John's question earlier, in many cases there is that support group of a family, often, that has the financial means to send their children thousands of miles away from the home country.

R. Waraich: I came here by myself, but I'm a dependent, so my parents fund my education. At the same time, I'm talking on behalf of the international students whose survey we conducted in the study we did.

The majority of them are independent, and they come with a specific budget in their bank account. Then when tuition fees go up, they do not anticipate that increase, and then they find it really difficult to finance their education. It's more country-specific. It depends upon what country you come from. Some countries' parents actually do fund their students' education, whereas other countries — students are more independent.

D. Ashton (Chair): Ruab, Tracy, thank you very much. Greatly appreciated. Thanks for your presentation today.

If there are follow-up questions, I would just ask the panel to please get in touch with these individuals that we have. I'm sorry. I just have a very tight deadline today.

Next up, we have Greg Wilson, Retail Council of Canada. Good morning, sir. How are you this morning?

D. Ashton (Chair): Good. Ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. Thank you for coming today.

G. Wilson: My name is Greg Wilson. I'm the director of government relations for B.C. for the Retail Council of Canada. RCC has been the voice of retail since 1963. I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to address you on behalf of the retail community. Retail is the largest private sector employer. Nearly 300,000 British Columbians work in retail. Retail is also the largest creator of new jobs.

We want to thank government for your efforts to keep both taxes and costs of government low. After an extended period of economic uncertainty, retail sales in
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British Columbia have shown positive signs in recent months, and we understand that your efforts have helped B.C. rebound faster than eastern provinces.

I have two specific and two broader issues to bring to your attention while you are developing your recommendations for the 2015-2016 budget.

The first is a matter involving consumer taxation. Retail strives for simplicity and transparency when passing costs imposed by government along to consumers. As structured, the PST exemption for children's clothing and footwear is cumbersome for retail operations.

I'm certain that you recognize that merchants have limited capacity to determine whether children's clothing in adult sizes is, in fact, being purchased for a child. The large majority of consumers are undoubtedly being honest when claiming the exemption for children's clothing in adult sizes, but there is an undeniable risk of the exemption being granted inappropriately in some cases and consequent revenue leakage for the B.C. government.

Completing the paperwork for the exemption creates a problem for retailers and consumers in protecting and storing personal information, as the necessary certification is generally completed at a busy point of sale and then requires retention by a merchant. The exemption favours consumers who spend the most on clothing, either buying more clothing or more expensive clothing.

We recommend that government take steps to address these problems, perhaps by ending the PST exemption for children's clothing and footwear and increasing the sales tax credit or the early childhood tax benefit. This would provide more targeted relief to families in need while reducing both inequities and costs of the current exemption.

The second matter concerns operations under the Environment Management Act. Government has greatly expanded the number of extended producer responsibility programs in the past few years in an effort to increase recycling and divert solid waste from landfill.

Each of the 17 programs comes with cost and regulatory burden. The total cost to consumers has been very significant, and retail has borne the most significant regulatory burden. The most recent program introduced for the recycling of packaging and printed paper began only on May 19. Businesses and consumers alike need time to adjust and to learn to operate within the current recycling regime.

There is no question that the system needs to continue to improve, yet it's clear that the answer does not lie in moving from a model of non-profit, industry-funded organizations to a for-profit model operated by haulers. Evidence from European jurisdictions is clear. It suggests that this lowers diversion rates and increases costs to local governments, businesses and consumers alike.

Retail shares government's desire to reduce the volume of solid waste going to landfill. We're concerned, however, that there is too much pressure to expand the number and amount of materials diverted from landfill and too little effort being spent ensuring that the system is efficient and operates at the lowest cost possible.

Some have advocated the creation of a designated administrative authority to increase compliance — a new level of non-governmental agency to supervise the industry-funded organizations. This will simply increase costs to business and consumers and, in our experience, will not improve either system performance or transparency.

Instead, government should, in the forthcoming budget, adequately fund the Ministry of Environment (1) to thoroughly examine the economic impact of the new stewardship proposal by StewardChoice before moving forward, (2) to review costs and obligations of the current programs before imposing any new ones on British Columbians, and (3) to enforce existing regulations, including by pursuing the free riders who are not participating in existing stewardship programs.

I also have two more general recommendations for the committee. On a note of caution, hydro rates have continued to climb at an unsustainable rate beyond inflation. This is of particular concern to smaller retailers. A 9 percent climb in 2004 was followed by a 6 percent rise in 2005. Combined with increasing property taxes, this threatens the diversity and number of small businesses on retail high streets. We encourage government to direct B.C. Hydro to follow government's lead and exercise greater control over both their rates and their costs.

Finally, retailers laud the government's efforts to harmonize regulations across provinces and to reduce barriers to trade between provinces. These measures not only reduce the cost of doing business, but they also create jobs and improve the sale of Canadian products in our home marketplace.

British Columbians and our largest private sector employer, retail, will benefit most from the continuance of your efforts to equally manage both spending and taxation. Retail is the engine of job creation in B.C. Retail has benefited from B.C.'s growth in recent years, and British Columbia's retailers want to continue to further B.C.'s future economic growth.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Greg, for your presentation. Just a couple of questions.

One of the issues that we've heard from business pretty consistently so far in our first week is the issue of employees and training and the lack of trained employees and the challenges that creates for business. I wondered if you want to say anything about that area.
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The second piece. I'm intrigued by your proposal around PST exemption and another way of looking at it to reduce the paperwork but still provide the benefit. I wondered if you've had any conversations with the government at all around that issue or if this is kind of the first presentation.

G. Wilson: We have lobbied government, I think going back 12 years, to change the system, because I think it's not only a paper burden and a cost burden for retailers; it's also, in our view, not an equitable way of creating the benefit it strives to create.

In terms of training of staff, without choosing the most obvious example, Alberta has a very important School of Retailing at the University of Alberta. We love that model. Our industry has difficulty finding well-trained new employees, but we've learned not to depend on the government of British Columbia for that assistance, and retail has a fairly vibrant internal training program.

J. Yap: Thanks, Greg. Do you do regular surveys of your members here in British Columbia? I'm wondering if some of what you presented today reflects the results of those surveys.

G. Wilson: We do talk to our members very frequently. In fact, I think twice in the last month we've surveyed our members. But one thing I've learned as a note of caution with our members is that the smaller retailers tend to be much slower to respond, and you have to be more outgoing to reach out to them to obtain their opinions.

J. Yap: So in terms of, sort of, ongoing survey results, the mood of retail in B.C., you don't have anything that you can share with us that's public.

G. Wilson: The mood of retail is very positive at the moment. I mean, we've had a fantastic summer. I think 66 percent of retailers reported improved sales in August year over year. But that last three-month period is the first such period in a number of years, so a note of caution, perhaps.

The Finance Minister presented to us to kick off our tour and noted that while retail sales — this was the first quarter results that he was presenting to us — during that period were increasing fairly strongly, government revenues from sales taxes were declining. Any insight into that, or does that make sense to you?

G. Wilson: I think that there is some view among the retail community that the revenue increase will follow after a period of sustained increase in sales, that there's a lag time generally.

G. Wilson: Well, also there's a lag time in the time between the benefit in increased sales.

Just for the record, before we go on, I'd like to recognize Bruce Ralston. Bruce popped into the room very quickly when all the kids were in the room. Again, for the record I'd like to thank him for coming by and saying hi. He did wave at all of us, and then he scooted out.

Next up is Emily Carr Students Union. I have Lori MacDonald, Gloria Han and Salguero Kiernan.

Welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. We have a ten-minute presentation allowance. I'll give you a two-minute warning when we get close to that, if that is required by yourselves, and then we have up to five minutes for our Q and A.

Again, thank you for coming. We greatly appreciate you taking the time and effort to come.

S. Kiernan: Thanks for having us. You already said our names. I'm Salguero Kiernan, university relations coordinator at our university. I'll let these two introduce themselves because they're independent beings.

L. MacDonald: Hi, I'm Lori MacDonald. I'm the executive director of the Emily Carr Students Union.

G. Han: My name is Gloria Han. I'm the chairperson of the Emily Carr Students Union.

S. Kiernan: Together we're from our union, and our members in the ECSU are organized provincially and nationally as Local 33 of the Canadian Federation of Students.

The overarching issue we'd like to have funding allocated to is post-secondary education and our responsibility to create leaders that are unburdened by debt.

There are benefits to specifically funding Emily Carr University and, even more specifically, the master's program of the institution. I'm not going to linger too much on the general issues students face, because over the course of your hearings you are going to hear over and over again from other Canadian Federation of Students locals and other education professionals why education should be treated as an investment and not as a cost.

I don't want to undermine those issues, so I am going to say that student debt and interest rates are a nearly impossible obstruction to get past. It's affecting graduates as a whole in their ability to contribute to the economy after
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they graduate via things like buying houses and cars and starting families, which is, overall, the investment that you get out of providing funding for education.

Emily Carr University itself is a leader in the creative sector of both the province and the global community. The creative sector has been identified as the second-largest economic sector in B.C. An impressive number of our students are finding work in their field, which is standard and expected of our students. But even more impressive than that, we've found, is the number of them forming small businesses and companies and creating employment opportunities within the creative field, which is nuts.

Headlines about some of our notable alumni in the past few months alone serve as really concrete examples. We have Andrew Zo, who has been credited with the design of this wonderful little flat ring box for marriage proposals. Vancity Buzz headlines all focused on it changing the face of proposals forever. We have Lisa Fraser, who's a CEO and founder of Snug Vest, which is responsible for creating supportive and wearable products for children with special needs. B.C. Business Magazine identified her as one of the top 30 Under 30 working here in B.C.

These are the constant kinds of areas of work that our students specialize in. We are training them primarily in areas of contemporary technology and modern advancements so that they are leaders in the field of creative development and very much apply their design and creative capacities to discoveries by engineers, etc. We make things more human. We make things accessible. We make things more viable for the average consumer.

Headlines about…. At the VAG, if you want examples of our cultural contributions, the last three shows throughout their peak tourist season have all been from notable alumni, from Ian Wallace and Douglas Coupland, and now, starting up, it's Landon Mackenzie going up. That's Emily Carr itself.

Specifically, the most useful place that we could have funding allocated at the moment is in our master's program. Because Emily Carr is a special teaching university, we actually have no operational funding from the B.C. government at all for our master's program. If the B.C. government allocated funding on a per-student basis to the program, it allows Emily Carr to reallocate its own budget with more focus on providing adequate time and resources for students to make greater contributions.

Balancing our budget right now is a huge issue. It's hard to do with having to entirely fund the master's program ourselves, which creates a huge pile of problems on its own.

We are incredibly grateful for the contributions the B.C. government has made to programs like the U-PASS. That's a very significant investment, we think, in providing help for students, and we encourage you guys to keep it affordable and keep it where it's been for the past few years. It's been amazing.

We do see, also, the importance in funding ESL at VCC. We bring them up specifically because they've made themselves recognizable as a leading figure in ESL teaching and become a bridge from their institution to other ones throughout B.C., including Emily Carr. Once students have been through their ESL programs.

We encourage looking at Newfoundland and Labrador and their recent steps towards looking at education as an investment and not a cost by starting programs to eliminate the loan system and work entirely on grants.

We do invite any of you to come and take a tour of our campus and to learn more about the art and design institution and to possibly eliminate some of the mythologies that surround the uselessness of art education, because it actually is an incredible and important contributor to the creative sector and to the cultural Canadian community.

We will also be providing a written submission later on. When you guys ask questions, we can therefore add those things into that written submission.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you, Salguero. Just so you know, the cutoff for submissions is the 17th of October, so please ensure that we have it before that.

S. Gibson: A couple of quick questions. I know I would always encourage my students that I taught: "Make sure that you are working, getting work experience, so when you graduate, you can hit the ground running because you've not only got the credential but you've also got the work experience."

I'm wondering what kinds of programs you have to do that, to facilitate students not only to get their degree or their credential but to land at the end…. When they apply to employers, they've already got some experience. That, to me, ties in not only with being able to be more employable but also helping to fund your education in a very practical way.

S. Kiernan: There are two factors I'd say are really relevant to that question. One is the co-op programs that we try to encourage students to get into and to become integrated within that. Other than that, we face huge issues with lots of unpaid internships and students being just taken advantage of for experience without pay.

Other than that, there's just…. The general cost of education didn't go up with general inflation, so working does help offset costs, but not in a way that's realistic to alleviate students of the kind of debt they accumulate throughout their education.

S. Gibson: Yes, just a supplementary, I guess — another question. You talked about the master's program that's being instituted. Is that a laddered degree? Can
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that be applied towards other credentials at other British Columbia universities? Or is it a terminal degree?

L. MacDonald: I'll jump in on that one. I actually don't know. I think that it's planned as a two-year program where students are working at Emily Carr solely. I don't think that it transitions to other programs, but we can follow up on that as well.

S. Gibson: I think that's a useful thing, because as all of our universities…. It's like if somebody graduates from a university up in Mike's country, they can take that and then go to UBC or whatever. It's just a cautionary note that it's very good if university degrees can be laddered to other institutions. It gives them credibility internationally and also more career options.

L. MacDonald: Oh sure, very quickly. I think there is a ladder from undergraduate transitioning to a master's at another institution, but within the master's, yeah, I'll look into that.

C. James (Deputy Chair): You can just include this in the written submission if you want. I think it would just be helpful for folks to know the number of students at the university, the number of students in the undergrad program, the expected numbers for master's programs. I think that would be interesting information to add.

And just to your comment around some people seeing it as the uselessness of the arts, I think people haven't lived in communities if that's their view.

Thank you for you presentation, and thank you for the work that gets done at Emily Carr.

M. Morris: Just to follow up on Carole's question, I'm curious about numbers as well.

M. Morris: What does a funded master's program look like? You guys are asking us for a bunch of money. How much are you asking for?

L. MacDonald: Well, just to start off with the numbers in the undergraduate program, it's currently 1,900 students. The master's program, at this point, is around 35 to 40 students.

Some of those are in the master of applied arts. In the next few years there may be a transition into a master of fine arts as well. But at this point, the master of applied arts…. The benefit of that program is that it is also about going out into the community and doing partnership work with industry and with community members around developing new technologies around community development.

Then the new program is the master of design. This is the first year that they are running that program. The tuition fees are significant. They're run at a cost recovery, so it's $8,000 per semester per student. So both from the work that the BCAIU does, the independent colleges…. They have some of the numbers on what it looks like to do per-student-seat funding for special purpose teaching universities at the graduate level. But we can also look at some of the costs. We work with the university's financial senior executives on that, but it would significantly offset the budget challenges at the university.

J. Yap: I think you are well served by continuing to work on the perception that is out in society. The comment about the usefulness of an arts education. But I think it goes without saying that there is huge value, and the province is making a major capital investment — I think it's in the $130 million range — to build a brand-new campus for Emily Carr University.

My question is: how is that going? Are students informed and involved in the input into that new campus?

S. Kiernan: The progress so far with that…. We are incredibly grateful for the contribution made there, and we think it's a good sign of the B.C. government realizing the importance of our education system and our contributions.

As for student input and such there, everything so far has been basically confidential work in the decision of finding, I believe, the architect and design firm in charge of it. I believe they'll be starting to get student input in January.

We're working very hard as a union to make sure that there are new systems of communication between faculties and their students, which has made some significant progress in the past year with new committees started that students are included on with direct access to their deans, etc. But we're waiting for that next step in the actual process of finding the architects.

D. Ashton (Chair): Salguero, thank you very much. Lori, thank you very much. Gloria, thank you for coming today — greatly appreciated. Have a good day.

D. Ashton (Chair): Well, you're beat. We had somebody here, VCC, before. Boy, they've got you beat hands down. And they're outside still.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for coming today — greatly appreciated. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning if you're getting close, and then five minutes for questions and comments.

R. Archdekin: Excellent. Well, thanks very much for having us here. Just brief introductions. I'm Robin Archdekin, president and CEO of Geoscience B.C. I have Bruce Madu to my right. He's my VP, minerals and mining. I have Carlos Salas to my left, VP, oil and gas; Andrea Clifford, our director of business development; and Dan Jepsen, who advises us on all kinds of important things and keeps me in line.

Starting with that, I want to thank you for your continued support, interest and investment in Geoscience B.C. and the $3 million we received for 2014.

In May of this year at Minerals North, in Vanderhoof, Minister Bennett announced the $3 million as interim funding for Geoscience B.C. We especially welcome that news, given the current financial constraints.

Government to date has contributed almost $52 million to Geoscience B.C. to do the work that we do. We have leveraged that amount to approximately $22 million in our existence. That's about a 42 percent leverage. It's in-kind funding and cash from industry as well as other groups.

I'd like to give a definition of geoscience, because people are not always clear on what that is. It's really the study of the earth's natural mineral and energy resources. Given B.C.'s resource-based economy, geoscience is fundamental to the needs of British Columbians.

Mineral exploration and mining, energy and oil and gas sectors are building blocks of B.C.'s economy. Major contributions to the province through direct revenues come from these sectors. In 2011, when commodity prices were near record highs, gross mining revenues were in the order of $9 billion to $10 billion. In 2013 that was $8.5 billion coming from mining, and more than $6 billion was invested by industry in developing LNG for export.

Revenue from these directly contributes to infrastructure, health care, education and other social programs. Looking at jobs for 2013 in mining, there were almost 11,000 people directly employed in B.C.'s mining industry — up 3 percent from 2012. In energy, almost 5,000 people were employed in extraction jobs, up 40 percent from 2012.

Geoscience B.C. generates and delivers earth science data, knowledge and expertise to everyone. Our information is generated through partnerships with First Nations, communities, the resource sector and government. Geoscience B.C.'s information is used to formulate and implement public policies for resource development, environmental protection, public health and safety, land use and infrastructure planning.

Geoscience B.C.'s contribution to the economy is delivering information that keeps the province competitive.

There's a graph in your presentation, if you're following me, on page 4 that shows that B.C. jobs related to support activities for mining and oil and gas extraction jumped from 8,600 in 2012 to just over 10,000 in 2013. That's the red line on your graph. Employment in oil and gas extraction has grown 400 percent since 1999.

A healthy resource sector creates family-earning jobs. For nearly ten years Geoscience B.C. has earned the trust and respect of First Nations, local communities, the resource sector and governments. We've been embraced as an independent voice outside industry and outside government. We've built and earned a reputation as a source of unbiased science.

We're respected also as a neutral party, assisting First Nations and communities in their understanding of the mineral and energy resources. We're known for our responsiveness to the concerns of First Nations, communities, the resource sector and government, and their priorities. We're also efficient. Our overhead is around 15 percent for all the great work we do.

Geoscience B.C. attracts investment to the province through information we generate and deliver. Geoscience B.C. helps ensure sustainable investment through our outreach programs and our educational workshops for First Nations and communities as well as professionals. To date we have supported 40 university students and student projects and have awarded over $300,000 in student scholarships.

Looking at Geoscience B.C.'s mineral and mining work with current economic downturns in a globally competitive market, it's critical that Geoscience B.C. provide new information to attract mineral exploration investment. In 2012 we had the highest exploration and development expenditure in B.C. at $680 million. In 2013 we saw that amount drop to $476 million, and we expect a further erosion in 2014. Given this decrease, it's more important than ever that Geoscience B.C. continues its good work.

B.C. attracts nearly 20 percent of exploration spending in Canada, compared to 6 percent in 2001. With more than 14,000 known mineral occurrences in B.C., there are more mines to be found. Geoscience B.C. identifies the haystack so that explorers can find the needle. Our information reduces investment risk for investors.

It is well understood by our global competitors for scarce resource exploration investment that fresh, new,
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publicly available geoscience is fundamental as a foundation required to encourage investment. Most exploration companies do not have the capacity to perform regional surveys. This grass-roots work is imperative for finding new mines in our province. This is one of Geoscience B.C.'s greatest strengths. We're able to do the work that they don't necessarily have the funds to do.

Despite the current economic climate, B.C.'s projected results spurred mineral claim staking in B.C.'s interior. Between 2008 and 2012 exploration and development spending was $12 million higher than areas with no Geoscience B.C. information.

Currently we are engaging organizations in northern B.C., such as UNBC and others, and we're discussing partnerships to leverage our funding and expertise for future projects. Bruce is doing that right now.

On the oil and gas side of things, or specifically the natural gas side, we're working with First Nations, communities and stakeholders, and they have increasingly told us they are very concerned about water use, mostly related to natural gas operations. For B.C. to continue growing the natural gas sector, everyone wants — in fact, needs — to have more information on water: location, quantity, quality, use and disposal. Mapping the water resource enables sustainable and responsible resource development.

Some examples of Geoscience B.C. projects, past and ongoing. Deep aquifer mapping projects near Fort Nelson — studies in the Horn River Basin and Montney gas trends have led to the energy sector spending in excess of $100 million on three different water treatment plants. These are the first water treatment plants to extract deep saline water. It has also led to innovation techniques in water treatment. The most important part of this is it has decreased the need for use of surface water, and it doesn't use drinking water. This is just one example of the water stewardship resulting from our work.

The Horn River Basin project began in 2008. It is baseline service water quantity and quality data collection. Our partners are the Fort Nelson First Nation, the Acho Dene Koe First Nation, Horn River Basin Producers Group. We're also involved in a seismicity project in the northeast and partnering with government and industry on this. It's an example of how Geoscience B.C. is working with the regulator in the energy sector to ensure natural gas development is done responsibly.

We've also got other projects we're working on. We've announced the Montney airborne groundwater survey project, which will map shallow aquifers using airborne surveys.

The bottom line for both minerals and oil and gas is that Geoscience B.C. stimulates and protects investment and promotes strong, sustainable local economies.

First Nations, the public and stakeholder support is critical as a component to sustainable resource development. It is key. We all know that. We see that in the media. Support from these groups comes with education and involvement, and this is a key part of what Geoscience is committed to. We work on a holistic approach on all our projects to foster sustainable growth and responsible growth on jobs, investment, environmental stewardship and social concerns.

In closing, I want to thank you for your support of the 2014 investment of $9 million. It's huge. Sorry, not $9 million — $3 million. I wish it was $9 million — just a Freudian slip that I thought I'd slip past you.

We look forward to working with you on establishing long-term and predictable funding.

M. Morris: Good presentation, Robin. I've seen the benefits of Geoscience B.C., of course, up in my area of the province and throughout the northern sector of the province.

One of the biggest benefits that I've seen from Geoscience B.C. is the availability of the geotechnical data that you gather. That's been a deficit with private industry. They pay to have all that work done, and they retain it themselves. That's caused a lot of distrust, particularly in our First Nations community. Kudos to you for doing that and getting it out there.

R. Archdekin: Well, okay. That's a very good question. Actually, just let me comment on that. Before Geoscience was well into its formation stages, the discussion was around…. They thought around $10 million might be an annual need. More recently our work and engagement with First Nations, local communities, industry and government….

We've got the message very clearly. We need to continue to do, especially in these times, our mineral work — the exploration work, related work. But we need to expand, as I said earlier, around water on the oil and gas, natural gas, side.

So we've looked at the projects. We've had these independent technical advisory committees. They looked at all this information, and they said: "Look, to do this work what's needed…. It's going to translate into about $10 million worth of funding."

The short answer to the question is that to continue to do what we do in both sectors, we need $10 million a year in funding.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have George, John and Carole in three minutes. That's all the time we have.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for the presentation. Other times I have talked to Andrea, Carlos and you. Good to see you. I wondered if you could expand
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a little bit more on…. You mentioned you worked to see that natural gas development is done responsibly. I think that's critical to British Columbians as the industry develops.

I wonder if you could just put a little bit more meat on the bones of that statement.

R. Archdekin: I've got my VP who works in the area. I could do that, but you're probably tired of hearing my voice. So quickly, Carlos.

C. Salas: Probably the best example that we have right now is our induced seismicity monitoring program, where we set up a series of seismographs in northeast B.C. which are monitoring any potential induced seismicity from hydraulic fracturing or from disposal of water into the ground.

By doing that and monitoring that, and then we're starting to analyze that information, we can make sure and ensure that it's being done safely — and, going forward, when we ramp up with development for LNG support, that we understand and that it's done without affecting the communities in that region.

G. Heyman: Just as a quick follow-up, we know that in different regions, different gas plays there are significantly different levels of methane and GHG emissions, depending on where you are. Do you have any solutions or thoughts or mitigating recommendations on those?

C. Salas: Generally in the past, we haven't delved into anything above the earth. But having said that, we have talked about potentially working on a pilot project where we could actually look at using this location for monitoring disposal wells and also looking at potential fugitive gases, etc.

We have been thinking about what we could do if we get the $10 million, kind of thing.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have John and Carole in less than a minute, so I'll have to cut somebody off.

J. Yap: Basically, you are the technical, scientific knowledge infrastructure for resource management in what you do, and you do great work. I love your brochures here. To what extent do you see yourselves…?

You mentioned that you were seen as a neutral party, and you had the respect of First Nations, communities, government, etc. To what extent do you see yourself as also helping to build a social licence to develop all these projects that should be developed in our province?

R. Archdekin: I think it's absolutely key. Without social licence, we all know that projects just don't move forward. That's why we see that the key to our engagement process to determine the work that we do starts with talking to First Nations and local communities, stakeholders and governments before any funding, before we talk deals with any. We start there. I think that's part of the social licence that you're talking about.

That's key to what we do. We have a lot of trust, as I said earlier, from those groups.

C. James (Deputy Chair): A quick question. I appreciate the work you do as well. I think it's going to be critical as we look at the expansion of projects, as you mentioned earlier.

I wondered if you could talk just for a minute about the challenges — or not — that you may see in your work and in your industry around skilled, trained professionals, around employees. I know some of your work is obviously out from your association, but I'm sure you must hear the kinds of issues that come forward, whether it's engineers or others who work in your field.

R. Archdekin: Yes, it is. Sometimes it's very specialized work, so it's a challenge to find different people, to sort of spread the benefits to get the work done.

But I must say that through our work, wherever we can we try to involve First Nations on the ground and the local communities. We pick where we can, and we train. If they don't have the skills, we train them. We train them with the idea that it's sustainable, that they may ultimately take over the work that we do. We come in and start it. We train them as part of it. They take it over, and then they have the skills, and they also have programs to manage.

D. Ashton (Chair): Robin, thank you. I do apologize. Bruce, Dan, Robin, Carlos, Andrea, thank you — to the silent majority there.

D. Ashton (Chair): There are probably a lot more questions around the table. I'm sorry we just don’t have the time today.

Up next we have the Rick Hansen Institute — Bill and Pamela. Good morning. Thank you very much for coming today. Ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give
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you a two-minute warning — and we have five minutes for questions. I'm sorry; I have to hold you to it.

D. Ashton (Chair): We have 29 presentations today and lots of airplanes to catch at around seven o'clock tonight. I know that people have to try and get home tonight.

B. Barrable: Well, I can tell you, a day or two of listening to these presentations and you know an awful lot about British Columbia. It's really interesting.

D. Ashton (Chair): Well, we're just back from the north. We take a pause at UBCM and then out for two more weeks around. There are 18 locations that we physically get to and three, plus probably one more, video conferences. So we're at 22 this year.

D. Ashton (Chair): I won't take any more of your time. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. We look forward to hearing your presentation.

B. Barrable: Well, thank you very much for having us. I've met John before. I live in his riding. And George's riding is where our organization, our facility, is in.

I just wanted to extend an invitation for any of you who would ever like to visit our facility. It's quite unique in the world. It incorporates the clinical component, the research component, the best-practice implementation component in the Stuart and Marilyn Blusson Spinal Cord Centre. It's a beautiful glass building next to VGH, quite unique in the world and, I think, a physical representation of the kind of cooperation and collaboration that we're trying to bring to solving the problems in spinal cord injury.

I have, with Pamela's great assistance…. Pamela works directly for the Rick Hansen Foundation. Rick is the CEO. They raise the money, incubate ideas. The Rick Hansen Institute is a separate organization with its own board, which takes those resources, spends them wisely on developing networks. Our core business is translational research and best-practice implementation. We have separate employers, but we work very closely together, and Pamela is one of the leaders in government relations.

I'm going to walk through the slides, which I'm hoping everyone got a copy of, and use that as the guide for the discussion. The first slide is this one, which provides quite a bit of information on the cost, largely the economic cost, of spinal cord injury. Obviously, it has a huge human cost, but it also has a huge financial cost.

There are not a tremendous number of people with spinal cord injuries, but the financial and economic implications of the condition are enormous in Canada and in British Columbia in particular. They will grow as the population ages and we see non-traumatic spinal cord injuries emerge in much larger numbers in the future. I won't read it — that's for your reference — but it gives you a snapshot of the impact.

Moving on to slide 3, the unsustainable — these are annual — costs of spinal cord injury in B.C. include $350 million for SCI itself, and then the secondary complications, $84 million. The B.C. contribution to our efforts, the $11 million, is over a five-year period and was granted in 2010 as part of the 25th anniversary of Rick's around-the-world Man in Motion tour.

The pressure ulcers I thought I would point as being one of those conditions that plagues people with spinal cord injury. Christopher Reeve actually died of a complication from a pressure ulcer, so they can be lethal. Pressure ulcers are the number one most expensive, preventable medical error in our health care system. In Canada it's probably half a billion dollars a year; in the United States, $5 billion a year. This a huge problem, particularly for people with SCI, but it affects others as well.

It's the same with urinary tract infections, which are another major secondary complication for people with SCI. They affect a lot of people. Pain affects a tremendous number of people. It's ubiquitous. The problems that people with spinal cord injury experience at a much higher level affect other people as well. What we try to do is explain to people that if you can solve the problem in our model, the spinal cord injury model, then you can find an application for these solutions in a broader context.

When you roll up all of these conditions, you're looking at about $1 billion a year. So if we were able to reduce the complications from SCI by 10 percent, we're talking about $100 million. I mean, it's a great opportunity for return on investment for the province. You can see that is a ratio that would lead to a huge return on investment.

Moving on to page…. It says: "Our mission." It has a picture of Rick, with a long, long road ahead of him. Our mission is to collaborate. We call it a praxis model. We bring researchers, people with spinal cord injury, industry, academics and clinicians together, not only nationally but internationally. Our mission is, obviously, to reduce the impact of paralysis and also the secondary complications.

Moving on to slide 5, our achievements. These are some examples of what we've done over the last several years with government funding. We got funding originally from Health Canada and now Western Economic Diversification as well as the provinces for things that go on in each province, including British Columbia of course. So these are the things that relate to B.C. and its impact.

There's, of course, the Blusson Spinal Cord Centre, which was built with funding from the Canada
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Foundation for Innovation, from a grant from the Blusson family and also provincial contributions. That houses the opportunity to bring these groups together.

Cutting-edge research, clinical guidelines and access to care and timing — a project that we've done with the UBC Sauder School of Business which allows us to model different approaches to care and look at the cost benefit of them accordingly.

Our registry platform also provides a platform for a number of other disease entities, like the Canadian neurotrauma project, the registry. And we have capacity-building partnerships with the Michael Smith Foundation for salary support and young researchers that we want to bring into spinal cord injury.

Slide 6 gives you a visual representation of some of the things that we're doing, rolled up and summarized, including facilities involved in our projects, project team members, people with spinal cord injury engaged across Canada. We're called an institute, but in fact we are really a national network, and we're becoming an international network in order to aggregate patients, scientists and clinicians together, get them working together, so that we can do clinical trials and best-practice implementation. We need to have large numbers to more effectively and more speedily solve these problems.

Moving on to slide 7. This shows, on an international basis, some of the projects that are working across the world. We've established registry sites at Peking University Third Hospital in Beijing, China. They're going to be working on a couple of the projects that are identified there. We've got two sites emerging in Israel, at Hadassah in Jerusalem and Tel Hashomer in Tel Aviv; the Burwood hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand; the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, Australia; a couple of hospitals in San Francisco; University of California, San Francisco; and Stanford. One of our board members is the head of the SCI program for Stanford.

We're taking our national expertise and we're internationalizing it as well for the benefit of others but also aggregating those patients so that studies that are led in British Columbia and in Canada will occur in a more timely fashion and with the contribution of people from other parts of the world so we can do them faster and better and share some of what we've developed internationally as well.

If you see page 8, it's a picture of the Blusson Centre. We'd love to have you there any time you'd like to come.

The SCI strategy, on slide 9, is really what we're talking about going forward. We want to provide the best, most cost-effective care. We have a commercialization strategy to get innovations into adoption, which includes some B.C. companies, one of which has received some grants from us called viDA Therapeutics, which is developing a topical for pressure sores. They're also doing some other amazing things. They're based out of St. Paul's.

We want to develop not only a national network of specialized centres, but we want to develop a vertical network as the specialized centre with the regional centres in the community hospitals in British Columbia. Sixty percent of patients with a spinal cord injury come to Vancouver Coastal. That means that 40 percent don't. We need to make sure that they're getting the best care possible.

Moving on to the next steps. We'll develop a strategy. We'll be bringing it back to government in the future. It'll involve the groups that are listed there, including UBC, VCH and ICORD. That won't preclude other groups, some of the partner groups in the community, also coming forward with some asks on their missions, which are a little bit more differentiated.

Moving on to slide 11, measurable benefits for British Columbia. I won't read those, but I think they're pretty straightforward. We've got a paper which we've also circulated, called "Bridging the Valleys of Death" — bench to bedside, proof of concept to successful commercialization. These are two areas that not only spinal cord injury but the health care system really struggle with. It's really difficult sometimes to get even the most compelling information into practice.

We've come up with a new model that we think will work. We're using it now in spinal cord injury, but we think it could be applied to other disease entities. Three chronic diseases make up 75 percent of the costs to the health care system: diabetes, heart disease and cancer. These are chronic diseases, and if we can use a chronic disease model and it works effectively in SCI, why can't that be applied in other areas? We're trying to turn this implementation piece into a science.

I worked previously as the head of B.C. Transplant for 15 years. Sometimes it's really difficult to get the best medical evidence into practice. It takes sometimes a sequence of miracles for that to occur. We've got to find a way to do a better job of that. Our group is a champion of change. We're taking a problem, and we're championing that problem from the earliest research right to the implementation at the bedside and then into the community. Most pressure sores now occur in the community. This is a great opportunity.

D. Ashton (Chair): I let you run on. I'm sorry. I apologize. You have about three minutes for questions left.

M. Morris: Tremendous work that Rick Hansen Foundation does and everybody does with respect to that. Just curious. The $10 million or $11 million B.C. government investment in the Rick Hansen Institute in 2010 — was that the cumulative amount, or was that a one-time amount in 2010? Does that money include the money that Rick Hansen receives from the B.C. neurotrauma fund?
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B. Barrable: No. The $11 million is over a five-year period, and the B.C. neurotrauma fund is roughly $2 million a year annually. I think that at the time it was a gesture to support the 25th anniversary. The $11 million plus the $14 million equals $25 million. I guess the B.C. neurotrauma fund is money that comes annually out of the levies around…. Is it speeding tickets…? Traffic violations.

I don't know the history to that as well as others. But the $11 million was the new money in addition to the BCNF fund.

M. Morris: Okay. And just one follow-up, if I could, Chair. How does B.C. compare to contributions from other provincial governments across Canada? Because of course, this is benefiting everybody in Canada and around the world, quite frankly.

B. Barrable: Good question. We do have very good support from Alberta and Ontario. Ontario funds the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation, which was assisted in its early days in getting started by Rick himself, even though it's not named after Rick. It receives I think in the order of $3 million to $5 million annually for its work. Their mission is a little broader than ours. It includes neurotrauma, concussion-related research, things of that nature.

Quebec is slightly different in its approach. We're hoping that that changes with the new Premier, who is a neuroscientist himself — I think a neurosurgeon — and has shown signs of doing that.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Just very quickly, then. Thank you for your work, and thank you for the international work that is being done. As you say, taking a problem and being able to explore it in a number of jurisdictions will, hopefully, bring the best research to the table around implementing it.

There's not a lot of discussion — maybe it's another area — around community care or home care or the place where most people end after they move to an institute. I wonder what kind of work you're doing in that particular area. You mentioned the pressure sores, obviously being a piece.

B. Barrable: Yeah, well we're working with those groups. That piece is not part of our mission. There are other groups that have that as part of their mission — whether they are the Sam Sullivan group; or the Neil Squire Society, which does technology training; or Spinal Cord Injury B.C. A variety of them do critical work. It just isn't in the same mission.

Our job is to work collaboratively with them. When we're creating a community engagement strategy, it needs to respect the roles that they play and actually utilize and work together with them so that we're working together, not at cross-purposes. I think to be effective we have to be clear about what our role is and not trample into other people's areas, so they do a better job than us.

P. Berg: I will say there is, however, an overlap. For example, whatever advances we make in preventing and treating pressure ulcers in a clinical setting, of course, carry over into the community.

S. Gibson: Yeah, a quick question. As a non-profit, as a great organization — love you guys — what is your administration cost as a percentage? I know it might be controversial, but often that's an issue with non-profits. How do you guys compare? Can you share that with us today — the cost of administration?

B. Barrable: We target to come within the Imagine Canada…. We're a little bit different than the foundation. The foundation receives funding and then disperses it. They follow the Imagine Canada guidelines. Our funding comes from government sources, so we follow all of the federal regulations around expenses and things of this nature.

D. Ashton (Chair): Bill, Pamela — thank you very, very much for coming today. Greatly appreciate it. And I do apologize for rushing you through. There are people always chomping at the bit.

Next up we have Canadian Federation of Students, British Columbia. Zachary, welcome.

D. Ashton (Chair): Hi, Jenelle. How're you doing? Thank you for coming today. We have ten minutes allotted for your presentation and five minutes for questioning. I'll give you a two-minute warning. You are able to cut into your question period, but then we have to shorten it up, which kind of isn't fair, either, to the panel, because there are good questions that come forward.

J. Davies: Good morning. Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge that today's hearing is taking place in Coast Salish territory. My name is Jenelle, and I'm the
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B.C. representative on the national executive of the Canadian Federation of Students, B.C. This is Zachary Crispin. He's the chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, B.C.

Our organization represents students from 15 public post-secondary institutions in B.C. and then draws from every region of the province. The federation's mandate is to advocate for a high-quality publicly funded and accessible post-secondary education system that is affordable for all.

I come before you today to provide some comment on issues in several aspects of the post-secondary education system. These issues have been identified as priorities by our members, the college and university students of this province, and our recommendations are supported by figures laid out in our written submission that we will provide at a later date.

In British Columbia today public post-secondary education is becoming more of an idea than an actual system. The proportion of college and university funding from government is less and less each year. At many institutions this proportional funding is now less than 50 percent.

To make up the difference, the institutions' administrators have turned to private funding, mostly from individual students, off-loading the cost of our system onto the individuals and their families. In this context, students have identified the following priorities for improving access and quality of education in British Columbia.

Our first is the government-funded reduction of tuition fees; the improvement of student financial aid through grants and the elimination of interest on student loans; an increase in funding to trades and apprenticeship programs; funding for ESL programs to a 2013 capacity; a provincewide government-funded freeze to transit fares, including U-Pass; and the regulation of tuition fees for international students.

While our written submission will detail our recommendations on these issues, I'd like to provide some comments on the first three, starting with funded reductions of tuition fees.

Tuition fees are the most significant financial barrier to a post-secondary education. In B.C. tuition fees have steadily increased over my lifetime, from $1,700 in the 1990s to an average of well over $5,000 this year. I pay triple the tuition fees of my grandparents' generation. Students in this province pay more for a significant portion of their education than ever in the lifetime of people in this room. This change has a real social and economic impact on our province — for the worse.

Statistics Canada reports that students from low-income families are less than half as likely to participate in university than those from high-income families. Research out of the University of California found that for every $1,000 increase to tuition fees, enrolment rates drop by 15 percent. This study demonstrates that the decrease in enrolment was composed almost exclusively from minority and low-income students.

What this translates to in our province is a narrowing of the demographic of British Columbians who can access post-secondary education, leaving low- and middle-income families last in line. That's why students are recommending a government-funded reduction of tuition fees, dollar for dollar, to put "public" back in public education.

As a note, because it will certainly be a part of the committee's considerations, students are recommending financing these changes through progressive income taxes, where affluent British Columbians pay a higher percentage on their income tax than the lower-income British Columbians. Reducing tuition fees must be a part of a larger strategy to ensure broad access to post-secondary education in B.C., and a strategy must also include provisions for adequate institutional funding and student financial aid, which leads to my next point.

The second recommendation students are putting forward is that B.C. reinvest in individual students through improved financial aid. By re-establishing a B.C. student grants program and eliminating the interest rate charged on student loans, British Columbians could begin the process of curtailing skyrocketing student debt. This would directly fund the most in need.

After meeting with representatives from the Canadian Federation of Students in recent years, the federal Conservative government acknowledged the burden of student debt across the country and implemented the first-ever national student grants program.

In contrast, B.C. has the lowest level of non-repayable financial aid in the country. Financial aid should be used to help those who can't afford post-secondary education to enter the system and obtain a degree or diploma to support themselves and their families. If aid was distributed properly, students would be able to leave university and college without massive debts and would be able to pay into tomorrow's education system through taxes. Additionally, a less-indebted workforce is more flexible and mobile.

Today's average student debt for British Columbians is estimated by the private sector to be $35,000 upon completion of a four-year degree. That's $10,000 above the national average.

This awards B.C. the prize for the highest student debt in the country. Government should not take student debt lightly, and consideration should be given to the adverse effects of ballooning student debt and how that
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affects our economy. For the first time in history, an entire generation will attempt to enter the workforce with unprecedented levels of debt and will undoubtedly delay purchasing homes, starting families, investing in business ventures and making large purchases that are important to B.C.'s economy.

Student debt is not just a financial issue. It has negative impacts on academic completion as well as program enrolment. UBC researcher Lori McElroy found that students with little to no debt were more than twice as likely to finish their degree than students with high levels of debt. Completion rates for students with debt under $1,000 was 71 percent. The completion rate for those over $10,000 was a dismal 34 percent.

This boils down to a fundamental issue of fairness. Those who are forced to borrow to finance their education end up paying substantially more than those who don't, who can afford to pay up front. While student loans may get people through the door who otherwise couldn't afford the high cost of education, it does so at the expense of the principle of equal access.

Looking closer at this inequality, we see that B.C. students in particular are being charged interest at prime plus 2½ percent on their student loans — higher than anywhere else in the country — meaning a student who could afford to pay the tuition up front pays no interest to the government, but a low-income student who needs a loan will pay thousands of dollars of interest.

The revenue from student loan interest to the provincial government is about $30 million. Given the inherent inequality created by student loan interest charges and the relatively minor cost of eliminating them, eliminating interest is an obvious and affordable policy mechanism to reduce student debt levels in B.C.

Now, our final recommendation I would like to elaborate on is the funding to trades and apprenticeship programs. The committee will likely hear from B.C. colleges, universities and institutes during this process, and their message will surely outline the need for increased funding to our institutions.

On the topic of core funding, we agree that there needs to be a substantial increase if our institutions are to continue to provide high-quality education that competes globally.

Though the B.C. government should be commended for the investments in capital projects and funding for initiatives like institutional aboriginal service plans, these positives have occurred under the environment of shrinking operational budgets at our colleges and universities. In fact, since 2001 students have seen a gradual erosion of college and university funding on a per-student basis, leading to program cuts, deferred maintenance, reduced services and increased auxiliary fees, amongst other problems.

What might be looked over is the institutions' assessments of funding, which is appropriated through the Industry Training Authority, a body under the purview of the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training. This is especially important in the context of government prioritization of trades, education and the publication of the skills-for-jobs blueprint.

Trades and apprenticeship training lacks the funding necessary to support the growth the government hopes to see. Many changes have been made to the system in recent years that are reflective of this lack of capacity. In last year's budget there was a $45 million cut to post-secondary education. With this cut, the only way to fund advances in trades and apprenticeship education in the way the government has stated it intends to is to cut other programs.

Already, funding cuts have a very direct effect on student success, even when those cuts are not in the form of program reductions. In the last decade 200 counsellors, staff and administrators were laid off. Prospective students receive very little counselling and are left to navigate a complicated, piecemeal system by themselves.

Employer self-regulations mean that the apprentices are left to negotiate with their employers about support and fulfilling course requirements alone. As long as there's no support to navigate the system, completion rates for apprentices are destined to remain very low. Proper funding is needed to maintain and enhance the quality of trades programs. Without stable funding, B.C. will face a serious shortfall of workers with a comprehensive range of skills.

In closing, our recommendations are driven by a desire to see investments in public post-secondary education so we can reap the benefits to the province. Our written submission will also touch on transit, English as a second language, training and international education.

D. Ashton (Chair): Jenelle, thank you very much. October 17 is the magic date. It has to be in before then, so please forward it. That would be great.

J. Shin: Hi. Thank you for your presentation. I just kind of tuned in to the stat that you referred to about the completion rate. With the higher debt level, I think it was, the ability for the students to finish their training — the numbers actually go down. I'll be very interested in seeing the actual study.

If you can forward it to the committee, that would be great, because that'll really help us address the common misconception that's out there, saying that the increased financial strain is somehow more motivating for people to go through with their training. Thank you for sharing the stats.
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Next up we have the Research Universities Council of British Columbia. Good morning, Robin. Thank you very much for coming.

D. Ashton (Chair): It's on its way — and ten minutes for it. I'll give you a two-minute warning and five minutes for questions, if required.

I'm here on behalf of the Research Universities Council presidents. The council is made up of UVic, UBC, UNBC, SFU, Royal Roads and Thompson Rivers University. I have a submission, which I will not go through in great detail, but I will actually point out to you some of the tables in the submission and actually set the context.

One of the things that I'd like to focus on and discuss with you this morning is the role of the research universities in B.C. and the economy. I think we are all very aware of the role and the benefit to individuals and to society of a post-secondary education. In fact, we know that the universities — in fact all the institutions in the province — are key economic drivers, and I'd like to focus on the intersection between research universities and the economy.

The skills-for-jobs blueprint is very relevant because the research universities do intersect with the aspirations and the goals in the skills-for-job blueprint around LNG. We certainly know that, in terms of the labour market situation, across all jurisdictions in B.C. we are facing that, and it's somewhat exacerbated by the need to be able to produce the talent for LNG and for the research universities. That covers the gamut, in terms of engineers, law, accounting, project planning, etc.

On page 2 we've also looked at this submission in terms of the minister's mandate letter. In June of 2013 Premier Christy Clark provided Minister Virk with a mandate letter setting out the government's expectations for post-secondary education. What I'd like to talk about is how, in fact, those expectations in the mandate letter are being met and exceeded.

The first slide and table that you'll see is a pie chart that actually speaks to the economic impact in B.C. on an annual basis, and that's $21 billion in the province of British Columbia. There's actually a very detailed methodology behind establishing this figure, one that was actually worked out with officials from the Ministry of Finance. It's a very profound impact and includes the multipliers that you can all think of in terms of graduates spending in their communities.

It also includes the transfer of the skills and knowledge that students have right into the marketplace in creating new jobs and, in fact, creating new businesses and supporting the whole social and public infrastructure of the province as well.

Over to the following page, page 3, "Attracting funds to British Columbia." One of the things that I don't think is necessarily appreciated more broadly in the public is that the research universities actually pull in money from outside the province from their research activities. You can see that in 2012-13 there were $809 million worth of research activity in the province, and $700 million of that came from outside B.C. into the province.

That's clearly a significant contributor in terms of money into the province. That was for research projects across life sciences, engineering, mining, etc., as well as other important social projects to provide offsets and cost containment and avoided costs around health research.

The competition for the funding is really intense, and the research universities have really been punching above their weight in terms of bringing that money into the province. Compared to Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, the rate of increase in research money coming into B.C. is about 152 percent since 2001.

At the bottom of page 3 is the B.C. knowledge development fund. This is a really critical fund that was introduced in the 1990s that comes entirely from the province. It provides capital investment to the research universities for very significant projects. Over the page there's a list of some of those projects that you may be aware of from your own communities.

The BCKDF money, as well as really propelling key parts of the economy, actually leverages money into the province. Over $700 million in the last decade has come in directly as a result of provincial funding of B.C. knowledge development fund. We're pleased to see that the investment in BCKDF is going to continue into the future.

On page 5, another of the mandate letter expectations was matching skills needed to skills graduating. I think this is interesting, because sometimes people can have a particular impression of a research university. In fact, the program profile and the types of programs that have been offered by universities have changed quite a bit over the last ten years.

The table in the middle of the page actually shows…. Since 2006 to 2013 you can see the percent change in the increase of a number of programs that students are enrolled in. In health there has been a 46 percent increase; in business and management it's 34 percent; engineering and computing, right through to social sciences, life sciences. Then you can see there's also been a decrease that's occurred in terms of the change from arts and sciences into some of these other programs.
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That reflects both student demand and parental demand, and it also reflects responsiveness to the labour market. That occurs not just in individual communities but very much on a provincial basis as being responsive to that labour market demand. Again, that's where we see the research universities directly intersecting with the economy.

This submission is not to go into too much detail on the outcomes for university graduates, but as you know, outcomes for university graduates in terms of employment are really high across the board. If they have a general degree, it might take them a few more years in order to establish their traction or purchase where they are in the economy, but it definitely bears out over time. There are lots of longitudinal studies very relevant in B.C. and in Canada that point that out.

On slide 6, "Ensure student seats are being filled," one of the things that the research universities have done is diversify their revenue. Very mindful of the fiscal circumstances and the need for fiscal discipline, they have diversified revenue over time and done things such as increasing international students, which has actually helped them create overproduction or more student spaces than they are funded for.

You can see in 2012-13 that there were actually almost 5,500 more student spaces provided than what was funded, and that has largely occurred at the graduate level. That's also very significant in terms of being able to have that advanced skills and knowledge in graduate students.

The last table on page 6 is international students and delivering on international targets. As I said, the research universities have made a number of initiatives and have really increased the numbers of international students.

It is very helpful to the revenue stream and supports domestic students, but it's also really critical, in terms of the global economy, to bring international students onto campus and also to have students go overseas and take advantage of those international studies. As we all know, it just broadens cultural awareness and, in fact, makes the individuals much more effective in terms of succeeding in the economy with that greater cultural awareness.

Slide 7, "Ensure efficiency and budget targets are met." This is a key piece because, as I said, the research universities are very mindful of the fiscal constraints and, certainly, the downturn since fiscal 2008. What this pie chart represents is the total source of revenue to the research universities. They're aggregated together.

What you can see is that in terms of the provincial operating grant to the universities, it's about 30 percent of total revenue. It's down from about 38 percent in 2001. There are many other activities in the research enterprise that bring revenue and funds into the universities, including donations and sponsored research, which I have spoken about.

There have been many measures to diversify the revenue, but the reality is that since 2010-11 the province, facing fiscal pressures, has not been able to provide additional operating funding. In fact, there has been a reduction to the operating grant for the administrative efficiencies.

I have two charts here to outline for you: $130 million in pressures in the last fiscal years that have had a number of measures taken to avoid those costs, so there hasn't been an impact on students. Going forward, there's an upcoming reduction to the operating grant for the entire post-secondary system of $25 million. There are other wage and non-wage inflationary pressures, so we see a $60 million pressure.

What we would like to ask the committee to consider is that the $25 million reduction for next year that is planned be actually reinvested in the system. For that portion of reinvestment that is the research universities, the research universities would commit to address the need for new spaces in high-demand labour market occupations. So recognizing there's unmet student demand, the research universities would respond to that through the reinstatement of their portion of the funding.

They'd also like the committee to consider making a recommendation around the need for capital approvals to self-finance student residences, for example. This would not require any government expenditure. It's approval for debt room, essentially, to be able to self-finance and, from the revenue streams, manage their own capital projects. This would have a stimulus effect in terms of infrastructure and jobs and would be highly beneficial overall both to the universities and to the students in creating new residences.

The third and last thing is to focus on a long-term investment plan with the government, collaborating across the post-secondary system with our partners in the colleges and institutes, with business and with industry. We know a ten-year plan would be extremely beneficial to really drive the economy and to make sure that we are continuing to invest and are able to deliver the services and the quality of education for students.

S. Gibson: I guess I hesitate to ask this question for fear of being perceived as kind of anti-intellectual, but I did actually attend two of your universities and even graduated.

I think there is some sense for some British Columbians that the nature of research, a lot of the research that's taking place…. Of course, these are excellent, but much of the research that is taking place at the graduate level in university is interesting and perhaps has some worth, but it ends up largely furthering academic exercises to complete a credential as opposed to doing something that necessarily has some applicability.
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Now, I say that with caution, obviously, as you would expect. But what's your reaction to that criticism? There's a sense as I talk to people that they're sometimes critical about some graduate education, particularly in the arts, where there's a lot of studying going on, but it's largely just moving around existing material. There's nothing really new discovered. Do you have any reaction to that? I don't necessarily totally agree with that, but I think it's out there.

R. Ciceri: Well, I think there are a lot of myths out there, yes. Actually, that's part of the presentation — to try to counteract those myths and to talk about the research that's going on that directly benefits the economy.

Even around the arts and sciences and the myth around graduate students not actually producing something that's productive…. That is highly debatable in terms of the value back to the individual and to the community — ultimately, what that individual is able to take out in terms of creativity, thinking and skills and bring new applications into, whether it's a social sector situation or a business situation. I think the more stories that we can get about what's actually going on in the community and what graduate students are really doing is important.

G. Heyman: I'll comment briefly. First of all, thank you, Robin, for your presentation. There are, I believe, plenty of studies around to demonstrate that the greatest discoveries are made by people who learn critical thinking in addition to very specific, applied knowledge.

I want to focus in my question, though, on your request to allow the universities to self-finance selected capital projects. I think we understand that one of the perverse results, I guess, of the requirements of accounting is that the government is loath to have new debt appear when the universities self-finance needed projects like student residences. Unfortunately, the end result of that is that there are needed capital improvements that don't take place.

I'm wondering if you can give some specific examples or if there's been documentation by the research universities of actually losing student potential by not being able to house and attract some of the students that you want to attend the university, to study at the university and ultimately to contribute to British Columbia.

R. Ciceri: You're very knowledgable about the fact that accounting rules are creating these restrictions, so working with government to find some workarounds around the accounting rule is important.

To your point about student residences, we heard some of the radio play in terms of the start of the school year and students looking for accommodation, whether it's in the Lower Mainland or, in fact, in Kamloops. For example, student residences in support of the big international program that they have there for international students are absolutely critical. That's just one example.

It's going to be hard to go any further in terms of bringing in, attracting those students if there's no accommodation for them, so seeking a solution is really key.

D. Ashton (Chair): John and Gary, and if we do run out, if you want to follow up on those, we would encourage an additional submission also.

J. Yap: Actually, George asked my question, but I'll maybe explore a little further. The issue, I understand, is the relative value of leaving the government reporting entity versus the ability to borrow at preferred rates as part of the government entity. Has there been further work to see if there is a net benefit to, say, UBC moving from the government entity and being self-sustaining?

R. Ciceri: I think the discussion has actually moved from being outside of the government reporting entity. This is looking for a solution as the universities within the government reporting entity. We did quite a bit of work on the former, and that was our conclusion. We do think that there can be other solutions, though, without going to that. Again, I'd be happy to provide some more information on that to you after today.

Robin, greatly appreciate it. And if you do have additional input, October 17 is the cutoff. Thank you. Have a great day today.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. We have up to five minutes for questions and comments.

P. Wood: I am representing today the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, the B.C. chapter. CPAWS is over 50 years old now and 20 years active in British Columbia.
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We have a long history of creating parks, and B.C. has a strong history of creating and maintaining parks. This forms a core part of our provincial identity. We offer a world-class parks experience to visitors, and we have a robust tourism industry that is based on this.

Support for creating this system came from the grass roots. This is demonstrated through the outcome of many local land and resource management plans. These places are of global significance and attract visitors from all over the world.

B.C.'s national parks are gems within the system that range from the lush, temperate rainforests of Pacific Rim National Park to the towering mountains of Glacier, Yoho, Kootenay and Mount Revelstoke. They are a great source of pride for B.C. and represent a gift to future generations, but they are also a great source of economic wealth. An independent study conducted in 2011 found that B.C.'s national parks contribute $260 million in GDP, $179 million in labour income, $24 million in tax revenue to the province and support just over 4,000 full-time-equivalent jobs.

These parks represent B.C.'s contribution to a national effort to conserve areas representative of Canada's unique ecosystems, yet key ecosystems remain unrepresented within this system. This presents an opportunity to expand this source of economic activity. One of these is the grasslands of the South Okanagan–Similkameen, a region of spectacular yet fragile beauty.

Grasslands are a globally rare ecosystem and have been reduced to about 10 percent of their original range. In B.C. they are home to about a third of all of our species at risk. In recognition of this, in 2003 the governments of Canada and B.C. signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on assessing the feasibility of establishing a national park reserve in this region.

After much consideration and years of research, the Canada-B.C. steering committee recommended that a national park reserve is feasible and that negotiations for a national park reserve establishment agreement proceed. Notably, the steering committee recognized the importance of a timely decision, due to the area being one of Canada's richest in natural biodiversity with a large number of species and habitats at risk.

Last year, in February 2013, the Okanagan Nation Alliance and four of its constituent bands conducted their own feasibility assessment. This is the largest consultation of their communities that has ever been undertaken, and it arrived at the same conclusion. The national park is not only feasible but desirable for the Okanagan Nation.

While there are all these ecological reasons to support the park, the economic benefits, both local and provincial, are no less significant. Based on average numbers achieved in other national parks to date, we can expect that this would result in roughly 700 jobs, $50 million in GDP and $4 million in tax revenues.

In contrast to boom-and-bust cycles created by resource extraction, this economic activity is sustained and supports stable, thriving communities. A socioeconomic assessment completed in 2008 concluded that there would be a significant positive economic impact associated with the establishment of a national park and also predicted no significant negative socioeconomic impact from changes to regional land use.

Parks Canada has also provided assurances that ranching and other uses will be accommodated, and they have modified the original design of this park to accommodate hunting and other local interests.

The best news is that the costs associated with the establishment of this park would be covered by the federal government. Moreover, this would reduce the province's current costs of managing the provincial protected areas that form part of the proposed park. This forms about a third of the 284 square kilometres being proposed, currently supported by the province's budget. This would be taken up by the federal government.

At the time of the announcement of the feasibility study the province said it would not be proceeding with the park at this time, citing lack of local support. However, since then, the local support expressed for this park has been overwhelming and diverse. This has included the regional districts of Kootenay-Boundary, South Okanagan–Similkameen, Central and North Okanagan, as well as the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the Okanagan Basin Water Board, the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association and, as mentioned, the Okanagan Nation Alliance.

They've all passed resolutions since that time asking the province to return to national park discussions with Canada. I've included within the package of information this article, an op-ed that was written by a group from the South Okanagan and Similkameen representing economic interests as well as First Nations interests. I definitely recommend having a read. It really sums up very eloquently the economic case for the park.

The proposed national park maintains the continued support of the government of Canada and regional municipal governments, but to proceed requires the support of the government of B.C. Many local leaders have commented that this decision is a no-brainer due to the overwhelming evidence that has come to light, but the truth is that quite a few brains have been involved in carefully researching and evaluating this proposal over nearly a decade in arriving at this conclusion.

I hope you will consider the information I've presented before you today and support the creation of a new park to boost B.C.'s economic development.

G. Holman: Peter, thanks very much for this. I would hope that the committee would regard this as a business
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investment. I think that's the case you're trying to make here, and certainly the support from the B.C. chamber seems to indicate that they get that argument.

In a former life, I used to do socioeconomic evaluations for provincial parks during the LRMP process during the '90s. What is striking here…. The biggest single impact of those new protected areas was alienating timber-harvesting land base.

The point you're making here is that existing commercial uses would be grandfathered into the park, which reduces — well, eliminates — the economic implications — and also your point about actually reducing provincial government costs to manage the provincial protected areas that would be contained.

The committee will have to deliberate on this, but I hope we'll consider it as a business investment from the perspective of the provincial government.

M. Morris: A good presentation. I'm always for looking for more wild spaces out there.

I guess part of the equation for me is how many other Crown tenures have been affected by this? How much fee simple property is being affected by this proposal and whatnot, and how much is that going to cost the provincial government? You know, do we have to reimburse any of the existing tenures? How many dollars of revenue would the province be losing from other Crown tenures that are in existence in this particular area here?

If you're going to make any further submissions, I wouldn't mind seeing part of that information in there.

P. Wood: Okay. Yes, I'd be glad to forward those particular details. Offhand, I can say that it breaks down to about thirds — private land being about a third, Crown land being about a third and existing protected areas, provincial designations, being about a third. The costs of buying out those tenures and private property are borne by the federal government.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Peter. A good presentation. I think you've identified a number of the pieces that certainly all of us, I think, have heard the concerns around — ranchers, in particular, in that area, and First Nations. There were some First Nations that were expressing concern. So I think it's a big plus. I think the fact that you can get all those groups together is a miracle in itself to come together. A big plus.

I just wondered: is there a timeline right now? You mentioned that there's support building to get the province to come back to the table. Is there a timeline? Has the federal government given any kind of timeline from their perspective? I'm sure they're giving lots of ideas around where you could put a national park. Is there a risk here? I guess that's my first question.

And second: have you heard the province talk about any kind of timelines to come back to the table?

P. Wood: Well, we have expressed interest because of this representing…. Now it's called region 3. There are about 40-odd natural regions, and this has been designated as the prime candidate to represent region 3, which is this desert-to-grassland ecosystem — very unique. There's basically nowhere else in Canada that this can be achieved. So they're holding out for this particular area. They're waiting for a signal from the province to move forward with it.

My understanding is that our local champions, as we've come to call them, had a meeting with Minister Mary Polak in July that was very productive. I think they hope to achieve results by meeting with her on an ongoing basis to inform her of developments. So that was very positive.

We have the UBCM coming up next week, and we have a motion going before UBCM. I believe the mayor of Osoyoos, Stu Wells, is sponsoring that. We are hoping to achieve that motion passed, and on the back of that, hopefully, breathe some new life into the campaign.

S. Hamilton: This is just to follow up on something Mike said a moment ago, and I'd like to build on it a little bit. When you provide those numbers as you suggested, and you talked about one-third, one-third, one-third in terms of acquiring these properties, there's also a loss of economic production associated with two-thirds of what you mentioned, and I wouldn't mind seeing those types of numbers built into your response as well.

D. Ashton (Chair): Peter, thank you very much. Greatly appreciated. Thanks for coming here today. See you shortly.

First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. Adrienne, welcome. Nice to see you early this afternoon. So ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions, and I will be firm on the timeline. Thank you.

A. Montani: Thank you for the opportunity to share information and recommendations with you today. Some of you know First Call is a coalition, a non-partisan, broad coalition of about 95 partner organizations and hundreds of individuals around the province, focused on child and youth rights and well-being. We don't have a written brief for you today. We'll hand one in later, but we have put the Child Poverty Report Card around for you to have for your reference.

As our name implies, our coalition believes children should be given first call on society's resources. This isn't to imply we don't value other generations or see generations in conflict or in competition with each other but
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rather that we are convinced by the economic and sociological evidence of the value to everyone in our society of investments in children if we want a sustainable future and, secondly, by the scientific evidence of children's special developmental vulnerability as their brains and their bodies grow.

Therefore, it's our special duty to protect them and provide them with the family and community and support services, social policy environments that they need to thrive. These are also our obligations under the UN convention on the rights of the child. Children don't vote, nor do they come here to present or protect their interests. That's our job as adults.

B.C.'s child population has been declining in numbers for the last 15 years or so. This has presented a challenge for those of us who are trying to keep children's priorities on the public budget priority list. But starting last year, B.C.'s child population started to grow again, and it's projected to rise each year for the foreseeable future. We draw your attention to this, because this has implications for budget planning. For child, youth and family services, we need to sustain and to ensure that we're able to meet growing needs.

We can help manage some of the expected cost pressures on the education, health care, justice and social services systems in years to come if we make wise decisions now. We have framed our recommendations to you in what we call our 4 Keys to Success agenda for children and youth. They represent the conditions and the social determinants of health that research evidence tells us contribute to healthy child development and reduce costs that are associated with the failure to address known risk factors that undermine healthy development.

The first key is investments in early childhood development. I probably don't need to remind you of the crucial importance of what happens in the early years for human brain development and for physical and mental health over the life course.

One of the most powerful indicators of how we're doing in supporting early child development in the province is the human early learning partnership's early development instrument survey, which shows that 33 percent of children in this province are entering kindergarten vulnerable on one or more key areas of development. That's an increase since 2008 of 3 percent in vulnerability.

We also know young families are overly represented in poverty statistics, because they're squeezed for money and time due to both the failure of the market to provide jobs that pay decent wages that allow them to support their families, for many of them, and a lack of supportive public policy, such as affordable quality child care.

The child poverty rate for children under six in this province is 21 percent — more than one in five children. Living in poverty creates increased vulnerability and ill health through a variety of pathways, not least of which is stress — stress for parents struggling to provide for their children and stress for the children themselves.

As we noted last year, we're pleased at First Call to see the MCFD commitment to an early-years strategy in the province and other investments in expanding early kindergarten and family support programs over the last several years.

Unfortunately, however, the early childhood development and family support services sector remains fragile and underfunded. We remain concerned about inadequate government funding for services for children with developmental challenges. Cuts to these services, often through contracts with agencies that impose costs but don't pay for them, mean children will languish on wait-lists during the time in their lives when they could most benefit from therapies and other supports.

Child care in B.C. continues to be largely a parent-funded service, and the crisis in access, affordability and quality facing families remains unaddressed. We know, from doing living-wage calculations annually, that child care fees are second only to shelter costs in family budgets.

Our coalition urges government to begin making the investments necessary to implement the $10-a-day child care plan, which has drawn enormous support around the province from local governments and other organizations and individuals.

The second key to success for us is supporting children in transition into adolescence and adulthood. We've just come through a debilitating closure of public schools in this province, and a lot of debate, unfortunately, has been about what we can afford, not what children need.

Last year this Finance Committee made a number of recommendations that were music to our ears in support of sufficient funding to school districts. We have come before this committee many times to recommend that provincial funding for public schools be increased, as we have witnessed undeniable erosion of the supports available to teachers and students — again, especially those with special needs — and we make that same recommendation today.

We haven't had time yet to familiarize ourselves with the budget impacts of the teacher negotiations or the contract, but we sincerely hope to see the funding made available to school districts in the next year's budget enable a restoration of the supports and services that have been lost.

At the post-secondary level, student financial barriers to access and soaring student debt levels are limiting many young peoples' potential. We recommend that government fix this situation or start by phasing in tuition fee reductions, reintroducing a needs-based grant program and providing interest-free loans. Some of these recommendations were echoed in this committee's recommendations last year, and we hope to see them reflected again in this year's report.
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For youth transitioning out of government care who lack the family support many others can count on, B.C.'s Representative for Children and Youth has made some excellent recommendations to improve government supports, including extending the age of foster care for some youth up to the age of 25.

We've written to the Premier and Minister Cadieux in support of these recommendations, and we recognize they have budget implications. But we argue that this would be less expensive than continuing to fail to offer timely support to these very vulnerable youth.

Inequality in B.C. has risen over the past decade. Too many children live in poverty. We're at one in five — the most recent statistics. This is a longstanding problem that spans decades and provides evidence that some children are overrepresented, whether it's aboriginal children, families with female lone mothers, new immigrants, children with disabilities. These are overrepresented in these statistics.

We know that growing up in poverty is one of the most significant risk factors threatening children's health and well-being. We were happy to see the recommendation in the committee's report last year calling for a comprehensive poverty reduction plan, and we hope this recommendation will be repeated this year.

In our annual poverty report card, which we've given you — I don't have time to go through them today — there's a whole long list of things we think should be the legs for that kind of a comprehensive plan.

Just to point out that most children who are poor in this province live with parents who are working. We know that low wages and precarious work need our attention if we want to tackle child poverty in the province.

In our report card and through our living wage for families campaign, we call on government to make sure that government itself is paying living wages, both to its direct and indirect employees, including in the health sector and contracted social services sector.

We want to avoid misguided efforts we think will save money, but we contract services to employers who pay poverty-level wages, resulting in higher poverty rates and increased ill health and costs to us in the long run. Prevention is much better, and that's not a successful strategy.

Again, echoing the committee's recommendations last year, we're calling for increases in the provincial minimum wage and welfare rates and indexed for both of those so the poorest people don't fall behind.

We also urge the government to stop the clawback immediately of child support payments from parents on income assistance, allowing roughly $17 million that is paid by non-custodial parents to benefit their children.

We ask you to look at the tax regime. We think there's been significant loss and growth in income inequality partly because of the way the tax regime is structured. Things like MSP premiums going up disproportionally cost families more than high-income families, and we should look at that unfairness.

We strongly recommend that you take seriously the social and economic costs of inequality and implement a fairer regime of taxes.

We have a few other things around child labour. We want to see robust funding to the employment standards branch to look at the situation of children, particularly 12- to 14-year-olds, in the workforce since the changes made back in 2003 to the Employment Standards Act.

Those children — we have no idea where they're working, and the branch has told us they do not have time to be proactive, go see where they're working and if even the minimal protections that exist are in place for them. We'd like to see some investment in seeing that children are safe in the workplace, particularly 12- to 14-year-olds.

Two other risks to the health of children are the overconsumption of sugar, increasing rates of obesity, and the marketing of candy- and fruit-flavoured tobacco products and e-cigarettes to children.

We recommend that the next budget include an additional provincial excise tax on sugar-sweetened products to help reduce consumption and, in the absence of a federal strategy, which seems a long time coming, to regulate the sale of e-cigarettes and flavoured tobacco products to children. We urge the provincial government to introduce legislation to ban their sale to minors in B.C. and ensure that the budget contains sufficient funds for effective enforcement and education about these toxic products.

Our fiscal policy takes the mounting evidence about the importance of early-years investments, the value of a strong social safety net and reducing inequities. Our fiscal policy must take those things into account seriously if we want to improve outcomes for children and build a healthier society for all. We ask you to recommend a provincial budget that puts the best interests of children first and our special obligations to help those most in need.

A quick quote from UNICEF: "Children have the right to first call on their nations' resources and capacities, in good times and in bad. There will always be some interest more immediate than protecting the well-being of children. There will never be one more important."

G. Holman: Thanks very much for the presentation. That was a pretty remarkable summary of a wide range of issues.

G. Holman: Just one particular question, and I do appreciate the documentation here. I wonder: has your group….? Are you aware of any research of the implications of the kind of shift to more regressive fees versus taxation based on ability to pay — whether that has an impact on consumer spending and economic growth? Are you aware of that? Could you point me in the direction of any research on that?

A. Montani: Are you talking particularly, like, MSP increases and that kind….?

A. Montani: Yeah, for example, we know that it impacts low-income-families' budgets more.

A. Montani: Yeah, the CCPA does research. You can look at…. We calculate a living wage, and we look at family budgets very carefully every year. What does it actually cost? One of the costs is the MSP cost. If it's included in an employer benefit package, then a family doesn't have to pay it, but it then gets paid in a different way.

I'm not sure if there's any specific research that looks at those fees in particular and their larger impact on the economy, but we know that low-income families suffer when those kinds of fees disproportionately impact their family budgets.

M. Morris: Good presentation. One of the things I'm looking at in here: child poverty rates. Of course, Metro Vancouver has got the highest in the country and in the province here. I'm from rural B.C. We have a plethora of jobs available for people throughout northern B.C. in the resource sector and whatnot.

I've always wondered. We have people living in the Lower Mainland in poverty because of the high cost of housing, whether it's rental or whether it's buying or not. They've got children. We have an opportunity for them to take their children out of poverty by moving to a location in the province where it's much cheaper to live, where the rent is much cheaper and where the work opportunities abound for anybody that wants to come up there. We have employers looking for people to work.

Have you ever factored that into the equation? Seventy percent of the resources in B.C. come from rural B.C. We support here a lot of the things that occur down in the Lower Mainland, to up social services rates. Some of the other programs that you have listed here will be coming from rural B.C. Is it not easier to send these people or to offer them opportunities where there's employment and cheaper housing?

A. Montani: Well, I don't think that will necessarily solve the poverty problem. It depends on where people live and what…. There is rural poverty too.

Issues like child care. They can't…. Some of the things that have come through the B.C. Chamber of Commerce or UBCM resolutions in the past around the need for child care have been from rural chambers. I'm thinking of Trail and others saying: "We have people who want to come to work, and they can't because they can't find anybody" or "We have mothers who've worked for us who can't come back to work after mat leave because they don't have child care."

Families are looking for a safe place to raise their children, social supports, good schools. All those things would impact private decisions about where they're going to live and that kind of thing.

I respect that there are jobs going begging in the rural areas — absolutely. So how do we make that family-friendly perhaps? How do we make sure that families with children can take those jobs and not just have satellite parents who live in the Lower Mainland because that's where they can get other supports they need? Off they go and see their kids once a week.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your comprehensive presentation. I know you're aware of longitudinal studies that show the long-term additional cost of the failure to address issues of poverty up front. I just request that you perhaps submit a list of those before the deadline, which can be appended to your presentation, as well as anything that you would like to bring to our attention on the positive economic benefits of such programs as child care.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much. Before we recess, I would just like to recognize MLA Bruce Ralston. Thank you. I already did in your absenteeism, as you flew in here and probably had something to attend to. Welcome back, sir. Nice to see you.

For the committee, lunch is kitty-corner to us over here. You have to be back…. We start again precisely at 1:05. I'll recess at this point in time.

D. Ashton (Chair): We're back live again. Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity of a quick break.

Up first we have the Federation of Post-Secondary
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Educators of British Columbia — Cindy Oliver and George Davison.

D. Ashton (Chair): The process is ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning, if required — and five minutes for questions or comments. Thank you. The floor is yours.

C. Oliver: Good afternoon to the whole panel, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee about priorities for the 2015 provincial budget. The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators represents over 10,000 faculty and staff who work and teach in B.C.'s colleges, universities and institutes.

You've heard from one of our locals earlier this morning, Vancouver Community College Faculty Association. Our members come from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds. They teach in everything from liberal arts programs to trades training. Many are also involved in areas of applied research. As well, our members are active in community outreach programs at their institutions, programs that are designed to bring the opportunity of post-secondary education closer to the communities in which these institutions operate.

I do want to cover a number of areas in my time before the committee this afternoon. Two in particular are very pressing and urgent. The first has to do with English-language training programs, and the second is the government's proposed re-engineering of post-secondary education.

However, before I get to both of those important programs, I want to make some general comments about the overall investment that the provincial treasury makes in post-secondary education.

The largest single investment that the provincial government makes in post-secondary ed 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.

In previous presentations to this committee our federation has stressed the fact that operating grants are not keeping pace with either the demands of enrolment or the underlying cost pressures that all 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 Ed show that by 2015-16 real per-student operating grants will have dropped by 20 percent since 2001.

When a funding squeeze plays out over the course of a decade and a half, other parts of the system feel the stress of those shifts.

The first and most significant impact has been on tuition fees. In a word, they have skyrocketed. The impact can be seen on two fronts. Student debt levels are now approaching $30,000, which is 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. Many of our local institutions now show tuition fees and other non-provincial grant revenues accounting for more than half of the total revenue for the institution.

Those kinds of shifts — the dramatic rise in tuition fees and the increasing reliance on other revenue sources — raise serious questions about access to post-secondary education. Is it becoming something affordable to fewer and fewer British Columbians? It also raises questions about the publicness of our institutions. If the province is contributing less than half the cost of post-secondary education at a public institution, is it truly public?

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 at managing the transition to a more knowledge-intensive 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, the knowledge and the learning opportunities we need to succeed economically.

As a legislative committee, we believe, 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. For example, successive rounds of tax cuts, starting in 2001, have not paid for themselves, as was asserted when they were put in place. Far from it. They have simply shifted costs onto citizens. And in the case of post-secondary education, those 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 our institutions has created a lot of collateral damage. The most significant of these has been the English language training programs. The very specific funding envelope that has suffered in this crunch has been provincially funded ESL programs. Although the Minister of Advanced Ed has tried to frame the problem as something that the federal government imposed, the reality is that other provinces across our country provide separate, provincially funded ESL over and above the basic ESL support provided by the federal government.

What's particularly frustrating about B.C.'s decision not to provide similar funding support for ESL is that
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the amount of funding needed is a relatively small number, compared to the $2 billion budget for the ministry. It's only about $22 million. That's what the B.C. government would need to set aside to maintain a provincially supported ESL program.

To try and deflect criticism about the cuts to ESL is a real slap in the face to the thousands of ESL students, many of whom have come to B.C. to provide the skills that we need as a province. If this committee could make one substantial recommendation to the Minister of Finance, it would be to restore provincially funded ESL in the 2015 budget.

Before I detail other recommendations that we want the committee to consider, I want to focus a few closing remarks on the government's announced plan to re-engineer post-secondary ed. The announcement was made several months ago, and as of yet we have not seen much in the way of detail exactly what this re-engineering will mean or look like.

That said, the announcement has some worrisome concepts embedded in it. The first is that the government wants to redirect 25 percent of the provincial operating grant from post-secondary institutions to fund high-demand career programs. As I noted earlier, provincial operating grants are already deficient, based on cost pressures and student enrolments, so changes to the operating grant will have negative impacts.

Then there's the concept of what gets counted in terms of high-demand careers. Engineers, geologists, actuaries, accountants, health care technicians — those would all fall into the category of high-demand careers. But how a student arrives at that credential can cover widely different paths. For example, will the ministry fund undergraduate liberal arts programs that a student takes on a route to one of those credentials? The answer at this point is silence from the ministry rather than a clearly articulated policy, and that is worrisome.

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 simply be 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 communications and critical thinking skills are embedded in a liberal arts education.

Moreover, a recent study of chief executives at Canada's biggest companies found that the traits their recruiters look for in the people they hire are things like strong communications, problem-solving, as well as people and analytical skills. However, if we follow the proposed re-engineering proposal, as it's been presented so far, funding for many of the liberal arts programs will be clawed back.

I'd like to talk in terms of specific priorities that we're looking at. The 2015 provincial budget needs to include the following.

(1) A direct and ongoing commitment of at least $20 million to support provincially funded ESL programs delivered by B.C.'s post-secondary institutions.

(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) Because 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 more timely way.

(4) Finally, the funding that post-secondary institutions receive needs to better respond to the cost pressures they face. Any proposal that alters 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 for the system as a whole are adequately addressed.

Thank you very much for your time, and I will take any questions if you have them.

M. Morris: I've heard a couple of times today and throughout the week here from different groups where you talk about the 20 percent reduction because of inflation and the numbers of students. I know what inflation is, but funding is on a per-capita basis. So the number of students has increased significantly, or how do you calculate that 20 percent reduction?

C. Oliver: If you look at per-student funding — and that's how you have to break down the operating grant — what the institution receives per student, that funding has dropped when you look at it in today's dollars. Yes, there are more students enrolled in our institutions, and those cost pressures are exhibited at the institutions when they have to make difficult decisions about programming, for instance.

M. Morris: Okay. Just second to that, you also talked about the access to public education as being compromised in British Columbia because of the lack of funding. We've got lots of students applying for the positions that we have, and we're providing a pretty good quality education to our post-secondary students. Somewhere in the equation, for me, it's not adding up right.

C. Oliver: Well, what you want to do is you don't want to have our institutions filled with only one economic group of students. We may have lots of students,
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but if you're looking at what their median income is, the median income of their families, it's rising. You want to provide those opportunities for absolutely everybody in the province. To shut out a group of people who can't get their education because they can't afford it is wrong.

We also see that students…. Not only the debt load — that's one thing I mentioned — but the other thing is they're taking much longer because they have to work so much more. To have someone complete a degree…. When I went to university, way back then, I could get my degree in the allotted time there was. Now students are taking six years, seven years sometimes, because they can only take a few courses per semester because they have to work so much. There is that disadvantage, I think, that is a direct result of the underfunding.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation. I'm just curious, to further clarify the issue of the decreasing funding per capita, if I'd be correct in assuming that post-secondary institutions experienced the same change in the funding formula as K to 12 did, where at one point the capital infrastructure funding was separate from per-student funding, and now it's rolled in.

C. Oliver: Capital funding is a separate budget. The institutions can't access it for other things. They keep it in a separate fund, and it's to be used only for buildings, infrastructure projects. What's happening is that there are great needs when it comes to programming. And there are institutions…. Northwest Community College serves a huge aboriginal community, for instance, in a very large geographic area, and they can't use that money to provide funding. You can build buildings, but you can't put people in them. That doesn't actually make any sense to me.

Cindy, just a quick question from myself. Accessibility has been brought up with other presenters that we've had. You know, society today is seven days a week. I mean, we all wish for the Monday-to-Friday job. Are institutions and the faculties that you represent willing for Sundays, evenings? I know some do, but are there opportunities to expand the horizons of the time allotments allowed for students?

C. Oliver: There are always opportunities to expand. There are lots of our courses right now…. Lots of our members are teaching on-line courses. They're teaching in non-traditional areas, non-traditional roles. There are sometimes practicums — for example, in the medical fields — that are done on Saturdays and other times. Those things can be worked out. I don't think that's an issue at all.

The institutions themselves. The grant system is squeezing them enough so that they can't afford to put on programs. We've got wait-lists in trades, for instance. I mean, trades are big right now. We've got lots of people retiring, people of the baby boomer generation who went through trades training and successfully working. They're retiring. Every year there are huge numbers of those jobs going vacant.

We've seen the uptick in temporary foreign workers to fill those spots. I mean, those kinds of things should be filled by our own residents. We've got to get people trained. But when you have a two-year wait-list for nursing, when you have a several-semester wait-list for welding, that doesn't make sense.

We should be able to put on those programs in those areas that students are willing to come in. They are certainly areas that are needed in our province. Those are skills that are needed in our province.

D. Ashton (Chair): I concur. But it's not like flicking the light switch. You know way better than me, but a few years ago you didn't have two-year waiting lists for nurses and didn't have two-year waiting lists…. The college in the town that I'm from didn't have those waiting lists. It's trying to catch up to those cycles.

C. Oliver: Sure. There are always cycles. But that's why a long-term plan, I think, is really necessary. We're going to re-engineer post-secondary. Well, that's interesting. But how, why? Where's the science behind it? Do you know what I mean?

Those things have to be well-thought-out. You need a long-term plan, not just: "Okay, we've got a couple of years here. We'll do this." Those projections need to be made well in advance and planned for, as you just said.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Do we have a copy of your presentation?

D. Ashton (Chair): October 17 is the cut-off date. Thank you for coming today. George, thank you also.

Next up we have iTendr, Patrick Malone. Good afternoon, Patrick. How are you doing? Ten minutes for your presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning before and up to five minutes for questions and comments. Please go ahead.

P. Malone: Thank you very much. My name is Patrick Malone. I am the founder and CEO of iTendr. We are proud to be a B.C.-based tech start-up that is two years old, cash flow positive and operating in Vancouver, Toronto and Hong Kong.

ITendr is an efficiency tool in the form of an iPhone app for office administrators who arrange meetings for colleagues and clients. Similar to existing services like
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Expedia or Hotels.com, iTendr is free for bookers to use. It's important that's understood because that means that no RFP is required for government adoption of tech start-up products and services like iTendr.

My goal here today in a brief description of iTendr is to broaden your field of vision about what B.C.-based tech products and services can be adopted by the government of British Columbia and the triple-bottom-line benefits that we can derive from that.

ITendr is a marketplace that allows for people to quickly source venues for meetings and meals. We added a feature where the booker can prioritize locally owned venues. It's a feature that has been well picked up by our private sector clients — Accenture, Morgan Stanley and certainly Vancity.

If the Clark government is to be believed in their intention to direct 20 percent of procurement spending to B.C. businesses, iTendr is the power tool that can get this job done. We're well aware that the money spent on meetings and meals amounts to little more than a rounding error in your budget. But we have the technology to make marketplaces for a variety of services that can expedite the tendering process — hence the name iTendr.

Jurisdictions like Ontario, with an aggressive buy-Ontario project, are using what's politely called workarounds on behalf of their business community to ensure that the tendering of government spending is prioritized to their business community. iTendr can do the same thing as well. It can work under the threshold of $75,000 that kicks in our internal domestic trade agreements, as well as international.

Having said that, it's important to understand that the adoption and field testing of B.C.-based tech start-ups does have a triple-bottom-line effect. We've seen, in the past few years, B.C.-based tech start-ups go from a handful of founders to employing hundreds. That's not something you see in every industry. While I'm happy to see MLAs shill for craft beer, I wonder where our advocates are. Hootsuite, Avigilon and Global Relay have all gone from a handful of people — men and women — to, as I said, employing hundreds.

I don't come to you today seeking advocacy for the adoption of tech start-up products and services because of my skin in the game or that the tech talent are my chums. This is a real road to sustainable economic development, an accelerated jobs growth plan. What you're giving to these tech start-ups by adoption is first-mover advantage.

When the city of Vancouver's protocol officer adopted iTendr, he said: "Patrick, we can only use this once or twice a month." I assured him that we are not looking for any single user to do heavy lifting. Rather, the cumulative effect of a thousand points of light makes a very robust marketplace.

I assured him, as well, that we weren't going to run around town and boast that the city of Vancouver was our client. We're going to run around the world. From Berlin to Beijing we're going to boast that the city of Vancouver is our client. It looks good on us, and it looks good on them too.

Please rest assured that the tech start-up community is not asking a lot from you. The market is niche players like us, asking to rewire your hardware. And please don't think that the little that you might be able to contribute from your different ministries, agencies and Crown corporations by adopting and field testing the products and services of B.C. tech start-ups is insignificant. It's not. The engagement with a marquee client like a provincial government can do wonders to leapfrog small tech start-ups well ahead of their peers.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for a communication I received from you previously, which gave me a chance to think about what you might be presenting to us today.

I have two questions. One of them is: what do you see as or have you been told are some of the obstacles or sources of reluctance for government to engage with iTendr specifically? Are you aware of other B.C. tech start-ups which have hit the same — I don't mean to put words in your mouth — wall, perhaps, in terms of government procurement?

P. Malone: We first went to the Ministry of Technology and, by extension, BCIC, asking for advocacy and adoption. Both of them hold meetings and make reservations. The initial thought was that an RFP would have to be processed to adopt our service. Our service is free, as are existing services. That misconception needs to be eliminated, and that is in real part why I'm here today — so that people can understand.

The marketplace today is niche markets. We come into the market because the financial barrier to entry has been so dramatically reduced that we can make a taxi app or an Airbnb app or something that works for government at a very low dollar. So we can bring it to market quicker.

We've gone to a number of government departments, and there's an innocent apprehension about candour about meetings and meals. It is not uncommon for anomalies in dining expenses, in expenses in general, to be a hot-button item, so we're sensitive to that.

We do regret that we don't get the amount of internal advocacy, particularly from the CEO of BCIC, that I think is merited. At the federal level they have a program called Build in Canada quarterbacked by Tara Hartley, and her job is to advocate for businesses, many of them tech start-ups within the federal government. There's a paucity of that at the provincial level.
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Thank you very much. Is iTendr the quickest way to get to it to have a look at it?

Wonderful. Thanks, folks, for coming. Ten minutes for the presentation, and I'll give you a two-minute warning. Up to five minutes for questions and comments. Please go ahead.

A. MacCallum: Thank you for inviting us. We're here from ISAAC Canada, and we're here to address the issue of maintaining access to B.C.'s speech-generating device program. Jeff Riley is the president of ISAAC, and I am the B.C. representative of ISAAC Canada. I'll explain what ISAAC is in a minute. Just to tell you, we each have about 30 years' experience in this field in B.C.

Just a few terms of reference before I begin. Augmentative and alternative communication is communication used by people who can't use their speech to communicate — for example, the famous physicist Stephen Hawking. People who can't use their speech to communicate might use a speech-generating device. That is a device that uses text or symbols with some speech output.

What is the incidence of this population? In any given population, generally about 0.012 percent of the population may not be able to use speech to communicate. In British Columbia that translates into 4,500 people, approximately.

Now, just about ISAAC Canada. There's a brochure in your package that describes it. It's an organization that advocates on behalf of people who can't use their speech to communicate, and it advocates to encourage the development of services and funding to support the communication needs of people with severe communication disabilities.

Now to the issue that brings us here today. There is a tremendous impact and cost of a severe communication disability on individuals and their families, both in terms of economics and in social isolation. For society, the costs in terms of loss of investment in those individuals in terms of productivity and human potential are also very great. People who cannot communicate cannot engage in education or employment or volunteer work or, indeed, engage with their community. If they have a means to communicate, they are then empowered to engage in all of those areas.

ISAAC Canada is seeking a continued commitment from the government of B.C. to maintain funding for speech-generating devices so that we can ensure equitable and timely provision of speech-generating devices to people without the physical ability to use their speech to communicate.

J. Riley: I just wanted to give you a little bit of a background. The government of British Columbia and, certainly, organizations in British Columbia have been working very hard over a number of decades to ensure that for individuals who have severe communication disabilities, their needs are addressed and they are supported.

Since 1989 school-age children in B.C. who are unable to speak have received speech-generating devices and support through the Ministry of Education special education technology program.

Unfortunately, at age 19, after years of intensive work through all of the school system, the support provided by SET-BC ended with the public education mandate. Individuals had to return their speech-generating devices and technology to make their way as adults without the basic tools needed for functional communication.

Since 2005, ISAAC Canada and the B.C. government have successfully worked together to expand access to speech-generating devices and services. Until 2012, expanded access had been delivered through a series of one-time funding grants to operate Communication Assistance for Youth and Adults, CAYA. Before CAYA, adults requiring speech-generating devices had almost no access to speech-generating technology, nor the advantage of any integrated system of service. A few lucky individuals obtained access to extremely limited resources in the B.C. health system, but most adults lived in silence.

CAYA was originally created to address just the immediate speech-generating device needs of young adults aged 19 to 35. In 2010, at the explicit direction of Minister Rich Coleman, CAYA removed the cap on age eligibility and was mandated to provide services and technology to all eligible adults 19 years and older. Also in 2010, at the explicit direction of then Minister Rich Coleman, a detailed, three-year business plan was commissioned and delivered to the Ministry of Social Development, which was then subsequently accepted by the ministry.

In 2012 in the provincial budget the B.C. government established program funding in the amount of $5.7 million over three years, amounting to annual funding of about $1.9 million per year for fiscal 2012, 2013, 2014. On behalf of people who cannot speak, we at ISAAC Canada are extremely grateful for the stable funding that the government of British Columbia has provided. It has provided necessary but, unfortunately, not sufficient program funding, addressing a serious gap in human and health services in B.C.

Understanding that the need for speech-generating-device services exceeded available program funding, the B.C. government, in 2013, provided an additional
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$1.5 million of grant money to address the wait-list for speech-generating devices and services where wait-lists were extending beyond two years. You can imagine waiting two years to be able to communicate.

The additional funding has been structured across two fiscal years — fiscals 2013 and 2014 — to enable the engagement and setup of services to accommodate this increase in funding and technology. For your quick reference, we've provided you with a funding history, and you can read that at your leisure.

How does CAYA work? It's a model of service delivery that's a cooperative network of multi-agency, cross-provincial partnerships with health authorities, school districts, private partnerships. It operates a speech-generating-device loan bank and a technical support service in Vancouver. Service is delivered through eight clinical partnership teams across B.C., serving southern Vancouver Island; central and northern Vancouver Island; three teams to address the greater Vancouver–Fraser region; two teams to address the Okanagan-Kootenay-Interior; and another team to address the north.

It's a productive model and produces synergies that magnify the effectiveness of the funding and services well beyond the scope of any single entity. It's effectively partnered with all of these agencies to really extend and stretch those dollars to their maximum.

A. MacCallum: Who are the people who are using CAYA? As I previously mentioned, this is a very small population with a very great need. The people who have this type of communication disability come from a range of different kinds of disorders. Some are congenital — for example, autism, cerebral palsy — but many people have acquired conditions later in life, such as stroke, brain injury, multiple sclerosis.

Now, the experience and research from other jurisdictions suggests that only approximately 8 percent of the population who need speech-generating devices will access that service in any given year. We wouldn't expect B.C. to be any different in this way. So although there are 4,500 people in B.C. who may need a speech-generating device, in any given year we would only expect that 8 percent of that 4,500 would come forward to access the service. That would be approximately 360 people per year who would want a speech-generating device or the replacement of a device.

Indeed, as CAYA is entering its tenth year of service, we're seeing that the number of people coming forward and presenting for service is now approaching that presentation rate. We had 347 people in 2013-14, which is very close to that 8 percent of 360.

Now, we've included in your package the personal stories of some of the CAYA clients. We hope that you'll be able to read the stories and see what an incredible impact independent communication has made on their lives.

J. Riley: Now CAYA is supporting over 1,000 clients across British Columbia with speech-generating technology. As I mentioned, our productivity — we have stretched that productivity. We continue to hit 20 percent over the productivity targets. Indeed, the staff and management have been extremely sensitive about the two-year wait-list. Everything is done to triage the wait-lists so that individuals in the greatest need receive the services in a timely manner.

The numbers that we've provided to you…. We've provided to you, also, some information on demographics and wait-list comparative analysis. I want you to note that in addition to those individuals, we also provide services to people who, unfortunately, die. Those are not actually included in those statistics, but they do. I mean, we do provide services to individuals with degenerative conditions, and they do not survive.

In terms of the funding requirements, a business plan was submitted in 2010. We have a listing of what that detail is in the briefing note that we provided to you. Indeed, the briefing note suggests that…. Our research shows that an average cost of the device, with a mounting system and fully configured, is about $8,000. The services that go with that over the lifespan of the device — which lasts for approximately four years in daily use, eight to 12 hours a day — are about four years. In total, the total package, if the program were to provide services on an immediate-need basis, would be around $7 million per year.

Our request and recommendation to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services is that we understand that all aspects of health and human services are subject to wait times. We live in this society. We know very well, and we work in this system. Our request is that CAYA receive adequate funding to maintain wait times at a reasonable and manageable level below one year. In other words, we know people will have to wait — it's the fact that they would have to wait extraordinarily and the difficult decisions that we'd have to make to actually not provide people with the communication that they so require.

To accomplish this, and on behalf of all individuals requiring speech-generating technology, ISAAC Canada respectfully requests that the B.C. government continue to provide the necessary funding to the CAYA program in the amount of $4 million per year to ensure that all adults without functional speech will be able to receive the skilled assistance that they so require in a timely manner, regardless of where they live.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I have one of those extraordinary young people in my constituency — Melanie, who spoke out very clearly,
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very strongly, about her need for this device.

I wondered…. You mentioned the wait-list, and I appreciate that you've come forward with something that's practical and has an ability to be implemented. You said this would keep a wait time under a year, if it was implemented. Does this also include, then, the cost of the replacement or the cost of people aging out at 19? Because I think you raised a really important point — certainly, I saw it — with individuals who have had the device the entire time and then all of a sudden lose it simply because of their birth date, no other reason.

J. Riley: Absolutely. The funding actually includes funding for all adults 19 and over who require this technology. In terms of priority, individuals who are in…. Just because there's a wait-list doesn't mean that you…. It's not first come, first served.

Services are delivered on a triage and a priority basis. If you are in transition — in other words, if you are leaving school, if you are entering school, if you are going to lose your place of employment or your residence, or you're changing your residence, or unfortunately, if you are dying — you will be seen much sooner. You will be seen as soon as possible.

What that means is that if you don't have as urgent a situation, but you are, indeed, still someone who needs a communication device, you will wait. That's where you can end up waiting a very long time if there are not enough resources to at least include those people who are waiting.

M. Morris: Just a bit of clarity. It's sort of along the lines of Carole's question as well.

You're saying $8,000 for a device, with a lifespan of four years for that device, plus there are annual upkeep costs every year on them. What happens after four years? You've got a budget. Now we're looking at another $8,000 for another new device every four years, so that's built into your budget that you've presented?

J. Riley: It is. It's built in so that the replacement of that is…. That's why the funding is $8,000, then times three, for that. There are services involved in that. I mean, these are very gross calculations that we use, but that's what the research shows and, indeed, that's what our experience shows.

It's $8,000 for a device, but actually it's the double of that for the services that would be required to assess that person, train them, implement it and then replace it at a future date and do the support that's required with it. So far, that has been borne out.

Inclusion British Columbia — we have Annette, Faith and Sky. Come on forward. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming today. We have a ten-minute window for presentations and a five-minute window for questioning. I'll give you a two-minute warning if I think you're going to be going into that. Please start.

F. Bodnar: Thank you. We appreciate being here, and we're going to cover four areas, including K-to-12 education, persons-with-disabilities benefits, supported child development, and transitions to adulthood. That's a pretty broad coverage for ten minutes, but we're going to be really brief. We have recommendations for you, and we will also be following up with a detailed brief in the next few weeks.

I guess the broadness of these areas reflects that Inclusion B.C. advances the rights of children and youth with special needs, adults with developmental disabilities and their families throughout the lifespan. There are about 50,000 people with developmental disabilities in B.C. and about half a million people Canada-wide.

Inclusion B.C. changed our name a few years ago. We used to be called B.C. Association for Community Living. We are a grass-roots federation led by families, individuals with developmental disabilities and the community-based organizations that serve them. We are the largest social-serving sector in B.C. as a collective and a united group.

In 2015 we are celebrating 60 years of building strong, vibrant and diverse communities in B.C., Canada and around the world. We are a federation. Our grass roots tell Inclusion B.C. what we need to do. We in turn feed into the Canadian Association for Community Living and also Inclusion International. It's a unique organization built by families in the mid-1950s.

I'm going to talk a little bit about education. I think it's pretty good timing today to be talking about education. I want to congratulate the government and everybody who worked so hard to get an agreement so that kids can be back in school next week. I think we have a few people here who are probably going: "Phew."

I really want to say that we did a lot of advocacy over the course of the strike, always bearing in mind that this was about children and families and that the issues between teachers and the government are things that they can sort out. We wanted to bring a really strong focus.

Research has shown time and time again — including in our province, with Simon Fraser University — that
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everyone benefits from inclusive classrooms. Despite these findings, there are students across B.C. whose needs are not being met in the school system. Many families default to the private education system when the public education system doesn't meet their children's needs.

Funding must be allocated to support the right of all students with special needs to be included in their neighbourhood schools, in their classrooms with their age peers. For kindergarten to grade 12, the recommendations are that we need better identification and assessment support services and a corresponding ability for a school district to have the fiscal means to respond in the unique ways that students need.

For example, support to classroom teachers must be available so that they can make adaptations and modifications for students. There is a need for additional staffing, ancillary educational assistance and collaborative specialists to meet the needs of students with special needs.

Although student numbers have been steadily declining since 2001, resources and support services to the classrooms in many school districts have been decimated, and there is a struggle to find services. Funding must reflect the real costs and the growing costs of meeting the needs of all students. We need an increase in the resources to school districts which allow for additional in-classroom support by qualified resource teachers and other specialist positions according to applicable student ratios.

I'd like to talk a little bit about student ratios. The number of students with special needs has remained at 10 percent since 2001. There has been no increase in the percentage of students with special needs since 2001. There are about 60,000 students with special needs in the province of B.C., 25,000 of whom would be eligible for additional supports.

We're not talking about a huge number of students here, but I think what we are wanting to bring to your attention is that this is the bellwether for our educational system. We don't believe that the strike was a result of the unique needs of students with special needs. It's about a crisis in our education system.

We're also calling for increased staff training to optimize classroom learning experiences for all children within the regular system. The crisis in our education system is resulting from defunding, not a crisis in the special education system. It's a loss of support and expertise. The potential of students is critical. We must address these issues if we want to ensure the overall well-being and growth of B.C. fiscally and socially. We must reinvest and rebuild in our education system. What we don't do today we will pay for exponentially in 12 years.

S. Hendsbee: My name is Sky Hendsbee. I'm a self-advocate, and I'm part of the Inclusion B.C. board of directors.

We're recommending the increase of PWD rate to a minimum of $1,200 per month to reflect the cost of living in B.C. Since 2001 the PWD benefits have gone up only $120. Over the last 13 years the cost of basic living has gone up over 18 percent. The cost of food alone has gone up 25 percent.

This dispute that raising the cost of living in B.C…. Our PWD rate is the sixth-lowest in Canada. This makes a difference for people with disabilities to live with dignity and with the support they need to be part of their communities.

In June the province of B.C. released a report Accessibility 2024. The government promised it would consider disability assistance being raised as the financial situation allows. When talking to the media, Premier Christy Clark says we should, when we can afford it, raise the rates of people who live on disability. We argued that the rate increase cannot wait until 2024.

I would like to give you a report called Overdue — the case for the increase of PWD benefits. The Disability Without Poverty Network promotes an increase to the PWD rate, a minimum of $1,200 per month to better reflect the actual cost of living in B.C. and to bring the rate in line with other groups such as seniors.

Please recognize the daily struggles faced by people living on disability assistance. Please see the hard choice we face between rent and food.

A. Delaplace: I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about early intervention supports and services for children and youth with special needs. The purpose of early intervention is to identify children with special needs as early as possible and to provide them with the supports and services they need to meet their physical growth and their social, emotional and intellectual developmental needs.

Some of the early intervention services provided by the government include the infant development program, which serves children from birth to three years of age who are at risk for or who already have a delay in development, and the supported child development program, which provides a range of consulting and support services to children, families and child care centres so that children with extra support needs can participate in fully inclusive child care settings.

I don't know if I can really explain to you how important these supports have been to our daughter and our family. The support and information we have received, the skills both our family and caregivers have learned and the understanding we have developed created a foundation — or a framework, if you will — for our daughter's life.

They've meant improved health and learning outcomes and a very good life in community. I also think what is
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so important here is that these programs did not only make it possible for our daughter to experience better outcomes, but they also developed the capacity of caregivers and child care centres.

It is this building of capacity and knowledge that grows with each child supported and that makes inclusion ever more successful. It impacts daycares, it impacts communities, and it impacts children and families. When these services are in place and are timely and well-funded, they work so very, very well for our children and our families. But there are many families across this province who are on wait-lists for these services.

Many children across this province are aging out of the supports before they are able to receive the help that they need. When supports and services are timely and well funded, it takes a system from being one that has to react to crisis — and there is nothing more expensive than crisis — into a system that is sustainable and one that has enormous lifelong impact for our children and ensures stability for our families.

I'd like to fast-forward for just a moment and mention Community Living B.C.'s community action employment plan. I had the pleasure of attending the CLBC employment summit in October 2012. What an amazing two days. Self-advocates who are already employed were there paving the way for others, sharing how their lives have changed: more independence, more confidence, and they're bringing home a paycheque. Employment is going to play such an important part of the future, not just for the individuals that are employed but also because of the experience, the understanding and the great employees that employers gain.

Where does the success of an initiative like this begin? I'd like to suggest it begins with early intervention. If we really make sure that our children are given the best opportunities possible right from the beginning, it can make the greatest difference for their early years in how they can succeed in school and how they can gain even greater benefits from support and education right through to getting a job and enjoying great lives in community.

Thank you again for the opportunity to present today. We believe that a system of supports which are timely and well funded have real personal and economic benefits not just for our children and families but also for the province. We look forward to working with you to create these possibilities.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, all of you, for the presentation. I think you've identified some very important areas to take a look at, everything from early intervention to ongoing support for individuals to adults with developmental disabilities.

I wondered. One of the areas that has been a real challenge — you know better than anybody — is the issue of transition: turning 19, moving from one ministry to the next, trying to get the supports. Could you talk just a little bit about whether you've seen improvements in that area, whether there are still big gaps and big challenges?

F. Bodnar: I think there have been improvements. Certainly, the Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation received a substantial lift in this past year's budget, but there still remains a considerable wait-list. Until we have those increases annualized, we won't make a dent in the wait-list.

We estimate — and I think it's borne out in the service plan of CLBC — that between 500 and 600 people come forward every year needing service. Of that group, about 150 receive service. It isn't that people are looking to go from school to a group home. What they're looking for are some supports. Families want to care for their sons and daughters and step up to the plate over and over again.

Right now the only thing an individual qualifies for is about $2,800 a year at the age of 19. That's not going to get you work. That's not going to get you post-secondary education. That's going to get you about three weekends of respite, is what it's going to do. There needs to be a more holistic approach and a recognition — this is in my opinion and the opinion of Inclusion B.C. — that this is a human right and that we need to support people and accommodate their disability.

Thank you very much, Faith, Annette, Sky, for your presentation today. Have a good day. See you in a bit. Thanks again for coming in.

Next up we have Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. We're jumping ahead because one party hasn't shown up yet.

Please come forward. Wendy, we have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning and then five minutes for questions, if so required.

W. Pattenden: Well, first, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here today. My name is Wendy Pattenden, and I am the CEO of the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. I have personally seen the benefits of sport throughout the numerous roles that I have played within the sector. I was a professional tennis player. Then I was the Olympic coach for tennis. Now I'm a sport administrator with the institute. As well, I've been a parent of three high-performance athletes. Certainly, I've seen the sector from all sides.

The institute is a not-for-profit organization operating in British Columbia with the mandate to deliver on sport
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excellence policies of the government of Canada as well as the province of B.C. We work to ensure that athletes and coaches have every advantage to compete on the world stage and win medals for Canada. If you think of us as the pit crew, we're the team behind the team. Our staff provides world-class performance services ranging from sport science and sport innovation to life and career guidance for athletes and coaches.

I would like to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to present today, but as well for your continued support of sport in British Columbia. This government's commitment to sport has helped our athletes and coaches inspire a continued culture of excellence in this province.

British Columbia was very well represented on the Sochi team that represented Canada. Just to give you a perspective on that, in Sochi, on the Olympic team, British Columbia accounted for 19 percent of the team, and on the Paralympic side, 24 percent of the team.

Those sound great, I know, but what's even better is our contribution to the medal count, which was much higher. On the Olympic side, 32 percent of Canada's medals were won by B.C. athletes living and training here in British Columbia. On the Paralympic side, it was 44 percent. If you compare that to our population base of approximately 13 percent, we are punching well above our weight in terms of performance. This province has a lot to be proud of for those results.

The medals earned at these games, we believe, showcase sport as a vehicle for health and success, and that has a trickle-down effect to the grassroots. Since last year, sport delivery in B.C. continues to become more coordinated and effective, with stronger connections being made with residents in every region of this province.

Led by ViaSport, the sport sector is now being driven by a three-year strategic plan with four new pillars. The first pillar is encouraging sport for life at all ages and abilities. Engaging British Columbians across both urban and rural communities is very important, as well as leveraging new and existing partnerships — right? A lot of what I do — actually, I think everything I do — is done in partnership. As well, we're working hard, together with ViaSport, to build a strong and sustainable sector.

Provincial, regional and local organizations are working together to develop a baseline to measure the true impact that sport in our province has, with the collective goal of increasing awareness and participation in sport across the province in every community.

Over the past three years our institute has worked hard to meet the facility and staffing needs required to provide B.C.-based athletes and coaches with what we call a better-than-world-class daily training environment. Our focus has now turned to the area of innovation and research.

As well, we work with our sport partners to develop that next generation of athletes. It's very clear, in terms of the work I do with Own the Podium, that the way we group athletes is zero to four, which means you're four years out from the next Olympics; and then five to eight years out; and nine to 12, which is really where the provincial investment comes in. Think of it as a pipeline.

In order to gain that true competitive advantage, we need this coordinated approach to innovation and research. We have just now hired a new lead at my institute, Dr. Trent Stellingwerff, who has done a fantastic job. He has been in the position for one year, and already we're leading the way across the country.

To give you an example of some of the types of projects we do, Dr. Trent Stellingwerff has now joined forces with Dr. Marc Klimstra and a new University of Victoria PhD student named Matt Jensen.

The type of project, breaking new ground, is using a multidisciplinary approach to sport science, where they're taking Trent's nutritional expertise and Dr. Klimstra's expertise in biomechanics. What we've done is actually customized a bike. It's a test — it's one of a kind, customized — during which biomechanics and nutrition are assessed at the same time. Having one study assessing these two different aspects of performance is truly groundbreaking.

Matt Jensen, the PhD student, was nationally recognized last year by Own the Podium at the SPIN Summit. He won the Dr. Gord Sleivert Young Investigator science award. We're very proud of that.

This new study that we're doing has garnered great interest from Cycling Canada, specifically with the BMX discipline, where their top athletes are now coming in on this customized bike to do this test so that we can actually see, like I say, the biomechanics and the nutritional aspects.

I think you can appreciate that winning medals for Canada is a tough business. It's a global business. These are the types of innovations in applied science that we need to continue to do to stay at the forefront.

Also, I mentioned earlier that we leveraged dollars, investing into the system. That has been a major focus of mine as the CEO. At our institute we leverage approximately two times the provincial investment that's provided to us with our federal partners, the federal government, Own the Podium and Sport Canada.

As well, I'm working hard with the private sector to bring them into the game and support…. Like I said, every dollar invested with us is doubled, tripled, quadrupled, whether it's the private sector or other government agencies.

We're also very proud and excited about the work we're doing with the talent development area and planning for the future to develop athletes who will represent Canada in 2020 and beyond. We have great partnerships with our national sport partners as well as the provincial partners.

An area we're very involved in is talent identification
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and talent transfer. I'm not sure if many of you have heard of our Podium Search program. I know that we've got advertising out right now. We're running it this Saturday in Whistler. We've been running it for three years, but that's really where we're looking at talent transfer.

It's an open call to anyone. You have to be a certain age, so I will be honest. You can't come into it, nor can I. It's for youngsters — sort of that 17 to 22 — to come in. We'll do a bunch of testing on them to see physiologically which sport they're most inclined to be in. We've had some great success with that.

I know in my tennis background, in talent ID, one of the number one factors we've found was actually the parent influence. Kids were in sports because of what their parents loved, not necessarily what they were physiologically adapted to be. So Podium Search.

I have a great example of Lorne Pearson, who was a wheelchair basketball athlete here in British Columbia, who was asked to go train back east for wheelchair basketball. He really wanted to stay here. He went into Podium Search in May of 2013 and was identified off the charts for rowing. Now he's in the rowing para program out of Victoria, very successful, and will be a medal threat for para-rowing in Rio.

The idea of watching B.C. athletes compete and step onto the podium at major games is something we know inspires young people to pursue their own pathway to excellence.

As a result, we are helping up-and-coming athletes become complete champions through our IGNITE athlete development program as well as our Canadian sport school here in British Columbia, which is run through four locations — Kelowna, Victoria, Prince George and Fort St. John. This program is intended to introduce athletes to a high-performance daily training environment while balancing their academic needs.

British Columbia is a leader in Canada when it comes to recognizing the power of sport and investing in a culture of excellence. Thank you for your continued support for sport. Together we will help athletes win medals for Canada, inspire our citizens to use sport as a vehicle for health and excellence in their lives, and build vibrant communities from the ground up through sport for life.

S. Gibson: Two quick questions. Thank you. I believe you presented in Victoria, so it's nice to see you again, Wendy.

What's your tie-in with the B.C. Winter and Summer Games? What's your synergism with those two operations?

W. Pattenden: Very close. They're partners of ours within this sector. That would be what I referred to as the pipeline, right? That's the first multi-sport games a young athlete will be introduced to here in British Columbia. I know I was in Nanaimo at the games. Those are very important games. It's the entry level of the high-performance system for us.

S. Gibson: My second question is…. You alluded to it, and I agreed with your comment about the parents. The number one indicator of success in school, just pure academics, is parental interest. I think you alluded to that.

But what about the student that has athletic abilities, but because they don't have the motivation — the parents perhaps are non-participating…? Maybe there's some level of disconnectedness with their parents. They've got all this latent talent. How do you access those students that otherwise would slip through the cracks because of the lack of parental interest?

W. Pattenden: Well, there are a couple of ways. Within the system there's the sports school system, which will introduce sport at an early age quite successfully to kids, or the club system, right? They're sort of parallel roads. There are lots of avenues. B.C. parks and recreation. All the rec centres have those types of programs. Certainly, we're well-connected with coaches around the province. I have no doubt that if there's talent out there, we will find it. We're looking hard for that and, like I say, we have an open environment encouraging that.

But you're right. At the earlier ages we really promote multilateral development, being involved in many sports, lots of sports, have fun. There's only a certain age later where they start to specialize, and that balance is important. Trust me. I've been through it as a parent and as an athlete.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Wendy, for your presentation. It actually follows well on the conversation you just had. I wanted to talk a little bit…. You mentioned your four pillars that you're looking at, one of those being Sports for Life. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that early development. We've talked a lot about the kind of elite athlete and the importance of that. I'm not taking away from that, but I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what you do around that Sports for Life.

W. Pattenden: Yes. So the four pillars are led by ViaSport, which was a partner of ours. The institute — we are specialized in high-performance sport; however, like I say we support that end of the continuum.

We're very fortunate in Canada to have the Sport for Life model, which does articulate the various stages and ages for development. That's absolutely crucial. We
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need to have healthy young and old — right? — British Columbians, and like I said, I feel the athletes inspire more people to become active.

M. Morris: Good presentation. We have the Canada Winter Games coming up in my town, Prince George, which is part of what you folks are involved in.

There's been a lot of work. The province has invested $11 million into that so far, and we see a lot of benefits coming out of that down the road.

One of the benefits that I see is with our Nordic skiing centre and your Canadian sport school — with the Northern Sport Centre and whatnot that we have there — is opportunities for other countries to come to Canada to train their high-performance athletes in some of the facilities that we left behind.

How much work do you do in advocating that to the other countries — saying "Come on over to Prince George" or "Come to Canada and train your athletes here"?

W. Pattenden: It's funny. That's a timely question, because I'm just going through that with Whistler with some of our legacy facilities there from Vancouver.

Quite a bit. More than you would think. But we're very strategic which countries that we have that conversation with. Like I say, it's got to be a two-way street. We'll help them while they're here; vice versa, when we're in their country, we expect the same environment to train, right?

So it's a partnership. We always check with the national body: what's the relationship like with that sport? If you need to be on our sliding centre here — in another country; Salt Lake, let's say — we want to be on the sliding…. It's a cooperative, collaborative approach. Often you do those strategic alliances where there's no threat, if that makes sense — where we're strong and where they're weak, and vice versa.

Then other times you invite strength to strength. Like in our gym in Whistler — if say, Nordic — we'll bring in Norway so that our athletes can benefit from world-class.

It's very strategic. And we're good partners. You know Canadians. Everyone loves us.

D. Ashton (Chair): Good. Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming forward today — appreciate it. Ten minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Nice to see you again.

D. Wright: Thanks very much for the invitation to represent credit unions of British Columbia. I'm Don Wright, the president of Central 1 Credit Union, and I'm accompanied by the much more famous Helmut Pastrick, our chief economist.

Helmut and I are here representing Central 1 as the central financial facility and trade association for British Columbia's 43 credit unions, as well as our member credit unions in Ontario.

I'd like to begin my remarks by telling you a bit of a story. A few years ago a Vancouver Island drywall and painting company approached their financial institution with exciting new growth prospects. Unfortunately, their bank opposed their targets.

So frustrated and stagnating, they approached their local credit union — Coastal Community Credit Union. Coastal Community saw their potential, and because of their belief in supporting local businesses, they built a relationship with them and grew the company's loan portfolio. They expanded and created more jobs for Islanders.

Then when the Island was faced with a building slump, Coastal Community helped them to expand their operations into Alberta, and as a result, out-of-province earnings were able to return to the Island and to the local economy.

Now, that's just one little story. I could tell you hundreds of stories like that from credit unions all across British Columbia. It's not a new business model for us.

As I'm sure many of you know, during the Great Depression in the 1930s credit unions were the only financial services provided for many of our communities. Credit unions saw then and still see now the importance of providing services to all of B.C.

The economic crisis of 2008 was no different. We're here to stay because we believe in the value of customer-owned financial institutions that put the prosperity of their owners first.

I want to be clear about how we do this differently than a bank. One in three of you and your fellow British Columbians are our owners and shareholders. Our dividends are paid to you and your neighbours, not to investors from outside the province. In fact, over the past five years B.C. credit unions have returned to members an average of $36 million annually in dividends and patronage refunds. We also make charitable and community donations. In 2013 those totalled $19 million.

Credit unions themselves are B.C.-based employers that provide direct, high-paying jobs in urban and remote communities across the province. We estimate that in 2013, B.C. credit unions in Central 1 together
[ Page 898 ]
accounted for $804 million in value-added income and $1.58 billion in salaries and benefits. Many of the 17,000-plus jobs are high-paying, head-office jobs that you'd be more likely to find in Toronto.

Underlying this is one basic fact: B.C. credit unions aren't going anywhere. Much more than any other financial institution, credit unions are committed to the local prosperity of the communities that are our homes and to the British Columbians that own us. You will never see a headline about a credit union moving its operations offshore to take advantage of cheaper labour.

I'd now like to invite Helmut to provide you with an update on the economic outlook for the province, which we also have in a handout.

H. Pastrick: Good afternoon. You have in front of you my economic forecast for the next five years. In general, B.C.'s economy will experience a moderate growth phase that will continue and, ultimately, gain momentum when external factors begin to turn more positive. A more robust U.S. economy, a lower Canadian dollar and greater export penetration into Asian markets will be critical for this improved performance.

Consumer spending will gain some momentum during the forecast period once we see higher and faster employment and wage gains. The housing market is expected to generally hold up and move somewhat higher over the next five years. The jobless rate, however, will remain around 6 percent but later fall below 5 percent, not only in conjunction with faster employment growth but also slower labour force growth.

Interprovincial migration will begin to turn positive as the economy strengthens. By the way, there have been some signs of that already. The longer-term forecast, through '18 and even 2019, is really contingent on LNG projects and major infrastructure investments among new mines, and we've incorporated that into our forecast. I should add that our next update will probably cut back on that view somewhat.

In general, the credit union system will continue to play an important role in driving economic growth in B.C. We estimate that the system produced approximately $1.2 billion in current-dollar GDP in 2013. That's from income, direct spending on salaries and benefits and on capital assets. Direct spending and employment, in turn, are then multiplied through the broader economy through spinoffs on additional spending and employment, resulting in an estimated total impact of $2.4 billion in 2013.

Credit unions also provide competition to banks, which leads to superior resource allocation, more economic output, lower prices, enhanced product innovation and better customer service. As of December 31, 2013, B.C. credit unions have $50.9 billion invested in mortgages and loans to households and businesses, representing a 16.3 percent market share.

The 2014 provincial budget called for the Income Tax Act to be amended to phase out, over five years, the provincial preferential income tax treatment for credit unions. This change will cause the estimated effective tax rate on credit unions in B.C. to rise from 16.5 percent in 2013 to 22.6 percent in 2020, which at that time will exceed the estimated effective tax rate paid by banks in Canada.

This higher tax rate will directly impact not only jobs, dividends, patronage refunds and community donations; it will also adversely impact the ability of credit unions to finance households and businesses in B.C.

By making the temporary deferral of the tax increase permanent, the government can avoid an estimated $395 million annual decrease in loans to households and businesses provincewide.

For example, Integris Credit Union is currently financing four major commercial projects in Prince George, Fort St. John and the surrounding communities. Lending is capital-intensive, and because the capital structure of credit unions is comprised principally of retained earnings, the tax increase will have a direct impact on whether or not projects such as that are financed.

All other things being equal, we estimate that Integris would have $5.5 million less to lend as a direct result of the increase in the tax rate. In B.C.'s north this could mean approximately 16 million fewer dollars available to finance job creating projects, student loans and home mortgages.

D. Wright: While ensuring that the temporary deferral of the higher tax rate is made permanent is our first priority, I'd also like to briefly touch on one other important issue for our credit unions.

This year we are expecting the Minister of Finance to initiate the review of our governing legislation, the Financial Institutions Act and the Credit Union Incorporation Act. We've already started the process of reviewing and analyzing the statutes for areas that need to be modernized or improved so that we can continue to help our members meet their financial objectives effectively and competitively.

Credit unions firmly support a strong regulatory environment, and we look forward to participating in designing an optimal regulatory structure that supports financial soundness and overall competitiveness.

I'll just make one more note. The level of deposit insurance set by the government has a direct impact on the liquidity in capital-based credit unions because it affects the level of deposits we attract, particularly from municipalities, universities, school boards and hospitals. We look forward to active consultation on any discussions on the level of insurance, particularly given the importance of cross-border cooperation and the unquestionable impact any change would have on the provincial economy.

Mr. Chair, thank you for your attention and that of your colleagues.
[ Page 899 ]

S. Gibson: Don, thanks for bringing British Columbia's most famous economist with you today. I appreciate it.

My first car loan for this incredibly beautiful Pontiac Parisienne was with Saanich Peninsula Credit Union. I was so happy I went on to work for a credit union for eight years — good memories.

My question is…. You mentioned "We're not going anywhere," but I understand credit unions would like to have federal charters at some point. I understand there are some credit unions that kind of share services between two provinces. Even though they're separate, they share some staff already across boundaries. Can you comment on that, please?

D. Wright: Sure. The federal government has brought in legislation that allows credit unions to be federally regulated, as opposed to provincially regulated. To date none have done that. Some are looking at it, but you probably will have heard that Vancity, the largest one in the country, took a look at it and decided that no, it wanted to stay in B.C.

We believe that if they do go federal, they'll still perform essentially the same roles. In terms of cross-border cooperation, we currently, as Central 1, provide a lot of services for credit unions in other provinces. We're the national payments vehicle. We run all the on-line banking platforms for the credit unions across the country.

It's a good-news story in the sense that those are good jobs that are headquartered in Vancouver but based on serving all of Canada.

G. Holman: Thanks very much for your presentation, Don. I remember you from the days of economic development. I'm glad to see that your career took a proper turn. Mine kind of went in the wrong direction.

The increase in the effective tax rate. Maybe the dollar figure is here and I'm not understanding it, but what would be the increase in tax in absolute dollars per year, roughly?

H. Pastrick: Yeah, that's in the order of, if I recall correctly, about $40 million.

G. Holman: Yeah, I was wondering…. You're saying it would reduce loans by $400 million, which takes into account that sort of multiplier effect.

Just to play devil's advocate, though, you're saying that would reduce your ability to finance projects elsewhere. Would other financial institutions fill the gap?

D. Wright: To some extent they could. What I'd like to come back to is that in Prince George or Nanaimo or Terrace there's really only one institution that is committed to the local prosperity. That's not a knock on the banks. The big banks are doing what they're chartered to do, but when the economy turns down, it's sometimes easy for the banks to pull out and redeploy their funds elsewhere. Credit unions don't do that because they're really there to serve the community.

Helmut, you forecast kind of moderate growth in the real estate sector — a little decline in commercial but steady on the residential. That's, of course, of great interest to a lot of people. People see it as the foundation of a lot of our communities and economy.

Some have said that some markets in B.C. are a little exuberant. Have you any thoughts or any concerns in that regard? Secondly, related to the real estate market, what's your feeling on interest rates?

H. Pastrick: In general, certainly Vancouver-area prices are high, and they're quite unaffordable for many. However, my analysis concludes that it's really driven by fundamental factors, so the market is not in a bubble state or over exuberant. In fact, activity — housing sales, housing starts — are really, if you look on an historical perspective, at quite moderate levels and not anywhere near what I would consider boom activity levels.

Of course, in the future we do expect interest rates to rise. Obviously, the zero interest rates in the U.S. will not be a permanent condition. Rates will begin to rise probably in the U.S. sometime around mid-2015 — I'm referring to the U.S. Fed — and the Bank of Canada probably towards the end of 2015. I think the increase that the bank will engineer will be somewhat moderate. I don't see a rapid increase in rates.

The Canadian economy is in many ways similar to the B.C. economy. We really need that export engine to revive and kick into a higher gear, and that will have that positive effect on the domestic economy. Until that happens, we're going to be in that sort of modest-to-moderate-growth phase — 2 percent, 2½, that kind of thing.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation. I understand, I think, the government's rationale for eliminating preferential income tax treatment. I think, in its simplest form, they think that credit unions like Vancity are large enough and this will add to provincial revenue. I disagree, because unlike the chartered banks, the profits of credit unions do remain in the community and British Columbia and, because of that economic stimulus, result in increased taxes, I think, to the province. If you have studies that can demonstrate that, I think the committee would benefit from them.

I have two questions. Given all of that, I'm not clear why you get this perverse result that credit unions actually end up paying a higher tax rate in 2020 than the banks do.
[ Page 900 ]

My second question is on an entirely different subject. We've had many, many presentations from groups and people suggesting that upfront investment — whether it's in higher education, K-to-12 education, relieving poverty — actually will relieve cost to the taxpayer down the road by raising productivity and eliminating social supports that might otherwise be unnecessary. I'm wondering if Central Credit Union has done studies that could prove or disprove that, knows of studies that have been done or would be willing to undertake that kind of study. I think it would be very helpful.

H. Pastrick: On your first question, yes, we've done the analysis on tax rates, comparing credit unions to banks. We've examined their income statements, balance sheets, and we've projected ahead based on, of course, the current plan to raise the tax rates for credit unions federally and provincially. Certainly the banks…. The effective tax rate will always be somewhat lower than the statutory tax rate, for a number of reasons.

Based on the analysis we've done…. We've looked back on the history, projected forward their effective tax rate and ours as well. Given the increases that we see for credit unions, it ultimately results in a somewhat higher effective tax rate compared to banks by 2020. Now, there are assumptions behind the model, obviously. Numbers don't always tell the complete story. But based on the numbers that we analyzed and used to project ahead, that's the outcome.

When it comes to the studies on the impacts, as what you mentioned, of those social effects, we haven't done such a study. Your basic premises would be borne out by such a study, I suspect, but we haven't done such a study. As to whether we would want to participate, I'd have to engage others to make that decision.

D. Wright: To make one point on the tax side of things, I want to be fair to the provincial government. This move was initiated by the federal government to raise the rate of tax on credit unions. To Minister de Jong's credit, he actually postponed that in last year's budget, and we're appreciative of that. We think that the rationale for postponing it is also a rationale for making it permanent.

G. Heyman: Can I just clarify Mr. Pastrick's answer? When you were referring to the study, I referenced two possible studies. One was with respect to the tax rate for credit unions and whether that ultimately would result in fewer dollars flowing to the provincial government. The other one was on investment, essentially social investment, education investment, and whether that relieved greater expenditure down the line.

H. Pastrick: On your first one I think, ultimately, that would be the case — that to the extent that credit unions are less able to lend, then ultimately, that would lead to some negative impact there.

On the social one, the investment front, yes. I think they're similar. I can share this report where we arrived at that conclusion on the banks. I have it. I can share it with you as well.

D. Ashton (Chair): That would be great if you could. If you wouldn't mind, please, if you could forward that to us.

D. Ashton (Chair): Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. It's always fascinating to hear. We'll see you again shortly, I hope.

D. Ashton (Chair): We have allotted ten minutes for the presentation and five minutes for Q and A's. I'll give you a two-minute warning at eight minutes just to help you wrap up maybe, and we'll go from there. Thank you very much.

S. McDonald: Great, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity to be here today to speak to you about some issues to do with lung health. PowerPoint is my thing, and I've given you a PowerPoint presentation, sort of, but it'll just be my general guide for what I'm going to say.

I'll tell you a little bit about the Lung Association. You may know something, but I'll just tell you that we're one of the country's most senior non-profit organizations. We were formed at the turn of the previous century. We built Tranquille hospital. We were the society for the prevention of tuberculosis and other forms of consumption.

TB was a bad thing then. TB was the ebola of 1906. Actually, TB has been completely curable since the 1930s, but it'll kill more people in 2014 than in any other year in history. That happens in Third World countries, for the most part — not so much here in Canada. We have fairly low levels of TB, and that's largely because of the consistent oversight that public health authorities across the country, including the B.C. division of TB Control here, have over tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis comes in three forms. There's the old standard tuberculosis, there is a multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, and there's now the very scary extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis, which is incurable.
[ Page 901 ]

I know your role is to do some thinking about future investment in things for British Columbia. On the health front, we have to be vigilant about infectious disease in particular — in our case, about tuberculosis.

The Lung Association's vision is a world free of lung disease. Our mission is to improve the lung health of British Columbians, and our focus is on lung disease. We're made up of hundreds of volunteers around the province, virtually every community in the province. We have thousands of participants in our events. We have a medical advisory committee of scientists and clinicians that advise us on issues.

We finance our work entirely through fundraising. We do get some modest corporate support, and we get some grants from government. I'll talk about those momentarily.

Our philosophy is to be provincewide, evidence-based, competent, available, free. We want to have current information, we want to be professional, and we want to be complete. So if you want to hear about histoplasmosis, we want to tell you about that. Asthma, probably, is a disease more people will know about. Emphysema, chronic bronchitis, lung cancer — those sorts of things.

We fund medical research. We have community programs that aim themselves at every lung disease and the issues that cause, in come cases, lung disease.

We support science, primarily at the University of British Columbia but also at literally every post-secondary institution in the province one way or the other, including providing grants for fellows. Fellows are those people who are in training to become specialists in a practice of medicine — in our case, pathology, respirology, radiology, and so on.

We provide fairly small grants — $30,000 maximum for a maximum of two years — but we spend probably about $1 million a year on grants, all of which are peer-reviewed nationally. We had eight of the top ten, scored of 100, projects in the country coming out of British Columbia last year, so it shows the power of the scientific community here in lung health.

For those of you that live in rural communities — I know some of you do — wood smoke will be an issue to you. Not so much in the urban centres, but wood smoke is a major issue around the province.

Radon is something you will be hearing about shortly, more so than previously. We run the Radon Aware program in partnership with the Ministry of Health and the wood smoke awareness program with the Ministry of Environment.

We provide patient and professional education. We run QuitNow, which is the country's — and I think it may be one of the world's — largest quit-smoking programs, funded by the Ministry of Health. And we are advocates on a number of fronts.

Radon Aware, as I said, is a project intended to bring consciousness about radon to British Columbians. Radon is accused of causing lung cancer, second only to cigarette smoking. It's a major issue. Maybe as many as 15 percent of lung cancer cases can be attributed to radon, and there are some significant exposures in our province.

Wood smoke reduction. We ask people to use their wood stoves wisely. I don't think it's reasonable that we prohibit the burning of solid fuels such as wood, particularly in rural and remote communities. But we ask people to use their wood stoves wisely, and that includes using the proper device, well-seasoned fuel, no garbage, no railroad ties — that sort of thing. We've also partnered with the Ministry of Environment on a wood stove exchange program. We've exchanged several thousand clunky old wood stoves around the province in the last number of years.

We help patients manage their disease. Most lung disease patients are managed by the proper use of medications, and we try to help patients use their medications wisely. Many lung disease medicines are inhaled therapies. You have a thing called a puffer, and it's a little bit difficult for people who are elderly, in many cases — especially those with COPD — to use those devices and to use them properly so that they're not medicating their faces or the room rather than their lungs.

Prevention, obviously, is an important thing. We want to prevent young people, especially, from smoking. We want to prevent issues that occur as a result of air quality, and a variety of other things.

On the advocacy front, we advocate, as was said, for air quality, for tobacco. We advocate for patients' access to medicines. As I've said, most patients are managed by medicines, and people who can't breathe are quite uptight. If they know there's a medicine in Alberta that we don't have here on the formulary for some reason, they get very uptight about that and they want access to those medicines. With the Internet and so on, people are very educated. There are patient groups that help educate them. We want the best medicines for patients. We want science to progress and proceed and excel in our province. We support science.

Tobacco advocacy is a major activity of ours. The four major areas are the prevention of tobacco use by youngsters. Protection of non-smokers — about 85 percent of the adult population are non-smokers. We want to protect their right to breathe clean air. We want to help people quit smoking, and we have the most vigorous program in the country here with the provision of nicotine replacement therapies as well as QuitNow. And we want to de-normalize the use of tobacco so that people who smoke, who are addicted to tobacco, aren't thought to be what youngsters should look to do.

Today's tobacco issues are…. Smoke-free housing. A lot of drifting smoke happens, and there are hundreds of thousands of British Columbians that live in multi-unit
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buildings — apartments, condos and that sort of thing — who have to suffer through their exposure to second-hand smoke from their neighbours. There's got to be some action on that.

Outdoor places. There's a hodgepodge of three-metre, six-metre, 7½-metre distances around the province. I think that should be more uniform.

E-cigarettes are an emerging issue. We don't know, really, what's in the compounds that people are inhaling in e-cigarettes, but e-cigarettes are a very, very major issue that needs addressing.

Retail reform. Flavoured tobacco is an issue that has to be dealt with. Tobacco availability in pharmacies — we don't think it's right. We're the last province in the country to allow tobacco sales in pharmacies. While it may not reduce the consumption of tobacco, it's certainly symbolic, and we think that should be addressed. Pharmacies aren't doing anything.

The government can't do all this. We want to help, and we work often with our principal partners, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society, diabetes, arthritis, and so on. All of us, I know, are willing to help government. We want to help government. We aren't always there with our hand out. We're there wanting to contribute as much as we can. Partnerships do work. We know partnerships work with government, with other non-profits, service clubs, businesses, educators and communities.

Really, the point of my message today is the priorities for government on this, I'd like to say, and for investment in the future. I should have mentioned LNG. I should have said: "LNG, LNG."

A tobacco-free British Columbia is achievable. We must work for a tobacco-free British Columbia. It's probably not going to happen this year, but Finland, for example, has a goal of a tobacco-free Finland in 2040. That's, I think, a 25-year warning. I think that's reasonable. We could have a tobacco-free future.

Tasmania has instituted legislation that will prevent people who were born, I believe, in 2004 from ever buying tobacco. If we were to have a law that prohibited people born in 2004 — they would be 11 this year, and they would be able to buy cigarettes in about eight or nine years — in fact, they would never be able to buy tobacco. I think that's an innovative idea, and I think we need to do that.

Just as a bit of an aside, I'm the chairman of a group now that's developing a strategy for tobacco for British Columbia for the five years beginning on January 1, 2015. Some of these will be in that.

We need to protect the air we breathe. Whether it's wood smoke or radon or transportation issues, whether it's shipping or aircraft or it's industry, we need to protect the air we breathe, and government really is the only body that can do that. We could do a lot more, but obviously, as the Lung Association…. We're urging government to invest in a tobacco-free B.C. future and to protect the air we breathe.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thanks for the opportunity today.

J. Yap: Thank you, Scott. I was looking at your summer newsletter. In your field notes you have a section here: "Seeking ways to work with municipal government on air quality issues." Has the association weighed in on the ongoing debate over the energy in the Fraser Valley — the waste energy debate?

S. McDonald: We haven't. It's kind of an unsolvable problem. We've certainly talked about it. Is it better to truck the waste to Cache Creek, or is it better to ship it across the border to Washington State?

I think Metro Vancouver now requires that our garbage be dealt with in our region. It's a very difficult problem. We don't really have a position on that. We know it's bad to drive the trucks to Cache Creek — thousands and thousands of litres of fuel being burned. We would like to reduce the garbage that causes those trucks to have to do that driving. The incinerator — well, I think we want baby's breath or maybe puppy's breath coming out of the chimney, but it's probably not going to happen.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. You're involved in a whole number of education initiatives. I'm just trying to get clear what, if anything, you're actually asking of government in terms of their budget — either more funding or more stringent regulations. That's one question. I'm not really clear if you're necessarily asking for anything specific or if you're just kind of here to inform us.

Another question, about the wood stove exchange program. If you could just talk about that.

S. McDonald: Okay. Well, I know you're seeing an estimated 4,000 witnesses, so you're going to be hearing a lot. We're not asking for anything other than to pay attention investment-wise to our clean air and to a smoke-free future, however that can weave itself through your, I know, very complicated lives. Trying to advise government on the future, I'm urging you to think — and I mentioned it briefly — public health.

Ebola in Africa is ebola in Vancouver. The fellow I sat beside on the SkyTrain on the way down here coming from the airport yesterday was in West Africa. We have a role here in public health, obviously, investing in the control here. Tuberculosis is our most immediate concern, and the protection of the division of TB control and a public health infrastructure.

I think really important is tobacco, and protecting people from tobacco, in lung health and air quality. Protect our air quality in everything we're thinking of —
[ Page 903 ]
in investment in LNG, transportation, whatever it happens to be.

Wood stove exchange — sorry, quickly. We provide a grant to a regional district which forms a committee of interested constituents, and they divvy up the money, usually with the partnership of a wood stove manufacturer. The main idea is to exchange your old dirty wood stove for a new clean-burning wood stove and to educate you about its proper use.

S. McDonald: No. Any barrier to access to tobacco is a good barrier, and taxation is definitely a powerful barrier, particularly for young people. Things that happen with smokers: every time they come up against a barrier — they can't smoke at work; they can't smoke in…. Time to quit. When they pay $8, $10, $20, they're going to quit.

M. Morris: First of all, I just want to compliment you on a great magazine. It's got some great pictures in it.

M. Morris: One of the questions I wanted to ask, and I don't hear too much from your association on it, is the decriminalization of marijuana. We have an increased number of people that just smoke it at free will. In fact, I think people in Victoria seem to be the sickest in the world because that's the only…. You can only legally smoke marijuana if you've got a medical certificate, so I don't know where that's all coming from. But I haven't heard too much from your association yet with respect to smoking marijuana.

S. McDonald: Marijuana is…. You don't want to inhale anything that isn't baby's breath. Marijuana — generally what happens is it's unregulated. It's been grown somewhere. You don't know what's on it. Did somebody…? Has it got some chemicals on it? You don't know what it was. You generally inhale it, hold it deeply. It's unfiltered. It's uncontrolled. It's not a good thing from a lung perspective.

The criminalization aspect — I don't think I can comment on that. We don't have a position on that, the decriminalization.

S. McDonald: The health aspect: it is not good for you to smoke anything, including marijuana.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the work that you do. You talk about partnerships with government. I think those partnerships don't happen unless the push comes from the outside. Tobacco-free B.C. — keep pushing. Keep pushing, because I think that's how government policy happens.

You mentioned e-cigarettes. I know they've really taken off out there, and I wondered if there's any jurisdiction that has started looking at regulations and started looking at the research across the country.

S. McDonald: Absolutely. There are lots of controls now in place. Right now it's the Wild West. I know there have been a few people that have told us they've seen people smoking, for example, on the B.C. Ferries outside of the smoking area — which, by the way, should probably also not be there.

E-cigarettes right now are absolutely huge. People are going to e-cigarettes from tobacco because they think it's safer. But a lot of times the concoctions they're smoking — they have no idea what it is. There's no control on it whatsoever, and it is not a good thing to be inhaling something you don't know deep down into your lungs on a frequent basis — bad idea.

S. Gibson: When I'm out for my morning run, I see a lot of cars going by, and I call these smokers the cocoon smokers. It can be rainy, it can be miserable and snowy, but they've got the…. As soon as I see their window open an inch, I know they're smoking in there. Yet here in Canada it's actually been discredited to a large extent. But if you go to places like Europe or even eastern Canada, everybody's smoking everywhere. Isn't that a good sign for B.C. that all we have left, in a way, are people that smoke furtively?

S. McDonald: Well, actually almost worldwide now — certainly, in Western Europe and all of America and, really, the G8 countries — you can't smoke anywhere indoors anymore. So where you see people is on the street, and in Europe, quite often, they allow them to still smoke on the patio. We're hoping there will be no patio smoking here shortly. So when you're a civilian walking or driving, you see them on the street smoking, when in fact, they're there because they can't smoke inside anymore.

Thank you very much for coming. Lisa, we have ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and five minutes for questions or comments.

L. McGuire: I'd like to thank each of you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this afternoon.

FIOSA-MIOSA is the health and safety organization serving the food and manufacturing industry in British Columbia. We were incorporated in 2007, originally serving only the food industry, and then we were asked to expand to the manufacturing industry in 2010.

We're a provincewide industry-driven, industry-funded organization with the goal to reduce injuries and the costs associated with them. Our strategy includes partnering with influential leaders to achieve cultural change that ensures healthy and safe workplaces in our province.

Our core values include trust and respect; integrity — abiding by strong, ethical values and principles; care — we care for the well-being of employers, employees and their families; leadership — making the right decision, no matter how difficult it is, to achieve our mission, and that includes taking responsibility for reducing the injury rate; and commitment — we are committed to providing exceptional quality in all that we do.

Our customers include employers within the food industry and manufacturing industry, which constitutes approximately 2,000 employers in B.C.

One of the initiatives that we have launched is the B.C. safety charter, which engages the senior leadership. It really is an initiative that helps the leadership endorse a charter that drives cultural changes in their organizations and communities. Our 2025 vision for the B.C. safety charter is that all British Columbia business leaders value and create a culture of safety and well-being, making our province the safest place to work and live in Canada. One of the spokesmen for this initiative is Trevor Linden. He is also a charter member and is passionate about our mission.

Some of our key messages, as an industry-led, industry-funded organization, include taking responsibility for reducing the injury rate. The foundation of the B.C. jobs plan in skills and apprenticeship training is workplace health and safety. Skilled workers are safe workers. It's working towards our goal to reduce injuries and costs, and you are reducing injuries and reducing costs. FIOSA wants to partner on the conversation on how we build a strong, safe economy around LNG.

In the B.C. jobs plan we see skill training equals health and safety training. A key to a successful jobs plan is a skilled and safety-conscious workplace. Of the one million job openings ahead, 43 percent will need trades, technical and health and safety training. The types of injuries that we see in our industry are related to MSIs, struck-by or caught-in injuries caused by machines or equipment, and slips at the same level.

In the food industry, where we've worked the longest, we've seen a decrease in the injury rate from 2008 to 2012, which translates into a cost savings of over $8 million that they would have paid to WorkSafe in premiums if they were operating at the same rate in 2008. There's a significant cost savings as well.

Our members include brands that I think you may be familiar with: Sunrise Farms, Rio Tinto Alcan, Canadian Springs, Canada Bread.

Some of the challenges we see in the workplace are hazards related to combustible dust, workplace bullying and harassment, ergonomics, hazards related to machines, and safety culture — knowing how important it is for the leader to drive cultural changes in organizations to make them sustainable and productive organizations.

Through our engagement efforts we've seen a significant knowledge gap in the area of health and safety at all employee levels. Where we see a correlation is…. Most post-secondary institutions offer health and safety, but they're electives. They're not mandatory. It's not incorporated into the curriculum but as add-ons. There's very little consistency in programs across the province around health and safety. Some trades and professions are better than others, but there is a gap.

When we look at the various institutions that offer health and safety, there are four out of the 25 that offer diplomas or certificates in health and safety: BCIT, Simon Fraser, UBC and the University of Victoria.

I'd like to provide an example in BCIT, in their diploma program, where 16 to 21 are graduated per year. Of those graduates, I know we as an organization have a program that utilizes at least three of them. I know two other organizations that hire or recruit three or four others. So we see a great need for health and safety professionals, moving forward, especially with the LNG project coming underway.

FIOSA-MIOSA wants to be a partner with government when it comes to building a strong economy, especially around LNG. Occupational health and safety training will assist in building a strong, safe economy. We need to increase capacity to deliver more diplomas and degrees in occupational health and safety in B.C.

Occupational health and safety needs to be mandatory, not as add-ons. We need to increase the pass levels above 50 percent, and we need to demonstrate industry competence in that area — consistent application of training in all institutions and integration of health and safety in a variety of programs, such as MBA programs, where their leaders understand health and safety and where it fits into the business.

Our ask is to recommend that more funding is needed in the 2015 budget to allow the Ministry of Advanced Education and B.C.'s universities, colleges and institutions to provide an increased number of qualified occupational health and safety professionals.

Well, thank you for coming forward. I appreciate it. Leave this with us. Enjoy your weekend.

Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of British Columbia — Catherine and Keith. Welcome.
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Thank you very much for coming today. We've allotted ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and up to five minutes for questions and comments.

K. Sashaw: Excellent, thank you very much. My name is Keith Sashaw. I'm the president of the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of B.C. Joining me today is Catherine Fritter. She's the chair of the board of directors of the association and the business unit leader for the B.C. offices of Moffatt and Nichol, a consulting engineering company in B.C.

The Association of Consulting Engineering Companies of B.C. appreciates the opportunity to present its views to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We represent B.C.'s consulting engineering companies that provide engineering and other technology-based intellectual services to the public and private sectors. Consulting engineering is at the centre of B.C.'s knowledge economy, as engineering services comprise 20 percent of B.C.'s high-tech sector.

ACEC-BC represents 84 of B.C.'s consulting engineering companies that collectively employ 10,000 people in the province of British Columbia. The workforce is comprised of engineers, geoscientists, technicians, technologists and other support staff.

The consulting engineering business contributes some $3.9 billion in annual revenue to the B.C. economy, 30 percent of which is earned from clients based outside the province of B.C. These are revenues that would not find their way to the province if it were not for the excellent reputation of B.C.'s consulting engineering industry.

Given the role that engineering plays in every aspect of B.C.'s economy, we're pleased to provide our comments on a number of important issues. My comments will touch on these issues briefly, and the accompanying document that we've provided to you will provide greater detail.

We've also included in your package the latest B.C. Major Projects Inventory review, a quarterly report prepared by ACEC-BC that provides insight and analysis on the major projects inventory.

Many ACEC-BC members express concerns about the procurement process used by government clients. Most federal, provincial and municipal departments hire consulting engineers based on best value to the taxpayer. In most cases firms must submit proposals that list their qualifications and technical expertise, their proposed approach and the price for their services.

However, typically, clients' evaluations of proposals are biased towards the price aspect rather than giving due weight to expertise and the approach. This often results in situations where engineering firms tend to interpret the scope of work narrowly in order to provide the lowest price and win the job. Such a process effectively penalizes firms that have the foresight to anticipate complications, that propose innovations or that have a clearer understanding of the client's needs.

ACEC-BC endorses the internationally recognized best practice for procurement for professional engineering services, commonly known as qualifications-based selection or QBS.

This best practice has been mandated by law in the United States since the 1970s and more recently in the province of Quebec. QBS is recommended by the International Federation of Consulting Engineers. It's also recommended by the National Guide to Sustainable Municipal Infrastructure, InfraGuide, a collaboration between Infrastructure Canada, the National Research Council and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

ACEC-BC has observed a number of unintended consequences arising as a result of the new west partnership trade agreement. Prior to NWPTA, our members and our profession already had full mobility across Canada, allowing participation in the economic activities in each province and across Canada.

Today our members in western Canada are currently subject to the NWPTA, and based on our experience thus far, ACEC-BC has concerns with the NWPTA. Although we support the spirit of this agreement-in-principle, we are concerned with a specific aspect of this agreement that is potentially problematic for our industry, our clients and the public we serve. We believe that this can be easily resolved by preserving a narrow exemption for provincially regulated professions contained in annex 502.1(b) of the existing agreement on international trade.

ACEC-BC believes that a long-term infrastructure plan will further strengthen the economy and enhance Canada's competitiveness. We applaud recent investments in infrastructure by all levels of government that have been successful in improving the quality and capacity of Canada's public infrastructure. Reviewing infrastructure needs should continue, since currently committed funds, while very important, are not sufficient to meet all of the historical and emerging demands.

There are currently a number of major infrastructure projects under discussion, including improvements to public transit systems, replacement of the Massey Tunnel, and other projects. ACEC-BC is supportive of moving forward with these projects.

One key issue that will need to be discussed robustly is that of tolling specific projects versus the adoption of a regional road-pricing strategy as, clearly, we need to ensure the financial capacity for these changes. While we start to discuss transportation projects, we will also need to engage in rational and objective discussions about financing options and how we as a society pay for these improvements.

It's also critical to remember that infrastructure includes social or vertical infrastructures such as hospitals and education. There are many major building projects
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that are critical in the province, including St. Paul's and Royal Columbian hospitals, which need to move forward in order to meet the growing demands of British Columbians.

Given the considerable development taking place in northern B.C., there will be increasing demand for social or vertical infrastructure projects that will need to be planned, designed and constructed in the years ahead.

ACEC-BC supports proceeding with the Site C project for a number of reasons. There are a number of major projects that are in the implementation or planning stages that will rely on having access to stable and dependable sources of power.

B.C. is experiencing an exciting period of economic development that is creating opportunities in most regions of B.C., which will lead to more jobs, increased government revenues and enhanced prosperity. These major projects demand access to stable and dependable power in order to operate efficiently and to continue to attract investors in future development projects.

This project provides a large supply of renewable energy with additional capacity and storage and can also allow for more integration of new renewable energy resources into the system.

Site C is a very important facility to complete, as it will provide on-demand and predictable power generation capacity. The construction and ultimate operation of Site C generating station is an important economic driver and a legacy for our province for future generations.

In regard to mining, the B.C. government is focused on opening eight new mines and expanding nine others by 2015. The economic benefits to the province in regards to royalties and job creation are considerable.

ACEC-BC recognizes that there are always improvements that can be made in regard to not only the process but also to the regulatory environment in which the mining industry operates. Our members play an important role in the design and ongoing monitoring, and we would be pleased to participate in the further development of regulations and guidelines to ensure safe and environmentally sound mining practices.

In the area of pipelines, ACEC-BC believes pipelines are one of the safest and most widely used means of transporting liquids. Over five million kilometres of oil and gas cross-country pipelines move millions of cubic metres of oil and gas every day throughout Canada and the United States, as well as many other countries in the world.

Many of the systems have been in safe operation for decades. In fact, the major transmission systems in Canada are approaching nearly 50 years plus of service.

There are many issues facing the province of British Columbia, and ACEC-BC believes B.C. stands on the cusp of extraordinary prosperity, which will result in enhanced services, improved wages and increased opportunities for all British Columbians. A robust high-tech sector, efficient infrastructure and worldwide demand for our resources could further B.C.'s attractiveness for investment, migration and livability.

However, governments at all levels need to take bold and decisive action in order for this to occur on the following public policy issues: aboriginal relations, environmental review process and regulatory review process. B.C.'s consulting engineering community has the knowledge, expertise and commitment to assist in this imperative. Action needs to be taken in resolving these issues if B.C. is to reap the full benefits of its potential.

You mentioned a couple of things that I just want to get clarification on. One was the issue of procurement. You mentioned QBS as a possibility. I'm guessing, but is that, basically, an approved list kind of process? Is that roughly the idea?

K. Sashaw: That is part of it. In an ideal QBS scenario, an owner that is going forward with a project would issue a request for qualifications and would identify the most qualified individuals. From that, they would shortlist a proponent. They would then go into more detailed discussions around the actual…. And by doing that, they would be able to get a better handle on scope, the size of the project. There would be some discussions around fees at that point.

Fees still play a very important role in the QBS selection, but the major focus is going to be around the qualifications of the consultant and a real nailing down on the scope of work that's to be done.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you. The issue of low bid is an issue in other areas as well, as I'm sure you know. I certainly saw it on school board when you were choosing construction companies and others.

The last question was just the issue…. You mentioned the new west partnership trade agreement and that you were concerned with a specific aspect of that agreement. Could you say a little bit more about how it impacts your industry?

K. Sashaw: Certainly. The issue around the new west partnership trade agreement is that many municipalities — and we find this is especially the case with municipalities — really aren't clear in terms of the levels, in terms of what needs to be done. So very often they will put pro-
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jects on B.C. Bid that will go out across western Canada, and you will having consulting engineers bidding across the province or across western Canada, all primarily on the basis of price. This is a concern because in the engineering community you need to have local knowledge. You have to have familiarity with the concerns.

Our industry is very concerned that that kind of approach around procurement using B.C. Bid…. It's not unusual to get 18 to 20 people responding to that kind of call for requests. It costs about $1,000 to do a proposal. So for a $75,000 project, the industry is spending more than the actual value of the project.

We were very pleased. The agreement on…. We support competition. We get that. Our members compete around the world. But the initial agreement on interprovincial trade exempted engineers and lawyers, and that was missing in the subsequent TILMA agreement.

M. Morris: I'll be quick. Actually, that was one of my questions that Carole asked again. That was good.

The other question…. The numbers and availability of folks in your profession have been impacted by the demand that we have right now. What's your forecast? Are you struggling to find enough qualified people in Canada, in British Columbia?

K. Sashaw: We are beginning to look into this whole issue of availability of skills. I mean, quite frankly, our members are recruiting engineers from around the world. It's quite phenomenal in terms of seeing the multicultural, multinational makeup of the industry. We are just, in fact, talking with the Asia-Pacific gateway group and the APEGBC about diving a little bit deeper to do some analysis in terms of current labour market. What is the existing and forecast demand?

Much like any other industry, demographics would dictate. It's something that we have to be cognizant of and looking into, and we're beginning to make those steps.

C. Fritter: Yeah. I was just going to add that at the moment, actually, we have enough people. But as the projects get into detailed design, then it might get a bit more difficult — and the demographics. So that's casting forward probably about ten years. We may end up needing more people.

G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. Two questions. One, your comment or statement about taking bold and decisive action with respect to the policy issues that you've listed there, including the environmental review process, the regulatory review. I'm wondering: in the wake of Mount Polley, is there something more specific you have in mind there?

The second question is on your comment about tolls for individual projects versus road pricing. Being an economist, I do have a certain attraction to road pricing. Are there other jurisdictions where that has been applied successfully? For example, I understand that in the Los Angeles area road pricing is being used.

K. Sashaw: On the first question first. I think the concern is that the process to get a project through — be it mining, resource or almost anything — is mired in red tape. We understand, and we appreciate fully, the need for regulatory processes and strong environmental legislation. We think that that whole process can be examined in terms of ensuring that the public interest is well served but at the same time providing some certainty to proponents as they go through.

The Mount Polley incident, of course, is something that our industry is taking very seriously and we're taking a look at. We have concerns, and we're prepared to play any role we can in terms of helping the provincial government move forward in taking a look at what was the cause behind that incident and solutions to that.

Again, around the aboriginal issue, there needs to be certainty in terms of title to land and how projects can proceed. We've encouraged everybody to take a look at that and try and provide that level of certainty.

On the second issue, around road pricing. Our members are keen and recognize the need for transportation systems. In answer to your specific question, there are many jurisdictions that have road pricing. London is one of the best examples, where there is some very stringent road pricing. Road pricing has a lot of merit to it in terms of being able to manage traffic and direct the flows and all of those.

We do have a major transportation conference coming up at the end of January in which road pricing, and the payment for infrastructure and transportation, is going to be a major topic of conversation.

D. Ashton (Chair): Keith, Catherine, thank you very much. Greatly appreciate your input today.

Next up we have Canadian Men's Health Foundation — Wayne. Good afternoon, sir. How are you?

D. Ashton (Chair): Good. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, sir, and then we have five minutes for questions and comments from the committee.

W. Hartrick: I will call out page turns. Feel free to follow along. I'm going to be moving quite quickly, so feel free not to follow along, if you want, and just look at them later.

W. Hartrick: My name is Wayne Hartrick. I'm president of the Canadian Men's Health Foundation and the Men's Health Initiative of B.C., both of which were founded by Dr. Larry Goldenberg, who I know is known to many of you. He's at an international conference, or he would be joining me here today.

What I want to talk to you about is what the province has already done in contributing towards the creation of this foundation, improving the health of families by improving the health of men, reducing health care costs and improving productivity.

If you turn to the second page, you'll see what is an image of what probably in a lot of ways sums up the problem in one snapshot. Countless men go missing from our daily lives and become a burden on their families or the health care system, often caused by a legacy of avoiding proactive health.

If you'll turn the page, you'll see a variety of statistics. I'll let you look at them. One of the big ones that always sticks in my mind is that an average of nine years of a man's life is spent in poor health, often related to just lifestyle factors that could have been changed earlier in life, improving the condition.

If you flip the page, you'll see that a survey we did of Canadian men in the 30-to-54 age bracket showed some really surprising things. They said…. In the previous day, 60 percent of them admitted they didn't eat a healthy diet, 43 percent said that they had done no even moderate activity, and 44 percent didn't get enough sleep.

If you turn the page again, the good news is that 70 percent of men's health issues can be prevented by dealing with those otherwise quite simple factors I was just talking about.

Again to the next page. The province of British Columbia was instrumental in providing funding. It is the first province in the country to have stepped forward and provided funding to create a health promotion initiative targeted specifically at motivating men. It allowed us, this health foundation, to do research and be able to launch a healthy men's lifestyle program that I'll show you.

If you turn over the page, you'll see that we've been able, because of the funding, to do the research necessary to build a good program. We've done focus groups with men here in British Columbia. We did a national survey. And we did a fascinating thing called morphological research, where a researcher spent up to an hour and a half with individual men — and, in some cases, their partners — to probe into some of the subconscious thinking that triggered the reasons why they would be either proactive or reactive about their health.

If you turn the page, one of the most interesting things that came out of this was the definition, for the first time, of six sort of health personalities that men may fall into either throughout their lives or at different points in their lives. Each one of these sort of health personalities requires a different way to motivate — a customized awareness program, or what Dr. Larry Goldenberg likes to call precision health messaging, that parallels precision health treatment.

So it allows us to change the conversation with men from "What's wrong with you?" and using guilt and fear, to just "Understand yourself," kind of like Myers-Briggs research would do in the workplace. It allows them to take control, which, we hear back from men, is a very important part of motivating health behaviour.

If you turn the page, one of the other things that came out of the research was we distilled ten principles to use when trying to motivate men to be proactive — particularly men who aren't being proactive. It came from our research in consultation with men's health experts around the world.

On the next page you'll see that the Canadian Men's Health Foundation's vision and purpose is to inspire men to live healthier lives, through two primary things. One is just raising awareness that there is a men's health problem. Men need to take some ownership of this. To be a good father, you also need to be a healthy father or a healthy family member.

The second is to provide tips and tools to enable men to do it and to work with other providers of health care to help them with the information we know about how to communicate with men.

If you turn the page, you'll see that we've chosen, at least for the start, a specific target demographic that we know is a problem area. These are men who are 30 to 50 years old, who've devalued their health because they're in the middle of career and family and other things that often become reasons for them not to be proactive about health.
[ Page 909 ]

We know that if we could give them small, easy things that they can do, that fit into their lives, that they can realistically see themselves doing, we have a chance of moving them towards the path of better health.

On the next page you'll see five areas of focus we have: nutrition, activity, sleep, mental wellness, and drinking and smoking. Of those, nutrition and activity, we're told unanimously across the health care sector, have one of the biggest downstream reductions in other health problems — if we can just move the needle on those two.

In order to do that…. If you'll turn the page, you'll see the screenshot, from our website, of a campaign we launched in June, called Don't Change Much. It's designed specifically towards men who don't really see themselves as being able to do big changes and need to start in a small way.

It also dovetails with behaviour change theory in health that says that if somebody makes a small step that they see as relevant to them, it can lead to habits, and the habits will, of course, lead to lifestyle changes and better health outcomes down the road.

If you turn to the next page, you see another screenshot from the site. We've got simple tips, easy recipes, a resource of information on men's health, newsletters. Maybe next time you're sitting around at your computer or if you're bored today, punch in dontchangemuch.ca, and up will pop the website. Please take a look at it.

I'd like to give you just a short example of the kind of approach that we're taking to try and make it humorous and fun and engage, by playing for you a 30-second radio ad that we've been running as part of our campaign.

Again, on our website you'll see that 30-second television commercial that takes the same kind of funny approach.

If you turn the page, you'll see examples of some of the print campaign. It takes a bit of a different direction. A lot of guys can relate to the impossible instruction manual. It says: "You've done way harder things in your life. Make some small changes to your health."

The next page is, I think, a very important thing. This is something that the province is funding, and funding from Sun Life Financial has been put to work at for the last three years. It's now launched.

It's called the You Check tool. It's the first health risk assessment tool on line designed specifically for men. It asks one set of questions about family history, lifestyle, etc., and it gives a report on the risk of developing the seven most common men's health problems.

You'll see on the righthand side they report it as just simple traffic lights: red, yellow, green. This came back from the research we did with men on the simplicity with which they wanted to be delivered this. Then it populates your report with specific tips and recommendations on what you should do, based on those problems.

See on the next page some of the feedback we've gotten from launching this. It's been gratifying: 95 percent of all the unsolicited written feedback we've received has been overwhelmingly positive for this tool.

On the next page you'll see that we were blessed to have some national champions and spokespeople who are on our site giving tips and who help us out in other ways. Three of them, the first three there, of course, are good B.C. homegrown stories — all Olympic gold medalists. Trevor Linden and Simon Whitfield, if you turn the page, came to our national launch in Ottawa, along with Dr. Terry Lake.

You'll see in the bottom righthand picture all of them sitting at the press confidence in the national press gallery, at which we got a chance to thank the province for being the first one to step forward on this initiative in Canada.

On the next page you'll see that we made a special B.C. launch that took place in Canada's first Men's Health Week. This is now annual — the six days leading up to Father's Day. It'll provide us a focus for men's health.

In this case Simon Whitfield and some of his buddies stand-up-paddleboard from Vancouver to Victoria — 140 kilometres — as an awareness-building tool for us. Dr. Terry Lake was there to represent the province, although he didn't paddle.

On the next page you'll see that the media coverage we garnered out of all this has been fantastic: 680 news stories. We know from analysis that the men's health story was the leading health story for about two months following June and consistently positive.

On the next page you'll see some of our campaign results. The most important one for me is 79,000 people coming to the site, of which 75 percent were men. Knowing that most men look for their health information on line and in private, it's a great place to intercept them with what we're doing.

If you turn to the next page, a survey that showed some great initial takeup on this campaign, particularly 20 percent of men reporting that if they heard the campaign, that they had already started taking to eating healthier and doing more exercise.

On the next page you'll see some of the comments, generally, that we've had, which have been very positive.

Finally, I will tell you what we can do, one of the things that you could do for us over the next year — how you can help — which is to spread the word through your constituency offices, through your fellow members. We'll be mailing a package out in November that has a backgrounder, poster, some content that you can use for a newsletter or social media. And in advance of next year's Men's Health Week, we'll also mail a package to all your constituency offices to possibly use to create awareness around men's health.

On behalf of Dr. Goldenberg and myself, I thank you very much and apologize for being 50 seconds over time.

D. Ashton (Chair): I was just smiling as I was waiting for you. Thanks, Wayne. That was good. We didn't have anybody behind you, so I'm using a little liberty here.

S. Gibson: My understanding from what I've read is that one of the reasons that men's health is more problematic than women's, at least in U.S. statistics, is that they're more socially isolated. Traditionally, women have more friends. In the States now the average man has less than one friend, and part of that problem is they don't have anybody to interact with. There's no accountability, nobody to talk to. What's your comment on that?

W. Hartrick: Yeah, absolutely. It's reinforced by several things we hear. One of them is research that we've seen that parallels what you're saying — that women tend to have smaller, deeper social networks, whereas men tend to have much broader, very shallow social networks, and that doesn't speak well to doing things like sharing about health.

One of the things we're trying to do is enable a conversation by running these kinds of ads, doing this kind of campaign. Where we need to go, I believe, is triggering and creating tools that make it easier for men to talk about health and talk amongst themselves about health.

G. Heyman: I appreciate very much the point that Simon made, which I think is important.

G. Heyman: I have a question to test my theory. If part your approach is, because I think we…. As somebody who made some changes in my life in my forties, I watched the number of the changes increase over time. I'm assuming that part of your approach is, "Don't change much," and underneath that is: "We'll ladder you up over time, because you'll get to value it."

W. Hartrick: Yes, absolutely. We're working on a couple of levels, if you will, of a path to take men down, which are in development and research to do exactly that. At the moment on the website you'll find that there is a resource page that has specific, in-depth information on the various health problems, and then we do have the risk assessment tool. But we believe also that's exactly where we need to go as we move forward — take people down a definable path.

D. Ashton (Chair): Okay, Wayne. Thank you very much, sir. Greatly appreciate it. Thank you for coming in.

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon. Thank you very much for coming today. Greatly appreciated. We have ten minutes for a presentation and five minutes for questions and comments from the committee. I'll give you a two-minute warning at eight minutes if you do go that far. Please, the floor is yours. Once again, welcome, and thank you very much for being here.

S. Jenkins-Thompson: Thank you. Hello, my name is Sharnelle Jenkins-Thompson. I am the literacy outreach coordinator in the East Vancouver neighbourhood of Kensington–Cedar Cottage, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people. I am one of the three literacy outreach coordinators here to represent the eight Vancouver-based LOCs through the provincewide Decoda Literacy Solutions.

Last year, LOCs and Decoda representatives came to this committee to share our work, and we're grateful for your support and recommendation of $2.5 million in last year's provincial budget. We would like to say thank you for recognizing the importance of the work happening.

Decoda was allotted $2 million. This shortfall in funding found our work and the work in our communities constrained. The ability of the LOCs to meet the important needs of our communities was negatively impacted.

We've come once again to ask for your support and recommendation of $2.5 million in the B.C. provincial budget annually. We would like to share with you recent stories of what we find to be important examples of the role community-based literacy work is playing in Vancouver.

In Kensington–Cedar Cottage I have watched the work of community-based literacy unfold over the past three years as a practicum student, intern and currently as our LOC. I have been drawn to this work because it allows us to see literacy not just as an essential skill but a tool to create change in not just oneself but one's family and community.

At the neighbourhood house we host a monthly do-it-yourself family literacy night. Parents and staff volunteer their time and skills to share with one another and try their hand at learning new hands-on activities that encourage people to explore a full spectrum of literacy.

A staff member invited a refugee woman who had arrived here alone with her young daughter. Eager to connect, she comes each month. She enjoys her time trying new recipes, laughing and connecting to her neighbours. Encouraged to explore all areas of literacy in this night,
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she has begun to access other important areas, from financial literacy to food literacy.

In this venue of family literacy night and her growing network she has been able to ask her neighbours important questions, helping her make choices for her and her daughter, from simple best places to shop in the neighbourhood to seeking out job skills programs.

In a supportive and welcoming learning environment a woman and her daughter are making important choices to shape their new life in Canada. Literacy is a tool by which people can make change.

W. Booth: I'm the literacy outreach coordinator for the Downtown Eastside Adult Literacy Roundtable. We're a group of 45 community-based organizations and educational organizations who support or strengthen literacy in the neighbourhood. Our members are instructors and programmers working directly with vulnerable community members, so while we represent organizations, we do not speak for them.

This area of the city, as you well know, is often featured prominently in stories in the media, and frequently the coverage is negative. In the eyes and the words of the people who live here, this is a community of enormous strength, cohesion and activity. The neighbourhood prides itself on insider knowledge, a lived experience, volunteerism, social justice efforts, multiculturalism, diversity, unity and support, and it's these capacities that we build on and strengthen.

We no longer refer to literacy and illiteracy as binary opposites but as a continuum referred to as literacy and essential skills. Obviously, low literacy and essential skill levels and access to education have profound implications, and why literacy is so important….

While we understand that not everyone sets their sights on a university degree, there are many other urgent needs for literacy and skills for adults.

At the Carnegie learning centre, in collaboration with Capilano University, at least half of the students — and I use that term in quotations — are drop-in participants who need literacy help right now.

Staff and volunteers, of whom there are some 50, who contributed 8,000 hours last year, help community members to access government programs that are only available on line; to apply for jobs; to analyze information in order to participate in community consultations; to read or understand a medical prescription or to decide on a course of treatment; to prepare for trade programs; or to understand the process of getting their children back.

Community members who face poverty, addiction, poor health, trauma and discrimination need non-judgmental assistance and support in both immediate and longer-term programs. Our experience in the Downtown Eastside is that adult learners may use two or three programs to solve an urgent problem, to upgrade their skills or to access longer-term goals. Our round table encourages support and communication and works together to promote student success.

Z. Clark: Hello. My name is Zinnia Clark, and I am the LOC for the South Vancouver neighbourhood. I am also here representing the Marpole community.

This year in Marpole several community partners penned letters to the Hon. Dr. Moira Stilwell and to the Hon. Peter Fassbender, Minister of Education, to highlight the value of literacy coordination and partnerships, which literacy funding allows.

One example, from Barry Goodwin, manager of Work B.C. and PICS: "The literacy outreach coordinator role is of paramount importance to our community." As a result of the position, the literacy community here in Marpole is well-connected, and valuable collaborations take place in our community. These include our annual multiculturalism day as well as several job search information sessions available to community members.

The literacy outreach coordination work enables the harnessing of community resources for cost-effectiveness and impact. One example of this is that this year a small grant allowed the Marpole literacy outreach coordinator to launch a project called Tea and Talking: conversations in art to promote understanding of the concept of multiculturalism. The project consisted of 12 workshops, conversations and art sessions, culminating in a photographic exhibit showcasing the work of Marpole participants.

Marpole partners raised their hands, rolled up their sleeves and offered their venues, staff and resources free of charge so that their literacy customers could benefit. Over ten organizations participated in the project, which brought together more than 300 Marpolians to learn, socialize and build community.

Here is a story from South Vancouver, the neighbourhood that I represent. Helen and her family, who are originally from the central highlands of Vietnam — their mother tongue is Jarai — came to Canada as government-sponsored refugees. Helen lives in South Vancouver with her husband and two children.

Jarai is an oral language, and therefore becoming literate in a written language was a major accomplishment for Helen. She has ensured that her children have every literacy opportunity available to them. Her oldest child is a bright and articulate four-year-old with strong English language skills.

She has attended a number of literacy programs supported by the task group, and although her comprehension of English is limited, she has not let that limit her participation in any group that will support her and her children's learning. Her English has slowly improved, and her participation level has increased dramatically. She takes all the literacy programs offered at the Family
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Place and attends daily with her children. She has this year become an official volunteer of the Family Place.

The positive impact of literacy funding to communities cannot be overstated. It affects everything from health care to employment and the economy. The examples that we have outlined illustrate how increased literacy levels improve a community's ability to participate in today's B.C. jobs plan.

G. Holman: Thank you for your presentation. As you're aware, a number of groups have approached us already and will continue to do so, I know, all through the tour. For myself, I really don't have any questions or comments other than that your message is being heard loudly and clearly and was reflected in last year's recommendations.

S. Gibson: One of the things I found, and you alluded to it, is that when a family arrives here from Vietnam or whatever, the kid catches on really quickly, and Mom and Dad are left languishing, still trying to pick up the language.

Is there a role for the child to be involved in somehow mentoring the parents? Is there some way that the child can be involved in that kind of reverse mentoring process? The kid's already picked up the language, the vernacular, on the street, in the schoolroom and hanging out with friends. That's really my question.

Z. Clark: Well, I can speak to that in South Vancouver. We have a number of programs that are intergenerational in nature, and it's for that very reason. We have a number of grandparent caregivers that are the sole caregivers of a number of children, and they're very isolated within the communities that they live in. We have some community members that have been in Canada for more than 30 years, and their ability to access government programs is severely limited by their English language skills.

Our programs are designed to bring out those community members, offer them child care, create an environment that is intergenerational where they can learn together.

W. Booth: I'll just give another example. At the Learning Exchange that UBC has on Main Street they have a program for elders where they teach them basic English phrases on the computer so that they can maintain contact with their grandchildren. Because what you describe happens, and it alienates the children, in some cases, and isolates the grandparents. This is a way to try to keep them using their mobile phones or whatever they have.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, and thank you for your presentation. But more importantly, thank you for work and your passion for the work. It came across very clearly, I think, for all of us.

I just wonder: is there a particular area right now where you're seeing a greater need? I recognize that all of the needs…. I think you've identified really well that literacy is opening the door to so many things for so many individuals, but is there an area of greatest pressure right now that you're seeing?

Z. Clark: I think mostly the ability of the LOCs is that they can respond to the individual needs of the community. So there isn't sort of an overarching…. There are some overarching trends, but with LOCs, because they're working directly with community organizations, the hours are limited for literacy coordination, so partnerships are a necessity.

We build on the knowledge of our community partners in the neighbourhood. The trends within our community are noticed by community members. They're noticed by community organizations, and we can respond to those in a really immediate manner and design the programs accordingly.

W. Booth: I'll just add to that. In June a group of educators from the Downtown Eastside met, and a report called The Policy Changes and Cuts to Adult Education Programs in the Lower Mainland was submitted to the Minister of Advanced Education.

We can certainly make that available to this committee, if you would like it. It would show you exactly what's happening on the Downtown Eastside with education and the challenges that we face.

S. Jenkins-Thompson: Speaking specifically for my neighbourhood, people are getting stuck into jobs where they are not able to move forward. They're stuck, being left in jobs where they are vulnerable to exploitation, forced to work long hours and not able to participate in a job skills program because their first priority is trying to keep poverty at bay. As LOCs talking to community members, residents and organizations, we're able to develop programs that fit outside of these traditional systems to try and reach these people who are under tremendous stress and lack the ability to change their future.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you very much. Greatly appreciate it. That information would be beneficial to us, if you could forward it.
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D. Ashton (Chair): Tracy, welcome. Thank you for coming today. We have ten minutes allotted for your presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and then five minutes for a Q and A, okay? The floor is yours.

T. Porteous: Thank you very much. My name is Tracy Porteous, as some of you know. I've met some of you before. I'm the executive director of the Ending Violence Association of B.C.

We're a provincial umbrella organization that works on behalf of 240 anti-violence programs. What they all have in common is that they respond to sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse and criminal harassment — some pretty heavy issues.

We provide them with training and support so that they can do their jobs and so they know the different policy and legislative changes that keep occurring over a number of years.

We work really closely with RCMP E division, with the B.C. Municipal Chiefs of Police. We work with all of the relevant policy ministries.

Basically, we have a track record of working really closely with government to try to help the various ministries responsible — whether it be child protection or Justice or Health or Education — to understand the needs of women and children who experience domestic and sexual violence and child abuse.

Earlier this month we held an event in Victoria with a number of partners, including the capital regional district domestic violence unit, marking the anniversary of the deaths of Sunny Park and her family — her son Christian and her parents — at the hands of Peter Lee, her husband, who murdered them all and then killed himself.

Central to that tragedy was the fact that even though Sunny had reached out to the police many times in the four years leading up to her death, nobody had referred her. She'd not received support from a community-based support service. There was, sadly, one in Victoria, and she had an appointment with that service for the day after she died. So she was left to cope with complex, disconnected systems involving the police, marriage counsellors, child protection workers — all this while the violence was escalating.

We would come to understand — "we" as in terms of the public in general — that what she was dealing with is what many women are dealing with. What we should know — "we" as in terms of all the systems — is that a lot of those things that she was dealing with were very well-known risk factors for lethal violence. I think it's common knowledge — and I think everybody has accepted the fact — that we failed her and her family. We believe that we're failing many other families.

You might know that B.C. citizens have stood witness to 20 deaths already since January alone in the area of domestic violence. Twenty people have lost their lives. Of those, 13 women have been murdered. Six men are dead, five of them at their own hands. After killing their wives, they've committed themselves. One child was murdered. Eleven other people were seriously injured. Twelve men have been charged with murder or attempted murder of their female partners, and one man was charged with the murder of his ex-partner's current boyfriend.

Hundreds of people, since just January alone, have been affected by these 20 deaths — family members, children, co-workers, extended family. What we must understand with every death is that there are thousands and thousands of other women in our province right now that are currently living in dangerous situations and that need our help.

There are about 60,000 sexual and physical assaults that occur in our province every year. Domestic violence is Crown counsel's number one crime type, number one case type.

The Cowper report in 2012 helped us understand that domestic violence seems to be on the increase, and there are a number of other sources that cite this. In 2003 there were about 9,000 reports that Crown counsel were dealing with. In 2011 they were dealing with 12,000. Those are only the reports that Crown was dealing with. There are many thousands of other reports that the police are dealing with.

Sexual assault, while it's the most under-reported of all violent crimes in Canada, is estimated to also be on the rise, with one-third of all women, statistically, as we understand it, experiencing sexual assault in their lifetime.

The Premier of B.C. in her throne speech has called for B.C. to be a violence-free province, and we are behind that 100 percent. We fully support that. But what I can't underscore more is the need for investment. We can't respond to sexual and domestic violence without any services or any funds.

We have some services. Policy — we've done a lot of work in the area of policy in the last ten years, but we've really made no increased investments in the services that are on the ground. Those are the things that save lives, not policy. Policy is the foundation, but the legs of the policy are the people and the services.

My organization for the last 15 years has been tracking domestic violence deaths in our province. We've been doing everything we can too. When somebody dies, we try
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to reach out to that community to find out if the service providers are okay and to find out what happened. We haven't been able to find a woman who's died who was a client of a community-based victim assistance program.

We think that these programs are the key to women's and children's safety. In fact, we think that they are the key to their mere survival. The funding hasn't kept pace with the demand for service, with inflation, with awareness. In fact, there have been literally no increases in these services — in the funding for the number of services or for their budgets — for the last ten years.

We've conversely seen consistent spending increases in the area of police — 400 million new dollars for police in the last ten years. Billions of new dollars over the last ten years in health and education — we're not balking at that. Of course those things need to happen. We plan for population increases. We plan for changes in demographics, but we don't seem to be planning for the services that people who experience sexual and domestic violence need.

Not having adequate anti-violence services actually costs the taxpayer more in the long term. If we don't do something at the front end, the situation for women who are experiencing violence just gets more complicated and more costly. The multigenerational aspect, seeking solutions by using substances and violence escalating to more deadly levels are all things that are very, very common.

In fact, there's a ton of research from many academics around the globe that shows us that if you don't invest in the front end, you're just going to be paying more down that road. What we're saying is — and we're pleading with government — to make the investments that are necessary to save lives and to protect women and kids.

I haven't seen too many new studies specifically on the cost of violence against women, but there's an old study that was done by Lorraine Greaves, who was an academic in B.C., that was able to look at the measurable partial costs of violence against women, looking at criminal justice, health, social services and labour, to be close to $5 billion. That study was 20 years ago, so $5 billion 20 years ago…. I don't know if there are any economists in your group, but I think it's safe to say that it's a bigger number now.

The services save lives. Even the cost of one homicide is said to be about $500,000. The 20 deaths that we've had already in B.C., that's not counting the cost of life and the moral obligation that I think that we all have to intervening.

We have 889 communities in B.C. We only have 69 community-based victim assistance programs. That number hasn't changed in 20 years. We have other…. There's a continuum of anti-violence services. When you talk to Minister Anton, she'll say: "Okay. Well, we spend a lot more than…. It's not just the community-based victim assistance programs. There are transition houses and other programs." Those are all important, but by policy, the community-based programs have the responsibility to help women and kids navigate the very complicated systems that deal with child protection, with justice, with Crown, with probation, with social housing and all of these areas.

They're very complicated. They all have different aspects of policy, and they all need to be working together. That's the one thing that my organization has been doing over the last 15 years: trying to get the community agencies and communities to have a better and deeper and more effective cross-sectoral response. We're gaining some ground in that area.

If I was to say there are three things that we are looking for from you, we need more community-based victim assistance programs. Sixty-nine is not enough when there are 889 communities in B.C. We think there needs to be better funding for the existing 69, and there need to be more of them.

We'd like to see these kinds of programs attached to every reserve community, as well, and attached to every friendship centre because of the disproportionate number of aboriginal women who are experiencing violence.

We also think there needs to be early intervention for men. If you look at Peter Lee, if you look at Schoenborn, if you look at a number of these guys who have committed murders against their family members — killed their wives and their children — some of them were arrested and released, and nothing is happening at the front end. What we're doing is we're waiting until post conviction, and then we have offender programs that are run by Corrections. It's not good enough. We need to do something right at the front end.

I think that's called for in the new domestic violence action plan. That's a three-year action plan. But we haven't seen any movement or any sign of any of that yet. I think there's only something like $200,000 geared to that, and it's not enough.

Then we also need to ensure that there's a cross-sectoral response. As I mentioned, my organization has been trying to help communities develop things like domestic violence units. In smaller communities, we're gaining some traction on things called ICATs — interagency case assessment teams. We've talked to the Blue Ribbon Panel. We're working very closely with the RCMP E division and municipal police departments.

These ICATs are mechanisms where people can share information. We help them develop MOUs by having the legislative grounds to be able to share information, to do a proper risk assessment and safety planning. There are 20 of them now, and there are 20 more that we have on a waiting list, and there are many more that are asking for help.

Thank you for listening. I know it's not an easy topic, but we're really, really pleading with the province to make more investments in this area.
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G. Holman: Thanks for your presentation. You said three things, and I don't think I got them right. So more community-based programs, the 69 out of 889 communities?

T. Porteous: Early intervention programs for abusive men, for men who use violence against their spouses, and more Integrated Case Assessment Teams — funding support to ensure that those teams are being put in place and they're managed.

G. Holman: Okay. Just one other question around policing and integration of policing. I live in the capital regional district area. It's been a controversy there about whether to have a regional policing. Is that part of the solution, in your view? Or are these more important things?

T. Porteous: These are way more important things. I think a lot of investment has been made in policing over the years, and rightly so. But the vast majority of women who experience domestic and sexual violence don't report it to the police. It's said that only one in ten sexual assaults are reported to the police, and only 22 percent of domestic violence is reported to the police.

I used to the be the executive director of the sexual assault centre of Victoria and dealt with Esquimalt and Oak Bay and Saanich and Victoria and the West Shore RCMP before they became the West Shore RCMP. It's a little bit of a nightmare with all of the different departments, but there are ways to coordinate efforts, and you can develop committees to ensure that there's a cross-sector coordination.

We did that in those years while I was there, with sexual assault. There was a cross-sector coordination for sexual assault and one for domestic violence. So I don't think that stands in the way. Now, obviously, there was a cross-jurisdictional problem in the death of Sunny and her family, and that had to do with lots of different departments. But I think that if there's policy to ensure and mandate people to coordinate, I wouldn't say that's the most important thing that we spend our money on.

I think having advocates in the community on the ground that help women navigate all the complex systems; that can say to the police, if the police aren't realizing that somebody's at risk, to ring the alarm bell; that can say to child protection: "I don't think you're looking at this quite properly" or "You shouldn't be removing that kid" — these advocates are really the key. As I said, we haven't been able to find a woman who has died who was a client of one of these programs.

S. Gibson: Thank you, Tracy. It's a troubling subject. I come from Abbotsford, and our police chief…. Maybe you know about this.

S. Gibson: This is the first year that Bob Rich has set up a force just like this. He's dedicated, I think, three officers, maybe four, just to this area. It was really troubling for us to hear, as you mentioned, that only about 15 percent of women — maybe even 10 percent, you mentioned — actually report it.

It's also sociocultural, too, because women don't feel that they should. They somehow feel some crazy loyalty to the family unit, even though they're being treated in a most horrific way. I'm not sure how we get past that stage, to make it legitimate for these women to come forward. It is an issue particularly in the South Asian community in the west end of Abbotsford. I have the east end. I don't know whether you want to comment on that a little bit.

S. Gibson: I know the First Nations is problematic, but also in the South Asian community as well, where there's not reporting well what's going on.

T. Porteous: Well, I think this kind of violence cuts across all cultures and communities. I think that we tend to focus a little bit more on the South Asian community in Surrey, and I wouldn't say that it happens any more in that community. If you look at the deaths across B.C., it's pretty even.

I would say that unlike many crimes, domestic violence is complicated by love and by children and sharing a home and family and faith and a sense of community. So it's very difficult. If somebody has been victimized by their spouse, somebody who loves them, it's not just something that you leave. But I think a key is to have support programs for offenders, because lots more women would come forward.

We used to have programs for offenders that were all cut in 2002, so that men who were recognizing that they had a problem or women who could convince their husbands to come forward and get help…. Largely, women don't want their relationship to end. They want the violence to stop.

Now, there are certain numbers of offenders that are kind of psychopathic, and that's not going to happen. But
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caught early, if we can provide supports for the family and for the offender, I think we have the ability to actually stop violence in its tracks.

D. Ashton (Chair): Last but not least, Carole — and quickly, please, if you don't mind.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Tracy, for your work. Thank you for your advocacy. The ICAT teams that you were talking about — those are in addition to the 69 community-based victim programs? Are they in the same communities, or are they in different communities? So just one quick question there.

The last one is: have you had any indication around the new domestic violence plan that there's going to be any additional money in the next couple of years? Have you had any indication at all?

T. Porteous: On the first question, the 20 ICATs exist largely in communities that also have a community-based victim assistance program, because they're chaired by a community-based victim assistance person and the police. They work best when there's a community-based victim assistance person that's co-chairing it.

On your second question, with the domestic violence action plan, it's a three-year plan. We were told there was $5.5 million. We're in year two, and I haven't seen any indication that there's going to be any money this year. I think all the money is set for next year. I'm not quite sure. It's a little bit confusing.

Really, $5.5 million. With respect, I understand that…. People say that there's not much money, but there's been like $1 billion more spent in education in the last ten years, billions more spent in health over the last years. If you look at the funding for anti-violence, it's flat. In the programs under our umbrella, it's $18 million. If you look at everything that we do with respect to domestic and sexual violence, it might be $70 million, but it's a flat line, and that's a problem.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you. I have to cut you off. Thank you very much for coming.

D. Ashton (Chair): B.C. Technology Industry Association. Bill, nice to see you again.

D. Ashton (Chair): Bill, we have ten minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions, and I'm pretty strict. I'll give you a two-minute heads-up at eight minutes.

B. Tam: Okay. Well, Mr. Chairman and hon. members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present our views on the technology sector in British Columbia.

I'd like to start by telling a little bit about the story of the B.C. tech sector, how fast it's grown and how it drives job creation, innovation and economic growth in the province. And perhaps I can talk a little bit about the massive opportunity that I think is before us. If we can take some deliberate actions, I believe that that can help us realize the full potential of this industry.

The B.C. Technology Industry Association, which I have had the honour for the last three years of being part of, was established 20 years ago as a non-profit. We represent companies from start-ups, small, medium, large, all active in various sectors, including the information and communications area, digital media, clean tech and health technologies. In aggregate, our membership represents about two-thirds of all those that work in the tech sector in British Columbia.

Our mission is pretty simple. It's about helping companies to grow and build world-class organizations, global leaders that can inspire legions of entrepreneurs and create a really vibrant technology system here in the province.

If I take us back, in the past 20 years the tech industry has grown sixfold, from about $4 billion in 1993 to over $23 billion in 2012. Through that period we've cultivated some global leaders, including companies like MDA, which is Canada's largest defence company; Canada's largest clean tech company, in Westport; the world's largest machine-to-machine or the Internet-of-things company called Sierra Wireless; Canada's largest social media management company, in Hootsuite; and the first company to sell Google a quantum computer, a company called D-Wave.

B.C. is also home to a large number of multinational companies that have built significant operations here in the province. That includes companies like Amazon, Best Buy, Boeing, Electronic Arts, Microsoft, IBM, McKesson, Samsung, Schneider Electric and Sap, just to name a few.

Now the tech industry is the third-largest contributor to the provincial GDP, with over $15 billion annually, and there are more than 84,000 people that work in the tech sector, which is actually, interestingly, more than all the jobs in the resource industries — that's forestry, mining, oil and gas — combined.

Over the past decade tech has been the second-fastest job creator in the private sector, and it now represents over $6 billion in annual wages — high-paying jobs that, on average, pay 66 percent more than the B.C. industrial average wage.
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One of the key success factors in the growth of the tech industry has really been the strength of our foundations. Of course, the Royal Bank consistently ranks our country, Canada, as one of the best places to start a business. Interestingly, more British Columbians work in start-ups than anywhere else in the country. Vancouver, of course, as many of you know, was recently ranked among the top ten start-up ecosystems in the world.

I think that's complemented in many ways by a really competitive business environment that is conducive to building tech companies. We have one of the most competitive, personal and corporate, income tax rates here in the province.

We've got provincial and federal R&D programs. We have angel and venture capital programs, and we have a growing number of programs that are supported by both the private and non-profit sectors that provide for incubation and acceleration support for companies that are similar to what we do at the BCTIA, which is a program called Centre4Growth.

I think the result has been a remarkable growth in the number of companies in the tech sector. There are now 9,000 companies overall.

Now, when we look at it in terms of the global context, I think we have a massive economic opportunity. The global technology industry is about $9 trillion, so if you do the calculation, our proportion of that is less than one-quarter of 1 percent. I think that represents some pretty significant upside. Our forecast shows that we can grow to $50 billion in industry revenue, account for 16 percent of provincial GDP and be at 142,000 jobs by 2020. We have the start-up companies in the pipeline to realize this growth. However, I think we need to take some purposeful, deliberate action to really realize the full potential.

We've consulted broadly with entrepreneurs, leaders, senior executives, venture capital firms, our friends in the academic sector and some of the multinational partners and customers that we often deal with to determine what the keys are to accelerating the growth of the tech industry in British Columbia. The result was….

What we put together was a four-point plan which identified four critical areas of focus. One was revitalizing venture capital access in the province. Two is developing, attracting and retaining top talent. Three is promoting a culture of home-team advantage, encouraging government and business leaders to buy B.C. technologies. And four is building the capacity of B.C.'s tech companies to grow faster, expand through initiatives such as our Centre4Growth program and really realize the global opportunities before them.

Now, what I'd like to do is maybe focus the balance of this discussion around the topic of revitalizing access to venture capital. As many of you know, venture capital is vital to a healthy and growing technology sector. Many of B.C.'s leading tech companies — that would include companies like Ballard and Westport, Sierra Wireless, Vision Critical, Avigilon and Hootsuite — benefited from venture capital at key stages of their growth.

The issue today is that there's a fundamental gap in funding resources for these companies. While the B.C. angel tax credit program has been instrumental in supporting the start-up of these businesses, the subsequent financing — really, what we call the first stage of venture capital — is an area that has diminished significantly.

The number of B.C.-based venture capital firms making new investments has declined from 11 in 2007 to only five today. The total investment capacity of new investments — that's the ability to actually fund companies — will decline even more, from about $231 million to $43 million by 2015.

This gap cannot be filled by foreign venture capital, because historically, local venture capital is really the capital that invests in a greater proportion of deals. They invest, typically, in five times the number of deals than their foreign venture capital counterparts, and oftentimes the foreign venture capital investors are looking for partners that have invested locally before they make their investments.

Both the Canadian and the B.C. governments have a track record for supporting venture capital. In 2007 the B.C. Renaissance Capital Fund was established, with $90 million in capital to invest in venture capital firms.

In January 2013 the federal government committed $400 million as part of their venture capital action plan to help to revitalize venture capital in Canada, and they've invited their provincial government counterparts to partner with them. Now, that federal money, as we understand, is only on the table until next year.

The BCTIA recommends that B.C. partner with the federal government to invest $100 million in a regional fund of funds. A fund of funds, to be clear, invests in venture capital firms as opposed to directly in any companies.

Now, the $100 million investment would be leveraged with private investment to realize upwards of $300 million in a British Columbia fund of funds. This would not mean that government directly invests in any companies; it's basically into the fund of funds. By taking this action, the government will help to restore a thriving venture capital sector that can also realize potential returns.

We recommend that the government also increase and enhance the small business venture capital program to $50 million in the upcoming budget in 2015-16, because this would allow angel investors as well as retail venture capital corporations to make larger investments and fill a near-term funding gap that's hampering the growth of early-stage tech companies.

We believe these recommendations are really essential to averting a potential collapse of early-stage venture capital for B.C. tech companies, and if we can revitalize the venture capital ecosystem, it will help to maximize our opportunity to grow to a $50 billion industry and create 142,000 jobs by 2020.
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J. Yap: Thanks, Bill. I've heard it said that while we have a very good-news story with the tech sector — you've described it well — one of the challenges is getting companies past the kind of early start-up phase into the bigger production phase where they're more sustainable and profitable. Hootsuite, as you mentioned, is a real exception.

How do we get from that stable of 9,000 companies where the vast majority are one or two people — the inventors, right? — and some are beyond that, to the next stage, where they are viable, producing, hiring, investing companies? Any thoughts on that?

B. Tam: Absolutely. It's a great question, John, and I know we've had some discussions on this in the past.

The alarming piece in our demographic is that 96 percent of all the companies in British Columbia are 50 people or less. They're small or very small companies. In an industry like technology, scale matters. It matters a lot. So we have worked very hard to determine sort of the key attributes that are necessary to really grow to a more substantial base of what we'll call anchor companies, companies that are mid-size or larger. They provide a disproportionate amount of the talent that's flourishing, the attraction of investment and all the spinoff effects that typically kind of feed an ecosystem like ours.

Turning back to venture capital, it certainly is one of the key limiting factors in trying to grow these companies. There are critical pivot points at which the company needs access to risk capital to really make the leap from being a supplier of local solutions to something that could start to export in a more substantial way.

As we've seen the decline in the overall capacity of venture capital, we're worried that we're going to see a number of companies stall in that growth path. That's why we believe replenishing the venture capital ecosystem is so important.

I've heard anecdotally from a number of people involved in the tech sector that one of the issues with foreign capital investment, foreign angel investment, is that after some period of time — a lot of it comes from near the Silicon Valley — they want to draw the company south because they're just more comfortable if it's closer to where they are.

So my first question is: would you agree that that's the case and, therefore, that would be part of the case for establishing a B.C.-based fund?

Second is…. This isn't really a question, but if you have any studies or projections that would show what the return on tax dollar investment to British Columbia would be by the upfront investment of the $300 million, if that can be submitted to the committee for our review by — I think it is — October 17, that would be great.

Finally, we had a small tech start-up representative in earlier, talking about some of the obstacles to having local companies be given preference in procurement in British Columbia. You mentioned it was desirable to have preferential procurement or local procurement in your submission. Are there obstacles that you want to bring to our attention that you think are within our power to address?

On your first question there's no question in my mind that the proximity to the investors often does dictate where they locate. As the spotlight has shone on Vancouver, there's no doubt that if foreign investors from Silicon Valley come up to invest in businesses, more often than not they will want them close by as they begin their formative parts of their journey.

There is a risk in terms of the relocation of what I think is some very capable and skilled talent, right at the beginning, if we don't have a sufficient ecosystem to support them.

On the second question, yes, we have done some analysis of what the outlook from an economic impact looks like for the British Columbia fund of funds. I believe that this is really…. I should emphasize that it is an investment. Like many investments, it is…. Fund of funds are usually long term in nature. They're ten years or more. So the track record for fund of funds is on the public record, but I will certainly provide some information on that.

It is also worth noting that as part of the venture capital action plan, the federal government will go through a selection process to find the best fund managers that will provide the kinds of returns that all investors are looking for. There is a competitive process in that endeavour.

On your final question, regarding procurement and access to government budgets, perhaps, for smaller companies, there's no question that smaller companies, because of the large proportion of small companies we have here, are often disadvantaged as far as being able to access the more sophisticated buyer groups.

Here in British Columbia, it's often the case that the Crown agencies as well as the government occupy a fair proportion of the overall IT spending in the province. We certainly believe that part of that is trying to stimulate familiarity with what's available. That's work that we often do with the folks that are making decisions, but there are certain vehicles that, we believe, in the long term are important, such as, potentially, set-asides for companies of certain sizes that could access the procurement system.

G. Holman: Thank you very much, Bill, for your presentation. Two questions. I guess I'm not understanding. If Vancouver is such a good ecosystem for high tech — and clearly it is — why is the investment capacity for new in-
[ Page 919 ]
vestments declining? That's one. What's happening there, particularly given the success in Vancouver?

Also, you make the comment here that this British Columbia fund of funds would not mean government directly investing. It's like it's some kind of loan facility, longer term. Two questions there.

B. Tam: Okay. Thank you for the questions. Perhaps I can answer your second one first.

The investment would actually be an investment in the form of equity into a fund of funds. Those fund of funds operate not unlike what a mutual fund would do. They would make disbursements and investments of that nature. The important aspect of this is that from the standpoint at least of the federal government, they are choosing the fund manager and not the companies directly. That provides a very important sort of separation, if you will, in not picking winners, if I can put it that way.

In terms of your first question, if you don't mind reminding me, Gary, of what that question was.

G. Holman: Well, you're saying that private sector venture capital is declining, despite the fact that Vancouver has this great track record and is rated quite highly as an ecosystem.

B. Tam: Right. It's actually a dilemma that has been characterized across the country. This is a Canadian venture capital issue, which is why the federal government is taking direct action on this.

In Canada the reality is that we have very few institutional investors. Those are the pension plans, endowment funds and that sort of thing. In trying to replenish the state of venture capital across the country, they recognized that they needed to have a deliberate intervention, if you will, in order to stimulate these fund pools yet again. That has largely been missing in the last number of years, despite the growth of the tech sector here.

These fund cycles work in ten-year cycles. So the investments that are made today were the ones that were made ten years ago. Now looking forward is really the challenge. That's why, I think, there's been a need for replenishment.

We'll see everybody on Monday in Whistler, or see most in Whistler then. Could we adjourn at this point in time? Thank you.

Access to on-line versions of the report of proceedings (Hansard)
and webcasts of committee proceedings is available on the Internet.

18) Inclusion BC	Annette Delaplace
	Faith Bodnar
	Sky Hendsbee

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
Other Members:	Bruce Ralston (Surrey-Whalley NDP)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Sarah Griffiths (Committees Assistant)

Witnesses:	Robin Archdekin (President and CEO, Geoscience B.C.)
	Christian Avendano (Students Union of Vancouver Community College)
	Patti Bacchus (Chairperson, Board of Education, School District 39 — Vancouver)
	Bill Barrable (CEO, Rick Hansen Institute)
	Pamela Berg (Rick Hansen Institute)
	Faith Bodnar (Executive Director, Inclusion B.C.)
	William Booth (Downtown Eastside Adult Literacy Roundtable)
	Steve Cardwell (Superintendent, School District 39 — Vancouver)
	Ken Carrusca (Cement Association of Canada)
	Robin Ciceri (President, Research Universities Council of B.C.)
	Andrea Clifford (Geoscience B.C.)
	Zinnia Clark (Downtown Eastside Adult Literacy Roundtable)
	Zachary Crispin (Chair, Canadian Federation of Students–B.C.)
	Jenelle Davies (Canadian Federation of Students–B.C.)
	George Davison (Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C.)
	Annette Delaplace (Inclusion B.C.)
	Catherine Fritter (Chair, Board of Directors, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, British Columbia)
	Gloria Han (Emily Carr Students Union)
	Wayne Hartrick (President, Canadian Men's Health Foundation)
	Sky Hendsbee (Inclusion B.C.)
	Tracy Ho (Douglas Students Union)
	Matt Horne (Pembina Institute)
	Sharnelle Jenkins-Thompson (Downtown Eastside Adult Literacy Roundtable)
	Dan Jepsen (Geoscience B.C.)
	Salguero Kiernan (Emily Carr Students Union)
	Anne MacCallum (International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication Canada)
	Lori MacDonald (Executive Director, Emily Carr Students Union)
	Scott McDonald (Executive Director, B.C. Lung Association)
	Lisa McGuire (CEO, FIOSA-MIOSA Safety Alliance of B.C.)
	Bruce Madu (Geoscience B.C.)
	Patrick Malone (CEO, iTendr)
	Adrienne Montani (First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition)
	Cindy Oliver (President, Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C.)
	Helmut Pastrick (Central 1 Credit Union)
	Wendy Pattenden (CEO, Canadian Sport Institute Pacific)
	Tracy Porteous (Executive Director, Ending Violence Association of British Columbia)
	Jeffrey Riley (President, International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication)
	Carlos Salas (Geoscience B.C.)
	Keith Sashaw (President and CEO, Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, British Columbia)
	Karen Shortt (President, Vancouver Community College Faculty Association)
	Bill Tam (President and CEO, British Columbia Technology Industry Association)
	Ruab Waraich (Douglas Students Union)
	Greg Wilson (Retail Council of Canada)
	Peter Wood (Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, B.C. Chapter)
	Donald Wright (President and CEO, Central 1 Credit Union)

1) Board of Education, School District No. 39 (Vancouver)	Patti Bacchus
	Steve Cardwell

8) Emily Carr Students’ Union	Gloria Han
	Salguero Kiernan
	Lori MacDonald

9) Geoscience BC	Robin Archdekin
	Bruce Madu
	Andrea Clifford
	Carlos Salas
	Dan Jepsen

11) Canadian Federation of Students, British Columbia	Zachary Crispin
	Jenelle Davies

15) Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC	Cindy Oliver
	George Davison

17) International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ISAAC) Canada	Anne MacCallum
	Jeffrey Riley

23) Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, British Columbia	Catherine Fritter
	Keith Sashaw

25) Downtown Eastside Adult Literacy Roundtable	Sharnelle Jenkins-Thompson
	Zinnia Clark
	William Booth

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES