Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 43 — Wednesday, October 1, 2014 (HTML)

Thulin Room, Campbell River Maritime Heritage Centre
621 Island Highway, Campbell River, B.C.

Present: Dan Ashton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Gary Holman, MLA; Jane Jae Kyung Shin, 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	1061
K. Eddy
A. Boyd
G. Ullstrom
J. Dunn
B. Quesnel
P. Kent
L. Robert
S. Ackland
G. Gould
B. Miller
G. Jackson

D. Ashton (Chair): Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you very much for coming today. My name is Dan Ashton. I'm the MLA for Penticton and the Chair of this committee, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We are an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with a mandate to hold provincewide public consultations for the next provincial budget.

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 the budget for 2015 no later than November 15, 2014.

This year we are holding 16 public hearings in communities across the province. A video conference session is also scheduled for October 8 to hear from four additional communities — Dawson Creek, Quesnel, Smithers and Castlegar. This week we've been in Cranbrook — we couldn't get into Castlegar — Kelowna, Kamloops, Williams Lake, Campbell River and Courtenay.

In addition to the hearings, the committee is accepting written, audio and video submissions and responses to a short on-line survey. You can make a submission or learn more by visiting our webpage at www.leg.bc.ca/budgetconsultations. You can also follow us on Facebook and on Twitter.

We invite all British Columbians to take the time to make a submission and to participate in this 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.

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 at the information table in the back.

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

The gentleman at the end of the table that looks like a Secret Service agent is actually doing two meetings because of a quorum situation that was required. He is paying attention — mark our words — but he may have to get up and run out very quickly.

Before we go, I would like to welcome Claire Trevena. Thank you very much for your incredible hospitality here. What a beautiful community you have. It's nice to see you. Thank you for coming.

J. Shin: Hello, my name is Jane Shin. I'm the MLA for Burnaby-Lougheed, and I'm the deputy spokesperson for trade, immigration and multiculturalism.

G. Holman: Hi. This has got to be the nicest location we've visited yet — ocean view. Gary Holman, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands and critic for democratic reform.

G. Heyman: Good afternoon. My name is George Heyman. I'm the MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, and I'm the spokesperson for TransLink, technology and the green economy. I will try to keep my eyes off the view and on presenters.

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

D. Ashton (Chair): Also joining us today is Susan Sourial and Sarah Griffiths. Sarah is at the back taking registrations, and Susan is here keeping a line on everything — two ladies that do an incredible job. They're both from the parliamentary committees office. Hansard Services is also here today with the recording — these people behind all the boxes and the wires over there. You have Ian Battle and Jean Medland. Both of them also do a wonderful job at making sure that everything is recorded properly and everything is documented.

First up, we have Campbell River Literacy Now. We have Anne Boyd and Kat Eddy. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming. I'll give you a two-minute warning if you're approaching the ten-minute mark, just so that you know. The floor is yours.

K. Eddy: Excellent. Good afternoon to the hon. members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I hope that you've had a chance today to enjoy our beautiful autumn day here in Campbell River. Sorry about the ocean view. We'll try better next time.

My name is Kat Eddy, and I represent the Campbell River Community Literacy Association and Campbell River Literacy Now. The Campbell River Community
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Literacy Association is a small non-profit offering direct literacy programming to adults and seniors here in the Campbell River and Quadra Island communities.

To my left is Anne Boyd. Anne Boyd is community outreach coordinator for Campbell River Literacy Now, a community working group funded through Decoda Literacy Solutions. This group's primary mandates are public awareness of literacy issues, outreach through community events and a focused approach to embed literacy in all community programming from cradle to grave.

I would like to begin by thanking you for providing us with this opportunity to speak and share with you our community's story of the breadth of impact provincial literacy coordination funding has had here in Campbell River.

We'd also like to recognize and show our appreciation for last year's recommendation by this committee regarding the annual funding of $2.5 million for community literacy works in British Columbia. We were extremely disappointed that your recommendation was not carried through into the provincial budget. This yearly struggle for sustainable funding, ultimately, has resulted in our provincial literacy network being thrown into a state of uncertainty and chaos.

Moving into the 2014-2015 year without funding guaranteed, we were unable to commit and plan with other community groups for literacy supports and future programming. As these networks unravel due to a lack of sustainable funding, the significant provincial investment in literacy depreciates in value.

In the time that access to funding for provincial literacy coordination has been available, we, as a community task group, have been able to develop the following programs and supports. At this point I'd like to talk to you a little bit about what it looks like on a community level here in Campbell River.

We have had the opportunity to have a strong presence at all early literacy tables, resulting in a more focused approach to learning in the early years. There's strong collaboration between literacy tables and organizations like Success By 6. Through these collaborations, the following objectives have been met in our community.

We've been able to provide targeted professional development opportunities for early childhood educators.

All infants born in Campbell River and surrounding communities, including Sayward and the outer islands, are provided with a Books for Babies bag by our Vancouver Island regional health nurse when she does the initial home visit. At this time she is given an opportunity to present the message of the importance of early reading.

Literacy coordination provided a connection between early learning educators and primary teachers, helping to streamline transition into kindergarten.

Something that we're really proud of in Campbell River is our Family Literacy Day events. Family Literacy Day has blossomed from a single targeted reading event to a community-wide week-long celebration. Last year we boasted over 3,000 Campbell River residents in participation of Literacy Day.

This flexibility in literacy coordination funding also allowed our community to meet an identified need of children in low-income housing. Campbell River, as a community, is geographically a very long community, and transportation is a significant problem for people to access services. What we decided, as a community group, is that we would take programming directly to those who needed it the most.

This literacy funding contributed to a place called the Gathering Place. The Gathering Place is a four-day-a-week after-school program on a B.C. Housing complex in a common area. It provides healthy snacks, recreation activities and educational supports to kids from grades K through 7.

Another thing that we're also very proud of is…. During the literacy table discussion, one of our local librarians raised a concern about disconnected youth hanging out in the downtown core. Our local library provides free Internet services, so they had a large group of children, of teens and young adults, that would hang out in the library to access Internet. She was really, really concerned about these individuals.

This was brought up at literacy table. In order to address this, we pulled together the John Howard Society of North Island and Campbell River Family Services, and we had a discussion. They, too, were concerned about these youths hanging around downtown. They were able to pull together some resources and create a space called Delaware. Delaware is a breakfast program for youth and young adults, ages 14 to 24.

What it does is it provides breakfast, health resources and educational opportunities. It gives these kids an opportunity to reconnect with education. We've seen a lot of referrals into our Robron secondary school, which is an alternative education provider sponsored through school district 72.

Ongoing collaboration with our aboriginal communities allows us to offer supports in the form of advice, physical resources and contribution to community activities. Campbell River is unique in the fact that we have four distinct aboriginal bands in Campbell River and a large aboriginal population.

Partnering with the Campbell River Literacy Association, provincial funding has allowed for the creation of an outreach position, which is what I fill, to take literacy to non-traditional places in the community. As a result of this partnership, the Campbell River Literacy Association has received funding to offer four additional programs outside of the scope of our adult literacy program. These programs include aboriginal family literacy, family
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literacy, youth English-as-a-second-language homework support and basic computer instruction for seniors.

Over the past five years 200 seniors have had the opportunity to learn the basics of computers, allowing them to reconnect with friends, family and their community. I facilitate this program, and it's pretty fun. It's pretty fun to see seniors when they first come in, terrified, almost hostile towards their computers, and after a few weeks of instruction and buoying them up, telling them that it's going to be okay and that they're going to figure out the silly thing, they leave confident and able to connect with their families.

Provincial literacy coordination funding allows for programming that is flexible and tailored to an individual's needs. Moving forward, a lack of this funding will leave a considerable portion of the population without access to skills required for employment.

In closing, we are here this afternoon to ask for a recommendation that the government provide the minimum amount of $2.5 million required to fund the coordination of provincial literacy work annually. The Decoda-inspired model of literacy outreach and collaboration has been proven to meet the distinctive needs of each community. Sustainable funding will allow this network to continue and protect the prior investments of government, community and individuals in the ever-important quest of literacy for all.

J. Shin: Thank you for the presentation. These are some really great programs, and I was curious to find out…. I can see that you engage with over 3,000 residents for the Family Literacy Day, but for some of your other incredible programs, would you be able to quantify for us how many students or children are being touched or seniors are serviced?

K. Eddy: Absolutely. Our adult literacy program last year saw over 80 adult learners. We have a very strong tie with our school district, so continuing education actually directly refers learners that are below a grade 10 level into our one-on-one tutor supported program.

We also had a very vibrant English-as-a-second-language program, but as everyone knows, we lost funding this year. It was a devastating impact to our organization, and we're trying to service as many learners as we can, moving forward, but there are constraints.

Our family literacy and aboriginal family literacy programs are new to our community as of last year. We've been taking direct referrals from school district primary teachers of families that they recognize, as their children are falling behind.

Last year in our family literacy program we saw 24 families access our services, and our aboriginal family literacy program saw about 15, some of which continued on with the program and some of which dropped off.

Basic computers for seniors is an incredibly popular program in Campbell River. I get phone calls about it all the time, and as technology evolves, our program has also evolved. We're looking this year at doing tablet technology. I typically teach Windows, but now it's time for me to brush up on my tablet technology.

A. Boyd: In the after-school program at the Gathering Place, we typically reach about 35 school-aged children during the course of the week, and we partner with the city of Campbell River and with family services. They help us provide, so that we give those kids an all-round program, and we build the education into it as well. Kat works there with the kids.

There's actually, in that one complex, more children of school age, from kindergarten-to-grade-12, than in many of our elementary schools — contained right within one low-cost housing project.

E. Foster: A couple of things. One comment, quickly. You'll notice a lot of us looking at our laptops, and so on. We've got you up on our laptops. That's why we've got them here.

I notice on the literacy one you have two — the red block and the blue block. You have Campbell River Community Literacy Association and the Campbell River Literacy Now. You did allude to that in your presentation. Do you run two separate organizations, or do you just run one organization and one umbrella over them?

A. Boyd: Campbell River Literacy Now work facilitates literacy, basically, from very young children to seniors. Working with the Campbell River association, which is a charitable organization and receives some CALP funding, we focus on the adult piece. We then take literacy out beyond that. The association has always traditionally focused on adults. They weren't covering the full scope of literacy.

Our task force works across the whole community, but we work very closely with Success By 6, with Community Literacy Association and with other groups within the community.

E. Foster: You don't run two separate administration groups. That's what I'm asking.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for your presentation. My one question that I had was answered by your earlier comment. I just want to say we've heard a number of presentations from community literacy groups, and we heard one this morning in Williams Lake.

What really strikes me, with the funding that's disbursed to community literacy agencies, is how effectively you tailor programs that are very specific to your communities. I think it's a really good example of providing support for local organizations that ensure that the program delivered in the community is really what the community needs. I just want to thank you, and you've made your point very well.

A. Boyd: Thank you. We should also mention that because our school district is composed of four communities, we have literacy on Cortes Island, Quadra Island and in Sayward, and their programs are very distinct and different. We do work together as a coordinated effort, but they manage to do amazing things on $8,000 a year.

G. Holman: Quickly, thanks for your presentation, and just to echo some of George's comments. I haven't attended all of the Finance Committee meetings this year. I was a committee member last year. In virtually every one, we've had a literacy group come to the committee, so we're pretty well informed about the kind of work and how you adjust programming to fit the community's needs. The leverage that you get on public dollars is quite impressive.

Just one specific question. You mentioned ESL funding. The funding that was lost — are you referring to federal, provincial? I take it that you access some of that funding for your programming.

K. Eddy: Currently we have no funding for our ESL program. We were ESLSAP recipients, which is a provincial funding stream.

A. Boyd: No, it came from the federal…. It was cut by the federal government — sorry.

K. Eddy: It was downloaded to the federal government, which required a reapplication process. On the reapplication process, we did partner with our North Island College to offer a portion of our English program — a very community-based, tutor-run and -driven model, which a lot of learners found great success with. Unfortunately, we did not receive the portion of the grant. North Island College did get some money to run an ESL program, but our portion was declined.

Our youth ESL homework group is actually sponsored by community gaming grants. Campbell River Literacy Now put in some funding to get it launched, and then we wrote for some grants, as the Campbell Literacy Association, to continue the work forward into the future. So that's unaffected by the change of funding.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have 30 seconds left. Scott, can you fit something in, in 30 seconds?

Thanks for your presentation. I understand what you're talking about when you're talking about computer literacy and seniors. One of my most vital errors was giving my mother an iPad. I'm the one getting the calls.

My question to you is on NIC. Do you provide services to the post-secondary youth in the community as well?

K. Eddy: Absolutely. If they do not meet entrance requirements by NIC to enter programs or if they're below about a grade 10 level, we provide one-on-one tutoring support, so they get focused, concentrated work — like a team — to move forward in their personal goals.

G. Ullstrom: Thank you for having me, and thank you for taking the time to come to Campbell River. Welcome.

Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and we have five minutes for questions.

G. Ullstrom: Well, thank you for the opportunity to address you today. My name is Garry Ullstrom, and I'm the CEO of Kuterra Limited Partnership.

Kuterra was founded three years ago to grow Atlantic salmon on land in giant tanks at a commercial scale. Kuterra is 100 percent owned by the 'Namgis First Nation and is located just up the highway outside of Port McNeill. We've been selling our fish commercially since April of this year.

Kuterra endorses wholeheartedly the B.C. government's goal of growing a stronger economy and a skilled workforce within the framework of a balanced provincial budget.

I'm here today to tell you about a new green agrifoods sector being built in B.C., which we're a part of, that can contribute to B.C.'s economic growth and pool of skilled jobs. I also would like to urge the B.C. government to be an advocate for this new sector and to support our efforts to attract investment to B.C. for growing a green sector with global scope.
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Land-based closed containment aquaculture is gaining global momentum. It has the potential to grow the B.C. economy; to give British Columbians on-the-job training for high-skill jobs; to help First Nations leverage their land base into economic growth, as we're doing with the 'Namgis; to tap into an exploding global market; and to offer B.C. a chance to consolidate its current standing as a global leader in a sector that's growing in a number of countries, including China, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Chile and the United States. That's a long list of potentials, but it is rooted in solid ground, and that pun is intended.

World fish consumption is expected to reach 183 million tonnes by 2030. Most of the world's wild fish stocks are being threatened by many factors, including climate change to overfishing. As a result, the UN's food agency expects that two-thirds of future seafood demand will have to come from aquaculture, which is forecast to double by 2050.

Aquaculture is not going to go away. The question is: how do we grow aquaculture sustainably? Many people are looking at land-based closed containment technology as a possible answer because of its many advantages. It eliminates interactions between farm and wild environments. It isn't limited by the diminishing availability of suitable marine sites. It offers complete control of operational parameters, which maximizes efficient use of all resources, the growth of the fish, and it minimizes business and biological risk. Lastly, it captures waste streams, which can become revenue streams, with solid waste composted to make fertilizer and discharged water and carbon dioxide used for aquaponics.

Already the land-based closed containment aquaculture sector in B.C. has four operations growing fish for consumers. Kuterra in Port McNeill — we grow Atlantic salmon. Target Marine in Sechelt is growing sturgeon and coho, Taste of B.C. in Nanaimo is growing steelhead trout, and Sumas Lake Aquafarm in Abbotsford is growing tilapia.

For salmon, land-based closed containment aquaculture has several advantages. Salmon grow twice as fast as ocean-raised salmon because they don't need to use energy to cope with environmental stresses. They're grown with no antibiotics, pesticides or hormones. It's a premium product with rich, firm flesh that's getting excellent reviews from chefs and consumers alike.

Land-based closed containment Atlantic salmon aquaculture is technically feasible, and it's biologically feasible. The remaining question is: is it economically feasible? Kuterra is among the global leaders working to answer that question. We're the first such facility in North America, the second in the world, with more coming up behind us.

The 'Namgis First Nation started on this road because of its concerns about the impacts of open-net pens on the marine environment. But it wanted to be constructive in seeking an alternative to the status quo. At the time 'Namgis were exploring options, there were no commercial-scale land-based Atlantic salmon farms anywhere in the world, but there was a lot of speculation about whether it was possible. So 'Namgis decided to take on that challenge. In addition to environmental concerns, 'Namgis were motivated to create jobs, to train 'Namgis members and to earn revenues.

We're using a technology called RAS, recirculating aquaculture systems, which have been used for many years on a smaller scale for many other types of fish. We're growing Atlantic salmon because it's the dominant fish in traditional aquaculture, and we need to grow the same fish in order to compare results.

We're getting close to an answer. We're growing fish, selling them and gathering data. Data collection is a condition of our funding, so that what we learn benefits the whole industry.

Kuterra is still at the commissioning and discovery stage. We're working out technical and biological challenges, and we're ramping up our facility to full capacity. The more fish we grow and sell, the more we learn. So far we've learned important operational and engineering lessons and worked through the challenges to be expected with a completely new type of operation.

We've also dispelled many misconceptions about land-based closed-containment aquaculture. For example, we use very little energy. It's not even one of our top three costs. We use very little water. Roughly 98 percent of the water is cleaned and recirculated. And we use very little land. If all of B.C.'s current Atlantic salmon production were grown on land, it would take up an area 1/10 the size of Stanley Park.

Lastly, we've learned that salmon do not show signs of stress at being grown in tanks. Basically, it's a Club Med for fish that we've built, you see. So they're pretty happy in there.

Significantly, we've learned that there's a strong market demand and willingness to pay a premium for land-raised salmon. From the start, demand has far outstripped supply. Almost all our fish is sold in Safeway stores in B.C. and Alberta. But we've had requests for our fish from across Canada, mostly from Ontario, the U.S. and from overseas — Korea, the Philippines and United Arab Emirates, which itself is investing in land-based aquaculture.

We've had inquiries and media from across North America, the U.K., Iceland, Tasmania, New Zealand, Greece and Russia.

We conclude from this that there's an opportunity to build B.C. as a brand of origin for a high-return premium seafood market similar to the highly successful VQA designations for wine. This could encompass wild fish and premium farmed fish. The synergies could support year-round processing in value-added facilities such as the newly expanded Albion processing plant in Richmond.

It could also support the burgeoning local aquacul-
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ture engineering and equipment manufacturing sector. Kuterra's first module alone sourced $6 million of construction goods and services locally, most of it from Vancouver Island.

We're proud to be a made-in-B.C. facility. This demonstrates the potential of this new sector to bring to B.C. well-paying jobs in engineering, manufacturing and construction.

By this time next year we expect to have achieved steady-state operations and to have made significant progress optimizing both the technology and the fish performance. This will allow us to answer the final economic questions.

Meanwhile, the eyes of the world are upon us, as regulators and investors globally explore the potential of land-based aquaculture for salmon and other species.

Thank you for your time and attention. I welcome your consideration of the value of land-based closed-containment aquaculture in terms of growing British Columbia's export potential, growing First Nations partnerships, rural economic development and growing more high-skilled jobs and provincial revenues. We look forward to your support.

Now on more of a personal moment, if I've got one minute left. I've had more than 50 years to explore some extraordinarily beautiful places in our province — by foot, canoe, kayak, sailboat, ski, what have you. We have been endowed with an amazing natural heritage to look after and to steward for our children and our grandchildren. In terms of the questionnaire or survey that your committee put out, speaking to that, I would request that you tax pollution.

The carbon tax is a very progressive measure, in my estimation, and I commend you on that. At Kuterra we've spent millions of dollars to eliminate or minimize any waste or discharge that might harm the environment. Taxes that tax waste — anything harmful to the environment — in my estimation are very progressive.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for a quite fascinating presentation and for all the points you made. And thank you for effectively carrying out research that's potentially of benefit to the entire industry, as well as British Columbia as a whole, while at the same time appearing, at least at this point, to be developing a pretty successful business model.

I do have a question on an area that you didn't touch on directly. I had a conversation a couple of years ago with an engineer who described to me some research that was going on at UBC to address one of the other issues that exists with aquaculture, and that's the issue of protein in versus protein out. He said they were doing some research into creating strains of protein in the laboratory that matched the specific kinds of protein that salmon grow well on.

I haven't heard more about that. I'm just wondering if you have and if you know if that's moving ahead with any success or if that's something that you or others in the industry are monitoring as a feed-source alternative.

G. Ullstrom: Yes. B.C., again, has the potential to be leaders here. You may have heard of a company called Enterra. David Suzuki is part of that. They are growing insects and using the pupae, which are high in omega 3s, to create fish feed. Algae is also another source of protein that's high in omega 3s, and it is being developed in several places around the world as a potential substitute for wild fish in fish feed.

You're absolutely right. There's a great concern, through overfishing, of wild fish to be used as fish feed.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have Scott, Gary, Carole and Jane, and we have about three minutes. Sorry — short and sweet would help.

S. Hamilton: I'll be short and sweet. Thank you for your presentation. Thanks for the work you're doing. The research you're doing is just as important as…. Well, let's talk a little bit about the revenue side. I'm interested in production numbers, where you started, where you are now and where your markets are.

G. Ullstrom: Well, we've produced 60 metric tonnes so far. Our goal is to produce about 500 tonnes a year, or one million pounds, when we've ramped up the biomass. It takes a while to grow the fish and get them up to full size. We're filling up our facility right now.

Our primary markets are B.C. and Alberta, through Safeway, as well as high-end restaurants across the country. But demand right now outstrips supply, so we're limiting it to that.

S. Hamilton: And the high-end restaurants, I assume, really latch on to this sort of thing, with regard to the sustainability of the…. Okay, that's enough. I won't take any more time.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Just quickly, a question around employees. You didn't talk about employees. I wonder if you could just talk about the number of staff, the number of employees that you have, and how that compares — ocean-based versus land-based.

G. Ullstrom: I'm not an expert on the ocean-based, I have to say, so I really can't speak to that. But at this point
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in our operation we have six technicians — six FTEs on the site. We have an operations manager. We brought him over from Ireland. But we were fortunate enough to have two local B.C. residents who were skilled in RAS, and we have three First Nation trainees as junior technicians.

G. Holman: I have a lot of questions, which I won't get into here. But I would like to meet with you later and tour the facility. I'm the fisheries critic for the official opposition.

In terms of your background, I'm interested in where you're coming from, interested in whether there is…. Within the existing industry, are they showing some interest in what you're doing? The response from the industry when you talk about closed containment is: good idea, some technical problems — which I assume you're kind of demonstrating aren't a real obstacle — but it's not really feasible.

I'm just wondering, from the existing industry, are they showing interest in your operation? And whereabouts do you do the processing.

G. Ullstrom: The existing industry is generally supportive. We share the information that we learn, and they're hoping, as are we, to learn a great deal from this. Our goal is to reduce the risk threshold for new entrance to the market.

Where are our fish currently processed? In Richmond. We have a sole distributor, Albion Fisheries.

G. Ullstrom: There is a processor, but we have a unique sales and distribution and processing agreement with Albion. It's a margin-sharing agreement that enables us to earn some higher revenues than we otherwise would.

G. Ullstrom: My background. Well, I'm an old tree-planting contractor from Prince George, but I'm a chartered accountant by training. I'm a jack of all trades in the sense that I look after the 'Namgis's commercial portfolio, which is quite varied.

J. Shin: I do. Okay. Since starting last year, I think it's a promising sign that you were able to distribute through 140-some Safeway stores. That's great.

I understand that the price point is $3.99 per 100 grams or so. Is that one competitive with other sources of salmon on the market? I was also wondering if you can comment on the current market share that you have domestically and also your export strategies to Asian markets or globally.

G. Ullstrom: Right. It is competitive. We are receiving a premium for that, for our product at the farm gate. Once we've proven the model, we would like to expand so that we can expand our markets. As I say, right now demand outstrips supply, just in B.C. and Alberta. Manitoba Safeway stores wanted our product, but we don't have enough to supply them. That's our challenge.

D. Ashton (Chair): Garry, thank you very much — greatly appreciated. Very interesting presentation.

Next up, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association. Hi, Jeremy. Nice to see you again. Welcome. Jeremy, we have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have five minutes for questions. You can see we have lots of questions around the table.

J. Dunn: Thank you very much for having me here today. Welcome to Campbell River. My name is Jeremy Dunn. I'm the executive director with the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association. I come here today on behalf of our 40 members that work in most communities on Vancouver Island as well as communities on the Sunshine Coast. We also have a pretty significant economic footprint in the Lower Mainland.

Farm-raised salmon is currently, and has been for the last five years, B.C.'s No. 1 valued export, with about $300 million exported each year. Our members account for about 6,000 direct and indirect jobs in the province of B.C. We're currently undertaking an economic impact survey with MNP, which will have updated information for you within the next six weeks, to quantify our economic impact. PwC in 2008 estimated our total economic impact in B.C. at about $800 million a year.

Our members are extremely proud of their partnerships with First Nations in British Columbia. In fact, at our annual general meeting last week here in Campbell River one of our newest First Nation partners, the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island…. The hereditary chiefs formally invited us to their territory to host our AGM next year in October. We're proud to accept that and be hosting our 2015 AGM in the Tla-o-qui-aht territory, in concert with them.

We have 17 business and social partnerships with coastal First Nations. Many of the First Nations on the coast have partnerships, both economic and social, with our members. Of just the four top salmon-farming companies in British Columbia, 30 percent of their employ-
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ees are First Nations, which results in 240 direct First Nations jobs. We also have a number of partnerships and business contracts with First Nations. The average salary of our employees is $22 an hour. On the coast many of those jobs are union jobs, including a Marine Harvest processing plant in Port Hardy.

We have formal partnerships with the majority of the skills-training organizations here on Vancouver Island — Vancouver Island University, North Island College and with Excel Career College that is offering training for First Nations in remote communities, directly in their communities.

Our members have made a significant commitment to sustainability and the sustainability of their operations and just last week announced that B.C. would be the first region, if we reach our goal, to be 100 percent certified by gold-standard certifications by 2020. Right now one of our members, Creative Salmon, is North America's only producer of organic chinook salmon. Lois Lake steelhead grown just off Powell River by West Coast Fish Culture are already recognized by the Vancouver Aquarium.

Our Atlantic salmon producers, which is about 95 percent of the salmon raised in British Columbia and which were the first to achieve the best aquaculture practices certification, have now pledged, through their Global Salmon Initiative commitments to being the first region to achieve the Aquaculture Stewardship Council certification, which was developed over a six-year process by the World Wildlife Fund and is the most rigorous certification known in aquaculture today.

Our salmon farmers are achieving some of the best feed conversion ratios. It's something we talk about a fair bit in both agriculture and aquaculture. Right now it takes about 1.2 kilograms of feed to produce one kilogram of salmon, which is probably the most efficient animal protein grown in the world.

One thing that isn't spoken about a lot is the carbon footprint of aquaculture versus agriculture. Aquaculture — growing salmon in the ocean — has a carbon footprint 1/10 that of beef and about half of pork. It's actually incredibly carbon-efficient to grow salmon in the ocean.

The total land area occupied by our farms. There are 120 licences in B.C., and about 60 to 75 are operating at any given time. It takes up the space of about Stanley Park.

Our salmon has been recognized around the world as an incredibly healthy alternative. We're working in partnership with the Heart and Stroke Foundation here in British Columbia to further promote that and encourage people to eat more salmon.

You heard a little bit from the gentleman from Kuterra about the prospects for aquaculture in the world and in B.C. In fact, the demand for our products is skyrocketing. Just this year farmed seafood will surpass wild seafood in terms of consumption globally, and that's in all species.

In B.C. our industry hasn't grown in the last ten years. In Canada we haven't grown in 13 years. Globally, our competitiveness has fallen about 40 percent over that time. We are speaking with your colleagues on a number of occasions, especially those who travel to Asia and hear from Asian buyers that they want more B.C. seafood. We simply say that we wish we had more to sell them. In fact, if we grew another 10 percent of fish, we'd have those sold immediately. Every fish in the ocean is sold, and we're doing what we can to service the buyers.

We have processing plants on Vancouver Island that are state of the art. Currently the most used processing plant operates at about 40 to 45 percent capacity. So we have the infrastructure in place to be able to hire the bodies quickly, to be able to get up to speed and supply the industry.

Our association is looking to grow, our members are looking to grow, by about two to three sites per year and have a number of applications and amendments in process and are hoping for them to come through. One of those applications is, I think, a real gold standard for how salmon farms can be grown in the future, and that's with the Hope Island First Nation.

Marine Harvest was approached by the Hope Island First Nation, off of the north end of Vancouver Island, because they wanted to move back to their territory that they can't currently live in because there's no economy there. They've got a dilapidated First Nations village. They'd like to create an economy and approached Marine Harvest and said: "Can we farm salmon together so that we can go and occupy our land and we can build an economy?" Marine Harvest said: "Yeah, let's go and do the work."

It takes about a year and about $1 million to go through the licensing prospect. They've got their application in and are very hopeful that that will be approved soon, and there would be two new salmon farms off of Hope Island. The licences would be owned by the Tlatlasikwala people and farmed in partnership with Marine Harvest. We think that's a great way to be able to develop the coast in concert with the people that are here.

We're hopeful that through small increases, we can provide 8,000 jobs and $1.4 billion to B.C.'s economy by 2020 and be a real growth engine here on the coast.

For government, we're asking government in B.C. to be an activist on our behalf in Ottawa. The federal government has sent strong signals that they're looking to grow aquaculture, and we'd like the province to work hand in hand with them. We'd like the tenuring process revisited so that red tape is reduced — we know it's a mandate of the government to reduce red tape — and our applications and amendments are processed in a timely fashion, and that will help us increase aquaculture here on the coast and put more people to work.

I've been hearing something lately called the blue revolution. Maybe you could talk a little it about that, because I don't quite understand it myself.

J. Dunn: It's actually a term that was coined, I believe, in the early '80s when aquaculture was taking off. It's really, as we look to grow our food in the future, where are we going to do that? The primary food growth globally has been in the water. We are occupying the land. We're using it to its fullest extent.

In fact, we had José Villalón here last week. He spoke at Vancouver Aquarium — that was sponsored by our association — and here in Campbell River. He spoke about food security and how we're going to feed ourselves in the future.

When I look at British Columbia and I look at Canada, B.C. has such a fantastic opportunity to be a net food exporter of all food products, including aquaculture products, to the rest of the world, to Asia, and to really use green economy and agrifoods as an economic driver over the years to come. That's what the blue revolution is, the aquaculture side of that, and it has really taken off in other economies.

S. Hamilton: That's interesting. So the terminology has been around since the '80s.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. A question, which George asked a previous presenter, on the salmon food part. Did you say 1.2 to 1 was the conversion ratio?

G. Holman: What is the food source in general? I take it that it's other marine species.

J. Dunn: Well, there is a portion of the food that is still traditional fish oil and fish meal. That's being reduced all the time and being replaced with other non–human protein synthesis that is being put into the food, as well as plants. Soy and cornmeal are being added to the food.

Our feed manufacturers are working all the time to be able to reduce that. Globally, it's well below 1 to 1, because waste from other fish streams is transferred into food for other fish. The waste from tilapia is used to feed shrimp, and the waste from salmon is used to feed other fish. So there's a trade of the oil and meal around the world to do that. There is less harvesting of the traditional feed fish that you would hear of in South America.

G. Holman: Just to follow up, it's a conscious policy decision by industry to try and reduce the marine-species component of food?

J. Dunn: Absolutely, and our certifications call for it. If you can't show a feed conversion ratio that is low, you don't qualify for the certification. It's one thing about the ASC certification that is so important and why…. It's challenging. Only 5 percent of the farms in the world meet this certification currently. It's only two years old. It gets audited on a yearly basis. It's not based on best practices. This is based on targets that were set through a very engaging process, and if you don't meet the target, you don't get the certification.

G. Holman: Just quickly, on the tenuring: is there any kind of official or unofficial moratorium on the establishment of new farms now in British Columbia? I was a little confused about that.

J. Dunn: There is an official moratorium on the north coast. Above a certain line there's an official moratorium there. In the Discovery Islands what the federal government has said is that they'll respect the wishes of Justice Cohen and that farms will not be expanded in the Discovery Islands area.

G. Holman: But aside from those areas it's still open for new tenures, subject to the regulatory process.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation. I certainly don't have to inform you about the ongoing controversy that swirls around the industry, specifically in some of the areas you just identified. I know in the past the response of the industry to calls for land-based closed containment has been that it's been uneconomical. My question is — I know you were here for the presentation from Mr. Ullstrom — if members of your association are interested and monitoring the experience of Kuterra and seeing if that opens new possibilities in addition to the farms that exist now.

J. Dunn: Very much so. Marine Harvest provided their smolts for their initial start-up. Our members have been growing fish on land for over 20 years on Vancouver Island and, I would argue, are the experts when it comes to growing fish, both in recirculating systems and on land, and have built most of the recirculating systems here. We're certainly keen observers, as we are of all operations around the world.
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Most of the operations to date have had challenges as they've gone along. We're very interested to see how this operation goes through its next number of cycles as they, as you heard, are ramping up to the full scale of production of what they're hoping for. We're interested to see how that works on the fish and how that works on their economic bottom line.

S. Gibson: We had a great tour. A number of us had a tour of the fish farm here, just off Quadra, and then of the processing plant just north of town. I think we're all pretty impressed.

For the record, a number of people asked, and I even asked, the question: how come we don't use our local salmon here? It's a question you get, and for that point, I think it would be good for you to engage us in a little bit of that discussion, because there is some pushback even now about Atlantic salmon: "Why are they coming out here? Why don't we use our own salmon?" Why don't you speak to that a little bit, please.

J. Dunn: Yeah, for sure. One of our members does grow chinook salmon. It's a small niche market. The global market is the Atlantic salmon. There is more research and development and husbandry done on the Atlantic species than any other fish species in the world, and we're benefiting from that here in B.C.

D. Ashton (Chair): Jeremy, thank you very much for your presentation. Thanks for coming.

Breanne, welcome. Thank you for coming today. Ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning. Then we have up to five minutes, and we fill the questions up. So there you go. The floor is yours.

B. Quesnel: Thank you for having me here this afternoon. I would like to mention that I am wearing several hats. I'm representing or acting as a board member for the Wilderness Tourism Association, but I also own and operate an ecotourism company based on Quadra Island. We're a kayaking company, and we take people from around the world out on overnight kayaking expeditions. I'm also a board member of the North Island Marine Mammal Stewardship Association.

All of those organizations, including mine, are dependent on intact, functioning ecosystems and wilderness landscapes in this province. I think it's fair to say that B.C. markets itself quite heavily as a nature-based destination for tourism. You look at any of the ad material that you see floating around, and you see whales, trees, bears, mountains, and First Nations history and culture emphasized.

Our company has been around for 18 years. We are one of many, many companies on this coast and in this province that contribute to the economic framework in terms of tax revenue and just import and export dollars. My company…. We are small in the grand scheme of things, but because we are one of so many, I'd like to emphasize that it's not just one company speaking to you today.

Our company employs over 25 people on Quadra Island, generates over $800,000 a year in sales. So multiply our effect with all those companies around the coast, and there are some significant tourism dollars that we're talking about.

I wanted to talk to you about my experiences so far in this industry that have brought me here today, to try and provide my feedback on where budgetary spending could go or may be well used. My experience has been in resource conflicts and the challenges of managing the provincial land base and the federal land base, Crown land, in that tourism and, say, forestry sometimes have competing interests. What I have been experiencing is that there is a lack of up-to-date, valid, current information that decision-makers are using to make their decisions.

Our little company has a kayaking camp up in Johnstone Strait and in the Discovery Islands, and we've been having problems with forestry, in particular, where forest interests are looking to cut and tourism interests are looking for visual landscapes that are intact. So not saying forestry is bad, but saying that there are prime areas for tourism and that those must be protected in order to protect the tourism industry.

Where we've run into problems has been with government, in particular, in that when we're asking for intervention or discussions about the best use for the land base, the decision-makers are often referring to very outdated material. Whether that be land use planning processes or documents that are used to make these decisions, they tend to be old.

As you know, land use is not a static thing. It's always changing, and the materials that decision-makers are using to make those decisions should also be constantly evolving. So we're often getting the statement: "Well, I had to make the decision with the information that was available at the time."

In Johnstone Strait, in particular, something like a recreation resources inventory…. That is what decision-makers look at to see who uses this land, how intensively they use it, what their economic potential is. The last one for our area was done in the early '90s. Tourism continues to grow every year and has grown substantially, particularly in this area during that time. So the information that's being used is not current.

I ask for attention and funding to be focused on land
[ Page 1071 ]
use planning processes and inventories and updating those as well as enforcement and monitoring of the land users. Often there are rules that are in place but not necessarily adhered to. When you look at conformance from some of the forestry industry to visual quality objectives, conformance and compliance are lacking.

I don't want to single out just one industry, because there are lots of land-based land resource users. But in particular, having a backbone to stand up and protect what's already in place would be helpful from a tourism perspective — as well as continued funding for marketing. Tourism does provide, in my opinion, quite a sustainable option for a way to generate revenue using our natural resources that leaves them in place — so continuing to fund DMOs, destination marketing organizations as well as general marketing initiatives.

Tourism, as you know…. I want to stress that it's a thriving, growing industry that has proved itself in this province and is a major economic generator. In order to maintain this revenue stream and associated tax revenues, I strongly encourage investing more in land use planning, community consultations, re-examining some of the legislative framework that governs the land users — so examining things like the Forest and Range Practices Act, which leaves a lot of holes for the rest of the industries that are also dependent on this land base.

I thought I'd leave you with a few facts from a 2012 Destination B.C. study which examined the value of tourism in the province. It found that the tourism industry generated $13.5 billion in revenue, which was a 2.5 percent increase from 2011 and a 40.5 percent increase over 2002. So you can see that the tourism revenues and industry have grown substantially.

The tourism industry contributed $1.2 billion in provincial taxes, and $3.2 billion in export revenue was generated. And tourism generated a direct contribution to B.C.'s gross domestic product of $7.1 billion.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. Just a couple of specific questions. You talked about the enforcement and monitoring that needs to go on. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about whether you think the issue is related to a shortage of staff, related to a shortage of political will or interest or whether there's just consistency there. That's one question.

The second question was around Destination B.C. itself and how much work you've been doing with them or how supportive you feel they've been, particularly around the kind of ecotourism opportunities in British Columbia.

B. Quesnel: Sure. In terms of enforcement, I think that the challenge could be all of the points that you mentioned. We've been pushing for…. We found some blatant examples of non-compliance with the rules that are already in place. We're not asking to reinvent the wheel or change all the rules for our purposes. We're just asking that the things that are established be adhered to.

There are, to my knowledge, two forest compliance and conformance officers in this area. Very few studies…. Please, I would need to double-check the actual facts, but the highest fine to date, I think, was something like $5,000 that was actually stuck to — there have been larger fines issued, but they had been waived — for non-compliance to visual-quality objectives, which are how the land is managed so that you would see the activity.

In terms of the lack of political will, possibly, I think there are just a lot holes in it or a lot of weight placed in favour of, say, the forest industry versus tourism when you're looking at what the legislation actually means for both parties. The deck is definitely stacked in favour of forestry at this point. We're asking for a little more balance in how that's approached.

In terms of Destination B.C., as the Wilderness Tourism Association, we're constantly trying to have dialogue and feedback back and forth. I just attended a presentation from Tourism Vancouver Island. They're quite concerned about the change in funding and how that funding is going to be allocated.

One of the large concerns was that small business and small communities may start losing out because the funding model is favouring large contributions. It's a limited pot of money. It takes applications that may benefit larger companies rather than small communities having to come up with $25,000 — you know, Quadra and Cortes — for marketing initiatives. The matching funding isn't the same as it has been.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. Just a quick question. I've got a background in land use planning, LRMP process during the '90s. Is one example of existing rules that you're referring to the visual-quality objectives that try to quantify the degree of disturbance on a particular viewscape? Is that one of the things that you're referring to here?

B. Quesnel: Definitely. VQOs and…. I've been learning lots about land use planning processes. Some of the challenges with the processes currently are that there'll be conflicting plans. At our camp, where we're having an issue, one side is managed by the Vancouver Island land use plan, and the other is by the south central coast order. So one side of the strait is considered a world-class ecotourism destination, and the other side has minimal, partial-retention visual-quality objectives, which basically means that you can see the effects of logging on one side, and the other side has been set aside.

The compliance with VQOs are the rules, in particular,
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that I'm discussing — also, just the way the consultation process happens or doesn't happen as a result of FRPA, the Forest and Range Practices Act, with other users. There's no requirement for forestry to be consulting or negotiating. It doesn't leave a lot of room for finding common ground or figuring out the best strategy to go forward with the land base when the dialogue isn't happening there.

I know there are some processes in place, which I'm a part of here in the Discovery Islands, to try and coordinate communication between the two industries better. But I think what we need is to have the material to back up those discussions — current, up-to-date inventories and land use planning documents that have taken into consideration the larger community and the needs of that community.

G. Holman: As you know, there's also a concern in terms of the timber resource itself in terms of updating inventories. You're just saying that that need for information extends to other users of the land base.

B. Quesnel: Definitely. And it's also making sure that the other users on the land base — say, forestry — are keeping their inventories up to date. There's something called the strategic landscape reserve design process which is supposed to be adhered to. Often those mapping processes and inventories are lacking or not complete, so decisions are being made about ecosystems based on incomplete pictures. Making sure that government is keeping everyone in check so that we can all continue to thrive — that would be ideal.

Up next we have the Island Coastal Economic Trust — His Worship Phil Kent and Line Robert.

P. Kent: Nice to see you, and some of the other members — Mr. Gibson, Ms. James and others.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thank you for your hospitality here. What a beautiful spot you have.

D. Ashton (Chair): It's absolutely stunning. I can't speak for the other members, but I am keeping focused on the presenters. [Laughter.]

So ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning — and then we have up to five minutes for questions. You see that we're using them up.

We simply want to provide an update as to the success of the Island Coastal Economic Trust and reinforce, obviously, what I think was very wise and courageous legislation to create the economic development trusts throughout the province. I think they've shown, in different ways, how they have been able to apply to their regions, their parts of the province, a very successful model of developing economic strategies from the ground up. I do want to congratulate government of that date for enacting that legislation.

Some of the key things with the Island Coastal Economic Trust. We've been in operation since 2006, when we were endowed with $50 million. We have leveraged that original $50 million with the model that we chose of disbursing to economic development projects throughout the whole region and coast that would create jobs.

We have handed out to you our annual report, which provides a lot of information about the actual economic balance and development that's taken place in the region.

I want to focus a little bit, too, on how much has been leveraged through the trust. Overall, our leverage for the original endowment has been about a 4.6 ratio. Of that, a little more than the province has put in from the federal government; local and regional governments, about 1.6 times leverage; and from non-government or private areas, about 1.03, or about the same amount. So it comes up to a little over a quarter of a billion dollars in economic development infrastructure investment in the province.

This has also created a dividend, something that has come back to the province in terms of return on investment, I think in a very, very positive way.

The other parts of the fundamental success of this is that we've been able to develop a great deal of cooperation and collaboration across the region on projects that have the merit to be advanced and create jobs in the region. This has been done because of the way that the trust operates — the way we have around 50 mayors, chairs, appointed members that have input to assessing the projects that are coming forward.

We also have a very nimble structure in terms of administration that basically allows the communities to have secure, reliable funding for projects that have merit, that show that they can sustain economic growth and jobs over the long term for the projects. But they're also there to support those applications and improve their chances of that sustainability over the long term.

I don't want to call it hand-holding, because I think the communities have been very, very resourceful in their own right in terms of developing strategy. As most funding projects go, I know that certainly in local government — and anyone else who's been in local government — the call comes out a few weeks before, possibly, the application deadline. People scramble. They put together projects. They might be hastily done. They might have something on the shelf that they dust off and try to adjust
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to the outcomes necessary for the funding.

With this model — and I think it's a very, very brilliant model — it allows communities the time to develop projects that really will have an impact.

Since our initial start-up we've committed most of the funds, about $47 million. We have about $3 million left of the original endowment. At the rate that we have been supporting projects in communities in their economic development, we see that will take us for a short time, but we're getting to run on fumes now.

We believe that investment has been made in the community bank. We weren't able, with the amount that we had, to provide the kind of impact that we would have had and to create the return on investment to the province if we had simply put that in investments. The $50 million would have been a fairly short-term thing, and really we wouldn't have had anywhere near the impact or the return on investment for that money to the province.

I think the whole idea was to create economic diversity, expansion and jobs in the province, and I believe we have done that and proved that we've done it very successfully.

I do want to allow Ms. Robert to get to some of the more specific stories on some of the collaborations we've had between communities, especially small rural communities and First Nations and how they're building capacity. The trust is encouraging the building of that capacity for economic development in small rural communities.

L. Robert: As you may have seen in our pamphlet, we have two primary programs that we funnel our money through. One is the economic infrastructure program, which has been there since the inception of the trust, and the second is the economic development readiness program.

If you go and take a look through our projects…. I'd invite you to do that. On our website, we've now catalogued almost all of our projects with best-practices examples, and you can see almost everything that we've funded so far. We're still a few behind, but we're almost there.

You'll notice that initially a lot of the investment went to larger communities and larger projects. That was a question of the need for infrastructure in the region and also the readiness of those communities to come to the fund. As time progressed, you see greater integration of the smaller communities, the more rural communities and the First Nations into the program. That took time, so we progressively had to go towards them.

One of the things that brought them to the table and made them able to invest in projects is the model, because they get to sit around the table with everyone else, seeing the guts of all the projects and the rationales and the funding mechanisms and the sustainability plans and the business cases. That has led to a great deal of problem-based learning, if you want to put it in academic terms, where they've been able to grow as communities by learning from the other communities. So it's important to realize that we're now at a point where we have been able to integrate those communities, and I'll give you a few examples.

I'll talk about the economic infrastructure program afterwards, because a lot of those projects are well known. I'll start with the newer program, the economic development readiness program. That program was created because we realized that a lot of our communities did not have economic development plans, the smaller communities. They didn't have the capacity to address economic development issues. They weren't able to access the funding for that very reason, because they didn't really have a plan to know exactly where they needed to go.

We launched that program in 2013, and Sayward was one of the first communities to access funding from that program. They developed a very good economic plan for the community. Shortly thereafter, they had a phenomenal response to the fact that they had that plan. An investor came in, and they were able to leverage the plan and their commitment to the industries that that business was involved in. The business was able to see that the community had prioritized their industry and immediately began the process of investing. That company now has a waterfront investment that's operational in Sayward.

Since then, the mall, which was largely empty — Sayward doesn't even have a grocery store anymore — has been purchased. There's a plan to put in a grocery store and some residential developments. There's also a waterfront area that's being developed for residential.

Now, Sayward was one of the hardest hit communities by the resource downturn in the area here, and to see that type of progress is great. It would seem like it was an overnight success, yet that came from sitting at the table for about six years with the other communities, working on the projects.

I'll also talk very quickly about economic infrastructure. We've supported forestry. We've supported tourism. One of the benefits of the tourism projects…. It's not just the jobs that tourism will bring. It's the improvements to community amenities.

If you take a look at the Wild Pacific Trail in Ucluelet, one of the projects we invested in, that is now considered on TripAdvisor the No. 1 destination in B.C. for travellers.

What that brought to the community is a great deal of investment in tourism infrastructure — private investment in restaurants and hotels, etc. So there had been a lot of benefits to these projects to our communities, especially because it's really a levelled playing field for some of the smaller communities that were really struggling to access funding. The key point is that the funding is there on an ongoing basis, because they don't have the capacity to react to 30-day turnovers for submission of economic development funding.
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P. Kent: Just one closing remark. We have submitted to administration and ministry with regard to an ask for $10 million over three years, to reinvest a portion of that dividend that's coming back to the province back into this region to sustain this kind of growth. We still have very active applications and needs that are coming in.

As you can see with the model that we've used, it's had a great deal of success. We believe that that is sustainable and something that can provide an opportunity for the trust to consider how it's going to deliver, on behalf of the province and the people of the province, this kind of work.

Just a couple of quick questions. You mentioned the $10 million as a three-year sort of interim period while you work on the long-term solutions, so I'm curious as to what you think that long-term solution is.

Also, I'm noticing, at least according to your estimate, you've got a payback of the provincial investment within about five years, because you're estimating provincial revenues generated of about $10 million a year. If those numbers are correct, that's a pretty good payback. Just what percent of the applications you receive do you actually turn down or accept, if you know what I mean?

P. Kent: Well, from the details perspective, Ms. Robert will be able to answer that more clearly. But we have turned projects down. They have to meet that standard of providing sustainable jobs and incremental economic development. There's been no question about the boards tenacity on that. The due diligence has been very robust.

L. Robert: Yes. What we do is we work with applicants from the get-go in order to help them develop their projects. We're very frank with them. If we think that the project won't meet the criteria, we tell them up front so that they don't spend a lot of resources uselessly.

Your other question regarding the payback. To be a little more precise, it takes approximately ten to 12 years, because that's $10.4 million once the projects are fully operational. So it takes a certain amount of time for them to get there. So it would be about ten to 12 years.

G. Holman: And the long-term solution that you mention here? Because the ask is for an interim $10 million.

P. Kent: Yes. I believe the model — in terms of the long term there can be some adjustments. I think the economic development capacity programs are extremely important in developing a more regional strategy for the whole region, and I think that the model has created a basis for doing so.

I've got to be very frank. I think without a portion of some form of dividend coming back into the communities that have leveraged this investment to the province and having some of it being used for infrastructure investment, it doesn't have a great chance of sustaining over a long period.

That portion of that dividend back, I think, is very, very clear. We've shown that we can sustain on about $3 million a year. It would be able to get us sustainable. That could apply to the other trust models, as well, and that's very important.

D. Ashton (Chair): I have two more questions. I'm sorry to cut you off, but I have less than a minute.

S. Gibson: Very impressive material — one of the nicer ones I've seen for economic development. Nice to see you again, Mayor Kent.

My question is…. You've got such a big, sprawling area. I come from the Abbotsford–Central Valley, where we market…. It's a very small, discrete area. How do you avoid people saying: "Who cares about the community 50 kilometres from here"? How do you get that sense of community and that sense of altruism? You don't have competition between, say, Sayward and Gold River or Tahsis or something.

How do you avoid people saying: "I just want to look after myself. I don't really care about the region"? That's my question.

P. Kent: Well, I think it's because they were tasked with a responsibility to encourage economic development. I think everyone around that board table who has come and gone — we've had turnovers on the board as well — has really focused on the fact that we're talking about regional economic development. We've got a clear understanding that's good that it happens in Sayward. If it's a valuable project, if it shows that incremental development, it's good for their neighbours — Gold River or Port Hardy or Port McNeill.

G. Heyman: Very quickly, I assume that you compare notes with the other economic development trusts. I'm just curious if their experience of success is similar to yours.

L. Robert: They are very different models. The Northern Development Trust was endowed with $185
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million. If you compare apples to apples — they're infrastructure program, our infrastructure program — I think they probably have similar results in their communities. They've invested a similar amount of money, except that they've been able to do it from the interest on $185 million, which they are also able to invest more aggressively.

We're like a 65-year-old investor, and they're like a 22-year-old investor, in terms of investment strategies.

D. Ashton (Chair): Your Worship, Line, thank you very much for coming — greatly appreciated.

You were here with Gerry Furney. There you go. That's right. That's what I remember.

D. Ashton (Chair): Shirley, we have ten minutes for the presentation. I'll give you a two-minute warning, and then we have up to five minutes. We use all the time in questioning.

It's a pleasure to be here. As Dan just noticed, I'm actually the president of the North Island College Faculty Association. I'll put on my other hat. I'm also the deputy mayor of Port McNeill, and I teach English full time at North Island College.

It's a pleasure to see you here in person. I can't tell you how important it is that we get to see your faces and actually talk to you one on one. Thank you for the opportunity.

As president of the North Island College Faculty Association, my comments are going to reflect some of the concerns that we have on the North Island, but I'll also echo some of the concerns that post-secondary educators across the province are talking about. Mainly, the extent to how meaningful access to post-secondary education is becoming more and more of a challenge. There's no doubt in my mind that those challenges need to be addressed in the February 2015 budget.

By way of background for those of you that haven't been in this region, North Island College has four campuses. One, where I work, out of Port Hardy, a campus here in Campbell River, one in Comox Valley and one in Port Alberni.

We take our mandate as a comprehensive community college very seriously. We put a lot of emphasis on outreach. We used to have, at one time, 24 learning centres, and I started at one in Port McNeill. We haven't had the ability to keep those open, but we do try to outreach to the communities as much as possible.

Our current enrolment is about 2,000 full-time-equivalent students, and those students are involved in a broad range of disciplines, including apprenticeship programs, two-year certificate and diploma programs, as well as university transfer. We also have four-year degree programs.

To meet our mandate, our institution has developed a number of programs that not only support students' learning but also link to the employers in the region. A prime example I said last year when I was here was the practical nurse access program that was offered in Port Hardy that trained eight practical nurses in the Port Hardy region that are all working in the local hospitals there, which was just very vital.

We've linked the programs with the needs of Vancouver Island and with Vancouver Island Health Authority and it's plan to provide a full range of health care services to residents here on the North Island.

We have other examples. We have programs in tourism, trades. There's a wonderful trades centre here in Campbell River, as well as one in Comox Valley, and we have career and diploma programs.

All of these examples speak to the college's mandate to provide that comprehensive post-secondary learning opportunity, but fulfilling the mandate is more of a challenge because of the policy and fiscal choices mandated over the last decade. It would be an understatement to say that the funding pressures have had a major impact on our institution. We're a small institution, so they've had a huge impact.

The largest single investment that the provincial government makes in post-secondary education comes in the form of the provincial operating grant. Every 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 specific institution.

In previous presentations around the province we've stressed the fact that the operating grants are just not keeping up with the costs that we have to provide the education and the demands of enrolment at the post-secondary institution. When measured on a per-capita student basis adjusted for the impact of inflation, the real per-student operating grants to public post-secondary institutions have been in steady decline.

In February 2014 the provincial budget and a three-year service plan for the Ministry of Advanced Education showed that by 2015-16 the real per-student operating grants will have dropped by 20 percent since 2001 —
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which is huge for us. When a funding squeeze plays out over the course of a decade and a half, other parts of the system get squeezed as well.

The most significant impact for our students has been on tuition fees. The tuition fees at North Island College have risen over 76 percent — that's huge — in the last eight years. According to the Canadian Federation of Students, undergraduate tuition fees have more than doubled since being deregulated in 2001, and the impact of those increases has translated into higher debt levels. They're now at an average of $30,000 per student of student debt.

Just as troubling is the fact that the institutional budgets now rely more heavily on other revenue resources than the operating grant the province provides. Many B.C. post-secondary institutions now show tuition fees and other non-provincial grant revenues that account for more than half of the total revenue for the institution.

At a more fundamental level, the gradual and steady retreat in the province's share of the cost of post-secondary education raises the important question: how public is our public post-secondary education?

I went to school in the 1970s. The first year of my tuition fees at UBC was $800. I had a job where I was working as a line cook. I was making $8.75 an hour, and I was able to keep an apartment going and go to school. The debt at the end of my four years was under $1,000. I had it paid off, and I was working. That's not the case anymore. It's becoming very scary for young people that are going into their 30s with this amount of debt.

I know from colleagues at Thompson Rivers University, for example, that the provincial operating grant there accounts for less than 50 percent of their total revenues. When the publicness of post-secondary education becomes that blurry, the issues of access and affordability are really urgent. The 2015 budget has to begin addressing this serious shift in the province's share of the cost of post-secondary ed.

Before I detail the recommendations that we would like the committee to consider, I want to focus just a few remarks on some immediate system issues that many secondary institutions are facing.

Although our college doesn't have a huge English-as-a-second-language training program, we benefit from the programs of other institutions when we have students come over here. Successful ESL graduates move into our institution to pursue greater learning and career opportunities. The loss of the provincially funded ESL has an impact on those students and, therefore, on our students and the broader system. The cuts to ESL don't make sense, and the 2015 budget really needs to restore the $22 million that will be lost.

Another concern we have is the government's announcement to re-engineer post-secondary education. The announcement was made several months ago, and we have yet to see much in the way of details, so we're a little concerned on what the re-engineering will look like. In our view, the proposal rests on some worrisome concepts. The first is a move to redirect 25 percent of the provincial operating grant into high-demand career programs.

When I started off, I was going to law school, got into liberal courses and ended up wanting to get into teaching. I know that my older sister went into a degree in liberal studies in literature, and she's a physician in Vancouver.

I think what we're looking at is that we need those liberal arts studies and programs because students don't take clear paths to their education. They don't necessarily go into university wanting to be an engineer or wanting to be a teacher. It's kind of a dipsy-doodle through what they like to do, and then they find out what those jobs are. So it's important that we keep the options open for all students as much as we can.

Engineers, geologists, actuaries, accountants, health care technicians — all of these fall into the path of high-demand careers, but students don't start out that way. Often they just dibble and dab until they find a path that looks like something they're going to enjoy.

So will the ministry fund undergraduate liberal arts programs that a student can take en route to some of those credentials? That would be great. The answers haven't been articulated, and we would certainly like to see the details.

One final point about the funding squeeze is the impact it has on faculty. Our institution and many others like North Island are shifting to contingent, part-time faculty. A recent CBC documentary highlighted that problem. Right now I know we face it. I'm the only full-time faculty member at Port Hardy campus. The rest of the people there, the other eight, are part-time faculty members. So it's worrying.

The long-term impact of the shift puts faculty on economic margins and ultimately erodes the quality of learning that students need to succeed. Even at UBCM Minister Bond identified on one of the panels that 2016 is the year the majority of the boomers are going to retire. We need to have faculty that are already in the workforce working full-time. They need to be in there ready to take on those jobs. That's like a two-year window that we have when we're going to find our successors, so it's very important.

What we'd like to see — the priorities — is a direct and ongoing commitment of at least $22 million to support the provincially funded ESL programs delivered in post-secondary and a revitalization of the student grant program, which would help financially stressed students better cope with the raising tuition fees. I think it's a good investment.

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 of government to ensure students are able to complete
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the programs in a more timely way, so it doesn't take them years to do it.

Finally, the funding that post-secondary institutions receive needs to better respond to the cost pressures that we all face. Proposals that already low-levels of provincial funding need to be reconsidered…. A sensible approach and a thorough review of the funding formula that addresses regional inequities…. I've been here year after year talking about a rural funding formula for small colleges.

S. Gibson: I come out of teaching at a public university background, so I kind of have some empathy for your comments.

Your students are older than the average university student — right? — according to what I'm looking at here.

S. Gibson: How are you making your college accessible? I think a lot of my students were floundering. As you mention, I thought your point was well taken that the students really don't know what they're doing.

How are you engaging when there are so many students here who don't even have their…? Only half the students that graduate in Campbell River are actually eligible to enter university, so they're inadmissible. How do you get those students that are feeling kind of marginalized and the people that we should be getting in? We're going to be looking for hundreds of thousands of people in the trades, and they're not even getting started with any kind of university. How do we get those folks into the system?

S. Ackland: Well, we've managed, at North Island, to have a few I think innovative ways to engage those students before they actually leave high school.

We have dual-credit programs. Timberline, the place that North Island here shares its space with, the high school…. We have students that are able to take first-year psychology courses, first-year courses from university, and get a credit for grade 12 as well as a credit for university. My son took his English 115 while he was in grade 12. He got a grade 12 credit, got his English done for first year and became the whiz at his dorm because he knew what an APA format was when he was doing an essay, which was great.

We also have moved that in school district 85, which is in the Port Hardy region. We have now initiated a forestry and an aquaculture program that starts in grade 10. Students can take that program while they're at high school. They can get some credits for that. And they go off in the summer, and they work and get that work as a part-time job. That's the way that we're addressing them, not just getting the credits but also getting their foot in the door of employment: is that what you want to do? Is that where you're focused? So that's helping.

We also offer on line, so a lot of the courses for our students — average age is 32 — we offer on-line learning, applied business technology for office training, that you can do. A lot of my students get on line at 10 o'clock at night, after they've put their kids to bed. That's another way we've been doing that, Simon.

D. Ashton (Chair): Thanks very much for coming down. Could you do me one favour and say hi to Gerry for us, please?

D. Ashton (Chair): You read my mind. I thought, "I wonder what the draw would be." We'll have to run it by the brass around here, which is the young lady there that's putting the next name up. We'll talk to Susan about it.

Hillsborough Resources — Gary Gould. Mr. Gould, welcome. Thank you for coming today.

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

G. Gould: Once again, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this afternoon. My name is Gary Gould. My position is vice-president of Hillsborough Resources and general manager of Quinsam Coal.

Hillsborough Resources Ltd. is a coal-mining company headquartered in Vancouver. We have a focus on producing high-quality coal within the province to support industrial customers within the province. Quinsam Coal is our operating underground thermal coal mine located about 20 kilometres west of Campbell River. It is the only producing underground coal mine in B.C. and the only underground thermal coal mine in all of Canada.

We began operation in 1987 and currently have a
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workforce of 70, all of whom live in the Campbell River, mid–Vancouver Island region. We estimate that our payroll, purchase of supplies and materials, and various taxes — whether they be mineral, income, sales or municipal — contribute more than $10 million to the regional and provincial economies.

At present all of the coal produced from the Quinsam mine is used as a raw material feedstock to the cement industry, and about 80 percent of our current production is shipped to the B.C. cement industry. The cement industry uses coal as both an energy source to heat their kilns and as an ingredient, or chemical feedstock, in the cement manufacturing process.

What Hillsborough Resources is suggesting, when you start looking at the 2015 budget, is to exempt the B.C. cement industry from the carbon tax.

Some background information. Since its introduction in 2008 the B.C. carbon tax levied on coal from the Quinsam mine used at some B.C. cement plants has increased annually over a five-year period and now stands at $53.31 per tonne of coal sold. At present that represents or adds more than 50 percent to the base price of the product to our customer.

During that same time frame imports of cement into B.C. have increased, and B.C. cement kilns are currently only operating at about 60 percent of their capacity. It's important to realize that imported cement is manufactured in the same way but using a fuel on which a carbon tax has not been applied. Essentially, the carbon tax in B.C. is providing an unfair competitive advantage to cement producers outside of the province.

Cement produced outside of the province and coming within the province means that that product travels further, creating more greenhouse gas emissions — obviously, an unintended consequence of the tax. The tax has taken away B.C. jobs both on site and throughout the supply chain.

When we talk about the supply chain, I think we have got to consider going from coal, coal to cement, cement to concrete and concrete to the infrastructure, and it's infrastructure development within B.C.

The carbon tax has also dramatically decreased the competitiveness of high-value-added B.C. businesses, one which is critical to the development of infrastructure throughout the province. It has led to increased prices for cement and concrete, further reducing competitiveness of not only our cement industry but the entire province.

We believe that cement and concrete are critical components of infrastructure development, whether we talk about residential construction, the LNG industry or transportation. A healthy B.C.-based cement industry is vital to B.C.'s economy and jobs plan.

The carbon tax has had the unintended consequence or unintended impact of not only adversely impacting the B.C. cement industry but also the coal industry in B.C. and in particular the Quinsam mine. As Quinsam sells only a high-quality coal much sought after by cement plants due to its attractive chemical characteristics, any carbon tax levied on the use of coal in B.C. adversely affects Quinsam, its employees and obviously the mid-Island region.

Over the past year we have lost nearly half of our workforce due to adverse market conditions, which have been exacerbated by increased imports of lower-cost cement and the now excess capacity at local cement plant kilns. The key reason for that has been the carbon tax.

As indicated, we would ask that the cement industry and coal from Quinsam be exempted from the B.C. carbon tax.

G. Holman: Thanks for the presentation. A cement representative came and spoke to us about this concern, about the carbon tax and making them uncompetitive versus importers. Their proposed solution was to apply the carbon tax to imported cement. What's your view of that?

Also, as a result of the decline, I guess, in production of B.C. cement producers, have you been finding other customers outside of British Columbia?

G. Gould: Our only customer outside of province would be a U.S.-based cement plant. A very small percentage, about 15 to 20 percent of our coal, would be going to a U.S. cement plant.

G. Gould: It is a new customer for us, and they're doing very well. Our indication is that their plant is very busy, at full capacity.

G. Holman: About the proposed solution by the cement industry, which is to apply the carbon tax to imports, what's your view of that versus your suggestion?

G. Gould: I guess my immediate thought is that that would still place an unfair competitive advantage on us if you were to compare that cement plant getting coal from our mine versus coal from another mine. Once again, we feel that coal from our mine, a combination of its quality and primarily because of its proximity to our customers and the low transportation costs and distance…. Obviously, there's a carbon footprint associated with transportation and transportation of a commodity. Being able to have a feedstock nearby at a competitive price is key to the cement industry.

G. Holman: I'm not sure that my question was answered, but I don't want to take up the committee's time.
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G. Gould: No. We have curtailed our operations. We're a single shift, four days a week, so a very, very small operation right now.

D. Ashton (Chair): The process is ten minutes for your presentation. At two minutes…. Thank you. You've got it down pat. Perfect.

B. Miller: I came here under the assumption…. I apologize if this seems a little antagonistic or anything. I don't mean it to be, so I apologize. I'm not trying to be the idiot of the week, okay?

I was under the impression that I was coming to this basically for this. Unfortunately, what I've seen so far seems to be more along the lines of businesses and organizations almost loving the government. So I'm just a little confused as if I'm even in the right place. I believe I am, but I'm a little confused by that.

B. Miller: Okay. However, as you're saying, it is input. So I'm trying to proceed on with that.

B. Miller: I'm just trying to raise a couple of concerns that kind of, like…. What's going on? Along the lines of money-wise, we'll say, if this is a group of government employees basically wandering around allowing companies to lobby them, that's a waste of taxpayers' dollars.

B. Miller: I would actually have concerns about that in the overall picture of finances.

D. Ashton (Chair): We're elected officials, sir, and we're taking input. Our input goes to the Legislative Assembly. It doesn't go to government. Then what transpires out of that is it's forwarded to the finance department to be utilized in the decisions regarding the 2015 budget.

Infrastructure. I have noticed that there seems to be a lot of…. I'm only coming to you as a private individual. I don't have the answers. I wish I did. If I did, obviously, I would hopefully be in a position like yours. However, I do have concerns — for instance, infrastructure here. I've basically noticed that at times the roads are neglected. There never seems to be enough money for them. There seem to be a lot of issues with B.C. Ferries, for instance.

Education also seems to be another issue to me. I'm originally from Alberta, so I'm not completely familiar with how the education system works here. I'm pretty sure it works similar to and along the lines of what would be in Alberta, when I was going to school. Basically, the government more or less pays for elementary, high school type of deal. Then, thereafter, you're pretty much on your own if you want to go to university, in particular — probably for college. Some college may be covered. But, for instance….

I'd like some clarification, if somebody has it. When I went to school for my apprenticeship…. I did my apprenticeship for journeyman heavy-duty mechanic. I paid for that. The only government assistance I got in any way, shape or form was basically every time I went in to NAIT to go do my apprenticeship every year, I got unemployment insurance. That's the only help I ever got from the government. I had to pay for my books. I had to pay for my tuition. Then, if I was lucky, at the end of the eight weeks, every year, I might have gotten an unemployment cheque, which means I had to make sure….

That being said, from what I understand, it's a similar situation here. I heard this fellow here — Simon Gibson, I believe. You had made a comment there about the apprenticeship before. Government seems to be concerned about there being enough trades, but nobody seems to be willing to put their money where their mouth is, in a manner of speaking, because nobody's paying for people to go to trade school. It doesn't matter if it's an electrician, a mechanic, whatever. Good luck. You're on your own.

Meanwhile, I go to Fort McMurray. I earn a six-digit salary. Get this. This is the funny part. I paid over $40,000 in income taxes between B.C. and the federal government. I pay over $40,000. I support myself, my wife and
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four children. I still pay over $40,000, but I'm sitting here going: "Okay. What's going on here? Governments can't even afford to pay so that I can go earn more money, so that I can put more money into government's coffers?" It seems a little odd. But it is a legitimate concern.

This carbon tax deal here that I heard about earlier as well. I'm a little confused about that. From what I understand, ultimately the person who is going to end up paying the carbon tax is the taxpayer. If the government — it doesn't matter what level of government — charges a tax to a company, that company puts that price onto their prices. It doesn't matter, like the previous fellow was saying, if it was concrete or if it was wood or whatever. That would still be put forward onto the consumer, the taxpayer.

I'm a little confused as to what's going on there. That doesn't make sense. But I do actually think that there needs to be somebody coming up with an idea. As this gentleman here — Holman, I believe — was saying there, the concrete industry seems to have this one idea. These other guys seem to have…. The coal mine seems to think this way and the other there.

Unfortunately, in my opinion as a taxpayer, if a company cannot support itself, what's it doing in business — literally? Why would the government be bailing out a company that's going downhill? I mean, that really sucks, because there are 40 jobs that are gone. But why would the government be supporting that in any way, shape or form? If I opened a business, would I not be expected to keep it afloat? I think I would. I think it's only fair that, basically, let's level the playing field. Let's stop wasting the money.

Other than that, I don't really have any further comments, but I do appreciate you listening to my little rant.

G. Heyman: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Miller. I want to make sure that I understood your point about education. I heard you say at the start that you pay taxes, people pay taxes, you notice an erosion of infrastructure, and you're kind of curious why government is letting that happen, because that's infrastructure that we all use.

I thought I understood your point on education to be that you struggled in some ways on limited paycheques to get your apprenticeship done, but once it was done, you were highly skilled, you make a lot of money, you pay a lot back in taxes. So is your point that it's a worthwhile investment to give some assistance to ensure that people can get higher skills and, therefore, jobs, or that people should be on their own and do it?

B. Miller: I feel that basically almost any investment in education ends up bringing back a big return, whether it be just the general idea of…. How do you put this? Financially — I'll just go with that in general. If you have a higher skill level of workers, chances are you're to end up getting a lot more back in return, okay?

Just as a for instance, an example, in my case I struggled quite a bit to go to school, get to where I am, in a manner of speaking. But after having gone to school there and doing my time, in a manner of speaking, on the job, I got to the level where as a heavy-duty mechanic I'm earning a six-figure paycheque every year. Not bad for a trade, right?

It kind of makes me sit here and think, "Okay, I tried real hard. I did my thing there. I'm kind of proud of myself in my own way," blah, blah, blah. But the point is how much better it would have been if the government had come along and said: "Hey, you know what? People pay taxes. Why aren't we putting the tax money in the people?"

G. Heyman: Let me just quickly wrap up. You haven't heard all of the submissions that we've heard around the province, but many organizations have come to us and spoken in different ways about many of the same things that you raised, about the value of investment in infrastructure, that it's needed or valued, not totally subsidizing education but ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to get one, through a variety of methods.

I just want to thank you for coming because it's not every citizen who actually takes the time to come and tell us their direct experience. I really appreciate it and find it refreshing.

It's actually nice to hear somebody like yourself coming forward. Bill — if you don't mind by first name — there is a substantial support of government in post-secondary education, both in the trades and in the academic. Some of the concerns that we're hearing is that there's not enough, and the people are bringing that forward. I think what you've done is you've re-emphasized that in a different way.

S. Gibson: There is a program which allows the employee to take the apprenticeship program concurrently, or at the same time as they're working. That's a very attractive program. It allows the individual to work in the trade and grow and also get their apprenticeship, their Red Seal, at the conclusion. That's another attractive feature. You're probably aware of that. That's quite attractive.

B. Miller: Not quite as familiar with the B.C. deal here, and that's probably changed since I went to….

D. Ashton (Chair): We'd like to have you working in B.C. for six figures, so hopefully that'll come out.
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D. Ashton (Chair): Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it. Have a good night. Thank you for coming in, for being patient to wait.

Welcome. Sorry there was a little bit of a kerfuffle there in seeing who was supposed to be where at what time. Gloria, you may have heard that we have ten minutes for the presentation — I'll give you a two-minute warning if required — and five minutes for questions or comments.

G. Jackson: Perfect. I think because of the time limit and because I'm a little nervous, I'm actually just going to read my submission.

My name is Gloria Jackson. I am the coordinator of community-based victim services, which operates out of Campbell River Family Services. Community-based victim services works closely with RCMP, Corrections, Crown counsel, Ministry of Children and Family Development, Health and other community service providers to provide safety, support and resources for individuals, families and families affected by sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today about the needs identified for families impacted by violence.

My understanding is that you, the budget committee, have already heard presentations from the Ending Violence Association of B.C., executive director Tracy Porteous, and victim service representatives from other communities in B.C. So I know that you're aware of the staggering number of domestic violence–related murders, attempted murders and suicides that have left 20 people dead in this province just since January 2014. Tracy Porteous also provided in her submission a good overview of provincial statistics related to domestic violence, the impact of violence against women for criminal justice, health, social services and labour, and the direct and indirect consequences of violence against women.

I'm not going to repeat the information already provided to you as a committee, but I hope that you will combine this information with the information you've already received.

I'd also like to give you a few additional statistics. Research provides the following facts. Women aged 15 and older account for 81 percent of all victims of police-reported spousal violence. In 2011 in 85 percent of spousal homicides the victims were women. Rates of intimate-partner violence, homicide against women, rose 19 percent between 2010 and 2011, while the rates for males declined by almost half. My guess is those rates will also go up this year. In spousal violence, women are three times more likely to experience serious violence, such as choking, beating, being threatened with gun and sexual violence.

About 80 percent of victims of dating violence are females. Females 18 to 24 years of age have the highest victimization rate of all victims. Males and females throughout their adult years may experience dating violence, but research indicates that dating violence is most common among youth.

With respect to cultural influence on domestic violence, aboriginal people are three times more likely than non-aboriginal people to experience violent incidents.

Approximately 75 percent of sexual assault victims in aboriginal communities are under the age of 18. Fifty percent of these girls are under the age 14, and 25 percent are under the age of seven. Aboriginal women between the ages of 25 and 44 are five times more likely than non-aboriginal women in the same age group to die as a result of violence.

Statistics Canada's 2004 General Social Survey estimated that approximately 61 percent of adult males and 74 percent of adult females never report violent incidents to police and that only about 8 percent of sexual assaults are ever reported.

Now I'd like to give you just a little bit of a picture locally of what's going on. Campbell River reports indicate that between January 1, 2013, and December 31, 2013, RCMP responded to approximately 421 domestic violence–related calls and 90 sexual-related offences. If, as research suggests, only a quarter of domestic violence incidents and one-tenth of sexual-related offences are reported, these numbers suggest that approximately 1,685 domestic violence incidents and 900 sexual-related offences are likely to have occurred in this tiny, beautiful community.

Campbell River community-based victim services currently employs one full-time staff — which is me; I coordinate myself — and a temporary assistant that works five hours per week. At present, the program caseload is over 300 victims and includes men, women and children ranging in age from infants to seniors.

We are actively involved in the Campbell River violence and relationship committee, which seeks to promote the safety of those affected by relationship and sexual violence by providing a coordinated and consistent, proactive approach. This work also involves raising community awareness on issues related to domestic violence.

I also co-chair with RCMP the local interagency case assessment team, ICAT, which is a cross-sector partnership including criminal justice, health, child welfare and community victim services. The ICAT has only been operating in Campbell River for the last ten months, and to date we've received 22 referrals, of which 16 have been assessed as high risk. The main purpose of this committee is to ensure a coordinated response to domestic violence and improve safety and reduction in risk.

Obviously, from those numbers you can see that service demands outstrip funding. I was fortunate last
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week to participate in the RCMP "E" Division Domestic Violence Forum, where experts in the domestic violence field identified factors critical in effectively responding to domestic violence.

I've highlighted the following — just a few of the factors I've identified in relation to the current lack of funding to violence-against-women programs.

They suggested that it's important for victims to have contact with a victim services worker as soon as possible following the event. Often, due to the overwhelming caseloads and limited manpower, it can be weeks following the event before a victim services worker is able to make human contact. Program referrals and inadequate staffing mean long delays before victims are linked with victim services, even by phone.

They identified that it's important to build relationship and maintain connection with victims over time, as it can be years from the time a criminal incident occurs to the completion of the victim's involvement with the legal system. Caseloads and funding make this almost impossible. Programs no longer cover mileage and outreach costs.

Relationship skills developed as young adults set the stage for future relationships. Research supports the idea that high school violence prevention programs are highly effective in providing youth with skills for healthy relationships. But prevention is at the bottom of our priorities when we don't have the time to provide adequate service.

Victim services workers require adequate information, training, support and manpower to do the job well. I've worked at family services for 22 years. When I moved into the position of community-based victim services, there were no funds to access programs, training specific to community-based victim services. There was a time when victim services training used to be offered to contract holders free of charge.

I was reminded when I took this position a year and a half ago that in 20 years of the program's existence at family services, no one has left the position to move to another position or retirement but instead have all left on sick leave. There is no doubt that inadequate training, support and manpower contribute to compassion fatigue and physical illness. It's an emotional topic for me as a woman to see these statistics.

The recommendations — I'd like to reinforce and support the three key measures recommended by the Ending Violence Association of B.C. to be considered for immediate implementation: new and increased funding to community-based victim services so that we can do the job adequately; early intervention for offenders because we recognize that offenders need service to reduce the risk for women; and capacity for more ICATs, the Integrated Case Assessment Teams.

I want to thank you for your time and attention today. Domestic violence is everyone's issue. It will not go away. It requires government to invest in programs and services that are working towards supporting the victims of violence and towards violence prevention.

I also want to recognize the grassroots work that has been done over the past 20 years by organizations such as the B.C. community coordination for women's safety, the transition society, women's centre, victim services and other community organizations that have created a good foundation to successfully support the critical work that still is required to stop the violence.

D. Ashton (Chair): Gloria, good job on difficult subjects, so thank you for bringing it forward.

J. Shin: Hi. Thank you for such heart-wrenching advocacy for this issue. Now, I'm not completely aware on this end, so maybe you can shed some insight. You know, with those that are convicted or identified with violent behaviour, for example, do we keep them all in jail, or do we let them walk? Do we have the resources to have them monitored constantly? I mean, those are some of the issues.

There are some interesting ideas that have come forward, including making a psychological assessment a mandatory condition of bail, for example. I'm not sure if that's being implemented now or if that's something your committee and organization are advocating for as part of the strategies to help us fill in those gaps.

As much as we need to focus on services and programs, part of the work needs to be being proactive and trying to minimize these tragedies from happening. If you can comment on that, that would be great.

G. Jackson: I'm not sure I get your whole question. But yeah, you certainly could identify some of the current kinds of ideas that are being discussed as far as monitoring and if enough of that is going on. Psychological assessments, I think, are important. I believe that they're helpful for us in assessing risk.

G. Jackson: Oh, I think sometimes they're being done, but probably not consistently. When you talk about…. Are the accused going to jail and those kinds of things? It's shocking to me how little time someone receives for the types of assaults and attacks on some women. It's shocking.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Gloria, for your work. Thank you to the community for the work that I know goes on all over this province.

I just wanted to ask a question about the ICAT teams. I've certainly heard nothing but positive about bringing all the groups and organizations together and having all the service providers together.

But one of the concerns that I've been hearing from the community — and I just wondered if it's reflected here as
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well — is that it's great to have all the service providers there and people are able to look for those opportunities, but there's still a shortage of services. It's great to have people around the table, but if there's nowhere to send people, what do you do?

G. Jackson: Yeah, definitely. There's still a shortage of services. One of the main problems with the ICAT…. It's great. It's a great model. I think I would say that it's probably the best thing that's happened to this community in the past ten months.

But it's not adequately funded, so there's nobody coordinating it. Now we have ICAT, but it's another job to coordinate. There's no paid coordination. There's no additional time, right? So even just the coordination of ICAT, which is the third recommendation that Tracy Porteous has made…. It's that the government needs to fund these services to do them adequately, right?

Part of the reason that I get so emotional is it's a tough job, and to feel that we're not doing it adequately because there isn't the manpower, the services, the gaps — those kinds of things — is tough.

G. Heyman: Thank you very much for coming out and making the presentation, both because it's obviously a very emotionally difficult thing for you to do but also because it's important for us to hear an additional voice to the voices we've heard, particularly to Tracy Porteous's voice — and to hear it from a local perspective in a community like this where it's difficult enough to do work alone. It's doubly difficult to do emotionally draining work alone, because you lack the emotional support for that. I want to acknowledge that.

I also want to acknowledge the importance in your submission that it includes a focus on some of the work that can be done at the front end to try to get to young people and educate them and prevent it.

G. Heyman: Also, I assume that one of the results of the lack of adequate staff and support on the whole issue for both the prevention work and helping women who are victims is that we actually end up with more domestic violence rather than less.

S. Gibson: I come from a community where we have a similar situation. We have city police, but we don't have RCMP. Our police chief says he could lay off half his police department if we only had women in his town.

It points to the fact that…. Look at the statistics. It's virtually all males. I guess this is the point George was alluding to. How do we change the culture? I mean, what you're talking about is addressing the tragedy. But how do we take the step back and make it unacceptable and illegitimate behaviour?

I don't really have the answer, but I know once you add liquor to the equation, you've got a real problematic situation. Men lash out. As you know, women lash in. I don't know whether you have any….

It's a complicated question and we're out of time, but if you have a quick response.

G. Jackson: You've raised some good points. The prevention is important — dealing with youth, changing the culture. I think the work that EVA B.C. and the B.C. Lions are doing with ending violence, Be More Than a Bystander, where men in our community….

I know that it's only a small percentage of men that do the abusing. The other men in our society need to stand up to men and tell them it's wrong.

D. Ashton (Chair): Gloria, thank you — very good presentation. Thank you for coming forth. Have a good evening.

Access to on-line versions of the report of proceedings (Hansard)
and webcasts of committee proceedings is available on the Internet.

1) Campbell River Literacy Now	Anne Boyd
	Kat Eddy
2) Kuterra LP	Garry Ullstrom
3) BC Salmon Farmers Association	Jeremy Dunn
4) Wilderness Tourism Association	Breanne Quesnel
5) Island Coastal Economic Trust	Mayor Phil Kent
	Line Robert
6) North Island College Faculty Association	Shirley Ackland
7) Hillsborough Resources	Gary Gould
8) Bill Miller
9) Campbell River Family Services	Gloria Jackson

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 MLAs:	Claire Trevena (North Island NDP)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Sarah Griffiths (Committees Assistant)

Witnesses:	Shirley Ackland (President, North Island College Faculty Association)
	Anne Boyd (Campbell River Literacy Now)
	Jeremy Dunn (Executive Director, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association)
	Kat Eddy (Campbell River Literacy Now)
	Gary Gould (Hillsborough Resources Ltd.)
	Gloria Jackson (Campbell River Family Services)
	Phil Kent (Chair, Board of Directors, Island Coastal Economic Trust)
	Bill Miller
	Breanne Quesnel (Wilderness Tourism Association of B.C.)
	Line Robert (CEO, Island Coastal Economic Trust)
	Garry Ullstrom (CEO, Kuterra LP)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES