Finance and Government Services — Issue No. 107 — Wednesday, October 5, 2016 (HTML)

Island Copper Room, Port Hardy Civic Centre
7550 Columbia Street, Port Hardy, B.C.

Present: Wm. Scott Hamilton, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Dan Ashton, MLA; Robin Austin, MLA; Eric Foster, MLA; Simon Gibson, MLA; George Heyman, MLA; Jennifer Rice, MLA; John Yap, MLA

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

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

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES


CONTENTS
Page
Presentations	2633
S. Ackland
S. Gough
D. Cooper
J. Benedict
F. Robertson
L. Pacey
A. Mahimwalla
B. Pomeroy
J. Winter
A. Ekman

S. Hamilton (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Scott Hamilton. I’m the MLA for Delta North, and I’m the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

We’re an all-party committee of the Legislature, with a mandate to hold public consultations on the next provincial budget. The consultations are based on the budget consultation paper that was recently released by the Minister of Finance. The committee must issue a report by November 15, 2016, with its recommendations for the 2017 provincial budget.

The committee is holding a number of public hearings in communities across the province, and British Columbians can participate via teleconference, video conference or even Skype. There are numerous ways to submit your ideas to the committee. British Columbians can complete an on-line survey or send in written, audio or video submissions through our website, which can be found at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/finance.

We invite all British Columbians to contribute to this important process. For those of you in attendance this afternoon, we thank you for taking the time to participate. All public input will be carefully considered by the committee as it prepares its final report for the Legislative Assembly. Just as a reminder, the deadline for submissions is midnight on Friday, October 14, 2016.

Now, the meeting format will consist of presentations from registered witnesses. Each presenter will have ten minutes to speak, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee. If time permits, we’ll also have an open-mike period at the end of the meeting. Five minutes are allotted for each presenter. If you wish to speak, please register with Stephanie at the information table.

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 the meetings are also broadcast as live audio via our website.

Now I’ll ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves. I’m going to start to my left, please.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Also assisting the committee today are, on my left, Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond, at the information desk, both from the Parliamentary Committees Office, along with Steve and Alexa from Hansard Services. They’re here to record all the proceedings.

Without further ado, I will go straight to our agenda and ask if Mayor Shirley Ackland, from the town of Port McNeill, would come forward.

Good afternoon and welcome. You heard my little speech. Ten minutes. I’ll try to get your attention with a couple of minutes left so you can conclude your thoughts, and then we’ll go to the committee for questions. So the floor is yours.

S. Ackland: I apologize, committee members. I inadvertently looked up a wrong roster of members, so I’ve got some of your former members’ names. I appreciate that you’re all here today.

It’s a pleasure to see you here on the true north Island. I don’t live in Port Hardy. I live in Port McNeill, but I’ve worked in Port Hardy. Much of what we do on the north Island we do for the entire region. So it’s a pleasure to be here.

I come wearing two hats. I am the mayor of Port McNeill. I should add that Mayor Emeritus Gerry Furney sends all of you his best wishes. I know many of you know who he is. My other hat is that I am the president of the faculty association at North Island College.

This year in Port Hardy, Port McNeill and the regional district, we all celebrated our 50th year of being on the north Island. There has been a good deal of celebrating and honouring our history and our respective communities’ progress, but we also have much left to do. Today I’m here to talk about that.

I want to focus just on two demographics in our region: students and seniors. The students in Mount Waddington access high school both in Port Hardy and in Port McNeill. Here is Port Hardy Secondary School, and North Island Secondary School is in Port McNeill.

North Island Secondary is a regional high school, and students travel from Woss and Port Alice by bus, and they also come in by ferry from Sointula and Alert Bay.
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Many of the students that complete high school need to access upgrading or take additional courses in order to gain entry to college or to a university program to build their futures. It’s not uncommon for students that have graduated to realize: “I should have taken English 12” or “You know, I should have stayed to get my math 11.”

Students who wish to continue into a medical field — nursing, particularly — come to college in order to upgrade, particularly their biology and their chemistry skills, before applying to that program. In the past years at North Island College, we had a constant flow of young adults accessing an upgrading course. That was chiefly because adult basic education was tuition-free in this province until a couple of years ago.

At UBCM last week, the Premier gave a wonderful example of Kayla, a single mother of three who is on assistance and received a grant to complete one year of post-secondary education. All the while, she had her travel and her child care paid for and was still able to collect social assistance, which was great, and a great opportunity for this single mom. But this opportunity doesn’t exist for other students now, students here who are not parents, who are not on social assistance, students that live in poverty and struggle and who wish to access post-secondary education and training. But their one obstacle now is the tuition to ABE.

The Premier further stated that the government expected that perhaps 300 people might take advantage of this special funding, but in fact, the numbers are 3,000. I think that’s terrific. But in the case of tuition-free ABE, we had 25,000 students a year accessing ABE. In regions across the provinces, it is the single way that people were getting into our college courses.

Here in our region, it was the key program to jump-start students into getting into a career of their choice. In the 28 years that I’ve worked at North Island College, we’ve had ongoing enrolment that starts with ABE, and we find now that tuition has become an added barrier, particularly for students in this region.

Reinstating tuition-free adult basic education in this province would be the single greatest way for this government just to level the playing field for access, particularly for students that are struggling to get into post-secondary education.

The other concern I have in our region is for our seniors. The fastest-growing demographic, and I don’t think it’s a surprise to any of us here, in this region is our seniors. Our communities were built at a time when families were seeking good jobs in safe, small communities, and the north Island had a steady stream of people moving from the larger cities to our small resource communities. Mine was one of those young families that moved here.

Much of the infrastructure that we enjoy — the skating arenas, the community hall, the track and field venues, the baseball diamonds — were all built with volunteer labour by our community’s citizens. Those citizens are now our seniors.

In Port McNeill, we don’t have a seniors centre at all. We don’t have a wheelchair-accessible van or transportation reliable for seniors to move easily around the community they built. In fact, our hospital, which was completed in 1979, doesn’t even have a shower facility that accommodates seniors that have mobility issues. So seniors in wheelchairs, who might have had amputations because of their conditions, can’t access proper bathing. We have 40 seniors alone in Port McNeill that endure further health issues because they can’t access proper bathing facilities.

Last year at UBCM, in the small talk, there was great conversation about resource communities that need to access a dividend or royalty from the companies that earned their profits from our backyards. I was so happy to see the rural dividend program announced. However, little of the fund can be used for infrastructure. It doesn’t allow us to address the needs in my community to build a seniors centre. It focuses on building employment in small communities, which is great, but it doesn’t fit that need.

We’ve just seen some new changes to the fund for the second wave of projects, and it will allow up to 25 percent of the infrastructure to be considered, but it’s still focused on employment. The process of applying to the rural dividend fund has been hugely onerous for small rural communities. In our office, we have just three full-time staff that take on all of the paperwork. That’s the taxes, the bylaws, the process, the meetings and the grant-writing of anything that you would do on behalf of your community. In Port Alice and Alert Bay, their staff is smaller than ours.

In fact, what it’s done here in this region, because we’ve been very keen, is it’s pitted us against one another to access the fund. All of the communities in Mount Waddington have applied to the rural dividend fund — Port Hardy, Alert Bay, Port Alice and Port McNeill. We all have projects we wish to be considered, yet we’re worried that if one of us receives funding, it jeopardizes another’s opportunity to access that.

It would be wonderful…. We believe that the rural dividend fund might be able to unfold like the small community grant program. The small community grant is a clear, direct process with clear project criteria, and all small communities are familiar with the process.

Another venue to perhaps manage a rural dividend fund, an appropriate body, would be the Island Coastal Economic Trust, as that, too, has been an appropriate body which has adjudicated many successful economic development projects all over Vancouver Island.

As I stated at the beginning of my presentation, my concerns focus on students and seniors, but the commonality for both of those is access. We need to ensure that in all of our communities — or as many as we can,
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particularly remote communities — students can access adult basic education and that in small remote resource communities, our seniors can access some of the necessary services and amenities that allow them to age in place and to remain in the home communities that they built.

I hope you’ll consider these concerns and take them forward in your deliberations. I’m happy to answer any questions you have.

Before we go to questions, I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce our MLA for North Island — Claire Trevena. Welcome.

Just two questions. First, on the ABE. Do you know the drop in the number of students who are accessing locally since the tuition has come in, in this region? That would be my first question on ABE — whether you’ve seen a drop in the numbers.

On the seniors issue, I appreciate the grants and the options that are there, but it would seem to me that it would be an Island Health issue if you don’t have proper bathing facilities or transportation for seniors who are in wheelchairs. It seems to me it should be a health issue and a health concern, not something that should be subject to grant proposal writing and something for a grant. I just wondered what conversations have gone on with Island Health around providing what seems like a very basic service that should be there for seniors.

S. Ackland: Yes. In fact, the ABE numbers have dropped. I don’t have the numbers from this year because it’s just relatively a new enrolment year for September. We had in the hundreds in North Island College alone. In this region, in Port Hardy, they have dropped down to small numbers, under 20, that have registered for ABE.

We have — I believe it is — 11 First Nations communities that live in the north Island. Adult basic education has been their resource to get them back into training and education, as a foundational piece, as young adults. It’s cost-prohibitive now, so it truly is a hardship.

Students that are coming across on the ferry to come to Port Hardy to take classes that are face to face…. Even if they do them at a distance and it’s on line, the cost is the same. There’s no sort of it’s a half-price cost if you’re not face to face.

The other numbers that are being impacted across the province. At Vancouver Community College, ABE is a natural step up for students that are taking English language, and that has been cut. So their numbers are a huge drop through the floor in adult basic education as well.

As for Island Health, I would agree. We’re very fortunate in Mount Waddington. The first regional health network was established in this region to talk about health issues. We gather for four forums every year, and we move them around the region.

We’ve talked about transportation for years. I’ve put in four proposals. I’m also the chair of the transportation committee. Currently we have, which is done as a donation service, Wheels for Wellness that comes up and provides transportation to seniors and for people who need access to medical appointments outside of this region.

It’s not located in this region. It’s located in Courtenay. They don’t want to drive, and they cannot connect with the ferry from Alert Bay or Sointula. They do not go into Port Alice. They have one driver in Port Hardy that does take some down, but many seniors do not access it from Port McNeill.

The other obstacle is they will not bring up a wheelchair-accessible van. We have three people who are amputees that have…. They’re not showing up in your numbers because they just opt out. They just say: “You know what? I’m not going to access medical treatment anymore.” So that’s a problem.

For the bathing facility. Again, we have argued with Island Health. According to them, it’s not their job. Unfortunately, seniors didn’t have homes that were built with walk-in tubs or with showers that have seats in them. We have a Better at Home service here, and they’re run to the extremes of their budget because there are no other services for seniors. We are maxed out on the home and community care.

We have the potential, through Island Health, of having a day program. We want to run it in each of our communities. In Port McNeill, we don’t have a place to hold it. If I could build a place, they can hold it. It would be the single greatest way to keep our seniors. I’m talking about…. One of them was the mayor of our community for 48 years.

We need these services here, and it’s difficult for those of us who’ve lived here for 35 years to watch the pioneers of our community have to move because they can’t stay here. I think it’s something we all need to grapple with. It’s not going to be easy, but we need to have those conversations.

G. Heyman: Thank you, Mayor Ackland. You’ve actually answered my questions, both through Carole’s and ones you added.

You referred to yourself and others who come to communities like Port Hardy and Port McNeill because of everything it has to offer and build the community. My
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question really had to do with, which I think you just answered, when there aren’t services for seniors, whether it was actually hollowing it out by people who could afford to leave and couldn’t get the services they needed here leaving. I think it detracts from the richness of the community when you have a generational cutoff.

S. Ackland: Actually, the seniors that are looking for the services now have been a generation of volunteers. These are the people that built our arenas and our track and fields. They’re our Sunday school teachers, our Scouts leaders. They’re the people that showed up as substitute teachers back in the day when they didn’t have a list of teachers on call. So they were there.

As somebody who’s had the advantage of raising her children here, it’s my turn. So I’m here on their behalf.

Just pedalling back a bit to your discussions around ABE, I can tell you that’s a fairly common theme that we’ve been hearing as we’ve been going around the province. It’s definitely underlying, and it’s something I’m sure we’ll be having discussions about going forward in terms of our recommendations.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you, Your Worship, for taking the time. I very much appreciate it. Thank you for all the hard work you do on behalf of your community.

S. Ackland: Before I leave, I have a 50-year celebration pin. They’ll be coveted all over the world. Bling.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Oh, wonderful. They’ll show up on eBay. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Next we have the Vancouver Island North Teachers Association — Mr. Shawn Gough.

It’s hilarious, actually. When I’m teaching, I use a poem called The Ballad of Tommy Gough, and it goes through all the iterations of how to actually pronounce the name.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Let me be honest with you. Up until now — the committee can attest to the fact — I’ve butchered names quite severely as we’ve travelled around.

As you probably heard, ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to get your attention when time’s winding down, and we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.

I appreciate the committee coming up and spending some time in Port Hardy. It’s good to be able to come and talk to you. It’s actually hilarious that Shirley was the person to speak before me, because she touches on a lot of items that are very close to our hearts as teachers.

Like Shirley, I’m one of the people that moved up to the community ostensibly for a two-year term — just to come up, experience the north Island, get some experience and then go back down. We’ve been here 16 years with no intention of leaving. It’s a place that you come to and you get to love. We have some great memories here, and we want to build more.

The Vancouver Island North Teachers Association is pleased to be able to present before you today regarding the state of funding for public education in B.C. and especially how that applies to rural schools, rural students and rural teachers.

Over the past two years, this committee has made some very solid and commendable recommendations to the provincial government regarding the state of our public education system and the need for ongoing and stable funding. VINTA would ask that those previous recommendations continue to form a basis for the recommendations that you create this year.

I’d like to start…. Shirley has given you a little bit of context, but I want to give a little bit of context for our communities. The north Island, which we believe starts north of Campbell River, is a resource-dependent area, and as such it follows the boom-and-bust cycle of population. When things are going well, we see more folks coming to the area. When there are challenges, we see fewer. On the whole, our population has been on the decline for the past two decades. Changes to the forest industry, decline in fishing and transportation issues have significantly impacted our businesses and, therefore, the population density of our communities.

The impact of this on our schools is severe. With fewer families, we have fewer students. With changes to our work schedules in our key industries, we see fewer families. With the loss of the midcoast ferry route, we see a major hit to our tourism. But despite all of that, we still do our best to provide a safe and inviting school system where students can achieve their personal goals and make an impact on our communities. We really, truly believe that having our students here and getting a quality education system in the north Island enables them to stay here and to give back to our communities in the long run.

Unfortunately, the chronic underfunding of our education system over the past 14 years has significantly eroded our ability to provide the level of education that our students and communities deserve. Our secondary students have fewer choices for courses. We have fewer
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supports for vulnerable students, and there are fewer specialist teachers. To this end, VINTA has four recommendations that we would like the committee to contemplate.

Our first recommendation is to review and overhaul the rural school funding formula. To treat our students the same as students in urban centres is to disadvantage our students. Where urban centres can rely on economy of scale, we cannot.

The question that needs to be answered is: are students in Port Hardy and Alert Bay deserving of fewer options than students in Kamloops or Surrey? The answer, of course, is no. Our students deserve the same opportunities as urban students. They deserve to have the same types of classes offered even though the class size will have to be much smaller. Our students should not have to rely upon distance education to fill the gaps in their education because the school district cannot afford to hire enough teachers to provide essential courses.

I’m going to give a case in point on this one. I’m a teacher, but I’m also a parent. I have two twins right now in grade 12. My grade 12 son is currently taking chemistry 12 via distance education because the school district can’t afford to offer it this year at Port Hardy Secondary School. Now, I don’t know about you. I’m at a complete loss as to how you actually offer chemistry 12 by distance education. I don’t know how he’s even going to do the lab work that would be part of chemistry 12. But he’s going to try.

The second recommendation that we have is to provide enough funding for student needs. We have a larger percentage of students with unique learning needs than most school districts, yet we only receive enough funding to test a fraction of those students each year. Most often, we actually don’t see needs assessments done at least until the kids are in grade 3. It’s not because the school district doesn’t want to test them. It’s because they can’t afford to. We need a larger budget for doing psychoeducational testing and greater access to supports for those students who need them.

Currently we have one elementary school counsellor for our geographically disbursed district servicing roughly 750 students. That doesn’t seem like it’s out of line, but when you throw in that geographic disbursement, they’re travelling to Alert Bay and Sointula and Port Alice and Port McNeill and Port Hardy. It’s really, really difficult to service that number of kids.

Our secondary schools have consistently lost counselling blocks because teachers that are doing those are needed to cover core courses. Our speech and language services are provided by a remote worker through an impersonal computer system. We have no school psychologist. Occupational therapy, physical therapy services — they’re available, but not in any abundance.

Our third recommendation is that you restore our ability to hire specialist teachers. Currently our district only has two qualified teacher-librarians. Both are within a year or two of retirement. We all know that a functional learning commons needs to have a teacher-librarian, yet that exists at only one of our elementary schools in Port Hardy and our secondary school in Port McNeill. What’s going to happen when those ladies retire? Why are all our schools not staffed with a teacher-librarian? It’s not through a lack of desire from the school district. They want to have teacher-librarians. It’s a lack of funding.

When the choice is made to sacrifice specialist positions so class sizes can be maintained and core courses can be offered, everyone loses.

We see the same issue facing our learning assistance resource teachers. We have great need of their services, but we lack the funding to hire enough of them to make a real difference. These specialist teachers are the ones who spend time working one-on-one with students or in small groups to help them navigate through their learning at times when the students are struggling. This kind of support can make the difference between a student having a positive experience and succeeding at school and a student becoming discouraged, alienated and resentful, ultimately resulting in a lack of personal success.

In addition to lack of supports for our students with special needs — this one touches really close to my heart — we have not had a consistent district-wide music program in the past dozen years. There are no band programs in our schools. Music specialists are rare. I know of one, right now. Again, it’s not because our school district doesn’t value music education. They do. It’s because they can’t afford to hire the staffing for it. It’s well recognized that we need to educate the whole student, but providing fine arts education through specialist teachers is becoming rare on the north Island.

The fourth recommendation that VINTA wants to put to you today is to fully fund curriculum change. Teachers in our district are genuinely excited about the introduction of the new curriculum.

I spent this morning working with a great group of teachers and administrators planning for the non-instructional day, which we’re doing on November 14, on curriculum implementation. We are super excited about what we’re doing and where this whole new curriculum is going. We’re even more excited because, of course, it was a successful joint effort of the ministry and BCTF members.

Our concern comes from the lack of funding to make the new curriculum flow effectively. When you introduce a new piece of equipment in your workplace, you train your employees on how to use it safely and efficiently. The same can be said for introducing the school curriculum.

We urge the government to adequately fund teacher in-service and professional development activities so that we can transition to this exiting new curriculum as smoothly as possible. Making sure that those exciting
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changes in curriculum are provided equitably to all of our students, rural and urban, is essential.

Hon. Members, as you can see, actually all of the issues that VINTA is bringing forward can be traced back to our recommendation of overhauling the funding formula. We desperately need stronger, more stable funding in order to offer the same type of education to our students as is afforded to students in urban centers.

We need to have increased levels of funding to provide services to our vulnerable students. We need consistent and reliable funding to plan appropriately, rather than random acts of funding that further destabilize the education system.

Now, I speak about the needs of rural schools and school districts in particular, but the needs are present in our whole system. So we are asking that you please advocate for more funding for our whole public school system, thereby giving our students the education that they need and deserve.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much. I’ll go to the committee for questions. We’ve run into your question period time a little bit, but I wanted you to finish your thoughts.

S. Gibson: Thank you for your presentation. It’s actually really echoing around the rooms that we inhabit as we travel around the province, so your sentiments have been consistent with others in similar situations to your own. Of course, the mayor earlier shared some concerns about ABE, and it kind of ties in a bit with what you’re sharing today.

My question is: being somewhat isolated here, if you’ve got twins who are graduating from grade 12, what will they do? They’re going to have to leave town to go to university. They’re going to have to go to Nanaimo, UVic or wherever. I guess my question is: will they come back?

I don’t want to get too philosophical here, but the lament is we’ve got seniors…. What about all the young people in that vortex that apparently is coming up here? You’re hoping that your two children, I’m sure, will further their education. Comment a bit about that in light of some of the points we’ve heard today.

S. Gough: Actually, that’s a good point. Yes, we desperately hope that our children will come back. I also have an older son, who is currently taking the aircraft maintenance engineering program at BCIT in Richmond. He is actively looking at coming back to the north Island — looking at West Coast Helicopters and Sealand Aviation in Campbell River as opportunities for employment. Those are a couple of things that…. We’re kind of hoping to have him come back up to north Island.

My daughter is currently looking at journalism and/or business admin, but she’s a teenage girl and really hasn’t completely made up her mind. But her desire is to remain here on the north Island. My son, who has got aspirations of becoming a chemical engineer — probably not staying on the north Island. I’m just going to hazard a guess on that one. The work in chemical engineering is not exactly in high demand up here.

Yes, they’re going to have to go out of the community in order to get their education. Like I said, one is down at BCIT. My son is looking at VIU, hopefully, for engineering, with a transfer to UBC or UVic, and my daughter is looking at Camosun College — largely because we have family in those areas, so that they’ll be easy to house.

S. Gibson: Well, I guess the challenge…. You know, you want them to come back, but the lament is maybe they’re not going to be able to.

S. Gough: It’s a possibility. When we look at the way that our economy is structured on the north Island, being very resource-dependent, when challenges are put in place to keep families in the communities…. I’m thinking about having a four-and-four work shift, where it’s easy to keep your family down-Island. Then the person who’s working in the forest industry just comes up during those four days on. Those are things that really impact our community. They also impact the numbers of students and, therefore, the ability to offer the courses that our students really need.

But with the zero time we have left, I’d like to ask one quick question. How far can your son go at VIU with his engineering degree before he has to leave?

Mr. Cooper, good to see you again. Welcome. You’ve probably heard about the ten minutes for the presentation. Then I’ll get your attention, and then we’ll go to the committee for questions. The floor is yours.
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Just by way of a reminder, the Island region that we serve is the entire Island outside of the capital regional district.

I want to first say thanks very much to the committee for the opportunity to speak with some of you, probably for the third time, I think. I also want to express our thanks to the provincial government and to ViaSport for the ongoing support that we do receive.

What I want to do here today is just provide you a quick overview of some of the successes and challenges of our operation and finish up with a simple suggestion on how to inject some badly needed funding into the sport sector.

For the better part of our 21 years of existence, we’ve partnered up with the Canadian Sport Institute network of centres across B.C. and Canada, where our goal has been to help Canadian athletes win gold medals. That’s been the bulk of our activity for 21 years.

Though B.C. represents just 13 percent of the Canadian population, B.C. athletes made up 45 percent of the national team that went to the Olympic Games in Rio. Those same B.C. athletes won 50 percent of the medals that Canada got — not all of the medals, just the ones that Canada got. The success of this program is due in large part to the community network and relationship building that we’ve done over this time.

Based on our high performance successes, it’s really interesting to note that four or five years ago, the province came to the sports sector to increase physical activity rates in the province of B.C.

While I’m pretty sure that this initiative was connected to concerns about the ballooning health care costs, the fact of the matter is that government didn’t go to the health care sector and it didn’t go to education, both of which have much larger budgets than we do. It didn’t go to recreation. It came to sport. It came to sport because sport gets things done. As we’ve demonstrated over this last four or five years, we’re more than up for the challenge.

It’s been a major breakthrough that the Ministry of Health recently launched its active people, active places physical activity strategy that focuses on the importance of physical literacy as part of their overall plan to invest in preventative measures.

What’s even better to note is that these preventative health care interventions are inviting input from recreation, education and sport. We’re breaking down silos so that community agencies are collaborating on issues of joint interest in our common goal of making for healthier communities, and we’re proud to be leaders in this process and discussion.

As you can see, promotion of the Canadian Sport For Life model is starting to resonate through various jurisdictions, especially the three other sectors that we’re working with.

Our reach in this last year has really broadened. Though we’re based in Nanaimo, probably our most significant impact over the past year has been our work with the Cowichan Valley regional district.

My partner on this initiative is a community services general manager, John Elzinga, who couldn’t join us today but asked me to share these words:

“PacificSport Vancouver Island has been instrumental in the initiation and development of physical literacy in the Cowichan region. Drew Cooper was the leader who originally brought the Sport for Life model to the attention of the rec professionals on Vancouver Island, and when the Cowichan region decided to implement physical literacy as part of that model, Drew was our mentor for the implementation every step of the way. PacificSport Vancouver Island’s ongoing support of this initiative has enabled our recreation, health and education sectors to work collaboratively to address our physical inactivity issues.

Many thanks to John for those kind words. I think it’s also interesting to note that the steering committee for this group is comprised of 16 or 17 different community agencies, all represented within those four sectors.

We also work in three school districts. I know a number of you cut your political teeth in the school system, being involved as trustees, so this might be of particular interest. Our physical literacy mentorship program has concluded in school district 68. We’ve now introduced that into district 79, where we leveraged $15,000 that we received from the government, and have that matched by the school district to implement training for K-to-3 teachers to enhance their physical education classes using physical literacy principles.

We also deliver our after-school sports and art initiative to 15 elementary schools in school district 68, where we weekly support 400 children who would otherwise be unable to access sport and vigorous activity. Last year we launched our IGNITE program at Carihi Secondary; that’s the second program in the district. It’s been the catalyst for some amazing results, such as two BMX racers who are now both nationally ranked No. 1 in their respective age classes and credit the IGNITE program for their success.

We’ve also had some significant interaction with the aboriginal communities in the central Island area, and we do this in partnership with the Aboriginal Sports, Recreation and Physical Activity Partners Council. The goal of this project is to enhance access to sport and physical activity programs. I’ve included more information as an appendix to this document, if you care to read more about the successes that we’ve had there.

One exciting new initiative is our upcoming role introducing an active transportation program within school district 68. We’re hoping that we can do a bit of a cultural shift, getting people out of their cars and more actively commuting, either by walking and/or wheeling.

We’re also venturing into the realm of economic development, with support for the advancement of sport
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tourism in the central Island area, and looking forward to expanding our role in that.

This broad range of activities delivered throughout the many communities and constituencies we serve is done with a mere 4.5 FTEs, none of whom have had a raise in four years due to stagnant budgets. While we can fairly easily access program funding, dollars to support current or new staff is very hard to come by. I know many of you have worked in the not-for-profit sector, and this is probably a similar experience for you as well.

Is government getting a good bang for their buck? The return on your investment would indicate unequivocally that you are. Our overall base funding we receive from the province — we leverage that more than 3.3 times, and that’s just cash for cash. Factor in the value and kind that we raise, and it becomes better than a 4 to 1 ratio.

Yet while we continue to grow and see our programs thrive, we’re quickly arriving at a point where resources cannot keep pace with demand. The physical literacy mentorship program is a case in point, where we have a lineup of four districts, and it will take us over ten years to get to them all. Our aboriginal sport initiative — the funding source has expired, and now we need to look at raising dollars for that.

Recognizing that there are little or no new dollars for the sport system, here’s an idea that I would like you all to consider as a means to provide significant and meaningful support to the sport system. I’m talking about a one-cent-per-can tax on soda pop with 100 percent of the proceeds to go towards community support and physical activity initiatives that have a direct impact on health outcomes — kind of like what I’ve been describing here today.

This simple solution would inject between $9 million and $10 million of new money into the B.C. sports sector. We can continue to put token support to the work that we do, but if you really want to accelerate the outcomes from our programs and services, I believe that this is a relatively benign tax that would have significant impact on our abilities to service and support some major positive directions that communities are now seeing as critical to making healthy outcomes and reversing the past 25-year trend towards an increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

It’s time that some of the culprits responsible for our collective health care system challenges become part of the solution. I hope this is something that will be seriously considered, or we are doomed to revert back to those dark days when 50 percent of PacificSport’s energy went into fundraising instead of program service delivery to the levels we are achieving today.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for that. Well under your time, actually, but that’s good. We’ll have more time for questions.

We’ve heard from your organization and different organizations around the province a lot, so a lot of questions have been asked already.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think, as has been said, you’ve been well represented in the communities, but I think the strength is the local flavour each time, and I appreciate that.

You mentioned the training with teachers in the early years of elementary school. The other area that we’ve been hearing about is the challenge in getting coaches. You don’t have the specialist physical education teachers anymore. You don’t have the ability for those teachers to be able to do the coaching. I wonder whether you’re doing any work around supporting teachers or supporting community members as community coaches in the school system.

D. Cooper: Well, not directly in the school system per se. But for example, early in September, during Coaches Week, we trained over 100 coaches within our region. Many of them will go to club sport, but also many of those folks will be trained and will step up and coach their kids in school programs. What’s fairly typical is that the local soccer coach or the local basketball coach will maybe work at the club level but then also step up when their kids are in grades 5, 6 and 7 and coach for that as well.

R. Austin: Thanks, Drew, for your presentation. With regards to your recommendation about a tax on sugary drinks, which we’ve heard from other presenters, by the way — I think it was somebody from the Diabetes Association who came to speak about it, and Heart and Stroke — I’m wondering whether you have had discussions with the Ministry of Health and/or Dr. Perry Kendall, the province’s public health senior officer, in terms of trying to promote the idea of a sugar tax to try and curb people’s continuation of drinking so many sugary drinks and also, more importantly, because chances are they’re going to continue to drink those drinks, to use that money to go into something that will provide a healthy benefit.

D. Cooper: In response to the first part of the question, I think it’s probably going to be the role…. My centre, by ourselves, is a fairly small player in the political realm. However, I believe that it’s going to be up to ViaSport, who represent the entire sports sector, to make that move. If it was deemed as a receptive concept, ViaSport would be on it right now.

D. Cooper: Oh, it had to do with the impact of such a tax. In the limited research that I have done, they’ve implemented this kind of a thing in places like Denmark and Europe and parts of the States with the idea that this kind of tax would have some kind of an impact on reduction of consumption. It doesn’t. That’s been shown. That’s why I didn’t refer to it. You know, people are going to smoke, whether you tax them or not.

The goal there is not so much to reduce consumption but to take those sources — part of the problem that we’re dealing with in terms of obesity, sedentary lifestyle, etc. — and try and get some of those dollars back into the system. That’s going to provide some preventative measures on the health care front and hopefully bring some of those costs down, ultimately, at the end of the day. I mean, that’s really what we’re all talking about here, I believe.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Great — just as our time’s winding down. Thank you very much, Mr. Cooper, for taking the time. We appreciate it, as always. Good luck with all the work you’re doing. It’s great.

Next we have, by teleconference, the West Vancouver Memorial Library — Jenny Benedict.

I’ll just let you know you have ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll try to rudely interrupt you with a couple of minutes left so you can conclude your thoughts, and then I’d like to go to the committee for any questions they might have. If that works well for you, then I’ll turn the floor over.

J. Benedict: Chair and members of the committee, many thanks for the opportunity this afternoon to give this presentation to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

As Mr. Hamilton introduced me, I’m Jenny Benedict, and I’m the chair of the Association of British Columbia Library Directors. I will be providing a brief overview of the public library context in the province, followed by three requests for your consideration.

British Columbia has 71 public libraries with 247 service locations. Our public libraries are strategic assets in B.C. communities, with existing physical and digital infrastructure and well-established community relationships. Investment in public libraries supports the economic vitality, social well-being and cultural development of our province.

With our library partners the British Columbia Library Trustees Association, the British Columbia Library Association and the B.C. Libraries Cooperative, we’ve recently worked with the libraries branch, which is in the partnerships division of the Ministry of Education, on a renewed vision and strategic priorities for public library service in British Columbia. Government’s vision is that our public libraries provide British Columbians with access to the information and tools they need to learn, work, create and thrive in today’s changing world.

Firstly, broadband Internet connectivity is integral to our public libraries. Technology is a major force driving social and economic change, globally and in our communities. People are seeing, processing and producing an exponentially increasing amount of on-line information every year, and it’s transforming how we learn, live, work, play and grow at every stage of our lives.

Our public libraries support our communities to adapt to the explosion of digital technology and information. We have public spaces for technology that invite creativity and collaboration. We provide both access to technology and expert assistance so that people in our communities develop the digital literacy and skills to increase basic transactions, pursue their interests and express this perspective. The development of such skills is key to employability in the job markets of today and the growing creative and knowledge-based economies.

The digital infrastructure in public libraries ensures that everyone in our community has public access to on-line connectivity. Our public libraries are the only places in our communities where every person, regardless of their age, wealth, gender or cultural background has an equal opportunity to learn, participate, connect and contribute.

Currently 37 public library service points, or about 15 percent of the total service points, have download speeds of five megabytes per second or less. To put that in context, the standard for a single device is one megabyte per second, so this means these locations can accommodate a total of five devices, and that’s for the public and staff.

We respectfully request appropriation of funding to improve the network fibre infrastructure for public libraries.

Secondly, we appreciate that provincial grant allocations to public libraries have been stable since 2010. This funding is a significant source of revenue for our smaller libraries, providing for as much as 38 percent of the total in some cases.

However, as much as we are strategic assets, our public libraries are economically vulnerable. For approximately a third of our public libraries, revenue has not kept pace with inflation over the last five years and, particularly in small communities, cannot be expected to come from local sources.

We respectfully request consideration of inflationary increases to public library grant allocations for all of our public libraries. For a single year, a 2 percent increase would be approximately $280,000. Thirdly, the release of the renewed vision and strategic plan for the library’s branch is expected imminently.
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How much progress is made on the new priorities will be influenced by the resources that are allocated to our efforts.

We respectfully request an allocation of funding to support the fourth strategic priority: fostering connected communities, building capacities, creating lasting and sustainable partnerships and enhancing governance and demonstrating impact.

We are concerned that a lack of new funding to support this plan will result in a reallocation of resources, which will move funding from much-needed sustained funding into project funding and, as a result, increase the economic vulnerability of our service plan.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Jenny, for your presentation. One of the areas that you mentioned, the issue of broadband Internet and libraries…. One of the areas that we’re seeing, certainly in my community — I don’t think it’s unique to Victoria — is the fact that so many government services now actually require people to fill forms out on line. They don’t have access to a person. They actually have to go through the Internet or through the phone to be able to make appointments or to be able to get service.

For many individuals, particularly those who live on the street or are homeless or in poverty, the library is their only access. It is the place that they go to be able to access government services. It seems to me that the issue of broadband Internet and the funding for that really is also a government issue when it comes to services.

I just wondered if you could comment on any impact that you’re seeing or that you’re hearing from your colleagues in libraries around the province.

J. Benedict: I think you have identified the issue very clearly in terms of the types of services that many populations that are vulnerable need to access, and the only way that they can do so is on line. Their only access in the community is to come to our public libraries, and we have libraries in locations that are very challenged because the broadband isn’t sufficient to be able to meet that demand.

Seeing none, Ms. Benedict, thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate it. I know it’s always a little difficult over a teleconference like this, but I think it went well.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’re not going to make Fred Robertson wait around until the end of this presentation. We’re going to do the open-mike now.

What that consists of, Mr. Robertson — from the district of Port Hardy, by the way — is five minutes for your presentation. A little leeway here and there, but if you could let us know what’s on your mind, we’d appreciate it. The floor is yours.

F. Robertson: I will. Thank you very much. On behalf of mayor and council, welcome to Port Hardy. It’s exciting that the committee comes up to Port Hardy and listens to what we have to say.

I just want to initially start with an apology for not making a more formal presentation. Council and, as Mayor Ackland said, our smallish staff are pretty focused on an event, a referendum that’s coming up and the preparation for, hopefully, a new building.

If I could, I would like to — and I will make mention of it in a second — refer to two issues, one in two parts. One is infrastructure in small rural communities, and of course, we couldn’t let you go home without talking about ferries either.

With respect to infrastructure, small rural communities are in a particularly difficult situation.

If I can give you a for-instance, 1 percent tax in Port Hardy will increase our revenue by $22,000. In Vancouver, 1 percent tax is…. You’re going to have to take your shoes and socks off to count because it’ll be a considerably larger amount. However, the high-pressure water main break that happened in Port Hardy last Sunday, as we were travelling down to UBCM, will cost the same in Port Hardy as it will in Vancouver, Campbell River or anywhere else to fix. In fact, I could argue that it would cost even more.

The funding for rural infrastructure for water and wastewater is an onerous tax on our residents, and we need the help of the province and the federal government to manage that. We’re a resource community. We’ve gone through tough times, with forestry actually doing well now but with fisheries and mining having closed down. We have seen a decline in population.

Our council right now is bound to try and improve Port Hardy and the facilities in Port Hardy and give people a reason to stay in a small rural community. To that end, we had an assessment done on our pool. It was built at a time 40 years ago when there was a mine, when fishing was quite active and we could afford to build the pool.

We’re going to referendum in October later on, in a few weeks — that’s what everybody’s been focused on — to replace the pool. We’ve had initial response to it — very positive when we went out with the idea and consulted with the community. So we will go to referendum in a few weeks to authorize borrowing between $4 million and $6 million.

Of course, part of what is important in that recreational infrastructure is that we can’t afford to do it on
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our own. We can’t afford to simply tax the residents of Port Hardy — or even in the north Island — and say: “We need to carry the whole burden.” We can’t afford to do that. We rely on the infrastructure funding, the equal funding from the province and the federal government. For small rural communities to continue to thrive and grow, it’s imperative.

I should say that I think we’re having some impact recently with housing sales in Port Hardy. There were 50 sales in Port Hardy from January to currently — which, for Port Hardy, is good. Housing prices have actually increased in Port Hardy from $145,000 to, I think, around $170,000. So we’re having some impact. We would like to continue to have that impact.

Certainly, on the water and wastewater treatment, our experience is not dissimilar from anywhere else in this province or, in fact, the country. Again, as I said, small rural communities, particularly resource-based communities, have a particular challenge in trying to replace those and bring them up into the 21st century.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We’re just about out of time, so I’ll get you to quickly….

S. Hamilton (Chair): I’m going to exercise a little discretion here and let you continue on a bit.

Ferries are, of course, an essential part of any coastal community. The ferry was cancelled, which caused great distress in our community. I believe that a third of the savings in that whole swoop came from the one route from Port Hardy to Prince Rupert. It has had a significant impact on tourism in our area and, I know anecdotally, from Prince Rupert and the whole central coast.

We need that ferry. It was great to hear that the ferry would be back, even as late as it is. We need to continue to discuss that ferry. The Chilliwack used to make stops for people who were visiting the central coast. There needs to be allowance for freight. It needs to carry the adequate number of passengers and cars to deal with tourism, particularly in the summer. So I would hope that that discussion hasn’t stopped and that it will be ongoing.

S. Hamilton (Chair): It’s okay. Not a problem. We had a couple of extra minutes to spare anyhow, so I’d rather hear from you.

Are there any necessary questions? Usually we wouldn’t go to questions with this sort of thing, but because we’re in Port Hardy and you’re talking about Port Hardy, I just want to give the opportunity for anyone to ask questions.

I’m just curious about the rural dividend fund and whether or not there’s any advantage there for major infrastructure projects.

F. Robertson: I have it down on the bottom of my notes, and I should have mentioned at the beginning that we have applied for the first round of the rural dividend fund, and we actually received $100,000 in the first round to address some deficiencies in the dock where the Coast Guard pulls in.

G. Heyman: First of all, thank you for the presentation. I’m wondering if you or the chamber of commerce or local tourism operators have quantified any of the losses they believe they experienced from the disruption in ferry service on an annual basis and if they have any thoughts about whether that will return and over what time frame. This may be something that you could submit up to October 14 to form part of our record.

F. Robertson: Half of that information…. I think the chamber and Tourism Vancouver Island do have some statistics. We don’t yet have the statistics on the new ferry coming in, but it’s certainly important to our area.

G. Heyman: Would you be able to send that in to the Clerk, or should we try to dig it up ourselves?

Next, also via teleconference, we have Ammar Mahimwalla and Lucille Pacey. Are you there on the line?

L. Pacey: Thank you. We know we’ve got ten minutes for our presentation, so we’ll zoom through.
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L. Pacey: Let me begin by introducing myself — Lucille Pacey. I’m representing the Vancouver Biennale as a board member. And Ammar Mahimwalla is with us. He’s the director of programming for the Biennale.

L. Pacey: We want to take some time today to speak to you about the positive impacts of public art on communities, tourism and the economy. We’re going to give you a very brief history of the work we’ve done to date and share some examples of things that we’re looking forward to in the future.

Just a reminder that the Vancouver Biennale is a non-profit, charitable organization that’s been bringing international, museum-quality art to public spaces over the last ten years to celebrate cultural diversity and to support the growing innovation economy by making B.C. an attractive destination for creative capital.

A. Mahimwalla: At the heart of the creative economy are the cultural and creative industries that lie at the crossroads of art — culture, business and technology. Arts and cultural activities are key factors in attracting workers, visitors and corporate investments by creating healthy and vibrant communities. All the sectors in the above chart impact and intersect with public art, and the role of the Biennale is to add value to the creative economy and our community.

We took a look at the key words and phrases people use to search for the arts, culture and creative industries, and these images represent a snapshot of the top search results. In the image on the right, we see that the economy sits at the top of the iceberg, which is the tip of the iceberg, but the cultural aspects that really support the foundation work are underneath the surface, and this is usually not visible.

L. Pacey: This famous work of art was part of the inaugural exhibition of the Biennale, and some of you know that it generated a lot of dialogue and debate in the community. We know that effective public art — one focus of that — is to generate dialogue and discussion. We launched in 2005, with the help of the province of British Columbia, and we’ve been very fortunate to continue to receive funding through the gaming grant. So this, for us, is an opportunity to thank you personally.

Our exhibitions run for the entire two-year duration, which is unusual, if you look at other biennales worldwide. And we include events, educational programs and artistic engagements — all that are accessible at no cost to the public.

In the next exhibition, the biennale was able to expand its reach and impact by partnering with Richmond, Port Moody and West Vancouver to create public installations in these other communities, hosting events, lectures and education programs within these communities.

A. Mahimwalla: The current 2014-2016 exhibition has expanded yet again into partnering municipalities of New Westminster, Squamish, and North Vancouver. We are now currently at the end of our four-year exhibition cycle, and many of these artworks will be returned because they are on temporary display. At the same time, we start planning for the 2018-2020 exhibition cycle.

With each exhibition, we try to retain legacy works for the communities, and in this photo that you see up there, the wooden bench is one of the key works in Squamish that we’ve been able to create a park around. In New Westminster, we’ll be talking about a bit later…. But we’re still looking for works for Vancouver and North Vancouver.

L. Pacey: One of the most visible installations of the current biennale is housed on Granville Island, where the cement silos were transformed into works of art. This collaboration represents a partnership with the private sector that has successfully garnered international public support — but more importantly, interest in the company that was our partner. It reinforced the company’s commitment to building community and their commitment to public art. We know that there are approximately 11 million visitors to Granville Island annually, so we know we have a lot of people admiring the giants on the silos.

Our biennale is the only one that has developed an education program that is accessible on line throughout the province. The curriculum supports the new B.C. education curriculum for grades K through to 12. Over the last five years that the Big Ideas education program has run, we have worked with 121 schools from 11 school districts, involving over 8,600 children. The Big Ideas education program operates annually during the school year, and working with an education consultant today, we are working on implementing this curriculum in over 400 schools across Latin America as a model for arts education.

A. Mahimwalla: These are images of the international artist residency program, which is one of our newest programs. Over the last two years, we’ve brought over 36 artists from Canada and across the world to spend four to six weeks in Metro Vancouver and engage with the local communities. The focus of this program is really to
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bring artists and to integrate them into these communities where they engage with each other and local artists to create their residency projects.

Some of these images that you’re looking at reference the I Have a Dream project, which went globally into 32 counties where artists planted gardens and were talking about food sustainability and agricultural systems in their different communities.

Below that is also an image of a canoe, which was carved by a Mexican and an American artist in collaboration with local First Nations in Squamish.

The Cinefest program is another one of our new programs launched this exhibition, and it brings art as another form of engagement and learning. We invited the famous American filmmaker Oliver Stone to present his 12-part miniseries called The Untold History of the United States, and later on we made this 12-part documentary series available on line to all of the schools as education programming materials. We also screened the controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s films, 16 of those, on line and in theatres.

Our goal at the end of each exhibition is to retain, minimally, one major legacy artwork for our partnering communities. We do this through philanthropy and corporate fundraising. This iconic artwork, A-maze-ing Laughter by Yue Minjun, is one of the legacy pieces from the 2009-2011 exhibition. We were at risk of losing this key artwork. However, the legacy was made possible through fundraising efforts of the Biennale and the generosity of Chip Wilson, which has allowed us to keep this work on permanent display as a gift to the city of Vancouver.

Some statistics that we pulled up from Destination B.C. as of 2012 indicate 17.9 million person visits to Vancouver, which generated $8.6 billion in related spending. A-maze-ing Laughter is a major tourist destination that attracts every out-of-town visitor and local residents. The images of this artwork are frequently used in tourist promotional pieces nationally and internationally.

These are some other images of community legacy installations worth over $1 million U.S. which we have created for the communities of Richmond and New Westminster. These artworks have become iconic place-makers in the community. In New Westminster, the four 40-foot-long shipping containers called WOW Westminster, found at Westminster Pier Park, has redefined the identity of the city and its working waterfront.

As we approach the end of the 2104-2016 exhibition, we are looking to create legacy installations for the cities of Vancouver and North Vancouver. These two iconic artworks…. One, by the American artist Jonathan Borofsky on the left, called Human Structures, is currently installed in Olympic Village, in the new community down there. And the work on the right is by Marcus Bowcott, a local artist whose work is exhibited right now currently beside Science World.

L. Pacey: All of our efforts in British Columbia are now being recognized by other institutions and local governments across Canada, which opens up opportunities for new partnerships and collaborations for us. This Ai Weiwei F Grass installation, which is a statement about the importance of freedom of speech, democracy and censorship, is a unique artwork created to represent the values and freedoms we enjoy as Canadians. We’ve been very fortunate to enter into a collaboration with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, in The Forks in Winnipeg, where we hope they will accept this piece as an integral component of their program.

This is an opportunity for us to keep this piece of art in Canada and have it become part of the national museum. Of course, this is always dependent on our ability to fundraise for the acquisition of the artwork.

We also have been invited to collaborate and participate in the 375th anniversary celebrations for the city of Montreal. We are loaning three large-scale public art installations to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, which will host an exhibition of public art along a major public avenue in downtown Montreal between May and October 2017.

Of course, we have the most unique opportunity back in British Columbia in the Okanagan. This gives us an opportunity to promote tourism and economic development in an area that has been growing and continues to grow. Ten wineries have committed $250,000 towards this project, and we are currently looking for matching provincial funding. The vintners estimate that this initiative could attract 100,000 international and out-of-province visitors annually, contributing to the economic health of the region. Presently we’ve seen that the majority of the tourist trade in the Okanagan is local — approximately 87 percent — with 81 percent of the related spending also being local.

We have very tight timelines for bringing this project to fruition, and we would appreciate your support in securing the funding. We would like to launch the project in time for the 2017 tourist season, recognizing that there are numerous institutions and partners who are involved in promoting the wine industry nationally and internationally.

In closing, we want to thank the province of British Columbia for your support. We have achieved a lot in the last ten years, and we know we could do so much more with additional support, starting, of course, with the Okanagan project and moving ahead to the development of the 2018-2020 Biennale.

We’re happy to answer any questions the members of the committee may have, and we would be delighted to provide more detailed briefings for anyone who may be interested.

We still have a couple of minutes left for questions, so I’ll go to the committee and see if we can solicit any.
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C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Lucille, and thank you, Ammar, for your presentation. I don’t have a question. I just wanted to say a thank-you for reminding us of the importance of public art and art in our communities. It’s often a controversial issue that comes up, and I think that’s just the point. I think it’s exactly the reason that public art is so important, is because of that. So thank you for the work that you do, and thank you for reminding us about the important piece of the economy.

S. Hamilton (Chair): I don’t see any more questions, but I’ll let you know that I had the pleasure of helping to unveil a piece of public art in my community yesterday. It certainly goes a long way to creating a nice visual space. The more of it we have, the more I appreciate it.

Thank you for taking the time to present to the committee, and I’ll look forward to your continued efforts.

We’ll just take a brief recess, please, while we contact the next teleconference member.

S. Hamilton (Chair): On the phone we have Beverley Pomeroy. Hi, how are you? I’m Scott Hamilton. I’m the Chair of the committee.

Just to let you know, we have ten minutes for your presentation. I’ll interrupt you, if you don’t mind, just with a couple of minutes left so you can conclude your thoughts, and then we can go to the committee with any questions they might have.

B. Pomeroy: Firstly, thank you. It’s kind of funny being on the phone, but thank you for providing the opportunity to address the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

As I was introduced, my name is Beverley Pomeroy. I’m a mother of three living in Delta, British Columbia. I’m an awarded and highly-sought-after community engagement strategist, author and speaker on something called Living Grief. That makes me a strong advocate for children and families — in particular, family caregivers of children with special needs.

What I want to do is…. As you sit listening to those who are calling in and presenting in person, I’d like to offer you a bit of a unique perspective. If I was there in person, I’d probably ask each of you to close your eyes and, for a moment, just imagine a 16-year-old girl with long, blonde hair and wearing something pink or purple, laughing and giggling with her two older brothers and singing at the top of her lungs.

If you were to open your [audio interrupted] bed-ridden, in chronic pain and discomfort, on continuous oxygen, requiring around-the-clock nursing care and quite literally, as I speak, struggling with what may be her last breath. That extraordinary 16-year-old young girl is my daughter, Sophia, and both of those scenarios identify, in just a small way, the dichotomy we live in each and every day and have for the past 16 years.

Sophia was born with a rare disease that has encompassed the majority of her organs and systems. Originally it was not expected for her to live past the age of one. She just turned 16, but unfortunately, this past December Sophia was officially deemed palliative.

Just to kind of give an overview of palliative, because I had to learn myself what that term was. It is that palliative is not a state of being. According to the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, the definition of palliative is that it “aims to relieve suffering and improve quality of living and dying.” Palliative care is a multidisciplinary approach to specialized medical care for people with serious illnesses. The origin of the word itself is: relieving or soothing of symptoms of a disease or disorder without effecting a cure.

Sophia’s genetic condition is rare — the only documented case in the world. There is no cure, no famous person’s child with the same genetic condition, nor any monetary value for big pharma to fund research. So for the last 16 years, Sophia and our family have been on a profound journey of ongoing loss.

Because Sophia’s condition is complex, we require specialized care and support from a highly-skilled, multidisciplinary team. We are fortunate, here in B.C., to have walked through the doors of the first pediatric palliative hospice. We are currently one of 670 families being supported by Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and among the 40 percent of those considered to live in the Fraser Valley.

My daughter Sophia receives in-patient pain and symptom management in-house at Canuck Place, as well as out-patient, in-home support in our community. As a family caregiver, I am able to go and help with Sophia and recharge during respite stays but also be supported as Sophia’s advocate and primary caregiver through ongoing training, knowledge and, of course — two very important services for a family caregiver — counselling and the opportunity to connect with other families on a similar journey.

As a family caregiver, I experience something I call living grief, and it is this profound journey of ongoing loss. Canuck Place understands not only the clinical aspects of complex care of Sophia but also the delicate journey that I, as her mom, am going through with each loss she suffers.

Premier Christy Clark sent a letter to the Hon. Terry Lake, Minister of Health, back in June 2014 with a man-
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date to double the number of hospice spaces in British Columbia by 2020. As an advocate of pediatric palliative service, I can reference the numbers for you.

There were 137 new children and family referrals to Canuck Place programs in 2015 and 2016 alone — a 39 percent increase. In the last decade, there has been a 250 percent increase of children and families from rural and urban areas from across B.C. and Yukon.

Babies are being born pre-polluted with over 200 toxins. The incidents of rare genetic disorders, like Sophia’s, or rare childhood cancers is on the rise. Thanks to medical advancements, even babies being born at 24 weeks survive but not without entering community with complex medical and developmental needs. Just this year alone, 81 children died on the Canuck Place program. That’s actually an increase of 21 percent.

My request, if I could put this forward as an advocate, obviously, of pediatric palliative care, knowing what Ms. Clark wants us to do…. Our request is for the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to maintain the delivery of direct patient care by converting the one-time grant to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice to base Ministry of Health–committed funding. You can ask me questions about that too. And number two, minimal additional funds so we can get the new David Lede House in Abbotsford up and running for 2017-2018 to provide base level services there.

We know Canuck Place Children’s Hospice delivers cost-effective care, with donors covering 29 percent of direct patient care. If we were to compare costs, a regular ward bed at B.C. Children’s Hospital costs $2,912 a day. When Sophia goes into Canuck Place for pain and symptom management, it costs $2,033 a day, plus I get to stay with her and I’m fed and I’m nurtured.

When the time comes and Sophia’s at end of life and it is imminent, the cost of B.C. Children’s PICU — which is the pediatric ICU there — would be $4,281 a day. However, my daughter at the end of her life — receiving the best pain and symptom management in this province at Canuck Place Children’s Hospice — would save the provincial government just under $1,500 a day at a cost of $2,819.

As an advocate, I can quantify those numbers till I’m blue in the face. But as a mom, what I can’t quantify is the care, the compassion, the specialized experience and knowledge that the team at Canuck Place provides my daughter, Sophia, and our entire family on one of the most difficult journeys I could ever experience.

If Sophia’s life isn’t challenging enough, just this past week Sophia actually lost her eyesight due to another progression of her condition. She’s actually now blind.

While we were in B.C. Children’s emergency, surrounded by two ophthalmologists, three neurologists and a bunch of ER docs, feeling distraught, hopeless and overwhelmed, all I had to do — and did — was pick up the phone, and within 15 minutes we had Dr. Peter Louie from Canuck Place; Susan Poitras, the clinical counsellor, and Camara van Breeman, the clinical nurse practitioner, at our side to help us to navigate yet another loss in what may be another step closer to Sophia’s death.

I don’t know what Sophia’s trajectory ultimately is — how much longer she does or she doesn’t have — but as one of the 670 families that benefit and rely on the specialized pediatric palliative services at Canuck Place, I invite each and every one of you on the committee to partner with us as families and Canuck Place Children’s Hospice and commit to supporting the B.C. government’s mandate to double hospice beds by 2020 and convert that one-time grant to Canuck Place Children’s Hospice to base MH funding and provide the minimal additional funds for base-level services at David Lede House.

Mr. Hamilton, Ms. James, Mr. Foster and Mr. Gibson, Mr. Heyman, Mr. Ashton, Mr. Austin, Ms. Rice, Ms. Tegart and Mr. Yap — I personally invite you for a tour, and I’ll lead the tour, of Canuck Place Children’s Hospice to experience, if you haven’t yet, even in some small way, the direct patient care and specialized support that is necessary not only for end of life but for this profound journey of ongoing loss that families like mine are on.

On behalf of my daughter, Sophia, and our family, thank you for giving us the opportunity to share our story.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you very much for that, Ms. Pomeroy. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with the committee, and I’m going to go to the committee now for any questions they might have.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much, Beverley, for sharing your story and Sophia’s story with all of us. I think that you’ve described well the importance of having a specialized palliative care support — for pediatric care, in particular.

Often when we think of palliative care, we think of beds in individual communities. While that’s important, I think you’ve also identified and reminded us about the specialization that is needed and the support that that provides to you through medical care, but I think also through other parents and other people going through the experience.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Any further questions? Well, I see none. I think it’s pretty obvious that you represent people that need advocates like you, Ms. Pomeroy, so I do appreciate you coming forward and sharing your story very thoughtfully. On behalf of the people that you’re advocating for, I thank you very much for your time.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Also via teleconference, on the phone, we have Mr. John Winter of Prostate Cancer Canada.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Good. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you taking the time. Just to remind, you have ten minutes for the presentation. I will interrupt you with a couple of minutes left if your time is waning, and then we can go to the committee for some questions. So if you’re ready, the floor is yours.

J. Winter: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. This must be a popular committee. We obviously registered too late to get our preferred time and location, but this is better than no opportunity at all, I guess.

In my capacity as director of the Prostate Cancer Canada organization…. We’re the leading national foundation dedicated to the prevention of the most common cancer in men, through research, advocacy, education, support and awareness-building.

In 2004, I was personally diagnosed with prostate cancer. My interest in this cause is obvious. Because my cancer was detected early, I am able to be here with you today, proud to say that I am cancer-free.

This brings me to the reason why I presented to this committee last year and am back here again today. While we are doing a better job of raising the profile of prostate cancer, there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done to ensure that the estimated one in eight Canadian men who will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime better understand their risk for developing the disease.

This presentation today will focus on recent updates in support of the role of the prostate-specific antigen test in helping to detect prostate cancer early, along with emerging data on the repercussions that the U.S. has faced after issuing recommendations against PSA screening. This, of course, is a situation we fear may occur in Canada if we follow in the U.S. footsteps.

I have some background and a few numbers. My apologies for this. It was estimated that in 2015, 24,000 Canadian men were diagnosed with prostate cancer. Of that number, approximately 4,100 died of the disease. Here in B.C., 3,800 men received the diagnosis of prostate cancer, and 600 men tragically lost their lives.

When prostate cancer is detected early, the survival rate is an amazingly high 90 percent. The prostate-specific antigen test, known as the PSA test, is simple — a blood test taken from the arm that measures the amount of PSA protein in the blood. Elevated PSA levels may indeed indicate prostate problems, one of which could be cancer.

A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine became the source of many headlines that alluded to PSA tests scaring us into being overtreated by alerting us to a non-threatening disease. Consequently, many nuanced interpretations have been made regarding the threat that prostate cancer actually poses and the value of screening and treatment.

However, rather than being an argument against PSA testing, this study, in our view, was a powerful reminder that the earlier we know that we’re dealing with what we’re dealing with, the better positioned we are to make the decisions that are best for us. While elevated PSA levels don’t always signify prostate cancer, they oftentimes do.

The fact of the matter is that each case of prostate cancer is different. There are men who could live well into old age without ever needing to know that they had prostate cancer in the first place. But there are also men who could die far too young if it’s not caught early.

It is for this reason, this very reason, that we believe that the approach to prostate cancer screening should be tailored to each individual, taking into account personal risk. We recommend men be proactive about their health and have a baseline PSA reading at about age 40 to get ahead of things. Each of the participants in this particular study from the New England Journal had an early prostate cancer and the choice that early detection affords. In each case, the diagnosis did begin with a PSA screen.

Secondly, in 2014, the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care, a body with very limited experience in prostate cancer and best practices, publicly denounced screening for prostate cancer with the PSA test. The U.S. equivalent of this organization also recommended against screening with prostate cancer.

One major issue with the task force findings was its reliance on what is widely considered by the medical fraternity to be weak evidence. Currently the most relevant studies on the subject have not yet reached maturity due to the long latency of the disease. Therefore, based on the available evidence, it is simply too early to reject PSA testing.

According to more recent research, if PSA screening was eliminated, the cases of advanced prostate cancer would double, resulting in up to an estimated 20 percent increase in annual prostate cancer deaths. In fact, the task force’s recommendations against PSA screening have resulted in a decline in prostate cancer diagnoses, while denying many men the opportunity for shared decision-making.

The instance of metastatic prostate cancer has also increased from 2007 to 2013 across all age groups, although the largest increase was seen in men aged 55 to 69, a group thought to benefit the most from regular screening.

Our fear is that we will start to see this affecting Canada, which will lead to an increase in advanced prostate cancer cases and deaths, as well as a reversal of the national gains made in prostate cancer mortality in the past two decades, as seems to be occurring today in the U.S.

Prostate Cancer Canada and prostate cancer experts advocate for an approach that is tailored to individual men, called smart screening. Smart screening takes a man’s individual risk for developing prostate cancer into account and is a personalized approach where men are encouraged to be tested to establish a baseline PSA number, with tailored follow-up based on their complete risk profile. If there are changes, the man and his doctor decide together how best to move forward based on his own risk.

With this approach, some men would not require a follow-up test for two or five years or even longer. The baseline, however, would provide important information on how quickly the man’s PSA level is rising and whether further diagnostics, such as a biopsy, may in fact be required.

It’s important to note that a case that warrants further follow-up does not mean a man will require immediate treatment. It could mean active surveillance. Doctors in Canada are pioneers of active surveillance, an evidence-based approach that involves closely monitoring low-risk prostate cancer. It aims to improve the quality of life by reducing or delaying radical treatment until absolutely necessary. Active surveillance can significantly mitigate the issue of overtreatment that has been regarded by some as a concern with PSA screening.

Prostate Cancer Canada believes that the use of smart screening will also allow better management of the issue by offering other options. Testing prostate cancer in the later stages limits treatment options and also eliminates the possibility of active surveillance.

Why am I telling you all this? British Columbia and Ontario are the only two provinces in Canada that do not cover the cost of PSA testing for screening purposes. For a man in British Columbia who does not meet the current Medical Services Plan criteria, the out-of-pocket expense for a single PSA test is approximately $30 plus tax.

Screening for prostate cancer is not covered under MSP even though prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and results in the third-largest mortality rate for cancer in men. According to a 2015 Ipsos-Reid survey, over 90 percent of B.C.’s men stated they are more likely to get the PSA test if it is covered by their provincial government.

Polls such as this demonstrate that having to pay for the test is in fact an impediment for men to manage their health and to understand their risk for prostate cancer. By absorbing the cost of PSA testing, the province would be making a strong statement in demonstrating its continued commitment to preventative health care and to ensuring that men don’t have yet another excuse to manage their health.

Prostate Cancer Canada recommends that men receive a baseline PSA test in their forties as a pre-diagnostic test. The PSA result is added to an individual’s risk profile, which can then assist medical professionals to determine how to best tailor an individual’s follow-up and care.

We estimate that if all 40-year-old men in B.C. — an estimated 29,000 of them — received a baseline PSA test in 2014, it would have cost the B.C. government health care plan $870,000 at a cost of $30 per test. In this same year, it was estimated that 500 B.C. men died of prostate cancer, which could likely have been prevented if their cancer was detected early.

All prostate cancer deaths result from advanced disease. Based on data published by researchers in B.C., if we assume that these men underwent the standard practice of localized treatment, androgen deprivation therapy for advanced disease, and received end-of-life care, it would have cost the B.C. government approximately $11.6 million for these men, using estimated prostate cancer treatment costs per person.

Here’s the good news. Based on available information from other provinces, we estimate that a provincially funded PSA screening program could reduce test costs to as low as $10 per test, one of the least expensive medical tests available and one that could result in a large net savings for the government of British Columbia.

We humbly ask for your support today and a discussion regarding the funding of PSA testing in B.C. so that men no longer have to pay out of their own pockets — no excuses. We estimate that a publicly funded PSA screening program, paired with the world-leading active surveillance model pioneered here in Canada, would reduce both prostate cancer mortality and expensive treatment of advanced cancers.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you, Mr. Winter. I appreciate your taking that time. I’m going to start with questions, and I’m going to go to Robin Austin first, please.

R. Austin: Thanks, John, for your presentation. My question is really more one of clarification. If I’m correct from your presentation…. Obviously, I’m not a doctor, and I have no science background.

Aside from the controversy around whether there are lots of false negatives or false positives from the PSA test, what you’re suggesting is that it is still a good thing to screen all males over a certain age with the PSA test — if for no other reason than to have a baseline moving forward. It’s so that they can then have conversations with their doctors and decide if they are one of the high-risk people. Then they can go look further. That’s what you’re suggesting. Is that correct?
[ Page 2650 ]

J. Winter: Exactly correct. Start earlier, do it less frequently if required, but it’s the only test available to diagnose a cancer of this form. Because of the false positives that have been occurring, some unfortunate surgery choices have been made. This ought to be able to avoid a great number of those.

S. Gibson: John, I think we would all agree that you’re probably the ideal spokesperson for this cause, given your background. It’s good to hear that you’re in good health.

My question involves any preventive means that can be embraced by men to ensure that they would be less likely to contract prostate cancer. Do you have any remarks on that?

J. Winter: There is no linked evidence, lifestyle-related evidence, to suggest that one is more prone to this form of cancer than the other. Unfortunately, it’s through regular medical checkups and the like that it’s able to be detected. There’s a theory that suggests that when they die, most men, if not all, will die with prostate cancer — not from it, necessarily.

It’s a form of cancer that is rampant but not, perhaps, as deadly as it has been in the past, because of earlier detections. But there is nothing that we’re aware of — or that I’ve been made aware of, at least; I don’t want to speak as a scientist or a doctor — that would suggest that if you avoided this, it would result in less likelihood of detection.

S. Hamilton (Chair): We do have time for one. Any more questions? We have another minute.

C. James (Deputy Chair): Thank you, John, for your presentation. I just wondered if there’s any other province that has moved in this direction. Is there anywhere else across Canada that has taken the initiative and has moved to doing the testing?

J. Winter: Well, all provinces offer PSA testing. B.C. and Ontario are the only two that actually charge for it. I’d suggest that that’s an impediment. It’s an excuse for not getting it done, I guess.

We’re suggesting, Carole, that if it were done with more regularity and done with the surveillance method that we talk about now — this is a fairly recent concept — that cost could be greatly reduced, and the benefit to government coffers would be much more significant than it is today. It would be a gain. But every province offers PSA tests; only Ontario and British Columbia actually charge for it.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Perfect. With that, Mr. Winter, thank you very much for taking the time. I appreciate all the advocacy work that you do on behalf of the people you represent.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Next on the line we have, from the B.C. Federation of Labour, Aaron Ekman.

I just thought I’d let you know you have ten minutes for the presentation. I might have to interrupt you when we get close so you can conclude your thoughts. Then we can go to the committee for questions right after that.

A. Ekman: Great. Here we go. I’m speaking to you about jobs today, good jobs that pay decent wages and can sustain families and communities. I want to share with you our ideas of how “better” can happen here in British Columbia — how we can achieve better jobs, higher incomes and greater equality. I’ll propose nine formal recommendations at the end of the presentation for what we’ll call a good jobs, good wages action plan.

Beyond the simplistic analysis of monthly employment figures, there’s a crisis taking shape across our economy. Good jobs are disappearing in British Columbia, while wages aren’t keeping pace. We face mounting challenges of poverty and inequality that the government has failed to address.

B.C. is a great province with incredible wealth, but when it comes to how that wealth is shared, we are a deeply unequal society where a small group controls more than its fair share. For hard-working people and our families, it’s tougher to get ahead. Good-paying, full-time jobs are disappearing. Wages are not keeping up. Life is less affordable. We’re paying more for everything. Housing costs are skyrocketing, and the government is making us pay more for the basics, like hydro, car insurance and health care.

Then there are a raft of user fees, like new bridge tolls. In some areas, there’s a new school bus tax, a user fee parents have to pay so their kids can get to school. Our hospitals and schools and public services are being cut. Our kids are having to leave our communities and our province to afford a home and raise a family. For workers, hard work isn’t paying off. Unless we do something fast and chart a different course, our province is going to be a place where only the rich can live.

I remain, however, incredibly optimistic that we can do better here in British Columbia. Here’s one way change can
[ Page 2651 ]
happen. Government must address poverty and inequality by increasing the minimum wage. Creating good full-time jobs that pay decent wages is one way to address inequality. Another is to ensure that the minimum wage does not sentence workers to a life of poverty. The plight of low-wage workers and the failure of the government to tackle the festering problems symbolize what’s wrong with our province.

In the labour movement, we have this fundamental belief: nobody working a full-time job should live in poverty. But here in B.C., half a million workers earn less than poverty-level wages. That’s a staggering number. That’s one in four British Columbian workers in the country’s most expensive province to live. A quarter of our workforce earns less than $15 an hour. Most are women, which contributes to the problem of child poverty that’s so deep-seated in our province.

Most poverty-wage earners work for companies with more than 20 employees, and one in seven holds a university degree. That’s why the British Columbia Federation of Labour is calling for a $15-per-hour minimum wage. Our Fight for $15 campaign is a solution to improve living wages for hundreds of thousands of workers and their families, a poverty reduction plan to address the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

Another symbol of a good jobs, good wages crisis is the recent timber mill closure announced in Merritt. Two hundred good-paying, full-time jobs in a small community will be lost. The economic impact will be immense. Millworkers will be out of work a week before Christmas. It’s an older workforce at the mill. Their re-employment options are bleak, and the best government can do, at least from all published reports, is for the local MLA to arrange a meeting for union and community leaders to meet with government ministers after the announcement was made.

It continues a pattern of government inaction in protecting jobs in rural resource communities. Good full-time jobs, like the 200 in Merritt, that support families and communities are on the relative decline, while, increasingly, job statistics show that the part-time jobs at low wages that mean instability for workers and families are rising disproportionately.

Regionally, the bright lights of employment being fuelled by the housing market in the Lower Mainland are more than offset by a bleak reality across much of the province. Job numbers are either stagnant or, in the case of regional centres like Kelowna and Abbotsford, actually contracting.

We also believe that the government has an obligation to set standards and provide assistance to employers who are struggling to ensure that all has been done to protect existing good-paying jobs, particularly in traditional resource sectors. When the best government can do is arrange a meeting after a mill is closed, like the Merritt shutdown, it’s clearly an obligation government isn’t living up to. Workers in Merritt deserve better.

It says that government is giving up on the traditional industries that have been the backbone of British Columbia and local economies to gamble our future on LNG.

The shift from full-time to part-time employment growth, from good-paying jobs to poor-paying jobs, is a factor to explain stagnant wages in the province. We’ve gone from being at the high end of the average wages in the country to being below average compared to other provinces.

Despite all we hear about the challenges faced by the Alberta economy, it’s a fact that the average wage in Alberta remains higher at $1,107 per week versus $928 per week here in British Columbia. We should never set a goal of being below average when it comes to earnings for British Columbian families.

Government legislation, rules, regulations and inaction also contribute directly to a decline in full-time jobs, the wage deficit and a rise in part-time, precarious work. In forestry, dozens of mills have closed in little more than a decade and tens of thousands of jobs are gone. Government legislation enabled this to happen.

Subsequent government inaction in addressing widespread job losses harms many northern communities. In the Quesnel area, for instance, the government’s abject failure to carry out even the most basic of its environmental enforcement responsibilities put hundreds of Mount Polley miners out of work for a lengthy period of time and created one of the biggest environmental disasters in British Columbia’s recent history.

Weak employment standards laws help contribute to low wages and precarious, unstable work. Protections are weak for workers who aren’t part of unions. Everything is tilted in favour of employers. Workers have no protections and no power one on one with the boss to improve their wages and working conditions.

The B.C. labour code also helps foster a low-wage economy. It’s a code that makes it extremely difficult for the many workers who want the protections and benefits that a union can provide to actually join one. The government also contributes to a low-wage economy by tearing up signed collective agreements for unionized workers to remove contracting-out provisions and roll back wages. While the Supreme Court found the B.C. government guilty of violating the Charter rights of thousands of health care workers, the legacy of Bill 29 and companion laws live on.

There’s an absence of successorship protections. We do it through legislation that allows for contracting out and contract flipping in the provision of important but marginalized services in both the public and private sectors with no protection for the growing ranks of contract workers. It means that their security is at the whim of their employer. When they press too hard for fair wages, the contracts get flipped. They lose their jobs and, in many cases, their union status. They have to start
[ Page 2652 ]
the whole vicious cycle all over again to regain employment, join a union and push for better wages. It’s an uphill struggle against employers who have all the power.

Precarious work is also on the rise. A simple definition of this work is that it’s usually part-time, but sometimes full-time, jobs that pay low wages, have no benefits, involve shift work and unscheduled hours with multiple work locations and that provide for only the most basic of rights afforded under the current laws here in B.C.

In Ontario, the Ministry of Labour has been a leader in coming to grips with the trend, commissioning groundbreaking research. We believe that the B.C. government should follow suit as part of a commitment to good jobs and good wages and to gain insights into the impacts on workers and communities and the long-term consequences for our economy.

The use of temporary foreign workers is another way the government creates an environment to lower wages and employment instability by allowing greedy companies to increasingly rely on temporary foreign workers in order to profit from paying lower wages than they would if they were to hire British Columbian workers. It puts a spotlight on the real problem. It’s not a labour shortage that’s driving employer demands. The real problem is a wage shortage. Employers won’t pay high enough wages or provide the skills training needed to recruit, train and equip British Columbians to take on these jobs and retain them once they do.

There’s a big hole in the climate change measures announced by government in August. They failed to address the central question. What happens to workers affected by changes in the economy and job market as the province moves to a low-carbon economy? Most British Columbians understand that, over time, there will be changes in the economy as we move to a low-carbon footprint to reduce the impacts of climate change. People need to be reassured that any costs of B.C.’s shift to a low-carbon economy are not unduly borne by working men and women and their families in our communities.

There’s a huge potential for economic growth if we strategically pursue opportunities in the new green economy. But this requires concrete government action and leadership and a transition and opportunity strategy for it to address these needs of workers. We propose the following recommendations:

(1) that the select standing committee call on the B.C. government to implement a $15 per hour minimum wage and develop a timetable for its prompt implementation to lift half a million British Columbian workers out of poverty;

(2) that the B.C. government urgently address the growing imbalance between the loss of good-paying, full-time jobs and the growth in part-time, low-paying, precarious work by developing a clear job strategy that fosters the creation of good-paying, full-time work in all sectors of the economy and that government establish the goal of making B.C. first in Canada in the creation of good-paying, full-time jobs;

(3) that we end the trend of declining average wages in British Columbia relative to the rest of Canada by fostering an economy that strives to create good-paying, full-time jobs and that the B.C. government establish a goal of making B.C. first in Canada for the highest average wage;

(4) that the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and responsible for labour offer practical policies and assist to support employers facing challenges, particularly in the traditional resource sectors, to protect jobs, like those being lost with the recent mill closure in Merritt, and provide best practices and expertise in value-added so that our province reaps more from our abundant resources;

(5) that the select standing committee request that the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and responsible for labour identify all government legislation rules and regulations that contribute to precarious work, low wages and instability for families and take action to eliminate all these measures that contribute to low wages and the rise of precarious work;

(6) that the B.C. government create a level playing field for all workers to improve their economic circumstances and that appropriate government programs are in place to ensure that all British Columbians can participate in the labour market;

(7) that the select standing committee call on the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and responsible for labour to undertake balanced research into the rise of precarious jobs, impacts on workers and communities, and identify solutions to better protect workers and improve wages and working conditions;

(8) that the select standing committee call on the B.C. government to advocate for changes to temporary foreign worker programs to ensure these programs are truly used as a last resort; put in place aboriginal and local hiring plans; that the required training programs are in place to recruit, train and equip British Columbians to take on these jobs and ensure British Columbians have priority access to jobs on B.C. projects;

(9) and, finally, that the select standing committee call on the B.C. government to ensure that in the transition to a green economy, transitional strategies are in place for workers who will be impacted by change to protect existing good-paying jobs and create new jobs to sustain the environment and support community stability.

S. Hamilton (Chair): Thank you. You got that in, in just over ten minutes, so you did well.

I’m going to go to committee for questions, and I’m going to start with George Heyman, please.

G. Heyman: I will assume, but correct me if I’m wrong, that these nine recommendations would largely but not entirely form the basis for a poverty reduction strategy or poverty reduction plan that the B.C. Federation of Labour would contemplate. And if there are other elements that you think should be included in such a plan, please feel free to mention them.

The other thing I would ask is you didn’t mention in your presentation — and fair enough; you can’t cover everything — anything about the experience of the Federation of impacts on injured workers by changes in Workers Compensation Board policy.

If you have any thoughts on that that you would like to submit either now or before Oct. 14 at midnight in writing, they can also form part of the record that we would consider.

You know, we share a concern of a lot of British Columbians, I think, that compared to other provinces in Canada, we don’t have a poverty reduction plan from government. From our perspective, though it’s not the sole contributor, we are strongly of the belief that unions, in many respects, are a poverty reduction plan for workers who have a job. But there are increasing numbers of workers in British Columbia who don’t have a job and, in particular, an increasing number of temporary foreign workers who are legislatively barred from joining a union if they wanted to and are working in sectors under conditions where unions are needed the most.

As I outlined in the recommendations in the presentation, there are a number of changes that need to be made to the labour code to make it easier for workers who want to join unions to do so. That forms a good start on a poverty reduction strategy. But certainly, we need to see some leadership from government, as we’ve seen in other provinces, to develop that strategy.

In terms of injured workers, as you know, we’re quite active both in public and on the advocacy end for workers who have been injured in not just mill explosions but advocating on behalf of workers who have raised concerns and faced repercussions from their employer. We are making presentations to the Workers Compensation Board hearings that are currently underway.

Certainly, I can follow up with an expanded submission following today, prior to the deadline. I’d be happy to do so.

Seeing none, I think you stated your case quite well, Mr. Ekman. I appreciate you taking the time. You 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.

Chair:	Wm. Scott Hamilton (Delta North BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	Dan Ashton (Penticton BC Liberal)
	Robin Austin (Skeena NDP)
	Eric Foster (Vernon-Monashee BC Liberal)
	Simon Gibson (Abbotsford-Mission BC Liberal)
	George Heyman (Vancouver-Fairview NDP)
	Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP)
	Jackie Tegart (Fraser-Nicola BC Liberal)
	John Yap (Richmond-Steveston BC Liberal)
Clerk:	Susan Sourial

1) Town of Port McNeill	Mayor Shirley Ackland
2) Vancouver Island North Teachers’ Association	Shawn Gough
3) PacificSport Vancouver Island	Drew Cooper
4) Association of British Columbia Library Directors	Jenny Benedict
5) District of Port Hardy	Fred Robertson
6) Vancouver Biennale	Ammar Mahimwalla
	Lucille Pacey

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
FINANCE AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES