The committee met at 8 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Bob D’Eith, MLA for Maple Ridge–Mission and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I’d like to begin with a recognition that our public hearing today is taking place on the traditional territory of the Secwepemc people.

We are an all-party parliamentary committee of the Legislative Assembly with the 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, which includes the following three questions. What are the top priorities to help make life more affordable for British Columbia? What service improvements should be given priority? And what are your ideas, approaches and/or priorities for creating good jobs to build a sustainable economy in every corner of our province?

The committee is holding a number of public hearings in the communities around the province, and British Columbians can participate in these public hearings in person, via teleconference, video conference or Skype. There are numerous other ways that British Columbians can submit their ideas to the committee. They can complete an on-line survey or send us a written, audio or video submission. More information is available on the committee’s website, which is www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/finance.

We invite all British Columbians to contribute to this important process. For those of you in attendance, we thank you for taking the time to participate today. All public input will be carefully considered by the committee as it prepares its final report to the Legislative Assembly.

Just a reminder that the deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on Monday, October 16, 2017. The committee must issue a report by November 15, 2017, with its recommendations for the 2018 provincial budget.

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

All meetings are recorded and transcribed by Hansard Services, and a complete transcript of the proceeding will be posted on the committee’s website. These meetings are also broadcast as live audio via our website.

I’ll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

S. Cadieux: Stephanie Cadieux, MLA for Surrey South.

T. Redies: Tracy Redies, MLA for Surrey–White Rock.

P. Milobar: Peter Milobar, MLA, Kamloops–North Thompson.

R. Leonard: Ronna-Rae Leonard, Courtenay-Comox.

J. Brar: Jagrup Brar, MLA, Surrey-Fleetwood.

A. Weaver: Andrew Weaver, MLA, Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office. Thank you very much. Michael Baer and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services are also here and got up very early to set up. Thank you very much.

I’d also like to welcome Claudia Daniels, who is sitting to my left. She is Clerk of Committees from the National Assembly of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana. They are here as a group, studying parliamentary issues as a staff exchange. Thank you very much for being here.

I’d also like to recognize that Donna Barnett from Cariboo-Chilcotin is here. She’s one of our MLAs.

First, we’d like to call Mayor Walt Cobb from the city of Williams Lake.

Budget Consultation Presentations

CITY OF WILLIAMS LAKE

W. Cobb: Thank you, and as I said before, welcome to Williams Lake. We’ve got some rain now, so we can hopefully put out a few more of those fires.

I guess I don’t have a presentation, as such, but a whole lot of ideas that I think you’re probably going to hear during the day, because of the fires we had over this summer and the need for recovery when it comes to how we try and get back to normal. We have small business, tourism operators, forestry operators, and some of them were devastated.

[8:05 a.m.]

In many cases, it’s not necessarily the fires themselves that caused the devastation but the fact that Highway 97 was closed for a big part of the summer. I’m also on the board of directors for Barkerville, and our gate take alone was down half a million dollars. The merchants only have a three- or four-month window of opportunity in Barkerville as well. They were down an equal amount of money. I guess when you look at small business…. I was in small business for 40-some-odd years. When you plan for a good summer….

Of course, this is our 150th anniversary, and we were looking in Barkerville particularly — but other tourism operators were looking — for a good summer. They didn’t get it. When you buy inventory or order inventory to sell, you have to pay for it. Consequently, they have a huge shortfall. I don’t have any solutions to how we can fix that, other than money. I know that’s always the hardest part — and how you would distribute that money.

I guess the marketing…. I know you’re doing some marketing, as far as the tourism operators, but I don’t know if that’s going to let some of them survive. I’m sure you’ve got representation from the tourist association as well as the chamber of commerce today, so you’ll hear more about what they might have in mind to assist them to get through the rest of the year.

One of the important things, I think, for recovery — for us, as a city, anyway — is the confidence in the fact that we’re going to be here in the near future. Because we’ve got a number of small business…. People didn’t come home. One of the local stores here, one of the bigger chain stores — apparently they’re short 70 employees that didn’t return after the fires. We’ve got restaurants. We’ve got small retailers that have signs in their windows. Employers: “Help wanted. Help wanted.” Some of these people did not come home for whatever reason.

That’s another issue. People feel that possibly we don’t have a town to come back to. There was a lot of trauma. There were a lot of other issues that faced these people, and for whatever reason, they’re not coming home. So we need to put something together that will let them know that we are here.

One of the things — we talked about this at UBCM — that is on your books, I know…. We’re at the final stages of the new hospital here in Williams Lake. That’s a major construction. I understand they’re at the final stages of the…. What do they call it? Not the feasibility study, but the business plan for it. When we met with the Premier just last week at UBCM, he indicated that in November we should have some kind of answer.

For us, as a city, something like that — starting or announcing the construction, that kind of a thing — would build the confidence back in our community that we are here. There are things for people to come to.

One of the local construction operators has two very high-paying jobs that he can’t find people to fill. He’s interviewed them, and they decided: “No. We’re going to go to a bigger city. We’re not going to come.” The money’s good. It’s not that. It’s just that there is that lack of confidence that there is any kind of future. With constructions like that happening…. Like I say, it’s on your books. I know it’s in the planning stages. So if those kinds of issues could be moved a little bit forward to give the confidence that we are here.

We also have one of our seniors housing projects. I’m on the board of directors for that as well. We’ve put in a plan to add new units. That was on hold due to the election and things like that, but now that everything’s settled down, hopefully, those kinds of funds can be released now. That’s through B.C. Housing and whatnot. But for whatever reason, there was a slowdown on it. So if those kinds of projects could get up and going, that would give people the confidence that we are here to stay.

Of course, the biggest issue is the forestry, the forest industry. We’re a forest-based community, and I’m told that what’ll be able to be recovered from the burnt trees is in a two-year period, because the life span of some of that burnt wood is two years. With volume that’s out there, only 8 to 10 percent of it could possibly be recovered. That leaves a huge amount of wood that the government is going to have to deal with.

How you deal with that to get the stumpage down so that wood is…. We have an energy plant here in town. We have a pellet plant that can use this stuff. The burnt wood cannot be used for pulp and paper — those kinds of issues.

[8:10 a.m.]

We have to find a way to get that wood back in, get it logged and get it reforested as well. If the industry can’t use that wood and is not able to get it out of there, then it’s our responsibility as governments to make sure that we have a healthy forest and that that area is actually reforested.

With the fires, not only did it burn some of the older trees…. We have a rotation on our wood. It takes up to 100 years, depending on where it is, to grow a tree. A lot of the burnt trees that were 15 or 20 years…. It would have been the mid-term timber supply. Some of that is gone too. We have to do whatever we can do to get back in and get that area replanted so that we’ve got a viable forest industry. I think your records all show that the forest industry is still the number one industry in British Columbia. We have to be able to protect that, and we have to have a healthy forest.

One of the things we did…. I’ll read a couple of resolutions that I put forward at UBCM, dealing with forest health and safety to communities. For a little bit of background information, currently 12 percent of British Columbia’s forests are located in parks, and the remaining 88 percent can be heavily impacted by forest management decisions within the parks. Our forests are suffering the effects of the climate change, as seen by continued forest pest outbreaks provincewide. We need to have a forest management strategy in place for the entire forest.

The vision for parks needs to change to address our changing world. Parks were originally created to protect unique landscape features or areas. Over the years, this began to include protection of wildlife habitat. If the fir and spruce beetle infestations are not proactively addressed, the habitat will be lost and the wildlife species it was created for. Just last year what we’re told here, and if you see….

I was driving around yesterday, and a big part of even our community forest is infested with the fir bark beetle. Those trees are now grey. Of course, you know that for every grey tree, there are probably ten or 15 red ones — going to show up red this year, similar to with the pine beetle.

British Columbia has parks and protected areas designed to protect wildlife, such as caribou, but have not addressed all issues, such as access control, monitoring, forest health, poaching and predation. Unless these same sensitive issues are addressed, the province is tying up tens of millions of timber value for a strategy that does not adequately meet the goals of the wildlife management. Responsible forest management will address these issues.

I will just read the resolution, then: “Therefore be it resolved that the North Central Local Government Association and the UBCM support lobbying the provincial government to take a proactive approach to the health of the forest, with extraction of diseased trees taking precedence over parks’ protected area designations, as well as other restrictions such as mule deer winter range and old-growth designations.”

In saying that, you have to realize that…. We had an incident here just since the fires. One of the First Nations wanted to start logging and get some of these trees out of the bush. Because the area was designated as mule deer winter range, they were told: “No, you can’t start logging because that’s mule deer winter range.” The trees are burnt. There’s nothing there. How can it be mule deer winter range?

Those kinds of issues have to be addressed. That’s part of the dilemma that you as a government will have to deal with. That resolution was supported by the North Central Local Government Association, and it was reaffirmed at UBCM just this last weekend.

Because of the fires, I put another resolution forward, a late item that was actually endorsed by the Cariboo regional district here. As well, it got supported at UBCM: “Whereas wildfires have plagued much of British Columbia’s Interior this summer and will continue to threaten communities, particularly with predicted climate change, and whereas forest restrictions continue to hamper fire mitigation efforts, the public safety” — you had to evacuate my community — “should be the number one priority.”

When you see the fires that are happening down in the States right now…. If we had not done what we had done, we could have been in that same situation. We were very fortunate that we had no loss in city boundaries and, certainly, that we had no loss of life.

[8:15 a.m.]

“Therefore be it resolved that under the Forest and Range Practices Act, the government action regulation” — it’s called GAR, if you want to look that up — “include regulations that initiate fire-mitigation strategies that prioritize public safety over other forest management initiatives, including harvesting and reforestation of the affected areas.”

Those are two resolutions that were supported by the UBCM and by our community.

I’m pretty passionate about this, and the fact that what we need to have as a community…. Not only us; there’s 100 Mile, and there’s Quesnel. These are areas that are equally as devastated and need to have comprehensive forest practices in place that does not designate an area. I understand the need for protection of parks and old growth and all that kind of stuff, but there have to be ways to make that flexible so that if an area is devastated either by pine beetle or whatever it might be, fires, then we can designate that area somewhere else. Get in there, get those trees out of there, and get it replanted.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re actually out of time.

W. Cobb: Am I?

B. D’Eith (Chair): I just want to make sure we have time for questions. We have about three minutes left for questions. Did you want to finish that?

W. Cobb: Yeah.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Just real quick.

W. Cobb: I just had one last statement to make. I constantly hear it when I talk about the Ministry of Forests and the different departments. The constant issue appears to be…. Okay. You put a program in place, whether it be for…. You’ve got numerous programs in place for forestry issues, but the problem is the management does not have the staff to do it. You put hundreds of thousands of dollars in place to do a program, and you have nobody to manage it, and therefore, it doesn’t get done. So when you put the funds in place, you also have to put a portion in there that allows them to hire somebody to manage that program. Otherwise, it isn’t going to happen.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much. I think I can speak for all of us…. Certainly, we heard it again and again in the Legislature how supportive the entire Legislature is in terms of the recovery from the wildfires and what you’re going through. I think you have all of our support in trying to move forward.

Are there any questions for the mayor?

J. Brar: One question, at least. I heard from the cab driver when we were driving here that you have a shortage of workers here because people didn’t come back. You’re proposing new projects, but you don’t have workers. How do you deal with it, if you have new projects here?

W. Cobb: Well, the hospital project would not be local workers anyway. That kind of a project would be done by a contractor, and they would bring their people here. We are putting, through our economic development, ad programs out there and whatnot to encourage people to come back and that there are jobs here.

When you look around the province, there are job opportunities all over, but we have to be able to sell our community, and that seems to be part of the issue. People were afraid to come back, but they also feel that maybe, because of the forest fires and the forest industry and whatnot, there may be no future here. So it’s great to have, say, a Walmart or a McDonald’s or something like that, but you have to look to the future. A lot of those people are in entry-level jobs or single moms, that kind of thing, that are just doing a job, but they’re not coming back. We need to have a future for them to get them to come back to do other things when they finish school or whatever.

What also exacerbated the problem with the people not coming back was that we have a lot of summer employment here, and university went back in right at the same time. A lot of those students went back to school as well, so that just exacerbated the problem and made it worse than what it would normally seem.

P. Milobar: Do you have a sense…? It sounds like it’s the younger demographic that didn’t come back. Do you see that as a long-term problem around school enrolments and things like that, as well, that needs to get addressed to try to correct?

W. Cobb: Tie it all together. I know that one of our universities…. It’s a private education system here in town. I forget the name of it, but anyway, they figured that this will be their last course, because the people that they have…. They deal with kids that have been out of school for a while and maybe will not be able to go to university. They’re a more flexible university system, where they can work and go in their spare time — that kind of thing. They figure they’re probably going to have to close down because they don’t have the students anymore.

[8:20 a.m.]

It is an issue. It will probably be an issue with TRU, our university here, as well. The last we heard, their enrolment was not right up to snuff yet because of this.

I wish I had the answer on who…. But a lot of them are younger ones. I know that the Dairy Queen, when I was talking to them, said it was the parents. The kids were working there, but the parents said: “We are never going back to Williams Lake.” It’s a combination.

Some of it I hear…. In those kinds of issues, it’s the trauma that was affected when you talk to people that were heading down the road. They saw nothing but cars in front of them and behind them. The glare of the fire — they didn’t know whether they would ever have a home when they came home. That has weighed on a lot of people.

If they were only renters and didn’t have a home they were buying and whatnot…. A lot of them found jobs. A lot of them, I heard, found jobs. When you have a few thousand extra people in Kamloops or Prince George, the restaurants were busy. The stores were busy. Some of those people, in those entry-level jobs, got jobs. They like it where they are. They’re quite happy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. We’re out of time, but I appreciate your presentation. Thank you for your thoughts.

W. Cobb: I will offer my assistance if ever you need it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Fantastic.

Next up we’d like to call Tolko Industries Ltd., with Tom Hoffman.

TOLKO INDUSTRIES

T. Hoffman: Good morning. My name is Tom Hoffman. I am the manager of external and stakeholder relations for Tolko Industries Ltd. My presentation today will be a little bit of local as well as provincewide suggestions, recommendations and requests. Thank you for allowing me to present to you today.

I have three topic areas I wish to discuss with you. Number 1 is to request to reinstate the international business activity program. Number 2 is a more local one: pricing of fire-damaged timber and a sensible approach to pricing. The third one, again, is a more provincial-wide issue: the need for a coordinated policy approach to green energy and electricity purchase agreements. That’s specifically in the context of our co-gen facility in Armstrong, British Columbia.

To start with, the international business activity program. Tolko is a private, Canadian-owned forest products company with its head office in Vernon, British Columbia, with approximately 2,700 employees, of which 2,200 are employed in B.C. Many of these are high-waged, skilled workers in trades positions with full-time benefits.

Tolko is a major producer and marketer of lumber, veneer, plywood and oriented strand board. Tolko exports approximately 70 percent of its production, including over 30 percent that is destined for overseas markets, such as China, Japan, Taiwan and Korea, with the remainder, about 30 percent, destined for U.S. markets.

Tolko has been a member of Advantage B.C. and participated in the international business activity program for over ten years. The program helps make British Columbia more competitive and has offered a net benefit to provincial revenues during the life of the program. Given the benefits of the program to the B.C. economy, Tolko asks that the decision to eliminate the international business activity program be reconsidered.

Tolko supports the international business activity program, as it offers businesses some risk-management benefit when exporting B.C. products and collecting receivables from foreign customers in overseas markets. The forest industry survived a severe and prolonged economic downturn due to the United States housing crisis, which started in 2008. The industry responded by adapting to change and increasing our exposure to new markets in Asia and abroad. In the absence of this response, B.C. sawmills would have closed. I can tell you that Tolko had two or three mills that were definitely in that situation.

Cancellation of this program will mean a less favourable business climate for international activities, resulting in the export of fewer B.C. products. Exporters to emerging markets require a competitive and business-friendly provincial framework to prosper and create more jobs in British Columbia. We are asking the government to not only reconsider the proposal to eliminate the international business activity program but to increase funding to it.

[8:25 a.m.]

The second issue or opportunity to chat with you is with respect…. I have some pictures that I wish to refer to here shortly. Everyone is aware of the unprecedented fire season in the Cariboo this year. Mayor Cobb did a presentation on that prior to mine. The ministry has estimated that about 46 million cubic metres of timber on about one million hectares has been affected in the Cariboo region. We want to salvage as much as we can. We have to do this quickly — the mayor spoke of that — as the timber loses value quickly, and it may only be viable for milling for a few years.

However, we want to harvest in a way that makes economic sense for the company and for environmental values. Salvage logs may only be viable for a few years. depending on timber pricing policy. So the higher the stumpage, the less economically viable it is at this point in time because…. Well, maybe I’ll skip there now.

If you take a look at those pictures, the house on the left, I think everybody would agree, is of more value than the house on the right. If you flip the page, the car on the right is of less value than the car on the left. From a licensee’s perspective, the trees on the right are not as valuable, from a stumpage perspective, as the trees on the left.

Some First Nations are also very eager to harvest salvaged timber and FireSmart their communities, and we work directly with them. In fact, we have two joint ventures — Tolko does — in the Cariboo.

There are costs and operational considerations to running mills on salvaged timber, including the removal of bark and the increased presence of dust in the mills. Costs of getting the timber to the mill, including reforestation risks, must also be considered. Chips from burnt wood will likely not be usable by pulp mills and will have to be sold at reduced, even if we can sell, prices. In all likelihood, we will only be able to salvage about 10 percent of the one million hectares affected by fires before the wood is not appropriate for saw logs. That will mean that reforestation of 90 percent of the area will need funding from no salvage revenues.

The alternative. We estimate the manufacturing of this salvage fibre creates about $35 per cubic metre of direct tax generation.

To incent Tolko and other licensees to maximize the salvage and reduce costs to the Crown, the government must secure economic revenues, stumpage, facilitated through a sensible approach to salvage pricing. Yes, it will mean less stumpage, but it will generate tax revenues, reduce the amount of land the government must rehabilitate and provide employment for people living in the Cariboo.

Finally, the third topic I wanted to discuss is the need for a coordinated policy approach to green energy and biomass energy purchase agreements. Biomass energy purchase agreements, or EPAs, between B.C. Hydro and generators began to expire in 2017. B.C. Hydro has indicated that it intends to renew only 50 percent of the expiring biomass EPAs at considerably lower prices than it used to pay. B.C. Hydro’s plan does not account for the importance of biomass EPAs to the B.C. forest products industry or the economic and environmental benefit that it enables.

Expiring B.C. EPAs should be extended until a sustainable framework can be developed that works for ratepayers, the B.C. government and at-risk communities. Continuing with B.C. Hydro’s current plans will result in job losses in the B.C. forest sector, threatening both the environmental and economic progress the industry has made by growing biomass power.

Sawmills, of which Tolko has three in the Cariboo, provide the vast majority of the fuel, primarily bark, required to generate the energy supplied under the EPAs. The increase in power generation that resulted from biomass EPAs has allowed for the phase-out of beehive burners and has induced pulp and paper mills to invest in efficiency to divert steam to power generation.

[8:30 a.m.]

Biomass EPA generators and their sawmill suppliers conservatively support over 20,000 jobs in B.C., a major differentiator compared to other types of renewable power. Without renewal of biomass EPAs under economically sustainable terms, generators will cease or reduce generation, resulting in surplus sawmill wastes. Without an outlet for wastes, sawmills cannot operate, leading to further job losses.

Specifically for Tolko, our concerns are…. Below break-even contract fostered by B.C. Hydro. We have signed an extension but at below what we can afford to do it at. Closure of biomass generation facilities. Armstrong facility will be first, followed by many others. There will be no home for hog fuel from multiple sawmills. In the Armstrong situation, Tolko, our supply is from eight mills. Four of those would have to be orphaned. Four sawmills would have to be closed. Sawmill closures will create unemployment, ultimately, or we’ll have to return to beehive burners and/or other scenarios to utilize the waste material. Sawmill closures will further aggravate B.C.’s hydro supply-demand balance by further reducing demand, because as sawmills close, less energy will be required.

Those are my three topics of discussion for you today, and I would entertain any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Tom.

P. Milobar: Tom, in terms of order of magnitude, because every level of government everywhere has to prioritize spending asks…. Given that the reforestation of 900,000 hectares of unsalvageable return area is probably going to have to happen, is there any idea of the cost government should be looking at?

T. Hoffman: Good question. In our just ballpark figures for us, 20 cents to grow a tree and then another 30 cents to plant it, but that’s after the ground has been prepared. So in these fire situations, you’ve got timber that’s still standing, and it’s unsafe to go in to plant trees. So you first have to remove those trees somehow, and those costs are…. It’s site specific. I was going to say: “Anyone can guess.” But it’s site specific. So you’ve got to get those trees off in order to have been…. You can’t just go in there and plant. Then you’re looking at 50 cents per tree to plant. A target of 1,500-1,600 trees per hectare to plant…. No, you can do the math. It’s astronomical.

P. Milobar: So the order of magnitude dollars starts with a “b” not with an “m.”

T. Hoffman: Yeah.

T. Redies: Thank you for your presentation. I just wanted to ask you to provide a little bit more specific detail on how the IBA program benefited Tolko in terms of dollars, and in what format.

T. Hoffman: Good question. Some of it is, of course, proprietary. But over the life, about $10 million Tolko benefited from it. But I mean, there are bigger benefits. I mean, for our employees in Quesnel and Williams Lake, 450 direct and another 700 indirect jobs were sustained through that time frame.

T. Redies: So those are at risk now?

T. Hoffman: Well, I guess right now…. Tolko has done a very…. I can’t speak for all licensees, but Tolko has been very aggressive in marketing abroad. So we have secured markets and customers. We want to expand those. Given the current state of the U.S. situation around the softwood lumber agreement, we need to explore other markets. We need to reduce the risk to companies, not just Tolko, in general to allow for the exploration of markets overseas at a reduced risk to companies.

I was in China this year, and we attended one of Advantage B.C.’s events. There were literally hundreds of people there wanting to see what’s going on in B.C. The program is invaluable.

J. Brar: Just to follow up that question with some information about this program you’re talking about, when was the decision made to eliminate the program?

T. Hoffman: That’s a good question. I don’t know the answer to that. I’m sorry.

[8:35 a.m.]

A. Weaver: First off, it is in the millions, not in the billions. It’s $750 a hectare — one million hectares, $750 million. So that’s “m” not “b.”

What I wanted to know was: what price did you have a purchase agreement with B.C. Hydro for, and what’s the kind of ballpark they’re asking now?

T. Hoffman: I don’t have the details on that, Mr. Weaver. That’s a negotiated settlement. I can tell you that the contract — I mean, we were more or less forced into signing — has been extended for about 18 months and substantially reduced from what we previously received.

A. Weaver: Do you know what the break-even price is?

T. Hoffman: For Armstrong, I don’t know that. I don’t know that number, but I can provide that. I can get that.

A. Weaver: That would be very helpful.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I did want to make a note that we have MLA Mitzi Dean on conference call.

I just wanted to make sure that you were recognized. Did you have a question?

M. Dean: No, but thanks for checking in.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Tom. I appreciate your presentation. Is what you presented going to be presented in writing?

T. Hoffman: I can.

B. D’Eith (Chair): The deadline is October 16 at 5 p.m. So if you wouldn’t mind, that would be great.

Next up we have Invasive Species Council of British Columbia — Gail Wallin.

INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL OF B.C.

G. Wallin: Thank you very much. Thank you for having us. I’m the executive director of the Invasive Species Council of British Columbia, which is actually the largest non-profit in Canada focused on invasive species. B.C. is actually, in many ways, a leader.

I’ve got some information that’s being handed out, but I’ll just speak to it. I chose to come and present the issue. What’s interesting is…. Some of you we’ve worked with before. But we can totally tell you that invasive species links to every single one of you.

Our roots were actually in invasive plants, which is a big issue in this region. This region — about 12, 15 years ago — said: “The way that noxious weeds are being managed in British Columbia is not effective, and we need to change that.” As a result of that, there was a change to develop what’s called an invasive species strategy of British Columbia. That brought together local governments, conservation groups, provincial government, federal government, industries, etc., to say: how we can better manage what at that time was noxious weeds and now, today, is invasive species?

One of the things about invasive species…. Those are alien, non-native species, so they don’t belong here. Most of them are brought in by people. So we’re not dealing with climate change changes. We’re dealing with ones that have been flown over, transported or released into the wild. These are a very few, a small percentage of non-native species. They’re the ones that are aggressive and take over populations and take over habitats.

Our organization was founded as a result of that call to action, a call to a different approach. The provincial government was a very major player. And it is across Canada, in different provinces. We, particularly, have moved our work from working with just plants to species, and not just with a plant or species but with the pathways, because most invasive species are spread through a specific pathway, such as gardening, such as boating, such as trade, etc. So what we’re focusing on…. If we can close the doors of new ones coming in, then we don’t have to chase them forever.

What I’ve given to you — and I’ll speak to it a little bit later — is a range of programs that our organization works with in conjunction with partners across British Columbia. Our partners are…. There are 12 independent local societies that are focused on invasive species. There are some other local groups focused on frogs or broom, etc. There are local governments, regional districts across the province that have been involved with invasive species or invasive plants. So we work with all of those.

Just one comment on our board. Our board is structured on three chambers: business, governments and community. So we have representatives from all across the interests.

Why are invasive species important? Economically, they cost a lot of dollars to the landowner, and in British Columbia, we have 94 percent Crown land. That’s a big cost to the taxpayers, a big cost to government for planning. So 2003’s estimate for Canada was that the estimates of the cost of invasive species at that time was from $13 billion to $34 billion a year, and that’s not dealing with the environmental impacts. That’s dealing with just the economic impacts. Obviously, we’re ten-plus years later, so those costs will need to be re-researched.

I’m going to give some examples about why they’re important. They actually impact our agriculture, which is a big one in this area. They impact our forestry. They impact our fisheries. They impact our recreation areas.

[8:40 a.m.]

Across all your communities, they’re an impact. On the coast, species like giant hogweed grabbed the news a few years ago, because it put kids in hospitals. Today, there’s a brand-new beetle in Vancouver, a Japanese beetle that came in by trade or horticulture, which is a threat to both forestry and to the horticulture industry.

The Fraser Valley has now got breeding red slider turtles, the ones that kids had as pets. We have lots of ponds of goldfish that are overtaking because what was a normal, little, tiny goldfish becomes a carp-like species. It loses its colour and takes over ponds and lakes. It actually competes with the native population out there.

We’ve got really great success stories in B.C. We’ve got the Asian and European gypsy moth that have a huge impact on forestry. Because of collaboration between the federal and provincial governments, it has not been established in B.C. There are lots of success stories. We tend to focus on what’s not working. But we’ve got to remember that what we should be looking at and learning from is the successful ones.

Big issues in this area and through all the grassland areas are things like knapweeds or hawkweeds, which you’ll see in some of those documents there. Many of them were brought in intentionally, or they were certainly moved around by recreational vehicles, etc.

Some of my favourite ones are the American bullfrog and the nutria. You may say: “Nutria?” You don’t know it. But it’s actually a beaver-like animal. It’s a rodent that was raised for fur. It was released on the Lower Mainland and released in the Gulf Islands. It’s actually competing with the native population, just like the American bullfrogs, which were a food population and now are across the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island. Those are overtaking our native populations. Those are just examples.

In working with our partners across British Columbia and the other non-profit organizations, there’s a number of actions that we’re calling for. The Invasive Species Strategy is on its third revision. We’ll be working with government leaders. We’re meeting with them starting in the next couple of weeks. It’s been a year and a half in the consultation process about the current invasive species strategy in British Columbia and what its needs are. That will be ready to be released, along with the B.C. communications framework for invasive species.

Your government has been part of that and so have private and public interests. That needs to be invested, particularly with government holding 94 percent of the Crown land. That identifies a number of key actions.

Some of the key actions are…. Let’s enforce our current regulations on land. Most provincial regulations require land occupiers to have responsibilities on their lands. A regulation is as good as its enforcement, so there needs to be more enforcement. There needs to be more funding, because if you can prevent it or control it, you’ve got less impacts later on. There needs to be increased coordination.

The second thing we need, related to that, is increased funding for preventing and controlling invasive species. Our council, in partnership with others, has called for at least $13 million a year to be invested in invasive species. That doesn’t mean to us. It doesn’t mean just with you. A big part of it needs to be spent in government, but outside of government also.

The establishment of a $10 million trust fund. There have been examples in British Columbia. There have been incidents when government can’t always act quickly and fast enough because there are systems in place. The example would be zebra and quagga mussels, which I know one of your members has got a special passion about. It’s a species we don’t want in B.C. waters. There was an incident in the Shuswap in 2012 that our organization actually worked with provincial and federal governments on. We had some funds to be able to react within 24 and 48 hours to get equipment and people in place from out of country.

The second thing — and I heard one of the earlier speakers speak to it — is not only do we need the investment of at least $13 million a year and then a $10 million trust fund, but the forest fires are a huge pathway for invasive species in two ways. One is that you have got bare, exposed ground that is ripe for invasive species. But you’ve also had machinery coming across contaminated land, in an emergency situation, to put out the fires. Also, they’re going to go back and do the revegetation or the reforestation, and all of those will be vectors for spread into those areas.

This is important. Where all the fires are, whether the Kootenays or here, are important vectors of spread. They’re actually important employment opportunities. We work with First Nations here. We work provincewide. We work with First Nations. We work with local communities, creating employment opportunities. So that funding is really important, and it needs to be multi-year. It can’t be a one-off because invasive species don’t work just year by year. They tend to sort of populate themselves. You need to be repetitive in order to be able to control and remove them.

The third thing, which I’ve mentioned already, is that we need to both strengthen and enforce current regulation and improve it.

[8:45 a.m.]

There’s a number of invasive species that fall through the cracks of current provincial regulations, be it the European fire ants…. Who’s responsible? Is it provincial or local government? Or is it the pathway that brought it in? There’s no regulation that really guides that. I’m just using that as an example. Or it might be the feral pigs, which is a hot topic in the news. The invasive species act is a tool that could be used. It’s been talked about in a number of places.

Those are the three areas that we wanted to call on. Prevention is key. We know that all the research, 100 percent of the research, says that if you can prevent, it’s way cheaper than chasing. It’s sort of like with flus and health. Basically, we need to strengthen our regulation, and we need to increase funding over multiple years.

The information that you have here…. I’ll just speak to it very quickly. We work with the horticulture industry in a PlantWise program — we have lots more resources; these are just samples — so that they can stop trading and selling the invasive species, which is 60 percent of the way our invasive plants got in. “Clean, drain, dry” to stop the invasive mussels. Let’s get rid of those goldfish, etc., through Don’t Let It Loose! programs. We’re also working with the Aboriginal communities on helping them have bylaws and programs that are more relevant to their lands. That’s another particular area.

I’ll take questions from there. Thank you for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Gail. Wow, I never realized how many invasive species there are.

G. Wallin: Too many.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. That’s quite amazing.

Questions from the floor?

A. Weaver: Just a quick one. The type of legislation you’re thinking about for an invasive species act — is that something along the lines of what they have in Ontario? Or are there other best practices out there?

G. Wallin: We’ve looked at Ontario. We’ve actually had Ontario out here, as a resource person, and worked with your government on it. When Ontario brought in that Invasive Species Act, they didn’t have all the regulatory tools behind it, so you recognize that their system wasn’t perfect. B.C. has more regulatory tools but doesn’t have the act.

There’s definitely work between the B.C. and Ontario governments that would help share lessons learned from both sides. But exactly — that’s the kind of act we’re looking at for British Columbia.

P. Milobar: With fire reclamation, you’re hoping that there’d be an enhanced, especially weed management, system to go hat in hand with replanting and everything so that it’s all happening at the same time and not five years from now when things start to run amok.

G. Wallin: It can’t happen — I mean, it shouldn’t happen — five years from now. Because by reacting really quickly — this fall, which is almost too late, but next spring…. You need to have clean equipment coming in to do the reforestation. You need to make sure they’re trained on how to come in to do that. You need to make sure you’re using clean seed. Often, seed that would be used for revegetation, for re-grassing is contaminated with invasive plants.

Absolutely, we need to get the ground re-established, be it for forestry or grassland purposes. We need to do it also to stop new invasive plants from being established. This is a pretty…. Compared to lots of southern B.C., this is still, up in this area, much more pristine. I’m using that word very cautiously. It’s still got contamination by invasive plants in it but not as much as you get in the south.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m wondering if there’s anything to be learned from Australia. I know when I flew in there, they actually sprayed me with some bug spray. The whole airplane was sprayed. I know how sensitive Australia, particularly, is to invasive species. Just wondering if your organization has looked at what’s going on in Australia in terms of their invasive species battles.

G. Wallin: Absolutely. Australia is actually…. We brought people over from Australia who worked on some of the original work of our council, and we’re very connected. Australia — those check-ins that come at the border before you enter the country…. They’re really ideal, because they’re an island. They can protect everything that comes in.

We have a shared border. We have lots of trade. We don’t have that same level of regulations. There’s definitely a call in Canada — I’m co-chair of a national Canadian Council on Invasive Species — to control our borders against the import of invasive species through trade and travel. But it’s complicated because we’re not as isolated as Australia.

Australia and New Zealand are known for leading world examples of what to do, and we’ve definitely brought them over, and we definitely work with them. Are we doing…? Much of that…. It’s government’s role to work with them too.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Mitzi, are there any questions?

M. Dean: I was just wondering…. Of the money that we spend on recovery and the proposal, obviously, around prevention — can you put any figures on the return on investment from the $30 million annually that would be invested? Will that save us money that we’re already spending at the moment and that we will end up spending in future years?

[8:50 a.m.]

G. Wallin: Absolutely, I can. I can’t give it to you now. I can email it back to you. For example, rather than spending $10 million a year chasing knapweed…. There are 13 species of knapweed in British Columbia. We want to stop the next 13 from coming in so we don’t have to spend millions of dollars chasing one species or whatever.

I will have to get you the numbers. There’s definitely research that’s been done in British Columbia. There’s an economic report that I will send over to you. The exec summary talks to that: investing today will save you these many dollars later. I don’t have it but….

M. Dean: Thank you. Yeah, that will be helpful.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Mitzi, for the question.

I just want to mention that October 16 at 5 p.m. is the deadline, and we’d love to see that. Thank you very much.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I just have to check. I thought my daughter-in-law actually worked for the Invasive Species Council, but apparently, she doesn’t.

In terms of the supervision that would be required in terms of setting up protocols and making sure that equipment that goes in and looking for the management of the seed…. Is that something that you would have a hands-on part in all of this?

G. Wallin: We’re totally open to having a role. Right now we have the ability to run training programs for the oil and gas industry. We’ve worked with the oil and gas and the forest industry, etc. I think there has to be both a desire by the forest companies and revegetation companies to want to do that and probably an expectation from government that that would happen.

Whether we did it or we did it through a partnership with others, absolutely, we can work with you to set the standards for what’s expected. We call it the…. It’s basically professional best practices, and we’re actually working with some industry now and moving them.

It’s fairly common in some industries, particularly in the south, to clean equipment before they move from one site. But it’s not common for us up here, and in the rural area more so. And when forest fires happen, everything else is trumped by that.

We have lots of examples where we have major knapweed along our highways. That equipment was pulled in to the Chilcotin, but that would have pulled in also the seedbed. Now, immediately, we need to respond by making sure that when the equipment goes in to do work, we don’t track more knapweed or whatever in the soil. Absolutely, we’re more than willing to work with you, whether it’s hands-on or we deliver through a partnership model, we’re open to whatever model would work.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Gail. We’re out of time. Thank you so much for your presentation. We look forward to receiving the extra materials. Thank you for all your work.

Next up we have the office of the seniors advocate. It’s via teleconference — Isobel Mackenzie.

OFFICE OF THE SENIORS ADVOCATE

I. Mackenzie: Thank you very much to the committee. I hope things are going well for you in Williams Lake.

As you know, there are many issues that affect seniors, and although not all of them relate to the B.C. budget, I am going to speak to one area that does. I think it’s also important to acknowledge that there are many seniors in British Columbia who have achieved a good level of income security, and they are able to meet their basic housing and health care needs. But it’s not the case for all British Columbia seniors, particularly for those 20 percent of B.C. seniors who are renters. My remarks today are going to be focused on this particular group of seniors.

I was in Ottawa last week at the request of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities to give evidence on income security and equality for Canadian seniors. A look across the country highlighted what is a stark difference in the ability of seniors to enjoy income security based on two fairly fundamental costs. One is their housing, and the second is their health care.

Income security for seniors, arguably, as for everybody, means the ability to provide for all of life’s necessities. I think we can all agree that only once this threshold has been met can we talk about dignified aging and quality of life. I took a bicoastal comparison between Vancouver and Charlottetown, on the east coast. It provides a cautionary tale, if you will, of two cities.

[8:55 a.m.]

I’m going to tell the committee the story of two 85-year-old single women who rent a one-bedroom apartment and who have an annual income of $25,000 a year, which is the median income for an 85-year-old in British Columbia. Both of these women — Margaret, who lives in Charlottetown, and Helen, who lives in Vancouver — have challenges with their activities of daily living. Although they are both of sound mind and able to live independently, they do get a morning home support visit to assist them with getting up, washed, dressed and to check on their medication.

Over in Charlottetown, the one-bedroom apartment that Margaret rents costs $696 a month, and Margaret is paying $8,300 a year in rent. In PEI, there is no client co-payment for her daily home support, and the program includes housekeeping. In addition, Margaret worked for 15 years in a bank, so she has a small, indexed pension ensuring her $25,000 income will remain constant in real terms. She has employer-paid retirement benefits covering her dental and extended health care costs.

On the other side of the country, in Vancouver, is Helen, who rents her apartment for $1,054 a month and receives a shelter grant through SAFER of $83 a month. This leaves Helen paying $11,650 a year in rent. In B.C., there is a daily co-payment for home support, and based on Margaret’s income, it’s $12 a day. So she is paying $4,300 a year for her home support, and currently in B.C., it doesn’t include housekeeping. Her neighbour helps with the housekeeping at the moment, but she’ll be moving soon. Helen is going to need to hire somebody, because the Better at Home program has a long waiting list.

Helen worked most of her life as a bookkeeper for small companies, so she has no company pension or benefits, just her RSP, which she converted to a RRIF, which will be depleted at age 90, when her income will drop by about $5,000 a year. Helen pays about $2,000 a year for her extended health and dental costs.

What you have is a result that…. After rent and basic health care, these two Canadian seniors are left with vastly different incomes. In Charlottetown, Margaret has $16,600 a year, or almost $1,400 a month, for all her needs. Helen, in Vancouver, has just over $7,000, or $587 a month, with which to buy groceries, pay for utilities, transportation, social outings, haircuts, and so on and so forth.

Same age. Same income. Same health care needs. Same sized apartment. Same citizenship. Yet one is left with over twice the income of the other, once the basics of housing and health care are paid for.

Helen has only paid her rent, her daily home support and her extended health and dental. Here are some of the other costs that Helen has to find from her leftover $587 a month. Her transportation is going to cost her at least $52 a month for the bus pass. Because Helen is not on GIS, she doesn’t get the $45-a-year bus pass. Her food, at $6 a day, will cost $200 a month. By the way, the cheapest Boost meal supplement you can get costs over $1 a bottle, and Helen needs at least one a day. Basic communications of phone, cable and Internet are just over $100 a month.

Helen is continent, but like many women her age, she does require incontinent supplies just for overnight and when she goes out, so this costs her another $50 a month. She goes to the seniors centre once a week for lunch. They charge $6, so there’s another $25. Like many people Helen’s age, she can no longer do her own foot care, so she has to pay $45 a month for a foot nurse to cut her nails because we don’t allow the home support program to do that any longer.

Helen’s case manager convinced her to get Lifeline, as she’s at risk of falling, and that’s $35 a month. Helen’s PharmaCare deductible and co-payment leave her paying $83 a month for her medication.

Helen has now run out of money. No newspapers, no movies, no gifts, no dinners out, no haircuts, no clothes — nothing.

I could go on, but I think the point is made that living on the median income or less, which is 50 percent of seniors…. So 50 percent of 85-year-olds in this province are living on $25,000 a year or less like Helen. Actually, at 85, over 20 percent of them are renting. I think we can agree it’s pretty meagre in B.C.

[9:00 a.m.]

With these severely limited economic options, as Helen ages, and even with her current mild to moderate care needs, the licensed care facility becomes a viable option, not because of her health care needs but because of her financial needs. Helen could move into a care facility, have all her food, shelter, care supplies and entertainment costs covered and still have $400 a month left over. The cost to the B.C. taxpayer, however, is over $4,000 a month, as Helen would only pay $1,600 of the approximately $6,000 a month it would cost in the care facility.

For low- to moderate-income seniors in B.C., we are incentivizing them economically to move into long-term care. The evidence is quite clear, and my office has presented this in various reports, that seniors in publicly subsidized care facilities — and over 90 percent of the units are publicly subsidized — are disproportionately poorer than the overall seniors population.

We also know that 15 percent of seniors in residential care could be living in either the community, with home support, or in assisted living, based on the most conservative interpretation of their RAI assessment. But they are economically better off in long-term care because of the co-payment for home support and the extraordinarily high rents in parts of B.C. and the lack of subsidized assisted-living units.

I’m going to be further raising the issue of the home support co-payment in a report on home support my office will be releasing later this year. Currently, if a senior is on the guaranteed income supplement, the GIS, the co-payment is completely waived. However, if they’re not, if they’re one dollar over the threshold for GIS, they have to pay the co-payment, which, in the case of daily home support for someone like Helen on $25,000 a year, is $4,300 a year for her home support.

What’s interesting is 70 percent of people on publicly subsidized home support are on the GIS, but only a third of seniors are on the GIS. What that tells us is that there is a significant group of seniors who are opting out of the public pay system for home support. Our evidence is showing that some of those folks, not all of them but some of them, are going into long-term care as an alternative.

One solution would be to exempt seniors in receipt of SAFER as well as those in receipt of GIS from the home support co-payment. This would help those seniors that are low-income, but not the lowest income, and who do not have the resources that might be available to a homeowner. As an example, if Helen’s income had included even $2 a month of GIS, she would have been entitled to waive the entire $4,300 home support co-payment. To achieve this, Helen’s income could be as high as $24,000 a year.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Isobel, we’re at over ten minutes now. So if you could please wrap it up….

I. Mackenzie: Okay. Then I also want to just talk about the SAFER grant. During a period when the average rents have risen 40 percent, the rent cap on SAFER has risen only 9 percent. I think that most of the committee members know how the SAFER grant works. Every bit of rent above the cap, which is $765 in the Lower Mainland, you must pay 100 percent of.

If we were able to raise our SAFER cap — not change the formula, just raise the cap — we would see seniors more affordably be able to stay in their homes. You would find that seniors like Helen, at $25,000 a year or less who rent, would be able to stay in their apartment, receive their daily home support and live as independently as they so desire. Part of the challenge financially is that we subsidize the housing component of residential care exponentially greater than we subsidize housing for low-income seniors in the rental market.

I’ll end my comments there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Are you there, Mitzi?

M. Dean: Hi. I’m here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Did you have a question?

M. Dean: Thank you so much for your presentation, Isobel. I always learn a lot when I hear from you.

I don’t have any questions, Bob. Thanks.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

[9:05 a.m.]

T. Redies: Hi, Isobel. Good to hear from you this morning. I’m just trying to understand. I guess what you’re saying is that the $4,000 a month that the government is subsidizing residential care for people like Helen…. We could support them without having to spend as much as $4,000 a month by doing the two things that you’re suggesting, which is through the SAFER program and increasing the cap and then waiving the co-payment on the in-home care. Is that correct? Have you done that math?

I. Mackenzie: That’s correct, Tracy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Isobel, just a quick question. Are you going to put what you said or the recommendations in writing to us?

I. Mackenzie: I certainly can do that, yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): The deadline is October 16 at 5 p.m. We’d really appreciate that, just so we’re absolutely clear as to what recommendations you’re making. That would be wonderful.

J. Brar: Just very quickly. Thanks for you presentation. What are your views about the renters grant?

I. Mackenzie: Well, I think the renters grant…. The formula that’s used is a good formula. The problem is we cap the rent we will apply the formula to at an arbitrary amount. It’s $765 in the Lower Mainland. For example, for the people in Williams Lake…. By the way, their cap is lower. I think it’s about $657.

In some parts of the province, SAFER actually is sufficient because people are able to find rental accommodation at the level of the cap. But what’s happened — particularly in the Lower Mainland, Victoria, to a lesser extent in Kelowna — is that rents have escalated significantly in the last six years, and we haven’t kept up in our rent subsidy.

Another option is what we would call subsidized housing, which is purpose-built housing for seniors where they pay a percentage of their income. It’s also a good option, but it takes longer and is actually more costly than providing the rent supplement.

In urban British Columbia, seniors are able to find places to rent. They just can’t afford them. In rural British Columbia, there is a need for government intervention in terms of actually creating the housing. The need for that in the urban markets is less clear, but what is needed in the urban markets is a much greater rent subsidy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation and for everything you do for seniors as the seniors advocate. We appreciate everything and look forward to receiving those written recommendations. That’s wonderful.

I. Mackenzie: Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’d like to call a short recess.

The committee recessed from 9:08 a.m. to 9:11 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hi, Andrew. How are you? Thank you very much for presenting today. The floor is yours. Go ahead, Andrew Petter, SFU.

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

A. Petter: Let me just launch right in. First of all, thank you very much to the select standing committee for making this opportunity available. I really appreciate the chance to share some perspectives, both on the general situation in post-secondary education in the province and then specifically on some challenges and opportunities that are facing us at SFU.

I guess in the case of the general situation, I’d say it’s a good-news, bad-news story. In the case of SFU, it maybe is a bad-news, good-news story. The good news for SFU, I think, can be a major contributor to addressing what is the bad news for the province.

First, the good news on the post-secondary sector itself. I think we can all be proud of the fact that we have a very strong post-secondary sector. It’s diverse. It’s integrated. It’s of high quality, with institutions that are well regarded and work well together, with students being able to find their way through to programs that meet their needs and enable them to move on into careers.

The bad news is that we’re just not doing enough of it. We know that the level of educational attainment required in the labour market is going up. It’s increased to about 70 percent of jobs now requiring post-secondary credentials. That increase has occurred over the last 30 years. The B.C. labour market outlook itself projects that that’s going to rise to 78 percent over the next decade, yet currently we’re on track to train fewer than half of the nearly one million skilled workers who will be required to meet this demand in that time frame.

It’s not just a future problem; it’s a current problem. B.C.’s already suffering from an education deficit. I’d recommend to you, too, Conference Board of Canada studies that delved into this and have concluded that a shortage of post-secondary graduates is currently costing our economy about $8 billion, because it’s stifling business from growing and from doing some of the things that it could do if it had access to that talent. It’s also denying governments almost $2 billion in tax revenue, federal and provincial. So this is not just an economic issue; it’s a fiscal issue for government as well.

Perhaps the most serious aspect of it, of all, is that the Conference Board estimates that about 120,000 B.C. residents are unemployed because they’re not getting access to the post-secondary education they need. I’d also note that while there certainly is need in areas of trades and applied skills, the Conference Board study shows that the largest gap is in fact in bachelor- and graduate-level education.

We really need to find a way to address this shortfall. Again, I won’t go into the details, but in my brief, you’ll see I refer as well to Vancouver Board of Trade and B.C. Business Council studies that basically say the same thing. We’ve got to focus on getting the skilled and educated talent that we need to grow the economy. In fact, the B.C. Business Council makes it the first pillar of its report on innovation.

That’s the challenge: a strong system but one that hasn’t yet got the capacity to deliver what we need today, let alone what we’re going to need in the next decade.

[9:15 a.m.]

Turning to SFU, the bad news is that we currently have more students wanting to come to us than we can accommodate, particularly south of the Fraser. We’ve had expansion plans for the Surrey campus that we took on in the early 2000s for some time. In fact, we signed an MOU with the province back in 2006 which contemplated the campus growing from its initial FTE commitment of 2,500 FTEs to 5,000 FTEs by the year 2015. Unfortunately, that growth has not occurred. We’re still funded for 2,500 FTEs. Yet the reasons that that MOU was signed are even more pressing today than they were then.

The population south of the Fraser is the fastest-growing population in the province. It’s projected that the population there will surpass that of the city of Vancouver in the next 20-or-so years.

It’s a very young population. One-third of Surrey residents are under 19 years of age, yet this growing region has significantly less access to post-secondary education than other parts of B.C. In fact, if you look at KPU and SFU, you’ll see that about 12.7 post-secondary spaces are available for every 100 18- to 24-year-olds south of the Fraser. That compares to a B.C. average that’s almost three times that amount. So young people elsewhere in B.C. have three times as much capacity in their regions than young people do south of the Fraser.

At the same time, the level of educational attainment in Surrey is lower than that in Metro Vancouver. Only 19 percent of Surrey residents hold a university degree compared to 36 percent in the rest of Metro Vancouver. As I say, the school district, along with the region, is the largest and fastest growing in the province, with 32 percent of grade 12 enrolments in the Lower Mainland — and, incidentally, the largest Aboriginal student population in the Lower Mainland. We know that there’s a major priority we need to place on educating Indigenous students, both for their sake but also so they can contribute to the economy.

What that’s meant for SFU is that our grade point averages for entry into SFU have risen steeply in recent years, particularly in high-demand programs. Entrance GPAs have risen by over 10 percent.

What we’ve done about this is we’ve come up with a three-phase plan for expansion, based on the MOU’s commitment to double by 2015 — albeit 2015 has come and gone and that expansion hasn’t occurred. What we did was we talked to the community, we looked at the labour market, and we came up with a plan that really focuses on high-demand, high-priority areas. The first phase is sustainable energy and environmental engineering; the second, health system innovation and sustainability; and the third, creative technologies.

Now, we did get some positive indication last year when the province and federal government committed capital funds for a new sustainable energy and environmental engineering building. We have been told, both by the previous government and by the new government, that the expectation is that there will be funding for the program that’s supposed to go into that building in sustainable energy engineering. We look forward to that confirmation. If so, that will certainly move us along some way — 300 to 440 new student FTEs as the first phase. But it leaves the next two phases still unaddressed.

I must say that the second phase of health sciences is really important not just for students but for the community. Fraser Health, of course, has huge health issues because of the demographic pressures and the composition of the community. Our programs are really focused on health promotion, disease prevention, health care delivery. Our faculty of health sciences is really well regarded. I know it’s not just my view. It’s Fraser Health’s view that that program can do a lot to drive down costs and improve outcomes.

What I’m asking the select standing committee to consider and hopefully to do is what your predecessor committees have done three times. When they looked at the evidence even a few years ago, when the pressure wasn’t as great as it is now — in 2011, 2013 and 2015 — unanimously, the committee across all party lines recommended that government go back to that MOU’s commitment and goal of doubling the size of the Surrey campus and made a specific recommendation to that effect.

Albeit, obviously, we can’t do it by 2015. I would hope that the goal would be reaffirmed and that you would send a strong message on behalf of the young people in Surrey and on what they can contribute to the shortfall in the province generally by indicating your support for that expansion.

[9:20 a.m.]

Now, in the few minutes I have left, I’ll just touch on a few other issues that are also top of mind at SFU.

On our Burnaby campus, we’re over 50 years old. It won’t surprise you that we have serious problems and issues with deferred maintenance. However, I am happy to say — and we are very appreciative — that in recent years, government increased the annual allocation for deferred maintenance. That’s helping us to repair and upgrade buildings where they are upgradeable.

Unfortunately, some buildings are beyond repair. In particular, there is a situation in our biology facility that has really become critical. We’re hoping to secure funding for a new life sciences building. It’s, frankly, less costly than trying to repair the current biology wing, and it will provide a much better facility. I just wanted to draw that to your attention. It’s not for expansion. It’s simply to provide facilities for current students.

I also want to confirm the submissions you’ve already heard from the Research Universities Council about the need to support graduate students. We are losing out to other provinces that provide student support in the form of scholarships and fund graduate students at SFU.

Only about 66 percent of our graduate students are funded by the province. We do need to see a renewal of support and increased support for graduate students and, hopefully, the creation of a graduate fellowship program.

Finally, I also want to echo support for a proposal that has come to you last year, and I believe will be renewed this year, from the entire post-secondary sector — some real pressure points where we’re trying to deliver not only on our goals but on yours in areas like mental health, sexual violence and misconduct, Indigenous student support and more support for work-integrated learning. These are all great things, but in the wake of budget cuts in recent years and some of the pressures associated with this, they are really putting pressure on us.

We want to do the right thing in all these areas. We’re asking government to restore the $50 million of operating funds that was cut so that we — and indeed the entire post-secondary sector: colleges, teaching universities, institutes and research universities — can really focus on these areas and make sure our students are, in fact, getting the services that they need to succeed in these areas as well.

I think that’s my ten minutes, so I’ll stop there in case there are any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much.

J. Brar: Thank you, Andrew, for your presentation.

I have lots of questions. But keeping in mind the time, I would like to ask you a couple of questions. The first one is…. I think it seems that it’s long overdue to honour the MOU, which is moving the FTEs from 2,500 to 5,000. I want to ask you if we do that, are you looking for operating funding, and does that also include the capital cost as well?

A. Petter: The answer is yes. Obviously, this would be phased in over time. We can’t just flip a switch, so I think what we’re looking for is an affirmation of the goal. Then we’d have to work with the ministry to move forward on that.

I can give you a rough ballpark. Over years, the capital cost would be something in the range of $216 million for the full buildout. But that would be phased.

The steady state operating cost is on top of the engineering building, which has already been funded. On the operating costs, the incremental operating costs, again, it’s a little hard to be definitive because it would depend on the program mix. But over time, steady state, once it got fully implemented — and this would be over many years — it would probably rise to close to $25 million in annual operating costs going forward.

As I say, this would all be phased in and would be subject, obviously, to negotiation between us and the ministry and have to be worked out on a graduated basis.

J. Brar: My second question, Andrew, is: when you talk about the shortage of post-secondary graduates, do you include in that study the international students we already have here? Almost 99 percent of those students are going to stay here. So are they part of that study?

A. Petter: Some international students do stay. There have been changes in federal policy, back and forth, to accommodate that. I could go back and check, but I believe that the numbers that were looked at by the Conference Board and by the B.C. Labour Outlook would have taken into account the fact that we are bringing in more international students.

[9:25 a.m.]

Even if we weren’t, there would still be a significant shortfall. But I believe, certainly, the B.C. Labour Outlook would have taken that into account, for sure.

J. Brar: My last question is…. The overdependence, particularly on revenue, of the international students on our public institutions…. Are we not putting these institutions at serious risk if something happens and international students suddenly drop?

A. Petter: Well, it is certainly a risk. I think it’s been well reported that for us and for many post-secondary institutions now, our international student revenue exceeds our domestic tuition revenue, and tuition revenue in total exceeds operating grants we’re getting from the province. So if there were a serious downturn in international students, that obviously would put us at risk.

It’s no secret that the revenue from international students is the one thing that’s enabled us to maintain our programs for all students. Those programs would have been severely cut not just because of the cut in operating grants that occurred a few years ago, but simply because of the cost pressures that weren’t funded over recent years.

So you’re right. We are dependent on them to an extent that does create a risk. On the other hand, without that revenue, unless government were to replace it, we’d be at greater risk.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a quick question for you. I appreciate everything you’re saying about Surrey and south of the Fraser. My constituents are north of the Fraser. They straddle the…. I’m in Maple Ridge and Mission, so part rural and part Lower Mainland.

One of the problems we have, and I’m sure a lot of rural communities experience this too, is that we have a lower percentage of students graduating and going to post-secondary. Part of that is transportation. Part of that is housing. Part of that is just the cost.

I’m just wondering. I know Simon Fraser had talked, for example, to come to Maple Ridge. Are there other plans for more satellite universities so we can get some of our students who really should be in post-secondary into the stream?

A. Petter: We do some community-based programs, but I’ll be frank. It would not likely be setting up a further satellite campus in Maple Ridge, much as I’d like to tell you, Bob, that that’s what we’re going to do. Certainly, I think having stronger connections…. We deliver a lot of programming, by the way, in high schools to get high school kids both aware of and interested in post-secondary, not just coming to us but coming to other institutions.

I do think transportation improvements can make a big difference. I think we already see that with the Evergreen Line expansion. We do have a proposal for a direct aerial link between Production Way and the top of the mountain. That would improve access to the mountain hugely and, I think, enable more students to efficiently travel.

I hear what you’re saying. We can’t have universities everywhere, but we certainly want to encourage students from throughout the province to be able to take advantage of post-secondary. More than most provinces, we do have a distributed system geographically which is strong and integrated, so you can start in one institution and move to another, back and forth. But I hear what you’re saying. If we expand capacity, I hope we’ll get more students from Maple Ridge as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, we’re out of time, but thank you very much, Andrew. Appreciate everything you’re doing for education, for SFU and for our students.

A. Petter: I appreciate the work of the committee. Having been in your shoes, I know how much work you do extra to everything else. I really appreciate the time, and thank you very much for allowing me to make the submission. We’ll get a written submission in that covers these points as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Canadian Home Builders Association of British Columbia via teleconference. Neil Moody, are you there?

N. Moody: Yes, I am.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re running a little bit behind. Apologize for that. The floor is yours, so please go ahead.

CANADIAN HOME BUILDERS
ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

N. Moody: Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I’ll be approximately seven minutes, so perhaps you’ll pick up some time that way.

I’m calling in today, as mentioned, on behalf of the Canadian Home Builders Association of British Columbia. My name is Neil Moody, and I am the CEO.

Just a little bit about our association, the Canadian Home Builders Association of B.C., also known by the acronym CHBABC, which I’ll refer to from here on in. We represent 1,900 members in the residential construction industry who work as homebuilders, renovators and tradespeople, and product suppliers as well.

[9:30 a.m.]

Many of CHBABC’s members are small and medium-sized businesses. Home-building is one of the few industries that creates jobs and economic benefits in all parts of B.C. Just think, where there’s a house, there’s a home-building company behind it in British Columbia. Overall, the residential construction industry represents over 158,000 on-site and off-site jobs, $9.2 billion in wages and $23.1 billion in investment value.

The first recommendation I’d like to discuss today is to introduce a renovation tax credit for energy efficiency. Significant changes are coming to B.C.’s new homes over the next ten years with the B.C. energy step code. However, the programs and incentives in place for energy efficiency in existing homes are minimal, even though existing homes built before 1985 are 47 percent less energy-efficient than a new home built today.

As more British Columbians are choosing to renovate rather than relocate in high-cost markets, encouraging energy-efficient innovations is important. The provincial government can incent such changes with a renovation tax credit for energy efficiency. The policy structure for a tax credit is already in place, as British Columbians can already deduct the cost of renovating to accommodate seniors or individuals with disabilities. Adding energy efficiency to the existing policy is a logical next step.

Research indicates that every dollar invested in an energy retrofit yields four to seven times more energy savings than a dollar spent upgrading a new home. This benefit could be for both market and social housing units, which are equally in need of energy efficiency repairs for the long-term benefit of owners and tenants.

A renovation tax credit is the best model to approach this issue. It continues to be voluntary and also fights the underground economy in the renovation sector, where homeowners and housing operators will have to work with a contractor that will provide detailed receipts.

There is no doubt this would be a popular move for homeowners. The previous LiveSmart B.C. program worked with over 100,000 homeowners. If B.C. wishes to be a climate leader, we encourage you to consider the idea of a renovation tax credit or incentive for B.C.’s existing houses.

CHBABC’s second recommendation is to restructure the property transfer tax. Provincial revenue from the PTT, as it’s known, has never been higher, as prices have risen and the tax structure is largely the same as it was when it was implemented in the 1980s. It’s time for a second look at the amount of tax paid by homebuyers across British Columbia.

The tax is 1 percent on the first $200,000, 2 percent on the value from $200,000 to $2 million, and 3 percent thereafter. When the tax first came in, most properties were valued at less than $200,000. It’s increasingly difficult to find a property under that amount in B.C.’s cities.

Also remember that the PTT is separate from the mortgage costs for families. Every $1,000 that families are able to save on the PTT could actually go back into their down payments, which would decrease their overall debt load. Statistics show that four out of five Millennials still want to buy a home, so wherever we can decrease that tax paid would be welcomed by British Columbia’s and potential homebuilders to keep the housing continuing.

For the PTT, CHBABC recommends that the provincial government look at the limits in place and how they could be adjusted to reflect rising prices. This includes raising the limits of the first-time-homebuyers exemption to $750,000 from $500,000 so that first-time homebuyers have more choice to still qualify for the exemption. Increase the 2 percent PTT threshold from $200,000 to at least $525,000 so the amount of PTT paid by homebuyers will slightly decrease.

This measure will help all consumers for both new and existing homes and is an immediate way to decrease the tax burden on British Columbians. The impact to revenues would only be approximately $225 million, but revenues would still be in excess of $1 billion.

Review these thresholds annually to ensure that they are adjusted to rising prices, and grandfather existing contracts when introducing any changes to tax measures on housing. Homebuyers can commit to newly built projects months and years in advance, using the knowledge and financial information available at the time of purchase. It’s unfair to make changes and not honour contracts in place for both home-building businesses and the purchasers. This was not done in August 2016 with the foreign buyer PTT, which caused a panic for many buyers as a result.

[9:35 a.m.]

I’d like to take this final moment to stress that a focus on market housing affordability and the entire housing spectrum is important. Investments in social housing are very encouraged, but this will not support all British Columbians, as over 95 percent of residents, as owners or renters, are in market-provided homes. By addressing market affordability as part of the entire housing spectrum, any new social housing units can also go to those in most urgent need.

We’d like to see a focus on market housing incorporated into the provincial housing strategy. This should bring together the private sector, government and other stakeholders. Governments will set the direction. However, the tradespeople and industry will be the organizations that can bring it to life on the ground. Most of our members are small businesses building one to ten homes a year. Small businesses are a key part of the strategy, in addition to larger development companies.

Our association stands ready to assist with building this provincial housing strategy in any way possible. The timing for a provincial housing strategy is right. We’re expecting continued population growth in B.C., and we will need to accommodate that population, likely in B.C.’s urban centres, the areas with acute affordability challenges. We’ll have to work collectively, as both industry and the provincial government, to address this for both supply and demand.

For Budget 2018, the recommendations outlined are one part of helping homeowners and homebuyers in British Columbia.

Thank you for the opportunity. That concludes my remarks.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Seven minutes and 21 seconds. Well done.

Mitzi Dean, I’ll give you first crack. Do you have any questions?

M. Dean: Thanks, Bob. No questions at this time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Is there anyone on the committee that has any questions?

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation. I just had a question. Do you know, off the top of your head, how many new home sales in B.C. are actually first-time buyers? What’s the percentage?

N. Moody: The new homebuyers for first-time homebuyers as a percentage…. I can send you that additional information, a complete breakdown that shows not only new homebuyers but existing homebuyers as well.

T. Redies: Actually, I was looking for…. Sorry, I should have said first-time homebuyers. What percentage of sales in B.C. are first-time homebuyers? I’d be interested in getting that information.

N. Moody: We could send that. I do believe our colleagues over at the real estate board would have more detailed information on that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Just a reminder that October 16 at 5 p.m. is the deadline for any further written submissions. I know you have already made this written submission, but if there were any other materials you wanted to send.

N. Moody: Thank you. We will be submitting a written submission as well as some additional information.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I just had a quick question about the PTT. Being able to adjust it annually…. There have been a couple of recommendations as to how that might happen in terms of indexes being used. Did you have any ideas about that, how it could be…? Let’s say housing prices go down. Then, presumably, it would be adjusted down, or up, depending on the market. Did you have any ideas around that, particularly?

N. Moody: Well, there have been a number of different ideas that have been submitted over the past few years. I think waiting for prices to come down would be an interesting exercise. But it’s indexing it and looking….

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, I’m not talking about waiting for it. I’m just saying that if we’re reviewing the tax annually, as what your suggestion is, what criteria should be used to determine the levels? That’s all I’m saying.

N. Moody: Yeah. There are different benchmarks that it could be tied to, depending on the regions. You would have to look at each region and benchmark the prices, depending on the home and the values in those areas — so condominiums are going to be one price — and set up some type of indexing based on the increasing or changing values. And you’re right. If it did drop, it could be tied to that through some formula.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

All right. Next up we have Share the Cariboo-Chilcotin Resources Society — Bill Carruthers.

Hi, Bill.

SHARE THE CARIBOO-CHILCOTIN
RESOURCES SOCIETY

B. Carruthers: I would just like to make a comment on Gail Wallin’s presentation.

[9:40 a.m.]

I’m involved in the road maintenance industry, and in the next segment of road maintenance contracts the Ministry of Transportation is putting out, there is a segment in there requiring them to do more with invasive plants. I specifically think they are addressing storage yards and gravel pits, because those are major sources of that material. I just wanted to make the comment that it’s being looked at in that aspect there. But it is a major problem. I myself make sure all of our commercial properties are sprayed on an annual basis, because they create a major problem.

Anyway, thank you for the opportunity to present. Our interest today is the overall fiscal situation in the province. We applaud the social issues that were in Minister James’s mini-budget, but we wanted to emphasize that the province needs revenue to pay for these programs. In the Cariboo, we’ve taken a hit on resource extraction with the timber that was lost due to wildfires. The province will also suffer from the increase in wildfire control costs and stumpage reduction. In order to offset this, we are asking the government to figure out how it can increase revenue without increasing taxation.

In the Quesnel, Williams Lake and 100 Mile trading areas, we have eight sawmills; two fibreboard, two plywood and two pellet plants; two mines; and a number of value-added plants utilizing wood products. We are talking about up to 5,000 workers, direct and indirect. We have two mining projects that make job opportunities available, especially for young Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workers.

We have affordable housing, limited traffic issues, schools, hospitals, etc., but we need jobs, and the province needs the revenue generated from resource projects, especially new ones. Please make sure you look at the opportunities for investment in resource projects. We do not have a subsidized movie industry or high-technology development. In the Cariboo, the industries are state of the art, as they compete in global markets, but they are still labour-intensive. We very much doubt if Amazon wants to open its new office in the Cariboo.

In the spring, the Health Minister announced an addition and renovations to the local hospital. We would ask that this be carried out, as pressure is on the current facility to sustain a reasonable level of service. The aging population and the health issues amongst the First Nations are increasing the need for more capacity locally.

We also ask that you keep funding available to enhance the transportation system on the main highways. The ability of local industry to compete in international markets is enhanced by our ability to move value-added products to the consuming markets. Specifically, we are speaking about softwood lumber to U.S. and other markets.

We also ask that you look at some immediate remediation of the burnt timber to salvage as much as possible. There is some recovery financially, plus we could get rid of some of the potential fuel that is just waiting for another opportunity to rekindle. If we were to spend more up front on wildfire prevention, we might mitigate the potential of high wildfire prevention costs and disruption to local communities financially.

It’s a strange situation when you look down the main street of your community and see no cars and no people. Mayor Cobb spoke about it this morning. It was a very, very unusual situation. I expect that with some of the job situations, people were shocked by what actually happened.

Lastly, please let’s not get into the budget deficit business. That is the road to ruin. My economics professor said, in 1978: “There is no free lunch.” It is still true. The easy route is to spend what you don’t have. Let’s spend what we’ve earned through positive economic development.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

Does anyone have any further questions?

Well, thank you very much, Bill, for your presentation. We really appreciate your time. We’ll take everything into account when we make our budget recommendations.

I would like to call a short recess.

The committee recessed from 9:44 a.m. to 9:47 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. We’re back on the air, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Next up we have the Richmond Hospital Foundation by conference call — Natalie Meixner and Kyle Shury.

The floor is yours, so please go ahead.

RICHMOND HOSPITAL FOUNDATION

N. Meixner: Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today. My name is Natalie Meixner, and I am the president and CEO of Richmond Hospital Foundation. I am joined today by Kyle Shury, our board chair. Also with me is one of our staff, Jon Hicke, who is the director of marketing and communications for the foundation.

Our role as a foundation is to fundraise to augment or supplement government funding to ensure the margin of excellence for health care in Richmond. That includes both community health care right through acute and to residential care. We’ve been a foundation for 30 years, providing or playing this role.

I’m going to turn things over to Kyle for a little bit, and then I’ll be back to you.

K. Shury: I just want to jump in before Natalie proceeds with her presentation. I’ve had the great privilege of serving on this board for the last seven years and can provide a bit of context and backdrop.

It’s about four or five years ago that Vancouver Coastal Health came to us as a foundation and said: “How can we collectively get a new acute care tower built in Richmond?” It was one of their top priorities.

We understand and appreciate today that foundations more and more increasingly are playing a role in these significant capital projects. We willingly put our hands up and said: “We’re willing to join you.” We’ve built our board, our staff, our team and our foundation and have made significant strides to become what we refer to as a major gift organization.

We’ve made some good headway. In June 2016, our concept plan was given the go-ahead. It was at that point in time that both the Ministry of Health and the province, Vancouver Coastal and the foundation all, both financially and collectively, decided to come together to get this much-needed project moving.

[9:50 a.m.]

We were pleased that that concept plan got completed in record time, within six months of January of ’17. What was really clear, and Natalie will touch on it a bit more in her presentation, is that the need is so great in the community, that the urgency is definitely there. Once that concept plan got submitted, that gave us the tool to go out to the community and get our work underway.

We’ve had a number of local families step up. I’m not going to take Natalie’s thunder away when she walks you through the presentation, but it is very clear that there’s a strong community need. We knew, going into the springtime, that the approval process may slow down a little bit. All that being said, we were told initially that our business plan, which is the next step, would be underway and announced in August. Subsequently that was projected at September. Here we are today in October, and we haven’t got a formal announcement that we are moving to business plan.

You’ll see through Natalie’s presentation, again, that the need is here, the community support is here, and we’re at a point where we need to get the business plan underway and get this tower coming out of the ground.

I’ll turn it back to Natalie, and she can walk you through the balance.

N. Meixner: Recognizing time constraints, I won’t cover every single slide, but you’ve got a lot of the background information there and some of the history. Kyle referenced our campaign, so once the concept plan was submitted, we did feel comfortable speaking with families.

To date, so since February of this year, almost $27 million has been pledged or committed towards this project. That said, the majority of these donations is contingent on government making a commitment to fund the balance. Now, our goal is to raise up to $50 million towards the acute care tower. In the concept plan, they’re calling for a cost of $350 million. The simple math would be if we put in $50 million, there’s still about $300 million that needs to be funded.

Just to make sure that we were on the right path and doing what people in the Richmond community felt was appropriate and needed, we did undertake some independent public opinion polling last year, early in the year. As you can see from the slide, a staggering 85 percent of the general population ranked a new acute care tower in their top two priorities.

I’m not sure how often you get to Richmond, but there are three very solid reasons why this new acute care tower is required. The first is the exploding population. Richmond has the fastest-growing seniors’ population in the province of British Columbia. Of course, that means that a lot of the people we’re seeing at Richmond Hospital are elderly — many of them, the frail elderly — and they have a multitude of health conditions that make things more complicated.

When Richmond Hospital first opened in 1966, there were 50,000 people living in Richmond, and there were 132 beds. Today there are well over 200,000 people living in Richmond and not even double the beds. All of these factors combined, with respect to the growth in population, the aging population…. It’s getting more and more challenging for the health care teams. Even though we’re not in the health care business ourselves per se, we see it everyday. We work in close partnership with the doctors, nurses and the leadership of the hospital. It is reaching a tipping point for them.

The other two reasons that make for a strong business case for this acute care tower is that that building is over 50 years old. It’s obsolete, and it’s severely deficient in its infrastructure. It’s been rated as 79 percent deficient, where 30 percent is the bar. That means there are all kinds of things breaking down — elevators, HVACs, you name it — which creates a very difficult environment for health care staff to be able to deliver the kind of care that people are expecting in this province.

Lastly, the seismic instability of the acute care tower at Richmond Hospital. It only meets 17 percent of the current code. Every time there’s an earthquake, people in Richmond think about this, but people at the hospital fear for their lives.

[9:55 a.m.]

The tower was built at a time when there was no preloading done. The standards were very different. People didn’t know what to do with respect to building buildings that were seismically stable. This building will, in a moderate earthquake, collapse and is even subject to liquefaction. Adding to that, the operating rooms are in that tower, so they would not be there in the case of an earthquake. They’re also below the floodplain, which puts them at risk during a tsunami.

I’ve shared with you that we’ve had the support of almost 30 families so far. We’re almost at $27 million of people making the commitment before the government has even approved the concept plan.

The city of Richmond has definitely made their voice heard with respect to leadership on this issue. Mayor Brodie and the full city council have been very, very supportive and champions. I’m sure that you’ve heard from them. I know that the Premier has.

The Premier — during the early days, even before the election was called — was very supportive of this. He and a team of the candidates actually raised their voices. It became a bipartisan issue. Regardless of what anyone’s political stripes are, everybody recognized the need for a new acute care tower in Richmond.

The people of Richmond sit back and see announcement after announcement about other hospitals in other places. It’s been identified, 20 years ago, that this tower needs to be replaced. It’s been very slow-moving. The only movement we’ve seen was the approval to move forward with a concept plan, which was done at the urging of the MLAs at the time. So we thank them for that. But we need to see it committed to and moving forward so that we don’t lose this financial and community support for the new acute care tower.

I really think that covers it all. We are desperate for a new acute care tower. I’m totally comfortable in saying that. The issue should not be a political one. It’s just a matter of providing life-saving patient care in a facility that is built to today’s standards, that provides a safe and proper working environment for our physicians and our surgeons and all of the many health care team members who just want to provide good, compassionate care for people. We urge you to include this in the budget for the 2018 year.

Thank you very much for listening to us today. Hopefully, you get a sense of how important this is to the Richmond community.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Kyle. Thank you, Natalie. We really appreciate everything you do for health care in Richmond.

Tracy Redies has a question for you.

T. Redies: Thanks, Natalie. I appreciate the passion that you have for the hospital. As someone who’s had family who have been in the hospital — who were looked after very well, I might say — it’s very clear that the hospital needs changes and upgrading.

One of the things I just wanted to clarify. You mention the Richmond catchment. But do your numbers also take into consideration Delta? I know a lot of people who live in Delta end up, actually, having to use the hospital because it’s the closest for them in terms of an emergency situation, as well as for things like knee surgery, shoulder surgery, etc.

N. Meixner: Yes, you’re right, Tracy. About 20 percent of the people cared for at Richmond Hospital are from outside of Richmond. That does include Delta. A number of people come from Delta because there are specialty programs at Richmond Hospital that are not available in their community, including orthopedics, urology. Even the emergency department is quite a bit larger. It’s 24-7.

It would also include South Vancouver and other neighbouring areas. Then we do have a couple of provincial programs, whereby people come from all over the province to Richmond for the metabolic bariatric surgical program. And I mentioned urology. Some of our surgeons and physicians in these different programs offer a specialty that’s only available at Richmond Hospital.

K. Shury: If I can just add, in addition to that, we handle quite a lot of traffic from the airport as well.

[10:00 a.m.]

Millions of passengers travel through the airport, as you all appreciate. Quite often, if there are any issues or problems, we’re the first stop in the line of defence, so to speak.

T. Redies: Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Kyle.

Mitzi Dean, did you have anything?

M. Dean: Yeah. I’m just wondering when the $350 million figure was arrived at. What year was that?

N. Meixner: That was just in January that that was submitted, so it’s about ten months old.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Not seeing any more questions, we wanted to thank you very much for your presentation, and I’d like to echo what Tracy said. Obviously, you’re very passionate about the need for this facility in Richmond, and we appreciate you taking the time.

N. Meixner: Thank you for the opportunity.

The committee recessed from 10:01 a.m. to 10:02 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re back on the air with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Steven Jones, are you on the line?

S. Jones: I am here, yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic. Well, you have ten minutes. So please, the floor is yours.

STEVEN JONES

S. Jones: Thank you very much. I had the opportunity to address this committee last year as a representative of an organization. This year I am speaking just as an individual resident of the province.

What I’d like to speak to, shortly, is the issue of funding for B.C. Parks as well as recreation sites and trails, search and rescue and all of the government services that support non-motorized, and even motorized, outdoor recreation in British Columbia.

I feel that the tourism industry is very important to the economy of British Columbia, particularly at a time when real estate has, arguably, reached its peak and it would be dangerous to try and further increase the share of the economy that is attributable to the real estate sector.

The commodities sector is subject to the whims of the global economy, and the success or failure of that sector is often completely out of the control of the provincial government.

In general, the tourism sector continues to do well but to be performing under capacity. I say that we’re performing under capacity because in the province of British Columbia, we’re blessed with a vast amount of land, much of it very attractive to people who would love to visit our province from all over the world and spend lots of money here doing so. But if you visit any of our parks or trails or recreation areas, you’ll find that often you can’t even find a parking spot let alone have an enjoyable remote experience.

This isn’t because we’ve run out of land. It’s simply because there’s been a chronic underinvestment in the facilities and services required to support the outdoor tourism economy.

It also, of course, has a very negative impact on the residents of British Columbia. When people get outside, and they’re hiking and biking and engaged in other activities, generally, they are healthier — both mentally and physically — and it’s one of the reasons why people choose to live here from all over the world and often put up with some of the quirks of the province, such as a very high living cost.

[10:05 a.m.]

Since last year, there have been some announcements related to increases in funding, but the issue which causes me great concern is the B.C. Parks future strategy. This new strategy essentially labels the parks system as a cost, a burden, more or less, and there are attempts made to try and minimize that burden. The strategy includes such ideas as having advertising or corporate sponsorship of parks and park-related facilities or activities. It’s a little vague, but it kind of goes against the entire reason why people go to parks, which is to get away from it all.

It completely fails to acknowledge the fact that tourism is a multi-billion-dollar economy. I believe $16 billion is the latest estimate. A very modest investment in the park system has a massive payoff. The government’s own figures…. I don’t have them in front of me anymore, but B.C. Parks own figures, I believe, show something like $6 of activity for every $1 invested in the parks system.

While we’re talking about the B.C. Parks figures, unless something has shown up in the last few days, it’s important to note that the B.C. Parks budget that’s made available to the public is woefully out of date. I don’t think we have received updated budget numbers in over 18 months now, in terms of what actually was spent and key statistics for the parks. So I would encourage the committee to also look into the issue of accountability and reporting on the B.C. Parks front.

When I inquired about it last year, I was told that the B.C. Parks budget would be released, but it had been postponed because there were efforts related to implementation of the B.C. Parks future strategy. I just don’t think that’s an acceptable answer. I think that all departments and ministries should release their annual reports within three months of the end of the year, like any company would be expected to. This business of being able to go on for much longer than that, stretching into potentially years before releasing an annual report, is completely unacceptable, as a taxpayer.

Overall — just wrapping it up; I’ll try not to take my full ten minutes here — the budget needs to recognize that the tourism economy is operating under capacity. A modest investment in trails, in parks, in facilities and in services…. That’s search and rescue. There is an ongoing initiative that I’m aware of that the search and rescue teams are going through called the alternative funding model, where they’re seeking a new method of funding.

These volunteers invest so much of their time not only putting their lives at risk to save others. To be frank, a lot of their time is just spent responding to false alarms and responding to people who have simple injuries, such as sprained ankles and stuff, not on the heroic stuff you hear about on TV, where they’re dropping out of helicopters.

Most of their time is spent on things that are a little more mundane and frustrating and take them away from their families on a very regular basis. They are forced to go through an excessive amount of red tape to get funding for the most basic of their needs. They have a proposal in front of the government, and they’ve had it there for years, to change that funding model so that the funding is more consistent across the province and doesn’t require them to fill out so much paperwork every year.

When you add up all of these things, a very modest investment in that sector will reap huge rewards for the province in terms of the economic boost. It’ll continue to make the economy more robust by diversifying it, and it’ll improve the quality of life for all British Columbians.

I would strongly encourage this committee to very closely look at investments that can be made in our parks and our outdoor recreation sector in general to deliver a positive return for the government, for the citizens, for local businesses and for the environment.

I’ll be here if you have any questions. Otherwise, thank you very much for what you’re doing on this committee and for your time today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Steven. We appreciate your time. We have heard from a number of different witnesses in regard to our parks and trails, and we really appreciate you echoing some of the same concerns and also bringing up some new issues.

Are there any questions from the committee?

There are probably no questions because we’ve asked questions from a number of other presenters, but we really appreciate your time, Steven. Thanks for your presentation.

Oh, Mitzi Dean has a question.

[10:10 a.m.]

M. Dean: I just wanted to get back to what you were saying about the use of the very trained volunteers. Do you have a model in mind that would actually be more efficient? Are you saying that with these really highly trained people, we should actually be applying their skills in a more efficient way and that that could actually help us redirect some provincial funding somewhere?

S. Jones: I’m not with a search and rescue team, and I’m not representing the Search and Rescue Association of B.C. But there are people who have been in that organization who have been working on putting forward what they’re calling the alternative funding model.

Essentially, right now, those teams are filling out basically what are called bingo grants. There’s a portion of money from B.C. Lottery Corporation that goes into a bit of a slush fund that community organizations apply to, including school sports teams, school districts and basic community…. Every single year every single search and rescue team has to fill out all this funding and application to try and get some money out of that gaming fund.

Imagine if we required the local ambulance stations to get on their knees and beg for funding out of a gaming grant each year so they could buy gas for their ambulance. Now, it’s a bit of a weird analogy because the helicopter time is funded out of emergency management B.C., out of a different budget. But so much of what these teams need to operate effectively comes out of these grants.

I really want the province to recognize that search and rescue is not just for people who are poorly prepared or who are doing stupid things. A lot of the people who need search and rescue are just B.C. families who happen to roll their ankle, but they roll their ankle on a trail instead of on a sidewalk.

We live in a country where there’s an expectation of access to medical care. If someone breaks a leg or sprains an ankle while they’re walking in the city, we’re not going to let them die there. Well, if we didn’t have these search and rescue teams and someone sprained an ankle while they’re five kilometres into the woods and couldn’t hike out, they would literally die in the woods. They couldn’t get out. These teams provide what should be almost an essential service, and we’re getting such amazing value out of them because they’re unpaid and they’re volunteering. But at the very least….

We’re already saving huge sums of money, massive sums of money, but not needing to rely on either a paid service or extending the ambulance paramedic service capabilities so that they are capable of wilderness exercises. All these teams really want is just to have their basic needs met in a consistent and reliable way and for it to be consistent across the province.

One of the other challenges we have where so much of our funding is coming from private donations and corporate sponsorship is that the funding levels can be very different across the province. There are definitely areas in the province where it is better to get lost than others, because this funding isn’t delivered in a consistent way.

Those teams have got something in front of the government. It’s been there for years. The organization is called the Search and Rescue Association. They’ve got all that information in front of you guys. Definitely, I would encourage you to consider it.

M. Dean: Thanks so much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Any other questions?

Okay. Seeing none, thank you very much again, Steven, for your presentation.

Next up we have Abbotsford Community Services, via teleconference. That’s Rod Santiago and Bobbie Thompson. You are in front of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. The floor is yours. Please go ahead.

ABBOTSFORD COMMUNITY SERVICES

B. Thompson: Thank you. Today’s government has inherited big challenges. Health care costs continue to rise at an alarming rate, coupled with uncontrollable escalation of the opioid epidemic. Youth and children are being joined into high-risk behaviours, gang activity and lethal options. Seniors make up our fastest-growing demographic, yet we lack the infrastructure to support that reality.

[10:15 a.m.]

Homelessness and/or mental health challenges now touch every community and, to some degree, every family. People demand to know what the government is going to do about all this, and more.

This is where we can help. We are Bobbie Thompson, director of finance, and Rod Santiago, executive director of Abbotsford Community Services.

ACS is people helping people. Through our more than 90 programs throughout Abbotsford and the Fraser Valley, we work with youth in crisis, help job finders secure employment, support newcomers as they settle in their new country and learn English, counsel people dealing with addictions, provide moms and dads with skills to be the best parents possible, assist seniors to stay in their homes longer, create opportunities for persons with developmental disabilities to shine, teach the next generation why the sustainable use of natural resources matters, secure housing for individuals living rough and more.

Our mission is fostering community well-being and social justice through positive action and leadership. ACS’s vision is justice, opportunities and equitable access for all.

R. Santiago: We are skilled at delivering essential community services in the most cost-effective ways. We know how to meet individual, family and community needs and maximize the benefits of every dollar. We have the ability to leverage government dollars, secure donations and mobilize volunteers. Last year Abbotsford Community Services raised over $1.7 million in cash donations and secured an additional $1.45 million of gift-in-kind donations, and our nearly 1,000 volunteers provided the equivalent of $1.2 million in unpaid services. We leverage the strengths of lawyers, doctors, nurses, dentists, educators, accountants, financial advisers, speakers, entertainers, social workers, farmers, developers, architects and more.

One year, one agency. Consider that each community agency in Abbotsford and across the province can tap into those kinds of volunteer resources and can leverage a similar kind of community capacity-building as Abbotsford Community Services. The community social services sector is a very strong force. Within its grasp, the province of B.C. has the means to more effectively address the big challenges identified earlier by partnering with and investing in the community social services sector.

B. Thompson: Consider, for example, Foundry Abbotsford. In response to such realities as…. One in four youth in B.C. need mental health or substance use services, but fewer than 25 percent receive help. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for Canadians ages 15 to 24. Nearly three times more youth died of suicide than from cancer in 2014. It’s five to six times higher among Aboriginal and Inuit communities. Youth mental illness is ranked the second-highest hospital care expense in Canada.

ACS and 14 local partners, including Fraser Health, MCFD, Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Abbotsford school district and the divisions of family practice, are combining primary care, mental health, substance use, employment, peer and family support and social services, all in a one-stop shop for youths and their families.

Similar to Foundry sites in Campbell River, Kelowna, North Vancouver and Prince George and with the leadership of Foundry central, Foundry Abbotsford will be a place where any youth, ages 12 to 24, or parents can walk in and find the help they need when they need it. Prioritizing people over systems and filling gaps where our young people are currently falling through the cracks, Foundry will see B.C. become an international leader in youth and family well-being.

Consider ACS’s food bank program, which partners with the Abbotsford Rotary Club, local churches and other key community stakeholders to create the starfish backpack program. Starfish arose in response to some public school teachers saying that some students regularly come to school hungry after the weekend, as they didn’t get anything to eat at home over the weekend. During the school year, this ACS program feeds 220 kids in 24 schools three square meals per day every weekend, through the entire school year.

[10:20 a.m.]

Moreover, through the Rotary, the concept has been replicated throughout B.C. so that 749 kids in 65 schools within 16 cities are now not going hungry over the weekend. A child who’s fed can think and has a fighting chance at succeeding in school and life. A healthy, succeeding child costs the provincial government less in the long run. It costs only $15 per week to provide the food in the backpack per child.

Consider replicating the starfish backpack business model provincewide. More specifically, we welcome the long-overdue development of a comprehensive provincial poverty reduction plan which incorporates a strategy for children.

R. Santiago: Despite the efficacy of the social services sector, we must point out that overall base funding levels to agencies have largely remained unchanged over the past ten years. The reality of low wages results in ongoing recruitment and retention issues for our sector. We regularly lose staff to equal competency yet much-better-paying government positions.

Further, we have staff with degrees who supplement their incomes with a second or third part-time job just to feed and clothe their families or who themselves require the assistance of the food bank in order to stretch the paycheque to the end of the month.

In a society where over 70 percent of B.C.’s population will touch or rely on community social services at some point in their lives, how long can we afford to make more holes in our province’s social safety net? We urge the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services to begin to address funding levels to the social services sector, particularly in relation to wage disparities compared with comparable positions in health, education and the public sector.

Additionally, we encourage the select standing committee to endorse a concerted provincial social policy framework, as identified by Board Voice in There is a Better Way: A BC Framework for Wellbeing. It sets out key policy directions, values, priorities, roles and expectations. This would guide the creation of public policy to address B.C.’s social needs — be it homelessness, children in care, the opioid crisis, seniors, mental health, poverty, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, education — both now and into the future.

Economists Michael Porter and Mark Kramer recognize the crucial role of interdependence between companies and society. Rather than seeing corporate social responsibility as a cost, constraint or charitable deed, successful businesses and corporations recognize the relationship as a competitive advantage and a major source of innovation.

In a parallel way, we invite our new government to forge an interdependent relationship with the community social services sector, an alliance that doesn’t just see us as asking for more funding but as voices, 15,000 strong, for social justice, as employers, neighbours and pillars of society and as a crucial, creative source for arriving at new solutions to long-standing problems.

We thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts today and for your willingness to listen. Thank you for the new government’s early actions, such as the reinstatement of annual bus passes for persons with disabilities, expanding tuition waiver programs, identifying poverty reduction within a ministry and creating a Fair Wages Commission. Such early starts signal your commitment to providing a new kind of leadership that works for regular people.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Rod and Bobbie. We appreciate the presentation.

M. Dean: Thank you so much for your presentation. I’m just wondering. You mentioned Board Voice. Are you a member of Board Voice or the federation or the CEO Network?

R. Santiago: Yes to all three.

M. Dean: All right. Thanks very much.

R. Santiago: We certainly believe very strongly in the concept of partnership. Nothing can be done alone or separate. The only way that things can be done today is by working in concert with one another.

M. Dean: Great to hear. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much.

[10:25 a.m.]

Just wondering if there’s any particular poverty reduction issues that you feel would work in your community and if you want to elaborate a little bit more on that.

R. Santiago: For the community of Abbotsford, we work together on a number of strategies. For example, in the area of housing and homelessness, there is an initiative that’s being led by the city of Abbotsford. It’s all the various players in the community — be it the social service agencies, faith groups in the community, businesses — all working together with a concerted plan, a road map that says: “How can we get to arriving at solutions together?” So in our strategy of addressing poverty in that way, it’s a team effort. That’s one way we’re doing it.

We’ve got another initiative for women who are in situations of exploitation. It’s a partnership of three different organizations who are working together again. Rather than doing it as individual organizations, it’s: “How can we work together towards assisting women who are in abusive relationships and who are in positions of exploitation so that we can address housing, trauma-informed counselling and seeking alternative means of employment so that there can be long-term solutions for the women and their families?”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic. I appreciate that. Thanks so much for your time and your passion for these issues. We appreciate your presentation.

R. Santiago: Thank you very much. We welcome opportunities for solutions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce. I believe it’s Roger Solly and Mark Doratti. Welcome.

WILLIAMS LAKE AND DISTRICT
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

M. Doratti: Good morning. Just as a matter of general introduction, I’ve been a second vice-president of the local chamber of commerce for the last year. Roger is a director. I know that this presentation may generate some questions, and saying that, I may defer to Roger for answers. The president of the local chamber is also here, Charlene Harrison, sitting in that row, as well as our executive director, Claudia Blair. Again, I may resource them at some point.

Basically, in the presentation for today we’ve got six points to cover. No surprise to anyone here, we had a nasty summer up here. Not that Williams Lake and area was the only site of that. Quesnel suffered — Kamloops, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, a number through the Interior.

The struggles, as we sit here, are for small business to continue operating in the area of maintaining, retaining and gathering employees. As with so many displaced persons, they ended up in other communities, found alternate employment and then just plain didn’t come back. So there’s suffering going on at the hands of a fire that now is long out.

Basically, we’ve received input from the community seeking assistance for small business to recover from the wildfire situation of 2017. Ideas included — and piggybacked on — the hydro credits that were handed to, or allotted to, residential clients in the province that were subject to evacuation orders and losses.

We’d like to see it brought in as far as assisting business, because businesses, as much as they were in the same situation as residences, have ongoing costs that they were obliged to cover, where the residents were kind of given a break there. Not that that was a bad idea, but I think we could probably pass that on to the local business, small business, as well.

Property tax reduction or credits for businesses affected.

Working with community volunteer fire departments in rural areas, providing funding for direction, for compulsory training, and ability to access bulk purchase pricing through the province was something else that came up.

[10:30 a.m.]

Some of these small fire departments are left as one-offs and basically have to fend for themselves. A lot of it has to do with fundraising efforts, and the top end of what they can get for equipment is based on what they can gather from their communities. Up and down, this whole year is going to be nasty for everyone.

We thought that if the province was in the business of fire suppression, as far as fighting for the summer, if some of that equipment was bulk-bought by the province, possibly some of these small fire departments could access pricing that would assist them in gaining some decent equipment to augment what the province currently provides.

A small business marketing fund that all local businesses could opt into to bring awareness of employment and business opportunities that exist. As an example, we had ski hills and bike and quad shops. They were locked out of the back country for two months. Due to transportation and smoke, the tourists did not return.

On Bull Mountain, which is a cross-country ski hill, and Mt. Timothy, which is a downhill, there were trails burned. They were destroyed by fireguards when we were trying to get this fire under control. Also, in doing that, they basically put together a whole pile of other access points to this back country that they now have to contend with, because it’s taking a toll on their trails.

The second point that we have is on the forest industry. The forest industry is of critical importance in our area. This summer, we’re not really sure what it’s going to look like by the time the dust all settles. I do know that we have a multitude of our mills in the area, in the entire Cariboo, that are looking at harvesting and at how best to harvest the burned timber. There are some severe challenges in that.

I think the bigger picture is a resolve to the softwood lumber dispute with the United States in a fair, equitable…. Promoting the competition — I think that’s important. I think everyone needs to be on the same page here.

The government needs to work with all professionals to ensure the administration in government is streamlined and runs as efficiently as possible. Today there are issues with permitting access to timber, particularly in the south Cariboo. Speedy permitting to provide access to burned fibre needs attention, especially now. The feedback we got…. I think it’s a two year timeline. If that timber is not harvested within that time frame, it’s no good to anyone. The value of these trees is highest today and decreases with every passing day.

Transportation. Resurfacing and a higher level of continual maintenance of Highway 20 is important, as that highway is an access point, majorly, from this area to the Pacific coast. There are a multitude of tourism opportunities to the west that, basically, need the conduits to get people there.

Phase 2 of the Cariboo connector four-laning program will be completed soon. We encourage the continuation of this program, as well as those for other areas of the province.

We do need to say thank you for the government keeping its promise to bring the ferry back into Bella Coola and Port Hardy. That enables the tourists to come from the Island and come into the Interior and vice versa.

The chamber would like to see a return of passenger rail to our area, even if it’s just for the summer and fall seasons. Again, an attempt to try and draw more tourists into the area.

We encourage development of the Wells–Purden Lake road route. This route would be a benefit to the tourism to the Wells and Barkerville area. It would also provide an additional exit route for Quesnel and Williams Lake in the event of a natural disaster, such as what we had this summer.

Education. Specifically speaking to Thompson Rivers University, the Williams Lake campus, we would like to see a movement of agriculture and nursing programs brought into Williams Lake on a full-time basis, not just part-time, and also have a look at increasing the block funding for the Williams Lake campus so that they can offer more, centrally, to the Cariboo, as opposed as to having to draw everyone into Kamloops or, conversely, sent to the University of Northern B.C.

Mining. The mining industry creates wealth and opportunity for all British Columbians. We can’t forget this. Truly, none of us would be sitting here today — taking notes, sitting on chairs or even commuting to the community — without our mining. It provides the highest paying jobs of any heavy industry in the province, employs a huge number of First Nations members and maintains strong environmental values that everyone can appreciate.

[10:35 a.m.]

The rural nature of mining means it creates a strong foundation for vibrant communities in the heartland of the province. I think sometimes that’s forgotten. The government’s backing on that would be entirely welcome.

The last point would be tourism. Basically, the only bullet we have on that is that B.C. Parks opened our Cariboo parks earlier, looking at mid-April and closing mid-October. This was brought to the B.C. Chamber at the AGM of 2017 and passed as a resolution. The B.C. Chamber, no doubt, will spearhead pushing it forward.

However, having had a change of government since then, it’s important for us to bring that up — that, in fact, there’s a major interest in the communities of the Cariboo and other areas to try and open those parks for a little bit longer to, again, access more tourism dollars.

As a matter of history, that resolution itself was presented by the Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce. We had the Quesnel and District Chamber of Commerce, the Prince Rupert Chamber of Commerce, Fort St. John and Kitimat, also, in the background because of the common beliefs.

That’s basically our presentation today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Mark.

Has this presentation been submitted in writing, or will it be? It’s helpful, I think, for us.

A Voice: We have copies here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, it’s just helpful — if you wouldn’t mind sending it electronically, just to make sure that we have the accuracy. That’s helpful for the transcribers. We could get a copy now, if you have it. That would be very helpful. There was a lot in there, so we want to make sure we’ve got it accurately. Thank you very much.

Mitzi, are you on the line?

M. Dean: Yeah. No questions. Thanks, Bob.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Is there anyone who has any questions?

J. Brar: Thank you, Mark and Roger, for coming today and making the presentation.

One of the issues which we have heard from various and different organizations is particularly about the shortage of workers in Williams Lake and around this area. I just want to understand. The mayor has spoken to us, as well, about that. Is there any way to bring those workers back or attract new workers to this area at this point in time? Because that seems to a more urgent kind of need of the city.

M. Doratti: In our presentation, we talked about marketing, basically trying to encourage people to come here. The old adage of “go forth and multiply” when we were coming from the east was kind of what we were chasing down. “Go west, my son.”

We’re kind of hopeful that we can draw people into the area. I think the efforts that we made tourism-wise at least brings people in to see what’s here. Marketing, as far as showing what business is available, what skills are required — we can take all the normal channels.

We felt that if the government was a little bit behind encouraging people to go beyond the boundaries of Surrey, Abbotsford, the Lower Mainland, they might find some means to be here. The wages here aren’t any different than down there.

A. Weaver: At the beginning, you started off with the idea of the hydro credit, property tax reduction and also the small business marketing fund. Have you got a sense of the costs or the amount that is required for, say, the small business marketing fund to try to bring those workers here?

M. Doratti: From my perspective, I don’t know that we ever came up with a dollar figure. I think when we discussed it initially, our trouble was we didn’t really want to have it seen as throwing money just for the sake of having money. The businesses are struggling, and we were trying to give them an offset to some of the expenses that they had going forward so that they could possibly reallocate that.

Roger, do you have anything more?

R. Solly: No, other than, as we all know, the context of the efforts that are underway right now are to develop next year’s budget for the province. In budgeting, I guess we could presumably have come up with a specific dollar amount.

[10:40 a.m.]

I think that’s also part of the budget process, to determine the extent that is practical under the circumstances that everybody is dealing with.

A. Weaver: This is an important issue, so I’m trying to flesh out what you’re looking for, specifically, in this marketing. Is it to attract the people here, as mentioned by Jagrup, or is it to bring more population back because people have left?

R. Solly: It’s a combination of all, to help out the businesses that were shut down for essentially two months and lost that revenue, and some of them, in that process, ended up losing employees — a marketing program that would encourage other individuals to start coming in and filling the void and providing some assistance to these local businesses to get back into marketing and try and get back into a normal day-to-day operation.

A. Weaver: Just one last follow-up. You weren’t thinking about also marketing for other businesses to come to Williams Lake, were you, as well?

R. Solly: That would fit into the overall intent, yes.

R. Leonard: I’m not sure if it’s a question so much as a comment, but your presentation and others have really spoken to the resiliency in this community, looking forward, trying to find solutions to bring your communities back.

You all also spoke about the trauma, and as opposed to dwelling on it, you just want to move on and forward. I suspect that we are probably going to see, over this next year, some of that trauma revealing itself in ways, economically as well as socially. We’ll be having our ears open to hearing about what your needs are there to help come back.

M. Doratti: I know that the conversations around this community are: “We want to get back to normal.” After such a terrifying summer, with the fallout that it’s gotten, I don’t know if anybody really knows what normal is. You start seeing something that looks like… Okay, well, we’re…. Then you back-pedal.

Just as an example, at the business that I was involved in prior to the fire, I was a manager. Our staff, when the evacuation occurred…. It went off like a bomb, so they left. When I came back, I was laid off. There was no need for a manager because the work wasn’t there and we didn’t have the staff to manage it. That’s just one little example, and that’s not a “Feel sorry for me story.” That’s just the reality, and there are lots of businesses in this community that are the same way.

Our local McDonald’s, a small business. People just bought it the beginning of last year or possibly the year before. Their hours were 24-7, like everybody else. They’re open from seven in the morning, now, until, I think, eight o’clock or nine o’clock at night because they don’t have staff to be able to man it. That’s where the heavy toll is. Nothing really feels normal because you really can’t do the things we did prior to the fires.

Just as an offside — and I thank you for your comments — when I spoke at the end about the resolution, I believe in that package that Claudia had for you, there’s a copy of that resolution in there, not for any reason other than just so you would have hands-on with it to be aware of what was there.

P. Milobar: Thanks for the presentation. I guess the question I have is around timelines. Obviously, this is about next year’s budget. That doesn’t get tabled until February, and then it gets debated a bit and kicked around a bit. So it seems to me a lot of your asks aren’t necessarily…. You’re going to want to see stuff in next year’s budget, but you’re not wanting to wait until next spring to see what some of these programs may or may not be. Am I hearing that correctly?

M. Doratti: Having those programs in place last February would have been fabulous because we’d have been able to deal with it. I think even the nature of a disaster is that…. I’m kind of in the insurance industry right now, so when you look at it, the insurance is something there promised for future events and not necessarily given up that it’s going to happen. To have processes like that in place and plans in place last February to deal with this, it wasn’t possible.

As much as, yeah, we’d like to see it here yesterday or tomorrow, I think the reality is we’re going to get back on stream as best as we can, using our intestinal fortitude. Anything the government can do for us moving forward to help our community come back to normal would be well taken.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. We’re out of time now, but thanks for your service to the community and the chamber and for everything you do. You’ll hear everyone here, I’m sure…. Everyone in the Legislature speaks often about this crisis. You have everyone’s attention, everyone’s ear and everyone’s compassion. Thank you for your presentation, and thanks for everything you’re doing.

We stand adjourned. Unless there are any individuals?

Thank you very much.

The committee adjourned at 10:45 a.m.