The committee met at 4:01 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Bob D’Eith. I’m the MLA for Maple Ridge–Mission and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

We are very pleased to be here in Smithers on a beautiful sunny day and would like to begin by recognizing that our meeting is taking place on the traditional territory of the Wet’suwet’en peoples.

On behalf of the committee, I would also like to acknowledge everyone impacted by the wildfires this year. We’d like to thank the first responders, volunteers and the many others who supported evacuees and the response.

We’re a committee of the Legislative Assembly, and our members include MLAs from all three parties in the Legislature. Every fall, we visit communities across the province to meet with British Columbians and hear their priorities and ideas for the next provincial budget. This consultation is based on the budget consultation paper that was recently released by the Minister of Finance. There are copies of this paper available today if you’d like to refer to it.

In addition to these in-person meetings, British Columbians can also provide their thoughts in writing or fill out the on-line survey. The deadline for input is 5 p.m. on Monday, October 15, 2018. More information is available on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/finance. We carefully consider all the input we receive and use it to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be prioritized in the next provincial budget. Our report will be available on November 15, 2018.

To those who are here today, thank you for taking the time to participate. We have received valuable information so far, and we really look forward to hearing what you have to say today. As far as the format of the meeting, we have a number of registered speakers today, and each will be given five minutes to speak, followed by five minutes of questions from the committee. There’s also a first-come, first-served open-mike period near the end of the meeting with five minutes allotted to each speaker. If you would like to speak, please speak to Stephanie at the information table.

Today’s meeting is being recorded and transcribed, and all audio from our meetings is broadcast live via our website. A complete transcript will also be posted.

Now I’d like to ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves. First is our Deputy Chair and former Chair, Dan Ashton.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Dan Ashton. I’m representing Penticton to Peachland in the Okanagan.

S. Cadieux: I’m Stephanie Cadieux, Surrey South.

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

S. Furstenau: Sonia Furstenau, Cowichan Valley.

M. Dean: Mitzi Dean, Esquimalt-Metchosin.

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

N. Simons: Nicholas Simons, Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

[4:05 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Also assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office, who work extremely hard to make sure that we’re here and that everything is running smoothly. So thank you. We also have Michael Baer and Steve Weisgerber from Hansard Services, and they’re recording the proceedings.

First up, I would like to call the Burns Lake Public Library board of trustees — Hilda Earl. If you’d like to come on up, that would be great.

Hi, Hilda. How are you?

H. Earl: Hello. I’m fine.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s beautiful to be here. This is a great location.

H. Earl: Welcome to Smithers. We turned on the sun for you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): The mountains and the sunshine. It’s fantastic.

The table is yours.

Budget Consultation Presentations

BURNS LAKE PUBLIC LIBRARY
BOARD OF TRUSTEES

H. Earl: It’s my privilege today to address this committee on behalf of the Burns Lake Public Library and, more generally, libraries throughout B.C. Many of us are struggling with funding shortfalls.

I’d like to start with a little bit of background on our library. The Burns Lake Public Library started in someone’s kitchen in 1944. By the end of the war, it had grown into the Burns Lake Public Library Association and moved into a local business with the business owner as the librarian and 150 books donated on loan from the Prince George Public Library.

The budget in 1946, the first year of incorporation as a society, was about $105. It started as an important commu­nity resource. It grew out of a need for services that became ever more important in our changing, uncertain world.

Since those early days, our library has evolved into a community hub, still growing today and increasingly struggling to make ends meet.

I didn’t come today to ask for handouts or to make demands, nor do I criticize the libraries branch, the Ministry of Education or the B.C. government. We appreciate all that we do receive in funding from the ministry and in the support from the libraries branch director, Mari Martin, and her staff. In fact, all of our funding agencies, including in the regional district of Bulkley-Nechako and the village of Burns Lake, have been as generous in their funding support as their budgets allow them to be. They provide support in other ways as well.

I’m here to show why funding for our library, and libraries throughout northern B.C., should be reinstated to 2009 levels, with subsequent annual increases for inflation, as called for in the recent resolution passed at the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference just concluded in Whistler.

The effects of chronic underfunding are many. Staff salaries and benefits is one such impact. Libraries compete with everyone else for the best talent. The unique character of libraries as providers of a wide variety of services demands that we attract employees with a high level of interpersonal skills, good judgment and an ability to deal with the stresses incurred in a fast-paced environment where anything can happen.

It is difficult to make $15 an hour attractive to an individual with $20-an-hour qualifications — even more difficult knowing that it won’t be much better going forward. Once we hire people and incur the expense of training them, it would be easier to keep them if we could offer a reasonable salary and benefits package.

Staff training is another area impacted. In today’s world, changes in legislation around workplace safety and other requirements, changes in library operations and so much new programming with the need to provide more technical support for our patrons as Internet use increases, and so much more, require that library technicians today need to continuously upgrade training.

[4:10 p.m.]

The cost of courses themselves and the requirement to travel to other communities most often because of our remote location makes it very expensive to help our staff keep up with the demands of their jobs.

Aging equipment is also a serious impact for us. Our library has recently acquired high-speed Internet. Like the weakest link that defines the strength of a chain, the slowest piece of equipment in a computer system defines the speed of the whole. Until we upgrade our aging and failing computer hardware, we and our patrons will not be able to fully benefit from all that the service upgrade can provide.

If we could provide our patrons with e-readers, for instance…. We could fund the purchase of several of those devices by reducing the number of books we buy every year, but such an initiative can only be successful if our hardware can support the download speed necessary to get the benefit from e-readers. If we introduce that service and the e-readers are impossibly slow because of our aging equipment, it will discourage people from even trying it again when we fix the problem.

The inherent stress of living on grant funding. While we have basic funding for the most basic services to our patrons, many of the programs we provide have to be funded with temporary grants, recently including even a grant for a staff salary to provide tech support to our patrons.

It takes time to find those grants, to submit an application and, after delivering the program, to report on the results. Aside from the time and expertise it takes to provide programming this way, it is difficult to identify and target specific needs unique to our community on grants designed to service common needs throughout the region or the whole province.

For instance, there are six First Nations bands in our community, each of which may benefit from different types of programs. With a better funding model, we could reach out to those six different nations and perhaps provide something specific to their needs.

The increasing range of demands is ever expanding, even as funding levels effectively decrease with each rise in the cost of living. Demands for services have increased as all levels of government provide more services on line. Northern and rural residents are more likely to need help to access on-line services. They won’t have Internet service at home, often, and this responsibility has fallen, to a great extent, to libraries. Our staff help patrons with everything from filing tax returns to setting up a Facebook account so they can keep in touch with the grandchildren.

What we are doing to develop more collaboration and partnerships. Our library has always had a collaborative relationship with businesses and other service organizations in our community and our area. We partner with literacy outreach to provide library services to the community of Southside, about 45 kilometers from Burns Lake, and we’ve pro­vided extra service to residents of those communities on the south side who were evacuated during the recent wildfires.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hilda, we’re at about eight minutes, so we don’t have a lot of time left. We want to be able to ask a few questions.

H. Earl: I’m so sorry.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, it’s okay. Don’t rush. I just wanted to make sure we get some time for questions.

H. Earl: Okay. In recognition that only about 24 percent of residents in our service area use the library, we will be launching, on October 10, a public consultation process to help us identify groups and demographics that are underserved by our current programs and services.

[4:15 p.m.]

Recommendations. We recommend returning to the fund­ing level of 2009 to provide a sustainable level of funding, which more closely reflects the important place libraries have in our communities. With a return to the 2009 level, we would be better able to plan ahead five years to reach our potential to provide services and to keep up with advances in technology.

We recommend reinstating library funding as a separate line item in the budget. As part of the overall education bud­get, library funding is one of many shifting priorities. As a stand-alone item, it would be considered on its own around set parameters. To ensure ongoing sustainability for libraries and fully support their increasing importance to small rural communities, provide annual increases in funding to offset inflation.

In summary, I just want to thank the committee for this opportunity to present our views today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you so much, Hilda. We appreciate it.

I come from Maple Ridge and Mission, and I know how important our libraries are to our community. I think of all the meetings that we have there and of how every time I go in there, there are so many community activities going on. So libraries aren’t just about taking out books.

H. Earl: No, they’re not, not anymore.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s really that they’ve evolved.

I’m curious to hear what you feel, because you touched on the impact of digital on libraries and the impact it’s having. How are you feeling in Burns Lake, for example? Are you feeling there’s a transition? Are people wanting more digital product? I’m just curious.

H. Earl: They would be, I think, if our hardware was keeping pace. Our hardware is old, and it’s more and more difficult to keep it going. With the recent upgrade to high-speed Internet, we’re only just on the crest of the wave of changing to more use of technologies. It’s going to impact us, in that few of our staff are fully capable of providing technical support for our patrons.

N. Simons: I want to thank you for your impassioned sup­port of libraries and their importance to our communi­ties. I couldn’t agree more. Just to let you know that when you talk about the need for ongoing funding as opposed to this grant funding, because you need the person to write the grant, all of the coordination…. You’re not singing a solo there. There’s a choir of voices calling for longer-term funding.

H. Earl: That’s good to know.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We often hear, “Multi-year funding, multi-year funding,” and it’s not just libraries. It’s many different groups. I know. I worked in non-profits, and as an executive director, you spend all of your time writing grants. You’re not doing your job.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Mr. Chair, real quick.

Thank you for coming. Great presentation. Did you come over from Burns Lake today?

H. Earl: I did.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): How long does it take you to drive here from Burns Lake?

H. Earl: It took me just two hours.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Oh, wow.

H. Earl: Yeah, so not bad. Roads were good. Traffic was light.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Okay. Drive carefully going home.

H. Earl: Yes. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you so much, Hilda. Thanks for the presentation. I really appreciate you coming up.

Next up we have Northern Confluence Initiative — Nikki Skuce.

N. Skuce: Welcome, all of you, to Smithers. It’s pretty foggy and cold until midday today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Actually, we’ve been really lucky. We were in Dawson Creek. The fog came in after we left. Then when we went to Prince George, the fog came in after we left. Then when we were here, the fog was here, and it lifted so we could arrive. We’ve been very lucky.

Anyway, Nikki, please.

NORTHERN CONFLUENCE INITIATIVE

N. Skuce: Thank you for the opportunity to speak with all of you today. I’m a director of Northern Confluence, which is an initiative here out of Smithers. We focus on land use decisions in northern British Columbia. Our overarching goal is to increase the conservation and protection of wild salmon watersheds.

I’m just going to touch base on two things that I think are really important. One is in terms of increasing funding to land use planning. The other piece is more around addressing the financial assurances issue for mining.

I think 25 years ago strategic land use planning processes began that covered most of British Columbia. The goal is to implement comprehensive land and water use plans. It used a consensus-based model.

[4:20 p.m.]

With planning tables composed of a diverse mix of inter­est groups, consensus on land use recommendations was reached in only 60 percent of the province. In a number of others, there were objectives that were hard to be legally binding. That included things like “be nice to moose.”

Several areas of the province did not undergo land use planning, such as in the upper Nass, Upper Skeena and one further north, as well as Merritt and the Sunshine Coast. Others engaged First Nations as stakeholders and failed to recognize their rights and title.

In several plans, many issues weren’t considered when identifying management objectives or conservation areas, including climate change or mountain pine beetle infestations. Legal requirements and objectives from land use plans were also exempt to some industries, such as mining and LNG, some because of our archaic B.C. laws and others because we weren’t even thinking about that industry coming through.

Planning was also supposed to be an iterative process — which, hopefully, it will be again — involving periodic review every eight years. That’s an area that sort of dropped off. I don’t think any plans have received a full review. Some First Nations led land use planning with the province since then, establishing government-to-government agreements, such as with the Taku River Tlingit, the Gitanyow or the Coastal First Nations.

As most of you know, the new B.C. government has mandated the minister of FLNRORD to work with the Minister of Indigenous Relations, First Nations and communities to modernize land use planning and sustainably manage B.C.’s ecosystems, rivers, lakes, watersheds, forests and old growth, which is a pretty big endeavour. In line with my MLA’s mandate, there was a small budget that was allocated last year, but in our opinion, it was pretty insufficient. It was less than what one region got in the LRMP process back in the ’90s and early 2000s.

We think that with the devastation that has happened with the wildfires, there have been — I don’t know if it’s new funding — some allocations in terms of wildfire management. There’s what I see as a bit of concern that some of those initiatives might go too far if it’s not couched, also, within this modernizing of land use planning processes. We heard someone with the idea that we should just clearcut the whole mountain there that’s in your beautiful view. I think some of these ideas are not really based on science and sort of ineffective and need to bring in other values.

We hope to see more funds toward this land use planning commitment. I think it helps achieve a whole bunch of goals, whether it’s wildfire management, climate change adaptation. We’re revising the EAs, the regional environmental assessments, as well, and it’s another step towards reconciliation. I think these also do help provide better investment certainty about knowing which lands are a priority for more conservation and which are more open for development.

My second recommendation is more, as I mentioned, a sort of cost gap measure that’s needed. The financial assurances framework for posting financial security to ensure that the public will not pay for mining reclamation is what the Auditor General called “woefully inadequate.” At the time of her report in 2016, it was highlighted that B.C. has a $1.3 billion liability gap.

Given the inadequate regime and historical lack of bond requirements, B.C. also has a legacy of contaminated sites for which no responsible party can be found. There are also examples of….

The Tulsequah Chief mine, for example, has been leaking acid rock drainage into the Taku River for over 60 years. It’s partially why Alaskans don’t trust mining development or B.C.’s rules and regulations. The last company that owned the mine went into bankruptcy over two years ago, and the liability sits in limbo land. Given the inadequate reclamation bond and the likelihood that we would need water treatment there in perpetuity, I can understand that the government is reluctant to take on the financial costs, but we need to get a system where the polluter actually pays.

Imperial Metals, responsible for Mount Polley and two other mines in this region — the Red Chris up on Tahltan territory and the Huckleberry mine south of Houston — has not paid its full reclamation bond estimates, and its stock is currently sitting at under $1, putting it on the verge of bankruptcy. We really need to change the rules so that the polluter actually pays and the public stops subsidizing the mining industry for environmental harms.

[4:25 p.m.]

I think the other thing about a strong financial assurance regime is that it also creates incentives for mining companies to adopt the best available technology and practices. They think about the end-of-life cycle of the mine. Really, without a strong financial assurance system, it’s British Columbians and the environment and First Nations that continue to bear the risks and the costs. It’s an item that needs to get out of the red and into the black in the B.C. budget.

I would also love to see a new mining fee or a tax that’s imposed and that goes towards a fund that would help be there if and when a mining disaster happens. To help the folks from Mount Polley — the communities have gotten nothing in compensation. So help for community compensation. I know that’s something that this government is looking at in terms of oil spills. But also in the case of bankruptcies…. These things were kind of done after Lac-Mégantic happened, with the rail disaster. Exxon Valdez — there were rules and remedies that were changed to create these kinds of industry funds. I think that would be some­thing that British Columbia should look at in terms of the mining sector.

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

S. Furstenau: I had some round tables this summer on professional reliance. The land use planning, particularly around forestry, came up over and over again — that this is something that needs to be reinstated and needs to be a priority. So it’s reinforcing what I’ve heard.

The bond issue is, I think, very significant. The liability that you’re talking about is ultimately falling down to communities and down to governments, and these messes are being left behind. Yeah, these are excellent recommendations. I thank you for bringing them forward.

P. Milobar: Thanks for the presentation. Can I just get a sense…? When I was trying to do some research on groups presenting, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot on line about the size of your organization. Could you maybe provide a little more depth on the size of your initiative or membership base?

N. Skuce: Sure. Pretty small. No, not membership-based. It’s a pretty small initiative, based here. I work in collaboration a lot with other organizations — more, in that respect, with the First Nations Women Advocating Responsible Mining or directly with First Nations and with some other organizations in the north here, like SkeenaWild and that sort of thing.

I just recently did become registered as a project of Tides Canada, so I am now under that bigger umbrella.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Nikki. We really appreciate your presentation.

Next up we have the village of Telkwa. That’s Mayor Darcy Repen.

VILLAGE OF TELKWA

D. Repen: Thank you for meeting with me today. I’d just like to start off by acknowledging that we are on the traditional territory of the Gitdumden clan, which encompasses Telkwa as well.

It’s important, again, that we recognize that we are a unified community here in the Bulkley Valley. However, Telkwa is a chronically underfunded municipality. As a bedroom community, 92 percent of our property taxation comes from residents. We don’t have a commercial or industrial tax base. However, I want to point out that the people from Telkwa work, we shop, we own businesses, and we recreate in the surrounding communities. We’re actually above-average contributors to the provincial and regional economies.

Our residents really do deserve to have a fair and appropriate municipal funding program for the community that they call home. Unfortunately, we currently do not. Telkwa is not a dying community at all. In fact, we’ve steadily grown. In recent years, we’ve outpaced other municipalities in our region in terms of building permits and their value per capita. I would argue that communities like Telkwa are, in fact, the future of British Columbia.

You’ll see in the package that we have three recommendations that we’ve brought before you today.

[4:30 p.m.]

The first one is regarding the operational funding uplift. Really what we’re talking about is that every municipality should have a baseline level of funding available to them to be able to support their core infrastructure and services. That currently doesn’t exist. There are communities such as ours, because of that funding mechanism, that are truly falling through the cracks, and we are simply not able to operate on the level that anybody would expect of a municipality in British Columbia.

We’re seeing new stresses, as well, in terms of downloading new reporting requirements for grant funding. The housing inventory is going to be coming into play. All these have a really huge impact on a community that has an administrative staff of three. We need to make sure that we’re funding to a level that we can actually have the staffing that we need to do this work.

You’ll see included in your package that there are two letters — one that we had written to Minister Robinson and the reply from her office. First of all, I just want to point out that in her reply, the financial information included is, in fact, incorrect and quite misleading. Specifically, one item that really skews it is $700,000 in development cost charges which are, of course, included in the assets but are not included in the deficits.

What we’ve included, which we believe is absolutely more reflective of our current situation, is a summary of our reserve accounts, which includes the levels that we should be at. You’ll note that in every single one of those reserve accounts, we are chronically underfunded.

Also, there’s a reference to municipalities being autonomous bodies. I’d just point out that if you take a look at Ontario right now, it’s fairly clear that that’s not true. We’re creatures of the province, and in many ways, we depend on you both for funding as well as the ways that we can fund ourselves.

We’ve recommended a solution in our letter, and our hope is that we’ll see a response from the provincial government that actually engages with us. Unfortunately, the response seems to actually deny that there is a problem at all. I can say very clearly that there is a problem, and we need the province to work with us. If they don’t like the solution that we have offered, we are willing to sit down and work on a solution that will work. That’s what we’re asking at this point. But to deny that there is a problem is really a disservice to my residents, for sure.

The second issue that we brought forward is a proactive capital grant infrastructure funding mechanism for chronically underfunded communities such as Telkwa. I’d just point out that in Telkwa, $10,000 is a 1 percent property tax increase. So just think about that. When we’re trying to move forward with core infrastructure projects, we can’t afford to even do the preliminary work. We can’t do the design or the engineering, never mind being able to actually contribute to the construction itself.

Unfortunately, the current grant streams that are available assume that every community is equal at the time of the grant intake. Those applications, again, are based on merit. Unfortunately, it’s just not true that we’re on a level playing field. A community like Telkwa simply doesn’t have the staffing or the financial resources to get us to the same level as a community that actually has a significant staffing advantage and the resources to do the engineering or the design of these projects.

I think one of the push-backs from the province is a real concern of dividing communities. I think I can put that concern to rest. We brought forward resolution B110 — which is, again, included in your package — which calls for the implementation of such a grant funding stream. I’m pleased to say that the delegates at the convention endorsed that resolution resoundingly. They understand that there is a significant discrepancy and an unfairness in the current funding mechanism.

I would, again, just point out that the growth of rural B.C. is absolutely critical in addressing the province’s affordability crisis and affordable housing crisis. You’re going to get your best bang for your buck in rural B.C., in many cases, compared to trying to do more and cramming more and more and redeveloping areas of the urban parts of the province.

Finally, the third issue that we brought forward is really a request that the province, again, sit down at the table with the Union of B.C. Municipalities and start working on implementing the recommendations from 2013’s Strong Fiscal Futures policy paper. There are some really great ideas in there that will benefit all municipalities. Again, it’s important that we can all sustain ourselves. I think B.C. is a really healthy province, but there’s a huge inequity, and all municipalities are really struggling.

[4:35 p.m.]

The tools available are really insufficient. They’re outdated. I grew up in Mackenzie, B.C., which was built wholesale by BCFP in the 1960s. Nowadays, with our economy, those communities aren’t built anymore. It’s much more dependent on fly-in, fly-out economies.

The burden of those residents falls on communities like Telkwa, but we have no additional resources to deal with that. Again, the economy is changing. We’re pursuing the tech sector. We’re pursuing consultants, people that can work from home. We have an awesome quality of life in Telkwa. People love it.

The challenge is that to attract those, obviously we have to have some sort of a baseline level of services and infrastructure. Unfortunately, when those people come into a community, they don’t significantly contribute to an increase in our property tax base because, again, they are work-from-home businesses. We’re not talking about industrial properties or industrial development or retail or commercial spaces.

That has to be taken into account in the modernization of B.C.’s economy. It’s shifting. We’re not a bunch of communities in rural B.C. that just have mills and mines anymore. We can do anything. I truly believe that, and you’re going to see that in the coming years.

Another issue in that paper that’s addressed is revenue-sharing. That has been proven to be extremely successful in the province in the areas that have benefited from agreements — the Peace River area as well as the Columbia Basin Trust.

We’re advocating for an agreement for our region, called the Northwest Resource Benefits Alliance. It fits absolutely perfectly with the precedent that’s been set. We encourage the Finance Committee to ensure that that’s a line item in this year’s budget and that we get an agreement signed so that our communities can move forward.

Again, we just need to make sure that we have adequate investment in rural B.C. and that we have appropriate revenue tools for local governments to be able to support their communities.

Just as a closing note, I’d like to point out that in B.C., as a province, we have always stepped out of our way and really stood up to help individuals that are in need, people that are struggling with housing crises or income supplements, medical subsidies.

For some reason, the province has always ignored the fact that you’re dealing with exactly the same thing with municipalities. If you look at the parallels, it’s uncanny in what the poor communities and the communities that have the large industrial tax bases are dealing with. I would encourage you, if you have a chance, to spend some time in Telkwa and then fly to Taylor, B.C., and see the difference between funding of communities that are similar sizes in similar situations as bedroom communities.

It’s not that we expect to have the exact same revenues as Taylor. They have a gas plant in the middle of their town, but they also have a resource revenue-sharing agreement that really skews that dial even further.

Again, I hope that you take those issues seriously and look at providing somewhat more of a level playing field and a leg up for communities such as Telkwa.

Thank you very much for meeting with me today, and I look forward to your questions and comments.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Your Worship. We appreciate your comments.

M. Dean: Thank you so much, Your Worship, for your presentation. Just a couple of quick questions to be able to put this in context. What’s the population of Telkwa?

D. Repen: By census, 1,323. We would argue that it’s somewhat higher. That would have been a loss of 27 people, but we think that we have more residents. We’ve also had a development standstill because of our lack of water infrastructure.

M. Dean: So there’s no water infrastructure.

D. Repen: We have one water tower, and we just recently got funding for a second. But we’ve had a moratorium on development for quite a long time because we haven’t had the storage capacity. We have developers champing at the bit to build in Telkwa right now.

M. Dean: When was Telkwa incorporated?

D. Repen: Wow, that is an excellent question. Before I got there. Telkwa is actually the original settlement in the valley. So historically, we go back over 100 years to Aldermere. However, incorporation date — I can’t give you an accurate answer on that.

S. Furstenau: You’ve raised a lot of really interesting points. As a former area director, I can really kind of commiserate with the struggles. I think that we are at a time where we do have to reassess a lot of the local governance structures.

A specific question. When you say, “Top up communities who remain below the baseline but are collecting taxes above the provincial average,” do you have any idea how many communities that would be?

[4:40 p.m.]

D. Repen: Yeah, I’ve done some research on it. Telkwa is at about $1,450 a year per resident. By comparison, in our region, the range is from $2,200 to over $6,000 in Kitimat.

When I looked across the province — and I know B.C. very well; I’ve worked all over — I was able to identify six communities that I believe are in that range of below $2,000 per capita, per year. However, some of those communities are also in the Columbia Basin Trust area — Fruitvale, Montrose, Warfield — so I would be curious. It looks like they’re very challenged. However, I suspect they get a pretty substantial leg up from that agreement.

Telkwa may actually be, potentially, one of one or two communities in B.C. that are actually in that range of 92 percent of property tax base being residential — that low of a revenue stream.

N. Simons: I’m just wondering. When you’re calculating the per capita, what number are you basing it on — census data or your estimation of the population?

D. Repen: I utilize the 2011 census data for population. Then I go into the five-year financial plans of communities, and I eliminate major capital infrastructure grants that they receive and try and establish a baseline of what they, year over year, are generating in terms of the reliable grants, the small communities fund and their basic funding levels.

Obviously, when you look at those, it can be skewed by these large grant intakes, but I’m concerned with operational funding. Obviously, the second point is to deal with infrastructure grants, but the first one is ensuring that a community like ours can actually operate and maintain the infrastructure. Again, with this asset management program, it’s great. But if we don’t have the revenues coming in to do the work that needs to be done, it actually exacerbates the problem.

N. Simons: Just for my benefit, is this a new problem? Is this something that’s come with…? It sounds like it’s an emerging problem, whereas I can’t imagine what’s changed in the past ten years.

D. Repen: I would say that it’s not a new problem. I would say that we are new advocates for it. I think that we’re the first community that’s actually sat down and done the math and done the comparisons and really identified how extreme the problem is, and how much of a huge discrepancy there is between municipalities and the province in their ability to fund their communities.

N. Simons: So a guaranteed basic income for communi­ties.

D. Repen: Yep.

B. D’Eith (Chair): A quick question for you. There are three quite, in a sense, significant asks. Is there one of those three that is the most pressing, the most important?

D. Repen: For us, I would say that that uplift is.

One response that I’d like to make to that “guaranteed basic income for communities” is: we’re not dealing with a bootstrap situation here. Communities can’t just say: “Hey, were going to pull up our bootstraps.”

We’re a neighbouring community ten minutes down the road from a hub that brings in those businesses. So our argument, again, is not, you know…. While it may sound like a guaranteed basic income for communities, we paid for it, right? Our residents have paid the taxes for many, many years, and we’ve been contributors to these neighbouring communities.

We are not asking for a handout. We’re saying, actually, “We want what’s owed to us,” because we have made those contributions for a very, very long time.

N. Simons: Just to be clear, I wasn’t saying it as a pejorative at all.

D. Repen: Okay. I just want to be clear, though, that it’s a bit different than when you talk about a guaranteed basic income for an individual.

N. Simons: No. You’re talking about what you basically need to operate as a community, and a guaranteed basic income is what you need to operate as an individual.

D. Repen: Fair comment.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, we’re out of time, but thank you, Your Worship. I really appreciate you coming and bringing attention to this matter in your community. Thank you very much.

D. Repen: Awesome. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Gary Naziel from the Witset band council.

WITSET BAND COUNCIL

G. Naziel: Good evening, everyone. My name is Gary Naziel. I’m from the Witset band council. My hereditary chief name is Maxlaxlex, which means Man Jumping Over. I’m a member of the C’inegh lhay yikh. That means a House of Many Eyes in the Small Frog clan.

I’m here on behalf of the Witset band to ask that…. All of these wildfires that are happening in B.C. have, I think, affected quite a few First Nations and towns.

[4:45 p.m.]

What we were asking for was to get a firebreak built around our little village. We have a Chevron store that we operate in the village. It has two big gas tanks. One is diesel; one is gas. That could be very dangerous if a fire caught within our village. We have, in the infrastructure, a sawmill. It’s a finger joint mill. That could go up in flames if our village ever caught on fire, and it employs 70-plus people. We have about 250 houses in the village.

Like I said, if we ever get a fire in the village, it’d be all gone. We don’t want the same thing to happen to us like what happened in Telegraph Creek. Quite a bit of infrastructure was set up.

I was sent here at the last minute by our elected chief. He put me on the spot.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): You did a good job.

R. Leonard: He knew who he was giving the job to.

G. Naziel: He didn’t even tell me what I was here for. He just sent me here to ask for it. That’s all we were asking for — to get a firebreak around our village for protection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Gary, do you have any idea, roughly, of what that would cost, or is that not ready yet?

G. Naziel: Oh, not really. But like I said, if we work together, then the cost could go down.

P. Milobar: You mentioned 250 houses and a gas station and that. Do you have an idea of how many kilometres of firebreak would be needed to surround or get a reasonable break for the terrain in your location?

G. Naziel: I figure the existing reserve is about 5 kilometres long, maybe about 25 kilometres in diameter. But we have some natural breaks. We have a lake beside the village, and we have the river on the one side. Those are natural breaks that we can use also.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So it’s one side of the village? It’s really the back.

G. Naziel: Yeah. There’s an existing river, the Bulkley River, and then the village is built around that. Then we have a lake that’s further up that could be a natural break too, by the CN tracks. The CN tracks run through our village.

M. Dean: What are the access roads like in and out of your community?

G. Naziel: The existing Highway 16 runs right through our village. As you’ve seen on the news, there were fires go­ing through major highways throughout B.C. That affected traffic then too.

M. Dean: Thank you so much for coming today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, really appreciate you making the last effort at the last minute. Please say hi to the Chief for us.

G. Naziel: That’s right, yeah, cutting into my hunting time. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): There we go. Well, thanks for bringing the weather. It’s beautiful. Thanks, Gary.

All right. Next if we could call John Fisher.

JOHN FISHER

J. Fisher: Thank you for taking me, listening to me at the last minute here. I just live across the road here, and I wanted to make sure I got over here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Were you wondering what was going on over there?

J. Fisher: Well, I knew what was going on. That’s why I’m here.

I’ve only lived in Smithers…. Well, been coming out for about 20 years, but my background is mainly Ontario until about three or four years ago. I was a councillor and a reeve mayor of a village in Ontario for over, collectively, about 15 years.

[4:50 p.m.]

I have Green Party connections. I ran for the Greens provincially three times and federally three times. I’m a career teacher of kindergarten to grade 13. Geography was my main subject area. All during that time, I got involved with what I’m calling the tax shift.

Now, the background of this tax shift…. I think the NDP in B.C…. The B.C. Greens won’t even talk to me. The NDP in B.C. have a background. I don’t know if any of you remember the name Robert Williams, MLA from the Lower Mainland. He was a proponent of what I’m going to talk about today. Also, Dave Barrett hired an assessment commissioner, Ted Gwartney, who was also a proponent of what I’m talking about today. So the NDP B.C. people have a fair amount of background in what I’m calling the tax shift.

Now, I heard the mayor of Telkwa earlier saying the property taxes are too high, and so forth and so on, but a lot of people don’t realize that the property tax is two taxes. There’s a tax on the building and so forth, and then there’s a tax on the land value. Now, the land is nature. Its value comes from everything everybody does. Sometimes it’s negative but mostly positive.

The building part comes from private initiative, creating jobs and doing all kinds of things that are, generally speaking, good for the community. But that’s where most of the tax lies in the property tax. About 70 percent of it hits the building and about 30 percent or so — B.C. is better than other provinces, by the way — comes from the land value, but it is the land value that comes from the community action — schools, roads, whatever, even zoning changes. If you change the zoning, you change land value. But is it collected? Only about 30 percent at the best.

In the meantime, we penalize the building, penalize jobs. We penalize the things that we want — competition in housing, for instance. Let’s build some more houses. This is a misnomer in the papers. You see “the housing problem” or “the housing this” and “the housing that.” You can always build more houses, but you’ve got to put them somewhere, and that becomes the problem — putting them.

Ted Gwartney, who I mentioned, a former assessment commissioner, is saying that about 75 percent of the property value, buildings and land, in Vancouver is land value. Now, I mean, that’s general. It’s going to vary from district to district and so forth. But there is the problem. It’s a land problem, not a house problem. You can always build more houses, but you can’t make any more land in that spot. That’s the only place in the world that that place is — locational value.

I guess, summing it up — I don’t know how much time I had here — I would recommend…. I have many, many letters to the NDP and Greens. As I said, no answer from Greens. The NDP, the Premier’s office said, “Well, not at this time,” and I haven’t really got a definitive answer from my local MLA here yet. I’m working on that.

I’m saying, and not just me — economists from Adam Smith to Joseph Stiglitz and others — tax shift. Get your taxes off the things you want, like a building and a house, and put it on the community value: namely, the land value, site value, location value.

You can do that gradually over a period of time, but you’ve got to have the incentive to do it. So I’m saying that in the budget, if it’s possible, put in a tax shift proposal. Let’s get it off the things we want and onto the things that are commu­nity-created.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Can I ask you a quick question? I am a bit confused by that because, for example, in Vancouver, you might have a rancher that’s on a piece of property that’s worth $1.5 million. It’s a knockdown, a teardown.

J. Fisher: If it was another zone, you mean?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, I mean just to tear down and then build. The problem is, of course, if you only tax the land — is that what you’re talking about? — but not the building….

J. Fisher: The land value, not just the land.

[4:55 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): The land value. The problem is if some­one builds a $1 million house on it and they’re not being taxed on that. Or did I miss what you’re saying? They’ll increase the assessed value because they’ve put a $1 million house on a $1 million property. Now it’s worth $2 million, in round terms. But if we only taxed the land, then that increase in value from building the house wouldn’t be taxed under your scenario.

J. Fisher: That’s correct.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Does that not sort of give an unfair advantage to people who can afford to build big houses? I’m just curious.

J. Fisher: Why are you subsidizing housing for the poor? I mean, every time when you build a house for the poor, you’re taxing the labour. Now, mind you, there are subsidies and write-offs and all this kind of stuff, which again adds to the burden of administration and so forth. But if you’re building a house for the poor, why are you taxing it? Why are you taxing the labour that’s going into it? The competition that would give to other housing….

B. D’Eith (Chair): On the flip side. No, I understand. So on that side, yeah….

J. Fisher: Now, on what you’re saying there, you’re bringing up a valid point there. And it would be true, but again, it depends on zoning. Zoning would enter into it. You talked originally about farmland. Well, there would have to be a switch there. It’s not a totally simple thing here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): A seismic shift is what you’re talking about, John, I think.

J. Fisher: Well, how many rich people versus the poor?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Right. I understand.

Does anyone else have any questions at all?

Well, thank you very much, John. Really appreciate it. Keep writing those letters. It’s always good to get involved, and we appreciate you coming in.

J. Fisher: We’ll see if we can get a definitive answer from Bob here too.

N. Simons: Bob Williams is a constituent of mine.

J. Fisher: I haven’t been in touch with him for awhile. He’s still living?

N. Simons: Yep.

J. Fisher: Okay, fine. Talk to him.

N. Simons: I will.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks for coming in, John. Really appreciate it. Thanks for giving us the nice weather too. We appreciate that too.

Okay. Next up we have Tourism Smithers — Gladys Atrill.

Hi, Gladys. How are you?

G. Atrill: Kind of coming in crazy late.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, actually, it worked out perfectly. The floor is yours.

TOURISM SMITHERS

G. Atrill: Thank you. I am here as a member of our tourism industry here and recognizing that we are related to the tourism sector sort of throughout our region and throughout the province. Just a couple of things that I wanted to add my voice to, from the tourism perspective.

One, probably not the first time you’ve heard it or will be hearing it, relates to MRDT and how MRDT is purposed. At Tourism Smithers, our board supports the notion of having MRDT focused for the tourism sector. It’s not that we don’t recognize the needs for housing. We feel them here too in the needs for people who are going to work in the tourism sector, but it’s not felt that that’s the appropriate use of MRDT. Since its inception, when it was hotel tax, it’s been focused on support for the tourism sector through the marketing programs, and it’s felt that it should stay there.

I’m aware that our industry organization, TIABC, has offered to work with the government to come up with alternate ways to look at the housing issue. We do recognize it as an issue, but again, just to reiterate, MRDT is not seen to be the right thing. That is supported by my board here.

Related to that, and it’s an old issue as well, is how to adequately fund the provincial DMO. Again, we’ll lend our voice to the call, the long call — I think we’re about nine years in now — for formula funding for Destination British Columbia. There’s more than one way that could be done. It could be through a dedicated budget, or it could be based on a formula of creating a broader hotel tax, which was the way it was funded in the past. At any rate, there is an ongoing need for adequate funding for that organization and something directly related to the success of the industry. That is the formula funding piece.

Going more into infrastructure. Even though we’re inland, we are very much in support of expanding the service options for B.C. ferries off the coast. We’re very linked to our community on the coast at Prince Rupert and the ongoing call for expanding the shoulder seasons — for adding more sailings in order to support the tourism sector.

[5:00 p.m.]

When the number of those sailings is reduced, it affects the success of people here as well. There are fewer people coming on the corridor. We hear that comment as well. So people can’t add, they can’t utilize the season that we’re landing in now, where it’s quite lovely. There’s no reason why we wouldn’t be able to support visitors, except that there is a crunch in what’s available on the coast in terms of the sailings that are available.

Having a service contract for B.C. Ferries would allow for the good use of the shoulder seasons and adding more sailings. And we know that when there is a vessel issue, as there was not that long ago, everything just gets really held up, and that speaks to residents as well, particularly those on Haida Gwaii.

A key piece of infrastructure for us all is always the highway, and here, from the tourism perspective, it’s not just Highway 16 but Highway 37, which is more and more a highly used industrial corridor. That’s okay, except one would hope, then, that some of that would spill off into having a really good road that people can rely on. It is our corridor to the route to Yukon and to Alaska, and if there is a perception that Highway 37 is not a safe road or is not a road that’s going to be comfortable to drive, again, that affects all the businesses on this corridor.

We’re part of those circle routes. One is the Alaska Highway, one is 16 and 37, and one is the marine highway going north. We’re very much in support of all of those being in good condition, but Highway 37 is certainly the primary corridor for us here. So ensuring that there is enough money to adequately maintain that road so that people feel safe using the road with the industrial traffic that’s there.

I think the last one that I’ll comment on is the resort municipality initiative, the RMI funding. I would definitely be in support of expanding that program. I think our community is interested in being able to pursue that. It’s not something that we can do now.

RMIs are able to use funds in a different way, as you’re aware, than just the MRDT, which I support being used for tourism promotion, but it would certainly be nice to be able to find a way to add to the tourism sector, and becoming a resort municipality would crack that nut for us. We would be able to pursue different things. And I think a community like Smithers…. While we identify as multi-industry, tourism is a key industry, and what we could do to support the infrastructure for that would be most welcome.

I think I’ll just hold there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, my goodness. That was exactly five minutes. That’s a first. Thank you very much, Gladys. Amazing.

Any questions?

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your very clear and concise presentation.

My question is around the MRDT. The question I’m asking when this is raised is: what is the situation with short-term rentals in Smithers? And what is the impact of tourism on your housing? That’s where I’m going with these questions.

G. Atrill: I think it’s a little less clear here than what I’ve gathered from some of my colleagues in other communities. I would suggest it’s seasonal. Right now we’re in, really, our highest season. We’re a destination for steelhead fishing, and it’s the hunting season. So when I do scans, I find that there are more places available now.

What the actual number is within the confines of the municipality of Smithers — I’m less clear on that. We’re a very blended community, rural to urban, and the river divides us, literally. Some houses on this side would fall within the municipality. On the other side, they don’t. I don’t have a hard number on that. I think there is a principle that we uphold and that my board upholds, that that one piece, we feel, ought to be pinpointed toward tourism.

While I can’t provide you that number, what number it is…. There are times when I scan and find 30, and there are times when I scan and find 70. Again, I wouldn’t say that’s all within the hard confines of the municipality, but if I go across the river, it’s a stone’s throw.

R. Leonard: You are aware, too, that the MRDT choice is a local choice, so every community that has different pressures has that opportunity, as opposed to it being an imposition.

G. Atrill: I do recognize that. I think, though, my perspective is that that’s something that will weaken over time.

[5:05 p.m.]

While we have the support of our current municipal government for maintaining MRDT for tourism purposes, over time, things change. People change; our memories change. I think having the tax very purpose-directed eliminates that kind of thing over time, where people feel, perhaps, less affinity to one sector over another, or greater pressure from one than another perhaps.

S. Furstenau: I just want to ask you about the shoulder season with the ferries. When is that? That’s spring and fall, essentially. Do you know, when there are ferries sailing, are they recouping their cost? Or are these ferries…? Not Tsawwassen.

G. Atrill: Exactly right. It’s a bit foggy for me as well. I guess I tend to land on the fact that with the coastline that we have, we do have to have adequate sailings. It blends with the resident need. If the ferries are full, they’re full, and that means nobody gets on, be you resident or be you visitor. So in the high season, the available tourist season, they’re full. And we also can’t then offer to people from around the world, to say: “We need spaces for residents, and we need spaces for visitors. So why don’t you shift your travel?” That’s not really an option.

Also, in the last few years, the sailing schedule has been a little bit fluid, which is not actually good for the tourism sector. If I were a resident and there was suddenly another sailing, well, I might be able to take advantage of that, even if it wasn’t ideal. But with tour operators who are booking and creating schedules multi-years in advance…. If there was a push, as there was, I think, this year — there were sailings added on both ends — that’s something that I, as a visitor, could take advantage of. But for a tour company, it’s long done. It’s done. It won’t be offered.

We need reasonable seasons and predictable seasons where I could say to someone: “Yes, you could book this in 2022. I’m promising you this will be available.” If we don’t have that kind of security to offer, it’s not really an offer.

S. Furstenau: I’ve taken the ferry. It’s beautiful, and I highly recommend it. I also think that given the conditions in most of B.C. in August currently, September and October would be increasingly desirable for tourists to be coming. There is that challenge of what’s happening every August, and I can see the case for it there as well.

G. Atrill: Yeah. I think we would definitely appreciate just additional sailings in the place where they can come. We can push our seasons, which then assists all the operators on the way. There’s room in hotels. In our community, we work with our neighbours, so we are keenly aware that what is affecting Rupert affects Terrace, Smithers, and so on, to Prince George.

Those ferry routes are all of our routes. People come. They land. They go somewhere. We’re working together to try to ensure that people have a good experience and to ensure that the businesses have access to the visitors.

S. Furstenau: I have your tourist motto: “The black flies have gone. It’s time for you to come.” [Laughter.]

G. Atrill: There we go.

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

G. Atrill: Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We appreciate your very excellent….

Interjection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s right. You can go home and relax.

We’re just going to recess for five minutes, and then we’ll come back because we have a teleconference.

The committee recessed from 5:08 p.m. to 5:16 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services we have Capilano University School of Communication, via teleconference — Dr. Michael Markwick.

CAPILANO UNIVERSITY,
SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

M. Markwick: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

It’s our fiftieth anniversary this year. So a shout-out to everyone and your networks, to the Legislature: come to campus on September 22 for our street party.

The substance of what I would like to submit to you is about allowing British Columbians to fully participate in the life of our province, to build up civic society in British Columbia, to make British Columbia truly inclusive and multicultural.

I want to thank you for your response to my submission to you last year and embracing the troubling reality of systemic human trafficking in British Columbia. My argument today is that we need to do more in that to make life more affordable for British Columbians. We need to make B.C. more democratic and free. Specifically in the areas of health, housing, education and, as comes up from my class — I’m with my class right now at Cap — multiculturalism. We must see the restoration of Multiculturalism B.C.

Very quickly, what I would ask you to carry forward is that we need to have action to end systemic human trafficking in British Columbia, specifically in the areas of providing exiting services, counselling services, physical and mental health services for people who have been involved in prostitution. As far as I understand, the services available in our province are not what they need to be. These need to be intensive, and in essence, lifelong because of the violence that is suffered by people who have been in prostitution or are exiting from prostitution.

I’d also like to encourage you, based on my work with the Hogan’s Alley land trust and discussions with institutions like Vancity, that we need to see meaningful reform to real estate in Vancouver, specifically to have a B.C. land trust act which will allow communities to take leadership in collaborating with locals and senior government, financial institutions and businesses in the creation of perpetually affordable non-market housing. My friends at Hogan’s Alley land trust are having a very difficult time doing this through the Societies Act. We need to have law reform to make land trust a reality in this province.

My final recommendation to you is concerning universities. A university is a university is a university. We need to see the University Act amended to safeguard academic freedom, recognizing the foundational role academic freedom plays and the university plays in creating innovation by building a free and democratic society. Given what we’re seeing happening throughout the world, and disturbingly, in Ontario, we can’t take for granted the fact that our democracy will be protected unless we have a thriving civil society and robust and free universities.

I encourage the University Act to protect that explicitly. I ask you to give all universities the same standard of rigorous, bicameral governance. Special purpose teaching universities under the act right now have a weaker construction of senates. Cap has a weaker construction of senate than SFU does. That needs to be corrected, because we are, all of us, accountable to British Columbians for the work that we do in our universities.

[5:20 p.m.]

Finally, on the university file, return all surpluses to universities, allowing them to decide and be accountable for using the funds — their funds, their surpluses — to advance their mission and serve their communities.

Multiculturalism — restore it. End systemic human trafficking. Back land trusts, specifically through law reform.

And a university is a university is a university, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you very much. [Laughter.]

I love you people.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s great. Thank you, Dr. Markwick. We really appreciate that. Sonia Furstenau has a question for you.

S. Furstenau: No, just a comment.

Hi, Michael. You are our first presenter who has brought his own cheering crowds, so I’m pleased. A shout-out to all your students there, who are right now learning about democracy.

I was actually thinking about this today, when I was walking around. When I was in university, I never knew that there was a committee of MLAs going around and listening to citizens. It’s great that your students are learning that right now and knowing that next year they can sign up and present to this committee themselves.

M. Markwick: Indeed. I’ve made that clear to them. They’re all on the hook.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Nicholas Simons would like to ask a question.

N. Simons: I would add to Sonia’s comment and point out that they could actually submit their input for this consultation period until October 15, I believe. So it’s not too late.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s right. There you go. A challenge to your students. You can still put in a submission.

M. Markwick: I’m putting it up on the whiteboard right now.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good.

Mitzi Dean would like to ask a question.

M. Dean: Hi, everybody. Thanks for being so engaged in the process.

Given your prioritization of addressing trafficking — and, therefore, wanting to broaden that out into preventing sexual harassment and moving forward with a more democratic and safer society — I’m interested in how you’ve experienced the new campaign for the early start of coming back to university this year that our Minister of Advanced Education made sure was given priority.

We had the new campaign with all the posters on campuses, reinforcing policies around prevention of sexual abuse on campus. I’d be really interested in hearing how that was experienced.

M. Markwick: I have two observations. The first is that since Minister Mark restored free adult basic education, the numbers at Capilano University are through the roof. So thank you very much for that. That is a life-changing policy change.

I have to say, though, in all candour — and my students will call me out on this, because they always do — that yes, Capilano University, through the work of our friend, Andrew Weaver, did bring in a private member’s bill to require universities to have sexual harassment policies. But we are not seeing, at least at our university, the resources necessary to make certain that people who have suffered sexual harassment on campus or in their workplaces or elsewhere off campus have the support that they need.

That is something that I think should be looked at very carefully. It’s one thing to change the law. It’s quite another to provide the resources necessary so that no one is left at a loss if they suffer this form of abuse.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Dr. Markwick and your class, for participating this year. We thank you very much for your comments and your thoughts. Until next time.

M. Markwick: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much, everybody.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’d like to have a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:24 p.m.