The committee met at 1 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. Welcome.

Firstly, before I started, I just wanted to welcome the class of Ms. Hill. The Ballenas Secondary class is here observing. We appreciate you being here. Thank you very much for coming.

We’re the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Over the next three weeks, we’ll be visiting fourteen communities across British Columbia. We’ve already gone to Dawson Creek, Prince George and Smithers, and we were very pleased to go to Masset in Haida Gwaii yesterday.

Of course, today we’re here in Campbell River. We’d like to recognize that our meeting is taking place on the traditional territory of the Liqwiltokw people and, specifically, the Wei Wai Kum people. We’d like to recognize that we’re on those territories. Thank you so much for having us here.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to acknowledge everyone impacted by wildfires across British Columbia and extend our gratitude and appreciation for everyone who came together to deal with that crisis once again this summer.

We are a committee of the Legislative Assembly, and our membership includes MLAs from all three parties in the Legislature. Every fall we visit communities from across the province to meet with British Columbians and hear about their priorities and ideas for the next provincial budget. The consultation is based on the budget consultation paper that was recently presented to us by the Minister of Finance. There are copies of this paper available to you today, if you would like to refer to those.

In addition to these in-person meetings, British Columbians can also provide their thoughts in writing or fill out an on-line survey. The deadline for this 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 of the input we receive and use it to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be prioritized in the next budget. Our report will be available on November 15, 2018.

We want to thank everyone here for taking the time to participate. I know I speak for all the committee members when I say how much we appreciate getting to hear directly from British Columbians on all the issues affecting them. I also want to take a quick moment to thank the committee members who have been flying all over British Columbia — sometimes two cities in one day. I appreciate all the efforts they’re putting in as well.

As far as the format of the meetings, we have a number of registered speakers today, and each will have five minutes to speak, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee. There’s also a first-come, first-served open-mike period near the end of the meeting — but we ask people to register now, if they can — with five minutes allotted to each speaker, if there’s time. If you’d like to speak, please talk to Stephanie at the information table.

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

Now I’d like to allow the members of the committee to introduce themselves. We’ll start with the Deputy Chair, Dan Ashton.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Mr. Chair.

My name is Dan Ashton, and I represent the area of Penticton to Peachland. Good afternoon, and thank you for coming.

S. Cadieux: Hi, I’m Stephanie Cadieux. I’m the MLA for Surrey South.

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

S. Furstenau: Sonia Furstenau, MLA for Cowichan Valley. I’m a high school teacher, so I’m really delighted to see all the students here today. Thanks for coming.

M. Dean: Hi, I’m Mitzi Dean. I represent Esquimalt-Metchosin.

R. Leonard: I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the representative for Courtenay-Comox.

N. Simons: I’m Nicholas Simons. I represent Powell River–​Sunshine Coast.

[1:05 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril, who sits to my left, and Stephanie Raymond, who’s over there. They are from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and they do an enormous amount of work to make this happen. We thank them profusely for all of their efforts. We also have Michael Baer and Steve Weisgerber, our rock stars from Hansard Services, who are also here, to record the proceedings.

First, I would like to invite the Federation of Community Social Services of British Columbia — Richard FitzZaland.

Hello, Richard. Welcome.

Budget Consultation Presentations

FEDERATION OF COMMUNITY
SOCIAL SERVICES OF B.C.

R. FitzZaland: Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members. It’s good to be here. I’m honoured to be here today on the traditional ancestral and unceded land of the Wei Wai Kai people. I appreciate this opportunity to present to you.

My organization, the Federation of Community Social Services of B.C., represents a group of over 130 community-based social service organizations serving over 250 commu­nities across B.C., both on and off recognized First Nations territories. Our members span the entire province and offer a broad range of services to families, to people living with physical and mental challenges, to vulnerable children, youth and seniors, to new immigrants, to people living with addictions and mental health issues, to those living in poverty, and more.

I’d like to begin today by acknowledging some positive steps that the new government has already made to improve the lives of people in our communities. The commitments to poverty reduction, Indigenous language revitalization and child care are long overdue and give us hope for the future.

I would also like to recognize the recent collective agreement for the social care sector to begin to address the stagnant wages and decades of austerity our sector has faced. Thank you for understanding that the well-being of our province is tied to the well-being of all its people.

That said, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done. The current government has set some ambitious but worthy goals. There’ve been promises made about improving services, reducing inequity and supporting families, and there was an understanding that things like poverty reduction, universal child care, housing affordability and child welfare are complex and systemic issues that have been made worse because they were ignored for far too long.

That’s why I’m here to urge you to continue making social services a funding priority in B.C. With that in mind, I would like to draw your attention to the state of community social services in B.C. As you consider the next phase of goals and objectives for the government — goals like improving services for people, making life more affordable and building a strong, sustainable economy — we’d like you to think carefully about the role that community social services will play in achieving these goals.

Many of the services that the provincial government provides to the people of B.C. are actually done through contracts and social service organizations. These include services and supports for families, for young people involved in the child protection system, for people with disabilities, for those trying to find jobs, for newcomers to B.C. and for older adults.

I’m doing some quick editing here, because it’s five minutes. I think it’s a 15-minute presentation, so I’m going to skip it, but you have it in writing. I’m going to go to some of the key things here.

For many years, the federation has presented to this committee and made clear the need for increased investment in social services. Our concern and outrage about the fact that social services in B.C. continue to be vastly underfunded are a matter of public record. It is our assessment, after years and years of tracking provincial budgets, that the prosperity of this province was built on the backs of vulnerable children and people with disabilities.

[1:10 p.m.]

That’s why I sincerely hope you continue leading in this new direction. To help do so, I’m going to speak to a few of the biggest issues we’re facing: sustainability, recruitment and retention, and service delivery.

In February, we hosted a social policy forum in Victoria. We invited government. We invited union members. Everybody that had anything to do with the sustainability of the social services sector. We had people from the academic community, etc. We brought them all together, and we said: “Okay. For the agenda of this government to succeed, the social services sector is integral to that success.”

The social services sector is failing. It’s in a very fragile state. We are losing agencies all the time. We are having trouble keeping positions filled. There are whole services in different communities that aren’t going to be happening because we’re not able to fill those positions.

This is a system that has already hit the wall. Until we decide to support that system, we’re not going to be able to do the wonderful things that have been promised and that the groundwork has been laid for, that the money has been committed to. There have to be workers there to be able to do it. There has to be a network within the community to be able to do it. That’s what we’re talking about here when we’re talking about the sustainability of this system.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Richard, we’re at about 5-30 right now. So if you wouldn’t mind wrapping it up so we have time for questions, I’d really appreciate it.

R. FitzZaland: I’m just going to wrap it up. The bottom line is this is a fragile system. There are many people in this province who depend upon this system. The success of your initiatives depends upon this system. There needs to be money invested in it.

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

Do we have questions for Richard?

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation.

The question I have for you is over the issue of wage disparity. Can you give us some numbers on the differences for the workers that results in the lack of filling of positions, etc.?

R. FitzZaland: Wage disparity between…. The social services sector is the lowest paid of the nine different sectors. Social services is the lowest paid of all of them. There are some areas within the social services sector that are significantly below. There’s no area of the social services sector that has wages that are anywhere close to the next highest sector. They’re nowhere close to health, education.

M. Dean: Thanks for your presentation.

On that note, around wages and recruitment as well, do you know the proportion of women compared to men employed in the sector and what the trend is — whether there’s any trend in that ratio shifting?

R. FitzZaland: Well, the social services sector has always been predominantly a female sector as far as the staff. The uniqueness about the social services sector…. I’m unique being here speaking, as a man, because unlike health or education, where you do have a large female workforce in those sectors, in social services, the management level is also female. It’s predominantly a female sector — the management, supervisory at all levels.

Some have suggested that that’s one of the reasons that the sector has been underfunded for so many years. Others have suggested it’s because the people that we serve are not a priority.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Richard, I have a quick question. There was sustainability, recruitment and retention…. There was a third big point you were trying to make. What was the third one? I didn’t have a chance to write that down quickly enough.

R. FitzZaland: Service delivery.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Service delivery. Okay.

R. FitzZaland: Yeah. We have, for example, the 32 recommendations of the residential care report that was jointly authored by the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the federation and signed in 2012. Those recommendations have still not been implemented.

[1:15 p.m.]

We’ve got a system that needs to be changed. Their service delivery needs to be changed. We’ve made agreement on how that should be changed, yet it still needs to be done.

I want to recognize the work that Stephanie Cadieux did. I know she worked very hard, but she did not…. Those services were not a funding priority for so long. Certainly, since that report was written, those services have not been a funding priority in the government. Nothing will change until that changes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much.

Were there any other questions for Richard at all?

Thank you very much for your presentation and all the work you do for social services. We appreciate it.

Interjections.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We appreciate the fact that there’s a long report, yeah. Thank you so much.

N. Simons: Thank you for making the trip up-Island.

R. FitzZaland: Oh, no problem. Thank you so much for the work all of you do.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the North Island Students Union. That’s Carissa Wilson and Mary Rickinson.

Welcome. We’d love to hear what you have to say.

NORTH ISLAND STUDENTS UNION

C. Wilson: Wonderful. Thank you so much. My name is Carissa Wilson, and I have the honour of being an organizer with the North Island Students Union at North Island College, which we call NISU. We support over 4,000 learners on several campuses on the unceded territories of 35 distinct First Nations. I’m thankful for the space we are on here today.

In my tiny office on the four major campuses I work on, students come to me with their on-the-ground issues. I see the concern in their eyes and watch as they wring their hands while explaining which barrier to education they are facing and hoping I can support.

When I started with NISU four years ago, we were under the previous government. I spent much of my time campaigning our municipal governments to put pressure on the provincial level to restore the funding to adult basic education back to tuition-free status. I was overjoyed when the funding was restored by our current leaders, and I thank all of those for the work of those efforts. Supporting adults who wish to return to school for the myriad of reasons that arise is very important work. Access to education is paramount to the furthering of our communities and our province.

Between 2002 and 2012, textbook costs rose by 82 percent and now typically cost more than $200 per book. Many students choose to either not purchase the book, share with multiple classmates or buy older editions. This greatly impacts their success in the classroom. Because of the high cost of textbooks, 65 percent of students opt out of buying the textbook, even though they know it can hurt their grades, and 27 percent drop a course because of the cost of their textbooks.

The government has already identified open education resources as a solution to the textbook dilemma and has empowered BCcampus to oversee provincewide implementation. Already students have saved over $9 million because of the OERs in B.C.

More funding would allow the creation of more resources, the maintenance of already created resources and the creation of ancillary resources like test banks and assignments. This can further open doors for adult basic education students and support their education journey. Funding like this can ensure access to education for many, building a better B.C. now and beyond.

I would like to pass this time over to Mary Rickinson, chair of the NISU board of directors, college relations direc­tor and women–identified learners director.

M. Rickinson: Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair and committee, thank you for allowing us to speak today on this territory. I want to talk to you not with stats but with my own story, and I apologize if I cry. This morning I had a gut punch of reality with what my debt will be upon completion of my education.

I am an adult learner. I dropped out of high school in grade 11 with a grade 9 education. I championed myself and became a university student. A degree under my belt, I realized that a musician was not what I was supposed to be, that the gift that I had to give this world was through learning science and, hopefully, becoming a physician.

[1:20 p.m.]

I am a year away from applying for med school. It’s pretty bloody exciting…. Sorry, on the record. I have $35,000 worth of student loan debt currently, as it stands. At a 120-month amortization, I will have an additional $28,000 worth of debt upon that, just as I stand today. But looking at my educational costs to become a physician at UBC, it is a $90,000 increase in tuition alone to that debt load. If I get to go to Memorial University and leave my home province, luckily I can complete that education at a cost of $140,000, but that’s living expenses included. This is too much.

I am an adult learner who was also an orphan by the time I was 24. I have no family support. I am doing this on my own and with the help of social programs, and I know I am not the only one. If I am sitting here before you, there are 100 behind me who are not brave enough to use their voices, and 100 behind each of those 100 who are too scared to even put their hands up and say: “I want to change my life. I want to educate myself.”

This is definitely the first time I’ve had tears fall in front of a parliamentary or legislative committee. But you do have the ability to help me and help every single one of those hundreds and hundreds behind me and help guarantee at least one of those kids today [inaudible recording].

I have asks for you. I ask that you eliminate the interest on provincial student loans. You’ve already removed the prime, which is great. But 3.7 percent is not fixed and could increase at any moment. Please remove the interest from student loans.

My next ask is to bring in needs-based grants. Newfoundland has a system that alleviates the debt burden from hundreds of learners, that allows them to stay within their province and contribute to their community and their society, to give back the gifts that, frankly, you are giving me. I want to return the favour. I don’t want to leave my province, but I might have to, and one of them might have to too.

Please eliminate the interest on student loans and include needs-based granting in the budget.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Mary, and thank you very much Carissa. I appreciate the impassioned response. To be honest, it’s really great to hear from somebody speaking from their heart, because often people just read off the sheet. I wanted to say thank you for speaking from the heart because that really does make an impact in telling your story. So thank you for that.

Do we have any questions for the students union?

S. Furstenau: Thank you both for the presentation. Your requests have been echoed elsewhere. You’re not the only ones asking for these. I think education has emerged, even in this first week, as a theme that’s come up in most of the places we’ve visited.

Mary, I think you put it very eloquently that you have these gifts and you want to bring them forward. I think that when we recognize that education is a way for all of us to meet our full potential, which benefits all of society…. You’ve really captured that effectively.

I just want to thank you for your articulate and eloquent presentation, and Carissa as well. The access to the materials that we need to learn is so essential. And in an era when we have massive abundance, I think we can be solution-oriented on that.

Thank you both.

N. Simons: I just want to say thank you very much for being here and presenting what’s very important to you and to others. You’re speaking on behalf of a lot of people. And I want to say, just so you know, that we make recommendations to government. We’ll accumulate all the data that we get through this period of discussion and consultation. We will be putting forward our recommendations.

And you can always be a musician too.

M. Rickinson: A musician-physician sounds just fine by me.

N. Simons: There are a lot of those.

[1:25 p.m.]

M. Dean: Thank you so much to you both for coming in and sharing your story with us. Just a couple of quick questions.

If the government was able to eliminate the interest and introduce needs-based grants, would that be enough for you to put yourself forward and stay in B.C. and get into the program? I think there’s a broader affordability issue here, as well, so my second question is: if there was support, student housing, which we are facilitating for universities, would that also help overcome some of those barriers?

M. Rickinson: To answer the first point, any help that could keep me in the province would, and it would keep all of us if we didn’t have to translate to a different location. Nobody wants to leave beautiful B.C. Everybody moves here. It’s home.

Personally, I would need a lottery win to not have to have a debt burden, but it would make it more accessible so I could approach people that I wouldn’t feel comfortable with a huge ask of money. If I could approach an extended family member and ask them for $5,000 instead of $20,000 or higher, that does make it more accessible.

In regard to your second question, student housing is a wonderful and required necessity, but it fills a very small niche market. The affordability of housing throughout B.C. is rapidly decreasing. The affordability is disappearing. At our institution, the average age of a learner is 26 years old. That’s quite high compared to a lot of institutions across British Columbia.

We are an institution…. I think of us like a funnel. If you want to learn and you want to succeed, we will catch you and get you where you need to be. We are an access institution. It needs to be affordability across the province for more people.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Peter, a quick one. We’re over time, but please go ahead.

P. Milobar: Just one really quick question. In previous years, the student unions across the province have been advocating for a freeze of tuitions, to no longer see the 2 percent maximum increase of tuition. We haven’t been hearing that this year. Are student unions no longer concerned about tuition rate increases?

M. Rickinson: I would say no. I will say that we’ve had…. With the change of government to an NDP government and the communication levels that have increased, between 16 years of silence and four years of listening before an election — or more than that, listening — and implementation immediately of things that improved life for all learners, like the return of adult basic education and English-as-a-second language programs, we don’t….

We’re in a group, it feels, of almost friends, where we can have better conversations. Instead of not being heard, we are heard now, so we don’t have to be as aggressive about things. If the tuition all across the province went up by 7 percent, goodbye to about one-third of your learners. We aren’t afraid of that anymore. We aren’t afraid of a government that will pull the rug out from under us and make education only for the elite. We now have the ability to ask for things that actually help us instead of things that help us cling to the edge of the pool.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, but thank you very much, Mary and Carissa. We really appreciate your presentation and wish you all the best of luck with your careers. We need more doctors, so please go to school. We really need more doctors.

Next up we have North Island College, and that is Dr. Lisa Domae and Colin Fowler. Please go ahead.

NORTH ISLAND COLLEGE

L. Domae: Well, good afternoon. I’m Lisa Domae, the vice-president, academic, and chief operating officer at North Island College, and this is my colleague Colin Fowler, who’s the vice-president of finance and facilities at North Island College. Thank you for the opportunity to come and contribute to the development of the provincial budget.

[1:30 p.m.]

In the short time that we’ve got together, we want to concentrate on three topics that are important to learners in our region. Some of them have been referenced before, and some will be referenced after. They are the need for on-campus student housing, the need for policy and legislative changes that can provide greater financial flexibility to post-secondary institutions and the continuation of the current international education policy. I’ll start with a brief introduction to NIC. Colin will follow up on those topics, and we’ll conclude with some recommendations for you.

A few facts about North Island College. We are a comprehensive community college with a service area that spans northern and central Vancouver Island and parts of the B.C. mainland coast. A really important thing to know about us is that we serve the largest population of all of B.C.’s rural colleges.

We acknowledge operations and our time here today on the traditional territories of 35 First Nations. Now 16 percent of North Island College’s students are of Indigenous ancestry, which is 3 percent higher than the population, and we are very proud of that.

We offer a full range of programming at four campuses and, given our region, have a very strong emphasis on technology-enabled distance learning. One of our hallmarks is our in-community programming where we go to students. We offer programming in many locations, Indigenous communities where there aren’t campuses, and bring education there.

Last year we enrolled a total of 4,633 domestic students in credit programs, with nearly 500 international students from 37 countries. Our operating budget totalled $45½ million, with provincial funding accounting for 61 percent of reve­nue, and student tuition and fees accounting for 22 percent.

We’re here to talk to you about those three things that are really important to NIC, so I’ll turn to Colin to speak to those.

C. Fowler: Thanks, Lisa, and thanks to the committee for allowing us to speak here today.

It’s important to highlight that the need for new and additional student housing is not solely confined to the greater Vancouver and Victoria communities and the post-secondary institutions that are located there. There’s actually currently a lack of quality and affordable rental accommodations in the Courtney and Comox areas suitable for students. The rental vacancy rate is approximately 0.5 percent in that community.

At North Island College, we completed a draft business case in June 2018 for the development of student housing in the Comox Valley that could accommodate 148 single students and 20 families. The projected construction cost of the project is approximately $24 million.

The number of beds in the draft business case was actually informed by a demand analysis that we had prepared in the spring of 2018. The study showed that the Comox Valley campus had demand for between 130 and 182 beds of single-student housing and up to 25 beds of partner- and family-housing units. Our student housing need is being driven by the need of students who are moving from other parts of the north Island region to study at the Comox Valley campus, as well as the growth in our international student enrolment.

The province’s 2018-19 budget included access to debt financing for post-secondary institutions to build student housing. This has been a missing element in provincial budgets in the past, and North Island College really applauds that change. But there is more that’s needed for small colleges than simply access to debt financing.

Debt financing alone is an appropriate tool for universities in larger urban centres, but Budget 2019-20 should consider additional funding or other tools for colleges in smaller communities. One of those tools could be a little bit of financial flexibility, which I’ll touch on now.

As public sector organizations, B.C. colleges are expected to operate within a regulatory and accountability framework that private sector trainers aren’t required to follow. This increases the costs for public colleges. The key piece of legislation that governs the activities of colleges is the College and Institute Act. However, there is other legislation, as well as ministry policies, that also impact the manner in which colleges carry out their mandate. It is where these policies and legislation intersect that creates limitations in the service delivery options for colleges.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Colin, just so you know, we’re at five minutes right now. So if you wouldn’t mind wrapping it up, that would be great. Thank you.

C. Fowler: Okay, I will. In terms of the financial flexibility, maybe I’ll turn to the bottom of what I was going to touch on.

The additional financial flexibility would be beneficial in ensuring the success of student housing for the Comox Valley. It’s an area where B.C. colleges could work together with government to get more out of the assets at our disposal. There would need to be mechanisms in place to protect the provincial budget, but that can be accomplished by taking a sectorwide approach.

[1:35 p.m.]

I was going to touch on international education as well, very quickly, and then Lisa is going to turn to the recommendations.

International students provide critical financial supports that allow colleges to meet the educational and training needs of the north Island. This year international student tuition comprised about 13 percent of the college’s total annual revenue. This actually helped us to provide services for more than just international students. In 2017-18, we saw that 688 Canadian student registrations in 75 new sections were funded through international student revenues.

Maybe, Lisa, I’ll just turn it over to you.

L. Domae: In conclusion and to summarize, we have the following recommendations to government: that in addition to debt financing, Budget ’19-20 include capital grant funding for housing projects for colleges to ensure that they can be financially viable; that there are policy and legislative changes that provide greater financial flexibility for post-secondary institutions so that we can use our resources to support students in the classroom; and finally, that we continue the current international education policy that provides opportunities for international and Canadian students so that we can continue to serve the needs of the learners in our region.

B. D’Eith (Chair): A quick question. On the international policy, could you elaborate a little bit more on that? I just wanted to get a handle on what your expectations are in terms of that?

C. Fowler: Sure. Right now we have a relatively flexible model in terms of the number of international students that we can enrol. We essentially fill up classes. We have domestic student classes, and we are able to add international students to ensure that we reach the capacity in those classrooms.

We’re able to use that revenue to also help out our domestic students and to provide programs and services for those students and then add sections with that funding. We want to continue with a mechanism that allows that sort of flexibility in the model that we use.

S. Furstenau: Thank you for your presentation.

One of the things that our president of Vancouver Island University, Ralph Nilson, is very proud of is the number of students who are the first in their families ever to attend post-secondary. Do you have a sense of how many of your students would fall into that category?

L. Domae: In any given year, we find that probably about 30 percent of our students are first-generation learners. As our colleagues from NISU informed us before, these are students who come to the college with multiple axes of need. It’s a hugely important reason why we’re looking for greater financial flexibility in order to be able to support the array of needs they have and for additional funding to be able to serve a population who is really trying to just get ahead.

N. Simons: In this committee, we often hear presentations where we’re asked to start doing something or to stop doing something. In the third recommendation, you’re asking us to just keep doing something. Are you worried about the possibility of that international education system…? Do you think it’s changing? Is there any indication that it is?

C. Fowler: Well, we’re not sure of that. You’re right. We’re just asking for the continuation of the current policies, because that allows us to fund so many other services within the college. So we’d just like the continuation of the current model.

N. Simons: That’s good. It’s good to put that on the record. That’s fair.

One thing we’ve heard from other educational institutions is the need for mental health supports for students. I’m wondering if that’s something — because you only have limited time here and a limited ask — North Island College is also addressing.

L. Domae: I wish…. It’s totally inappropriate, but if I could hug you now, I would.

N. Simons: I would accept that.

L. Domae: The needs…. Student health and wellness, campus well-being and safe and healthy communities are primary considerations for us. Funding for students who come with learning challenges has not increased, but the number of students has increased 100 percent.

We struggle, as a relatively less-funded organization, to meet those needs. It is certainly very, very high on our priority and something we think about all the time.

[1:40 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. We’re out of time. We really appreciate your presentation and everything you do for the students.

Next up we have Ms. Olivia Hill’s class from École Ballenas Secondary. We have a number of speakers. Welcome. I know it’ll be difficult, but we have to try if we can, to keep this under five minutes. We have our teacher, Olivia Hill; My Huy Lim; Emma Harvey; Matthew Theriault; Leonhard Appelt; Tananger Carson-Austin.

Great. Please go ahead.

ÉCOLE BALLENAS SECONDARY SCHOOL

O. Hill: Good afternoon. My name is Olivia Hill. I am a fourth-year teacher out of Parksville, British Columbia, and I’ve brought my class of 24 students.

I’m excited to be teaching a new course this year. It’s called global studies. That’s thanks to the new curriculum. We have lots of flexibility. This program is actually combined with our international student program. In the class of 24, half of the kids are international. We have Denmark, Germany, Spain and Mexico, and we have some recent immigrants as well, from Vietnam and India. So lots of diversity, which is great for me as a teacher.

Unfortunately, I’ve only seen them three times this year. Because of the nature of their program, they’re outdoor adventuring quite often, especially in the early part of the school year when the weather is supposed to be nice.

They’re going to give you some suggestions today that they’ve kind of researched yesterday in little teams. I’m honoured to be here, and [inaudible recording] I’m proud of them because I threw them into this without much time for preparation.

We’ll start, with My Huy, who’s going to speak to education.

M. Lim: Dear MLAs, my name is My Huy. I’m a recent immigrant from Vietnam, and I came here today with my teacher and classmates to propose some possible solutions to problems concerning education in B.C.

We feel that students in our classes are not getting enough needed to succeed. The average class size in my school is 30 pupils, with around eight to ten challenging students per class. We believe that it should be reduced to 20 pupils and a limit of four challenging students per class so that teachers can give every single student the needs they require. Also, teacher assistants and on-call teachers are never enough.

More free recreational activities, and food and nutrition programs, will also help many youth that are struggling in poor families to at least have their basic needs. When students are busy in extracurricular activities, they make better decisions for themselves and also stay away from drugs and crime.

University fees in Canada are way too high. It’s 20 times more expensive than in Germany, which is too high for our students to manage, like Mary said before. Also, we need to cut down post-secondary tuition fees. The B.C. government needs to value and take good care of youth, as they are the next generation that will shape the province’s future. Funding toward educational matters is essential, and I hope you’ll consider it seriously. Thank you.

E. Harvey: Dear MLAs, my name is Emma. I’m a grade 10 student from Ballenas Secondary, and I’d like to propose some ideas specifically about the environment.

My class is a part of an outdoor education program, and we all enjoy spending our time in nature. Protecting the environment is something we value, and we want future generations to enjoy the beautiful landscapes that B.C. has to offer as well.

[1:45 p.m.]

Forest fires are a major issue throughout the province, and I believe that forest fire prevention should become more prioritized. As of this year, British Columbia budgeted $63 million but spent $274 million. Thirty percent of forest fires are caused by irresponsible citizens, and 70 percent by natural forces, such as lightning.

One idea I had to improve prevention is to have firefighters travel around the province during their off-season, educating the public on the severity of forest fires and how to prevent them. I think the British Columbia government should invest more money towards the prevention of forest fires and plan for a bigger budget for fire management for the next year. I hope you take these ideas into consideration. Thank you.

L. Appelt: Hello. My name is Leonhard. I’m an international student from Germany, and I’m here this year in the ROAMS program, in the snow class. My topic is transportation, especially for school trips. The costs for B.C Ferries are too high when we go to the Mainland. Some routes are free for seniors on Monday and Tuesday. It’s okay for them to keep them active, and it’s good for their health, and it’s a great idea. But what about the students? Seniors are free, and the students have to pay for the ferries, even if we are on educational trips to Vancouver or anywhere.

Isn’t the aim of the government to educate students and support them to see the real world? At this time, it’s very important. If we do this, we have to pay more, and the seniors don’t. We recommend to receive students…. We are supposed to go to Vancouver for a trip for a workshop about economics, but now our teachers aren’t sure about this because the ferry costs $800 Canadian to transport us from Nanaimo to Vancouver, where the workshop is taking place. We want future education, but we have to pay much more than the students who live on the Mainland because we always have to be taking the ferry.

M. Theriault: Hello. My name is Matthew. I’m a grade 10 student at Ballenas Secondary, and I’m here to talk about the housing issue. I have done some research, and I’ve gathered some statistics that say that the average income has increased only 11 percent, but the average housing price has increased 174 percent.

I would like to address the topic of tent cities. I believe that these could be resolved by funding more money towards affordable housing and introducing a housing-first initiative, which gives people a stable living space before addressing their mental issues and drug addictions. I did not gather much more information, so that’ll be all. Thank you.

T. Carson-Austin: Hello, MLAs of British Columbia. My name is Tananger Navin Carson-Austin. I know that’s a handful. Today I’m actually here to talk about something I’m very passionate about, and that is the troubles of…. We need more doctors in B.C., and the doctor wait time.

From a very young age, my father was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, and every single appointment that he had to go to was booked eight months in advance. That took a toll out of not just our time but our lives and our money as well. It’s not just for surgeries, and it’s not for big corporations to make money. We don’t have enough doctors, and one of the big reasons, for family doctors, is that they get fee-for-service. When they bring someone in, they get paid a specific amount. That degrades their quality of care, their time of care and, all in all, the time that you can get with them.

[1:50 p.m.]

If we brought in more doctors from internationally and made it easier for them to come here, we would have less of a family doctor problem, as well as less of a wait time for surgeries. Or if you just passed her through school, that’s awesome too.

One of the main problems is when an international comes here to become a doctor, they have to go through two more years of expensive schooling. Then they have to work three years in rural areas. That doesn’t sound too much of a grab if we want more doctors here. That’s more of a push away. So in my opinion, it’s a couple of easy fixes to fix one big problem.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much. We’re not going to have a lot of time for questions, because that was nearly ten minutes right there.

I really appreciate the time that you’ve taken. In fact, you’ve hit on many of the issues that we’re hearing about: education, housing, mental health, doctors, environment. We really appreciate the time that you’ve taken to research these issues and to present about them and give us your unique version of that.

Sometimes we don’t listen to our young people enough. You’re the ones who are inheriting this housing crisis and having to try to survive somewhere where you can’t rent and can’t buy. We’ll do our very best — I’m sure all of us — to try to make your life better in the future.

S. Furstenau: Thank you, all, for your presentations, and Olivia, hats off to you for showing that education can be very rooted in real-world experiences. I expect you will all remember this as a highlight of your high school careers.

I just want to extend an invitation. If you want to come down to the Legislature, we’re always happy to host students and classes.

O. Hill: I’ll be there November 21.

S. Furstenau: All right, Olivia. We look forward to it. Come down to the Green caucus office. We’d love to see you down there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): If you do come down, we’re happy. Just make sure we know, and we can come out and say hi. If you’re in the gallery, we can recognize you. Thank you very much for coming and for your words and for all the research you did.

Next up we have the town of Port McNeill — Shirley Ackland. Your Worship, the floor is yours.

TOWN OF PORT McNEILL

S. Ackland: Thank you so much. I’m not used to Your Worship, never will be — Shirley. But thank you.

First off, I’d like to thank all of you in the government. I’m just back from UBCM and the very important announcement about community infrastructure funding that Minister Robinson announced at UBCM. As the mayor of a small community of under 5,000 people, the commitment of the government to fund community infrastructure projects up to 100 percent is absolutely life changing. It means renewal for small communities. Many necessary projects will be built, and that’s wonderful. Thank you.

This is the tenth time I’ve presented in front of the Finance Committee, which is probably why so many of you know me. I’m always grateful for the opportunity. I’ve served on council in Port McNeill for a decade, and in that time, I’ve worked as the chair of addictions recovery, I’ve served on the Mount Waddington Health Network, and currently I’m on the local working group for health, a group that includes representatives from Island Health, local governments across our region and health professionals from the region.

In 2015, our local working group for health applied to the rural doctors initiative for funding to do a few things. First, we wanted to create and operate an adult day program for seniors. There’s very little funding for seniors in small communities, and one of the biggest issues is isolation. We have that up and running in Port McNeill and Port Hardy. It’s very successful. They love it. So that’s a real bonus.

The next thing we did is we created and operate a pregnancy outreach support program for pregnant moms. Another statistic we have in the north Island is a very high incidence of young teenage pregnancy. A lot of it is because people, when they’re pregnant, have to leave communities to give birth. Often what happens is they’re not getting the prenatal care they need before that happens.

[1:55 p.m.]

This is a wonderful opportunity. That is open in the Building Blocks in Port Hardy — again, very successful.

The last thing we looked at was something that is…. What we do on the north Island is innovative and not a cookie-cutter approach but something that actually helps all of us in our small communities.

In Mount Waddington, there are 12,000 people, very di­verse; large distances not just by highway or gravel road but by ferry and, in some cases, float plane or airplane. We were looking at how we distribute the health care dollars available in our region to serve our communities better. That review is nearly done, and we’re going to present those findings to each of the local governments and then to Island Health.

What was interesting about that is it took us almost three years to get the statistics that you have in front of you from Island Health about the outside-of-region tests that are done. That’s what I’d like to talk about today.

I’ve provided you with this information to illustrate that improving access to health care in our region is probably one of the foremost issues we face daily. In fact, we first asked the doctors: if they could just have one item fixed, one in everything that they deal with in health care, what would that be? All of them, absolutely every doctor, replied: to have a CT scan located in our region, preferably Port McNeill, as it’s central to the Mount Waddington region. The ferries from Sointula and Alert Bay arrive in our community.

We asked the doctors: why is this so important? It is the single-best diagnostic tool that they have today. If anybody bangs their head, if there’s something that happens with a concussion, docs send those people off to have a CT scan to ensure there isn’t further damage or something that they’re not seeing.

We then asked Island Health if we could be considered for a mobile unit. We were told repeatedly by the health authority — so we have asked: “No, don’t go there. It’s cost-prohi­bitive. There aren’t the numbers to warrant a machine on the north Island.” Yet we have a doctor in Port McNeill that has a CT scanner, because he does implants. Technology’s improving, and we’d like to see something that’s located where we are.

The numbers are in. You have them here. We had over 1,200 CT scans that were done outside of our region last year. These are the doctor-booked appointments. These are the ones when you go in and you say: “There’s something going on, surely; go and get this looked at.” That’s what’s booked. There are at least another 300 to 500 emergency CT scans that are called when people have accidents. Road accidents — if anybody’s bumped their head, they have to be off to a CT. So the numbers are closer to 1,500 to 1,800 a year.

The emergency CT scans typically include an ambulance transport, which is another reason why the stats are so hard to get — two different spots. It’s a $500 trip, because they’re taking that person to Campbell River or to Courtenay, and often they have to come back via ambulance as well.

The docs report that they often do what they call underscan. They don’t send somebody because they can’t organize the transport. The ambulances are off for something else. It’s an emergency, and they can’t get that person there.

Another issue. If it’s a senior and it’s January, and they say, “We want you to go and have a CT scan,” they’re not going to navigate those roads. They’re icy, they’re cold, it’s dark, and if somebody’s coming from Sointula, that’s a ferry ride, travel, a day’s pay. All of that isn’t included in the statistics of what’s lost in community.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re at 5-30 right now, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, that’d be great.

S. Ackland: All right. So what are we asking? We’re asking you to consider, as a pilot project, placing a mobile CT scan in the community. We believe it would improve diagnostic health. I don’t think the issue is the fact that there aren’t enough appointments. I think it’s where they are.

If you have more appointments in Campbell River and Courtenay that are available for the people that are here, because we have a CT scan in our region, I think you’re going to see the benefits that way. Then you’re also going to be able to provide the best practices of health across the province for all British Columbians. We think you might be able to consider that. That would be great.

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

P. Milobar: Thank you very much for the presentation, and thanks for fighting for your area all these years.

We had a presentation over the last couple of days where a different mayor had met with both the Transportation Minister and the Finance Minister. Both of them said: “Come to the committee, and pitch your request at the committee.” They met with them at UBCM a couple of weeks ago as well.

I’m just curious, did you have a chance to meet with Minister Dix at UBCM about this issue? And if so, what was the answer back, so we have some reference point for our discussions?

[2:00 p.m.]

S. Ackland: We did not, Mr. Milobar. We weren’t able to meet with Adrian Dix. Part of the issue was we only received the stats that you have in front of you three days ago. They were requested three years ago, and of course, it was just: “You know, it just takes so much time to pull it together.” Again, they don’t include any of the emergency stats at all, so it didn’t connect. Thank you.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much, Shirley. It was good to hear your presentation — very eloquently stated, passionate.

The question I have is around, as you say, a mobile CT. I’m thinking you need technicians and all of the costs that are encompassed around all of that. Is it necessary for it to be a mobile CT, or could it be…? I don’t know if it would be a cost savings to have a CT fixed in Port McNeill — as you said, the centre of Waddington.

S. Ackland: If we were offered either, we wouldn’t turn down either of those options. I do know that there had been an opportunity, years ago, to request a mobile MRI unit. We were told that their concrete pad was a quarter of a million dollars to pour, and I couldn’t look at that. I just thought that the Ministry of Health is looking at providing more access to CTs and MRIs. I believe that’s not the issue. The issue is where the facility is. I think that why we suggested a mobile unit is that you could try it out in Port McNeill.

That dentist in our community, less than a year ago, purchased a CT scanner because he does tooth implants. The person that works with him took one day’s training to use that machine. Also, we have people in our community that are willing to be trained for health care. We’ve had ultrasound technicians that have gone out. We’ve had people that have been trained to be radiologists.

I see this as just another example of where we would see people interested in it to take that training, without a doubt. But I think the government might consider mobile units as something to get a handle on the access for rural communities. It truly isn’t the amount of appointments; it’s where they are.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just a quick question. If there is a CT scanner in the community, is there any possibility of having the health authority access that or to talk to the dentist about that, or is that something totally different. It’s a smaller unit, not the big one? It’s just for the…? Okay, it’s a different type of unit.

S. Ackland: It’s a different type. It’s a head unit. But again, what about…? We do contract services, and if the health authority decided they could contract for a head injury or something, that’s a portion of it being done. I mean, those are things that the government might consider for small communities that just don’t have the access for the larger equipment. When I’m looking at 2,000 CT scans, how many of those could be done in-community? How many?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, we’re at about ten minutes. Thank you so much for your presentation and everything you do for your community. We really appreciate it. Thanks for coming.

S. Ackland: My pleasure. Thanks very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have PacificSport Vancouver Island — Drew Cooper. The floor is yours.

PACIFICSPORT VANCOUVER ISLAND

D. Cooper: Thank you for the opportunity to meet with you this afternoon and talk a little bit about what I’ve been passionate about pretty much all my life: sport and physical activity. There’s an appetite for change in our communities.

In the private sector, employees are asking for stand-up desks. They’re conducting meetings while out on team walks. In the public sector, school districts recognize the importance of weaving physical literacy and physical activity into their daily school routines, rec leaders want better program outcomes, and early childhood educators are looking for the latest physical literacy concepts and trends for their charges, while sport needs intervention to reverse the trend of shrinking participation rates. Until our post-secondary institutions catch up and start graduating physical-literacy-trained students to fill these roles, PacificSport and our ViaSport Alliance partners are probably best poised to deliver on these outcomes.

On Monday, my counterpart from Prince George introduced our Move project, a B.C.-wide initiative. Building on the successful pilot project developed by PacificSport Fraser Valley, the Move project provides all the regional centres within the alliance the capacity to address these pressing community needs.

[2:05 p.m.]

The objective is clear. Move looks to deliver a portfolio of programs that builds capacity in each of the education, recreation, sport and early childhood education sectors, so that people of all ages will become active for life.

Move is based on the principles of physical literacy. Just as learning one’s ABCs is the foundation for reading and writing, so too is the ability to perform fundamental movement skills the foundation to be a fully functioning participant in our society.

Our vision is to champion quality physical activity and sport for all British Columbians and make this information open source so that it’s accessible by everyone. To do so, we want to work with these sectors with a capacity-building lens. Included in this process is training in use of physical literacy assessment tools, which will enable us to then do baseline testing and monitor trends during the project in order to ascertain whether or not we’re being successful in moving the needle.

Training, mentoring and supporting community leaders builds the capacity required to deal with current issues before us as a result of our increasingly sedentary lifestyle — for example, the rampant obesity, strained health care system and a culture of fear that prevents families from letting their kids play outside like we used to do. We don’t have free-range kids anymore. It’s taken us two generations to get to the point where we are now. It’ll take at least a generation to extricate ourselves.

Let’s be clear. No one sector has been successful in addressing these issues — not health, not recreation, not education and certainly not sport. However, as our multi-sector play projects indicate, a collaborative approach has been very successful in this regard. Play Cowichan is probably considered one of the class play projects that are happening. If you are not familiar with that, I’d be happy to share that with you at another time.

I’d like to switch gears a bit and address the question: how would the Move project impact on the participation rates of girls and women and other marginalized groups? That was posed to my northern counterpart in your Monday session.

I’ll direct you to the first graph in your package. There’s been significant research done in this area, much of it by Canada’s foremost advocate of physical literacy, a fellow by the name of Dr. Dean Kriellaars. Dr. Dean is not only Canada’s foremost advocate; he is probably one of the top in the world. He travels everywhere on this.

In the first image, it shows girls’ confidence level as compared to boys when performing physical activity. What this graph tells us is that by the ripe old age of eight years old, we’re starting to see a divergence between the genders, where girls clearly are not as confident as boys when performing physical activity.

The three essential elements to be physically literate are competence, confidence and motivation. They are three that have to be all together. Take any one of those away, and there’s little or no chance of fully developing your physical literacy.

In the second graph, if I can just direct you to the age comparisons, you’ll note that the most significant difference is at the 12-to-15-year-old range, in which girls’ participation rates are less than one-third their male counterparts’. That’s truly disturbing.

The third graphic measures the motor competence. Who’s better at any of these 18 different skills: boys or girls? Out of 18, there are only three where girls are better at an activity than boys: hopping, skipping and galloping. In every other one, boys are way more advanced.

[2:10 p.m.]

The really disturbing part about all of this is that at the ages of eight to nine or ten years of age, there is very little physiological difference between the two genders, so some­thing is going on. It’s partly cultural and partly how we, as a culture, raise our girls and women and treat them. It is the analysis of these research outcomes that informs the Move project.

How do we address issues concerning other marginalized groups? In our case, here on the Island, we’ve secured funding to deliver four programs in 16 so-called inner-city schools within our region. Program offerings are virtually free for every participant, and we serve upwards of 1,500 children within these school-based programs every year.

Developing movement ambassadors will allow us to significantly grow this program’s reach.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Drew, we’re just over five minutes now, so if you could….

D. Cooper: Okay. Last spring we collaborated with a local child development centre to pilot an eight-week Wheels kids program directed to children and their siblings with mobility challenges.

I wish you could have seen the finale, where the kids decorated their chairs with glow sticks. We turned off the lights in the gym. The squeals of delight that we could hear from the kids at that session was just quite moving. Parents and staff alike were moved to tears. I wish I could show you a video clip. But if you do want to get the blow-by-blow version, check in with Michelle Stilwell. She showed up for that event and played with them.

We have the expertise in our hub area of Nanaimo. We need trained Move staff that can allow expansion into the other communities that we serve here on the Island. Move is research-based and tested for its efficacy. Your investment will see improved program quality and increased participation rates. It’ll be the first major step in a multisector approach to improving the health outcomes of our communities, because life is an athletic event.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. I’m just curious, because you talked about girls and boys and different…. Are there some specific recommendations in terms of trying to change that? Do you mind talking a little bit more about how to get girls more active? In my house, it’s actually the girls that are the sports guys. I have to kick my boys off the computer games. I guess in the trends, that’s not the case. So I’m just curious.

D. Cooper: Like anything else, it’s not absolute. What’s really interesting to note is that if you look at gender-based results, we are way more successful at our Olympics and Paralympics on the female side than we are on the male side. Gals are scooping all the medals. It comes down to role modelling. It’s really the basic — and encouraging families to get out there and treat….

One of the interesting things that I keep coming up against is women in their 30s and 40s who talk about how they would go to the rink with their parents to watch their brothers play hockey. It’s not that hockey wasn’t available. It’s just that parents didn’t make it a priority. I think that’s one of the biggest things that we have to overcome.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Drew.

M. Dean: Well, I have the same question, really, Chair. As you say, these are the things that we need to work on. I’m really interested in what particular strategies we could start rolling out now that would actually influence the next generation of women and girls.

D. Cooper: I think part of it is doing a better job of showcasing our champions. Cassie Sharpe, who just won a gold medal in Korea at the last Winter Olympics, should be on Wheaties boxes and milk cartons. We should be celebrating her success right across the country. Those sponsorship opportunities seem to be way more available to male stars.

At the local level, a big part of what we’re doing in the Play projects — where we bring health education, recreation and sport together — is to focus on communication strategies that get that message out. That’s probably the biggest change that we’re seeing and trying to drive at this point in time. It’s on the communications and media side.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Drew, I just want to say hi again, and thank you for coming out. You’re an incredibly strong advocate for getting people out and active and trying to make a difference, especially with the youth.

[2:15 p.m.]

Just a quick note that was brought up a second ago. We were in Haida Gwaii yesterday. To be frank, I watched a girl’s team clean a boy’s team in indoor soccer. The inequity up there was a little bit different than what you talked about.

It’s good to see. It’s just good to see kids active instead of doing this all the time. It’s good to see them out. Like the class that we just had. They’re out, and they’re active, doing things. That’s something, I think, that needs to have more attention.

It’s people like you that make the difference. So thank you.

D. Cooper: If I could just speak to that. This isn’t the enemy. This is a symptom of the lack of opportunities that kids have to play. Kids want to play. I mean, you look at it in the wild. There’s a video out there of goats playing on some metal piece. It’s hilarious to watch what goes on in nature.

Kids want to play, but parents are so paranoid about the guy in the white van just around the corner ready to abduct the next kid that comes along. It’s that culture of fear that we also have to get over. Let’s let our kids walk to and from school.

It’s very interesting that it’s the microdecisions that happen in that process, when kids are out by themselves, that allow them to fully develop.

We take these kids, we drive them to school, drive them to piano, drive them to sport and keep them at home otherwise. And then, when they’re 18 years old, we plunk them on a college campus and say: “Go ahead and be an adult.” They barely know how to cross the street by themselves.

N. Simons: Just wondering where you see the role of our education system. You didn’t really specifically mention curriculum or anything like that. Do you think that’s one of the possible ways of addressing at least one angle of this issue?

D. Cooper: Yeah, we want to build on an initiative we did. We got a little bit of funding a few years back to do what we call the physical literacy mentorship program.

Every teacher in the Nanaimo school district who taught K to 3, we were able to set them up with a one-on-one person who worked shoulder to shoulder with them in the classroom and took them through the process of changing their PE program from, “Here’s the dodge ball; you kids go play,” to something more meaningful, with clear outcomes and objectives.

That was successful, to a degree. This Move program would train up a movement ambassador for every school who would then be that go-to resource that’s always going to be there. That’s the goal.

N. Simons: Just a quick follow-up.

I’m just wondering. I don’t know the answer to this, so I’m going to ask you. Was there a time when there was more emphasis put on specialist phys ed teachers in the elementary school system? I know that the specialist teachers are less and less common.

I’m wondering — a second part of that. The teacher education programs that exist in our post-secondary institutions — maybe there’s a place in there for teaching to teach physical literacy.

D. Cooper: Okay, so first part first. Yes. But a generation ago, we had specialists in the elementary schools. That has since been disbanded. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t deliver on quality physical education at that level.

People coming out of VIU, for example, where they have taken the time and done some training over the last five or six years — they’ve woven this whole physical literacy, long-term participant-development model into their existing curriculum. So the PE students coming out of there are trained and up to speed on that stuff. The education students are getting a smattering of it but not as much.

We’re trying to build more of that into the other departments besides the education area so that everybody who comes out of the university is equipped to address this whole physical literacy issue.

I mean, it even impacts on trades. You think of carpenters balancing a couple of storeys up. It applies to them. If you’re working in the criminology area to be a cop or whatever, you have to move around if you’re chasing bad guys. You need physical literacy. It impacts just about everything.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, but thank you very much, Drew.

I just want to mention that in Maple Ridge, we have Karina LeBlanc, who’s an Olympic soccer player. The city just named a field after her. She motivates so many wonderful, up-and-coming young soccer players and women in sport and girls in sport. We need more leaders like that.

[2:20 p.m.]

I hope your organization is able to champion our leaders like that, because it sure makes a difference in our community. Thank you so much for coming.

Okay. Next up we have Comox Valley Families for Public Education — Shannon Aldinger.

Welcome, Shannon.

COMOX VALLEY FAMILIES
FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION

S. Aldinger: Thank you very much, and thanks for the opportunity to be here today.

I’m here on behalf of Comox Valley Families for Public Education. We’re a non-partisan group of parents, grandparents and concerned citizens in the Comox Valley advocating for better public education in all of our province.

We are seeking to have the issues of consent and on-line safety added to the B.C. curriculum. This will require sufficient funding, in our opinion, to develop the curriculum for all grades in an age-appropriate manner, likely with the assistance of qualified sexual health educators, as well as to train teachers throughout the province to teach these important topics, or alternatively, to fund external educators to teach our students.

Our group’s experience lobbying our own school district — that’s school district 71 — is set out at pages 1 and 2 of my written submissions, and I’m not going to go into them in detail. But suffice to say that in our dealings we’ve learned that our district is by no means an anomaly and that sexual health education is provided in a patchwork fashion in our province, depending in part on which district a child is enrolled in and which school a child attends. It also became clear to us that change needs to occur on a provincewide level and specifically by including lessons on consent and on-line safety.

You might be surprised to learn that the word “consent,” both as a concept as well as the laws related to it, does not appear even once in our provincial curriculum, nor does it appear in any of the teaching resources provided by the Ministry of Education in relation to the healthy relationships portion of the curriculum. There is also no obvious curriculum content related to the interplay between sexual health and technology, and by that I mean the rise in access to and the use of on-line pornography, the use of sexting, cyberbullying and cyberstalking.

We say these are significant deficits, and they’re particularly disconcerting given what we know to be the alarming statistics about violence against women, as reported by Stats Canada and other sources. Stats Canada continues to report, both in its 1993 findings and its 2013 update, that 50 percent of all women in Canada have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16 and that girls and women between the ages of 15 and 24 are the most vulnerable. These, of course, are the years that our students are in high school and entering early adulthood.

In her 2016 — so relatively recent — book, researcher and author Peggy Orenstein reports on some of the personal stories behind these statistics during our girls’ teenage years. In her research she interviewed more than 70 young women between the ages of 15 and 20, all of whom were either in college or college bound, and she reported that fully half of the girls had experienced something along the spectrum of coercion to rape and that only two of them had previously reported their experience to adults.

She further reported that even in consensual encounters, much of what the girls described was painful to hear as their experiences catered to male pleasure and perceptions thereof and that every single girl she interviewed, regardless of her class, ethnicity or sexual orientation, had been sexually harassed in middle school, high school or college — or often all three.

Troubling reports surfaced in our own backyard this summer with reports of unauthorized sexual touching at the 2018 B.C. Summer Games in the Cowichan Valley.

[2:25 p.m.]

For any of you who missed the news, approximately 30 teenage girls reported that they’d been inappropriately touched by their peers at the Games’ celebratory dance for the athletes. This was an event that was meant to celebrate their physical abilities and successes but instead served to undermine their physical security. Our group says that these are clearly not conditions under which we can expect our teenage girls and women entering young adulthood to thrive.

Now, the rise of on-line pornography and opportunities for on-line abuse, in the form of sexting, cyberbullying and cyberstalking, further complicates the social and sexual landscape against which our students and children are growing up and further underscores the need for greater education on the issues of consent and on-line safety.

Our district is one that hires an external educator to provide some presentations to parents each year, although her work is winding up in our district as she moves to another province. But in a presentation she provided to parents last year, she presented the following disturbing statistics: although accessing pornography under the age of 18 is illegal, the average age of a child’s first exposure to pornography is between 11 and 12; and that a Canadian study of teenagers with an average age of 14 found that fully 90 percent of boys and 60 percent of girls had watched pornography, with a third of boys doing so at least once a month on average.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Shannon, we’re at about 5-30, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping it up. Thank you.

S. Aldinger: Sure. To connect the concerns related to the use of pornography by adolescents, she provided studies that show that: adolescent exposure to pornography portrays men and women in unrealistic ways; it fosters the belief that women are sex objects and are sexually submissive; and it fosters an acceptance of sexual coercion, which in turn encourages and supports teenage sexual aggression. This, of course, is very disconcerting.

Now, studies from all over the world consistently show that children who are educated about healthy bodies, including the scientific or proper naming of body parts in their early childhood, and learn about healthy sexuality are better protected from abuse and exploitation. By extension, continued teaching about healthy boundaries, including consent — both the concept of it and the age-based laws related to it — should reduce incidents of sexual assault and abuse.

We say the Me Too movement has raised awareness of the prevalence of violence against women and girls to a point where it can’t be ignored any further by legislatures. We ask that the curriculum be updated to include these two important concepts and that teachers be trained so that they are competent in teaching them. Thank you.

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

N. Simons: Thank you very much for that very focused and clear message. My question has to do with the variety or the…. You mentioned earlier that different school districts teach different ways. I wonder what that variety is, what you’ve noted in your research. That’s my main question. If you’ve addressed this with your school district, have they been responsive?

S. Aldinger: Our school district has been responsive in part. But one of the answers that we keep facing is that the curriculum itself is very vague. It’s in very generalized terms. For example, the word “consent” doesn’t occur even once. That’s part of the problem.

I appreciate that the general curriculum has been revised and updated fairly significantly in recent years and that there has been a move towards allowing teachers greater and greater agency over the development of curriculum. In many areas, that makes a lot of sense.

In the area of sexual health, where teachers receive absolutely zero hours of teacher instruction at teacher-training school, to send them off into a world of instruction where there’s no guidance at the provincial level through curriculum, there’s no guidance at the provincial level through lesson plans and each school district can essentially take their own approach, it’s very difficult both for teachers as well as districts to, well, know how to move forward.

N. Simons: Yeah, I get it.

M. Dean: Thank you so much for such a well-researched presentation.

[2:30 p.m.]

If we were able to move forward provincially on this, we’d need to do it in partnership with teachers and with school boards. Could you anticipate where the barriers might be, where we could actually successfully work with them to move this forward from a provincial perspective?

S. Aldinger: I would think another group you’d want to bring into these discussions…. There are some very well-respected sexual health educators that are not teachers specifically but have some training in delivering lessons.

I think one of the barriers is that not all teachers are comfortable teaching sexual health education. In our particular district, the way that the district initially responded to our request was to hire an external consultant to conduct a thorough review of how the program was being administered in our district. One of the difficulties we found, of course, was that the person that we’d been hiring in the past was no longer able to fulfil that function or even expand it, which is what we’d been asking for. The report recognized that a lot of teachers just aren’t going to be comfortable. That’s one problem.

A second problem is that many teachers have grown up in an age well before the Internet was introduced and well before the different influences like pornography, sexting and cyberbullying were even problems. That’s an even greater obstacle. That takes real expertise. Some of these topics are not ones that we’re probably going to be able to teach our teachers on a broad basis. We may need to continue to bring in specialized educators.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a quick question. How do you see the LGBTQ community being integrated into what you’re bringing forward? You’ve talked about girls and women, violence being perpetrated against them. There’s a lot of cyberbullying against certain groups of people as well, and others. I’m wondering if you could talk to that.

S. Aldinger: I think all of these issues, whether it’s consent or cyberbullying, come back to issues of respect for all members of our society. Certainly, by focusing on the prevalence of violence against women and girls, I don’t in any way mean to downplay or exclude the reality that many men and boys face, as well, experiences of sexual or even sexualized violence. It may not be direct sexual violence, but it’s vio­lence because of their sexual orientation or sexuality. By all means, the starting point is more one of respect than anything else. That is a concept that we need to be cultivating from a very young age.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Right. Well, thank you very much, Shannon. We’re out of time, but I really appreciate your very thoughtful presentation.

Next up we have the Campbell River Literacy Association — Kat Eddy.

CAMPBELL RIVER LITERACY ASSOCIATION

K. Eddy: Hi, everybody. I wrote out my presentation — I’m a literacy practitioner, and I tend to be wordy — to try to keep it to five minutes. Good afternoon to the hon. members of the select standing committee.

My name is Kat Eddy, and I represent the Campbell River Literacy Association. As a community non-profit, we offer direct literacy programming to adults, including English-as-a-second-language learners, technology supports to seniors, free tutoring to families and free tutoring to families with elementary-school-age kids. Our core funding comes to us through the Ministry of Advanced Education’s CALP program, which is the community adult literacy program. It’s specific in the service of adults.

On a provincial level, literacy work funding is stewarded through Decoda Literacy Solutions and is used to support the work of 121 literacy outreach coordinators throughout the province of B.C. This literacy outreach work is designed to meet the needs of all members of these 121 communities, regardless of age. The literacy outreach network focuses on building public awareness of literacy issues, outreach through community events and leveraging funding to embed literacy awareness in all community programs.

This is my third opportunity to speak on behalf of provincial and community-based literacy work. While reviewing my past presentations this morning, I had a chance to reflect on the work we here in Campbell River have done to support low-literacy individuals. It really is quite amazing. Over the course of the past six years, we have provided services to over 620 adults, 210 families and 96 Indigenous families.

[2:35 p.m.]

Our work focuses on a learner-centred approach, meaning that we support learners in achieving their personal goals. For some, it is rebuilding their literacy skills so they can complete their grade 12 or adult Dogwood. For others, it means upgrading in order to attend a post-secondary institution or find success in their search for employment or a new workplace. There are newcomers to Canada needing some help with language and who want to build connections in our rural communities.

We work with families that find motivation in their deep desire to have their children succeed in education, where they did not. These learners are brave. They walk through our doors afraid and unsure, beaten down by a life not fully realized because they lack the skills to engage in our text-rich world.

The community of Campbell River has a population of just below 38,000. Over the last six years, we have provided services to 2 percent of our community’s population. This percentage seems small, a tiny little 2 percent, but that 2 percent translates into 2 percent of our population working towards self-betterment, employability, deeper community connections and stronger families.

We accomplish this with the ever-important work of our volunteers. Over the last six years, they have committed over 18,000 hours to literacy — 18,000 hours. Our volunteers come from all walks of life and bring with them differing levels of education. The tie that binds them together is their genuine desire to help another person improve their life. They are our community.

Thank you to this honourable panel for coming to Campbell River and allowing me an opportunity to reflect on the importance of literacy work and the impact that we can make. Sometimes when working in an underfunded field, you can become discouraged. There is seldom enough funding to support the work, and you know how important literacy is for life. You know that stronger literacy skills mean folks can better advocate for their health and justice, which will make your community healthier and safer. You know that improved literacy leads to greater employability, creating opportunities for growth and further investment. You know that if you can make funders understand how far-reaching this work is, they would support your programs.

I am here to try to make this honourable panel consider what they already know and to ask you to recommend an increase in funding for literacy work in British Columbia at both the provincial and community levels as we come into the 2019 budget discussions. As mentioned before, our core community funding is provided through the Ministry of Advanced Education’s CALP program. This funding package has remained at the same level for over a decade. It has supported long-standing programs in communities throughout our province that are meeting the needs of learners.

The ability of these programs to offer deep, meaningful connections to adult learners is slowly being eroded by a funding stream that has not increased with need or remained abreast of the increased costs associated with providing services. I ask that this committee review the CALP funding stream, with the motivation to increase funding for community-based literacy work.

Each year our provincial literacy outreach network awaits the decision of government regarding funding for their work. If only I can make the government understand that these 121 provincial coordinators help to provide far-reaching service in their communities and that by consistently providing the $2.5 million funding envelope for provincial work, our government can support programs that meet the learning needs of a diverse population and some of our most marginalized citizens. Finally, by continuing to support and looking forward to increasing literacy funding, this government can further build the strengths and resiliencies of our provincial community.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Kat.

S. Cadieux: Thank you for your presentation, Kat. Do you know what the current understood or regularly quoted percentage would be for adults in our province that are functionally illiterate? Has that number changed over time?

K. Eddy: I actually have a fact sheet right here, literacy levels in B.C. Over 500,000 British Columbians have significant challenges with literacy, which is 16 percent of British Columbians. That’s below a level 1. There are four levels when you’re measuring literacy. The first level is the ability to engage with text, period, so a basic decoding. That doesn’t mean comprehension. It just means decoding, being able to read the text.

[2:40 p.m.]

On level 2, you can decode. You have basic comprehension, but you’re not really gaining anything. When you get up to a level 4, you’re talking about professionally educated folks, those with college or university degrees. They’re inferring references, and they’re making meaning of the text they’re reading.

I don’t have statistics. That’s the problem with literacy work. Literacy work is hard to measure. We do have the adult literacy benchmarks, which CALP provides to us as our measurement tool, but it’s hard to measure. I can’t give you a: “In the last six years, this is where we’ve gone.” Sorry.

S. Cadieux: No, that’s okay. I just asked. Thanks.

N. Simons: I’m just wondering. Those benchmarks — I’m often thinking about…. Funding is often based on measurable outcomes, and that’s a really tough thing, in social services as well as in literacy.

Is there a possibility to measure the sense of success those who participate in programs feel? Is there a way for organizations that deal with literacy to basically get feedback from the clients, so to speak?

K. Eddy: Absolutely. Our provincial-level organization, Decoda Literacy Solutions…. When we’re reporting to them, they always ask us to tell the story. “Give us the story of your learners. Let us speak to funders with the success stories of those who have participated in your literacy programs.”

At the community level, CALP requires us to provide statistical data because they need that black and white figure. They also ask for our stories because they know that…. Moving from level 1 to 2 might not seem like much to the Joe Average person, British Columbian, but moving from level 1 to 2 may mean that you get off the social service system. You now have enough skills where you can be employed. That gives you courage, and that gives you an ability to show your family that you can move forward in life. That provides all kinds of benefits, both socially and all around. They’re all encompassing.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation.

The question I have is…. You may have touched on it. As you are working with people to raise their literacy, do you iden­tify some of the challenges that brought them to a place of low literacy? What I’m thinking of particularly is dyslexia.

K. Eddy: With adults, we…. We’re sorely underfunded, and we can’t do assessment pieces for learning challenges. They do come to us with their stories. They often will speak about their own educational experiences, what they experienced when they were in school. Oftentimes you can kind of tease out that there’s probably a disability there, but we can’t test it.

We do take a lot of referrals from other community agencies as well. Sometimes our learners will come to us with a bit of a history. Then we can help guide our tutors in supporting them with learning techniques that may best serve their own style, but there is no way…. We can’t test adults. If they’re not coming with a document that says….

We do, do some work with continuing education. In SD 72, if an adult walks into Robron Centre, which is a great school here in town, they will meet with an intake counsellor who pulls up their transcripts and talks to them a bit about where they want to go. If they fall below a grade 10 skill level, which is where continuing ed can pick them up and help them with their adult education, they walk them physically down the hall to us. They say: “This is Joe. Joe made it to grade 8.” They may come to us after the fact to let us know there might be a learning challenge here, so we should maybe talk about how we can work together to support that.

R. Leonard: So there is generally progress with all of your students.

K. Eddy: There is. And you know what? Even if the progress is just self-esteem, the progress happens. They come, and it’s amazing. It’s amazing to see somebody learn how to read for the first time in their lives as adults.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, Kat, but thank you so much for your presentation and all the work you do in literacy — how important it is to our community.

Next up is Liza Schmalcel.

[2:45 p.m.]

Thank you for coming. The floor is yours.

LIZA SCHMALCEL

L. Schmalcel: Thank you for the opportunity to participate in this consultation. I’m here because I am concerned about the state of B.C.’s hospitals and how they are regularly at over capacity across the province and the devastating effect it has on our health care.

Last year my mother was diagnosed with a recurring antibiotic-resistant pneumonia, and she became a frequent user of the Comox hospital. She was hospitalized five times and was treated in the outpatient unit four times. I have directly observed the serious problems that occurred because of overcrowding.

The problem of overcapacity has directly resulted from seniors currently languishing in hospitals, waiting to be moved to long-term residential care. The medical community calls them bed-blockers, but “bed-blocker” is an offensive term that depersonalizes real people.

I would like you to allocate more funding to provide residential care beds for all seniors waiting in hospitals. This would give you the most bang for your buck in your budget, as it would greatly benefit seniors and, subsequently, all British Columbians, from all walks of life.

On June 22, the Vancouver Sun reported, in an article entitled “Seniors Care in B.C. — Months in Hospital Waiting for Residential Care Not Uncommon”: “While numbers fluctuate, about 400 hospital beds in B.C. are occupied by people who are no longer receiving treatment while they await placement, according to the seniors advocate monitoring report. Proportionately, the numbers are highest in the north and on Vancouver Island.”

Here are some examples of how over capacity has affected my mother’s care. On her third two-week hospital stay, she was moved from one room to another three times. The final time, on July 9, she was placed in the common room, which is unsafe to place a geriatric, or any, patient.

There’s no equipment at the head of the bed and no call bell. Conflict situations arose when dementia patients were trying to enter her room to watch TV. My mom said being repeatedly relocated made her feel subhuman and nothing more than a piece of furniture being shuffled around because it’s in the way. I have to agree.

On August 30, 2018, my mother’s pneumonia had recurred again, and she was also experiencing abdominal and back pain. This time she was turned away at the emergency because “there are no beds.” Two doctors told me this on three occasions. She did not receive timely care or adequate care, and she was sent out to roam with the public at large while being very contagious, creating a public health risk.

In Premier John Horgan’s mandate letter to the Health Minister, he outlined a commitment to deliver the services that people count on — specifically, that families can get timely medical attention and our seniors are able to live their final years with dignity.

Seniors merely existing in our hospitals are not living their final years in dignity. They would be better served in residential care, where they would benefit from ongoing planned physical, social and recreational activities. There is no possible way a hospital can provide these specialized services. Families and other seniors needing acute care beds are not getting timely medical attention.

[2:50 p.m.]

If you prioritize 400 people in your province in your budget, you’ll effectively help 4.8 million people. It makes a ton of fiscal sense to move these seniors to residential care as soon as possible.

Thank you for listening to me today. I sincerely appreciate it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Liza. You got through that. Thank you very much for your very impassioned speech and talk about this. We all know that a lot of work needs to be done in this area. We really appreciate your personal story, because those are the ones that resonate with all of us. So we really appreciate your taking the time and showing the courage to come up and tell us a difficult story for you. We really, really appreciate that.

Do we have any questions?

R. Leonard: Thank you very much, Liza. I know it’s a hard story to tell. This has been an issue in the Comox Valley, particularly, for a lot of years, and as you said, there has been an underservice for seniors in the north Island. That has been recognized.

There are a couple things that are going on, and there are still a couple of challenges, of course. I don’t know if you’re aware that they opened up 17 beds in the unopened portion to try and alleviate some of the overcapacity challenges at the hospital. They’ve also opened up 35 beds, I think it is, over at the Views, at the old St. Joe’s Hospital, to try and alleviate the situation temporarily.

Originally there were 70 beds that had been going through a request-for-proposal process under the previous government, and it was pulled and reassessed by the current minster. There are now 120 beds that are going to be coming to the Comox Valley, opened up to multiple proponents so that there’s a diversity of options for seniors on the kind of care that they will receive in their end days.

I know it doesn’t replace the experience that you had. I can only hope that as we move forward we will be able to do a better job. The other thing that we’re doing is adding more capacity in terms of public servants — people who can work with our seniors. It’s because we can create beds, but if we don’t have people to care for them in those beds, we still haven’t done our job.

It’s a big, huge problem. I really appreciate that often after the fact, people will just let it go and try and move on, but I really applaud your courage to come and speak today on a matter that’s so very important.

L. Schmalcel: Thank you. I would like to add that at the writing of this speech, the hospital capacity was at 102 percent. At this point, they were turning my mother away from treatment at the ER. That was just on the long weekend. In my opinion, it took way too long to open up those 17 beds in the hospital. I think it’s kind of unacceptable.

Also, it’s across the province. It’s actually across the whole country. On January 11, 2018, a Kelowna Now article titled “B.C. Nurses Union Calls for Action as Flu Season Has Hospitals Over Capacity”: “On January 10, both the Kelowna General Hospital and Vernon Jubilee Hospital were already at 121 percent capacity by morning.” So it’s all across the province.

It’s also a huge public health risk, because systems break down. My mother has pseudomonas, which is a bacteria that’s labelled as a serious threat in the CDC AR threat report, and most deaths from pseudomonas occur in hospi­tal settings and nursing care settings. With the overcrowding, I saw time and time again how their infectious disease control protocols were breached quite seriously. This affects all British Columbians.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much for your talk. We really appreciate that. Please give your mother our best. We’d really appreciate that, Liza.

[2:55 p.m.]

Next up we have John Twigg.

Hello, John.

JOHN TWIGG

J. Twigg: Thank you to the committee. Yes, we are on First Nations land. I’d like to point out — some don’t realize it — the B.C. Legislature is on ceded land, thanks to a treaty that James Douglas negotiated a long time ago.

I hadn’t intended to speak today, so I have no text. But sitting here and seeing that time was available, I thought: thank you; it’s a golden opportunity.

I applaud the committee’s work. I’ve been watching this committee off and on for almost 50 years, and I’ve made one previous presentation, here in town, about 12 years ago. These prebudget consultations are important. They help MLAs and governments to get a sense of what the priorities are for citizens and taxpayers, and today we’ve heard some excellent presentations to that end.

When I saw the opportunity, I listed what I think are some of the top issues facing the province as a whole. That’s what your consultation is about. The first is affordability for families, students, seniors, individuals and businesses. That’s a common issue in the civic elections going on right now all over the province. I won’t go into it in more depth. Other people have already done that.

I think the second issue is housing. I would point out to you that punishing landlords is not a practical solution. All it does is reduce the supply. We need more and new types of social housing and incentives for new private sector housing, especially for seniors, an area I’m coming to appreciate personally — though, fortunately, I’m not in a crisis situation at all. But I see, as we’ve just seen in presentations, that it is a very serious problem.

I think the third top issue is the economy and the business climate. They are key to more jobs and more government revenues. One of the most critical things that you can do is have a good budget with an orientation toward strengthening the economy.

I’d say, also, literacy and better education are obviously key priorities. Affordable housing is key and — you are sitting down — support for the Trans Mountain pipeline. That is so critical to the well-being of western Canada and particularly for British Columbia. I cannot emphasize it enough: billions of dollars at stake. Please.

The fourth issue, global warming, is not the worst problem facing British Columbia or the world. I can elaborate if somebody cares. Sonia, I know you’re listening.

Somebody mentioned the forest fires problem. A lot of that is arson, by the way. I would also point out that the Filmon recommendation to spend money on prevention was carried out for only one or two years, and then the Campbell Liberals killed it. It needs to be restored. It’s costly, but it’s cost-effective.

In summary, B.C. need better prosperity for everyone. Best wishes to the committee. Thank you again. I’d like to point out that you’re honourable, but only with a small “h.” A few people will know that you have to be a cabinet minister to be “Hon.”

My kudos to the previous presenters, especially regarding the seniors care and education. I’ve had personal experience with seniors care locally. It’s getting better, but there’s a lot to be done. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, John. We really appreciate it.

N. Simons: Well, thanks, John. It’s always interesting to hear your views on things, and I appreciate it.

J. Twigg: We’ve been around a few corners.

N. Simons: That’s right. Now, you said, quite assertively, that a lot of the fires were arson.

J. Twigg: Yes, that’s correct.

N. Simons: Now, I think arson carries with it a bit of intent because of the definition. Can you give us any evidence and point to where you get that evidence?

[3:00 p.m.]

J. Twigg: Well, Fort McMurray, for example. Five fires started north of town when there was no lightning. Then in California, they’ve actually charged somebody with what…. Here in British Columbia, the statistics are not necessarily arsons but human-caused. It’s almost 50 percent, I believe. I stand to be corrected; it could be higher.

N. Simons: Okay, the follow-up to that. I’ve heard that statistic as well. Let’s remember that there were over 600 fires in British Columbia this year, so you could point to one in California and you could point to the potential of that. I know you count on having good evidence to back up what you say.

J. Twigg: Yes. There have been some examples in the Alberni area in previous years where firefighters, people who hope to get hired to fight fires, started fires so they could get hired.

N. Simons: Okay. Can you explain…? I’ve heard the statistic from government as well. How is it that so many can be attributed to being human-caused, yet we don’t ever see an announcement about a thorough investigation into this or that?

J. Twigg: That’s because some of them are inadvertent. Tossing a lit cigarette out a window — that’s happened. That’s probably about 20 percent of all the fires. Some of them are campfires that just get out of control. A friend of mine saw it. We had some tourists from Europe who weren’t aware of the fire ban so they had a big fire going, just north of town here. Fortunately, he intervened. It’s human carelessness, human ignorance, and yes, that’s not arson. I should probably rephrase. Did I say 50 percent arson?

N. Simons: Something like that.

J. Twigg: Okay, I should have said 50 percent human negligence.

N. Simons: Yeah, fair enough.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much, John, for speaking. We appreciate you taking the time.

J. Twigg: No questions on global warming?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Community Justice Centre — Bruce Curtis.

Hello, Bruce. Welcome.

COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTRE

B. Curtis: Thank you very much for the opportunity. I’m here this afternoon on behalf of the Community Justice Centre in the Comox Valley, but I also sit on the executive of the Vancouver Island Regional Restorative Justice Association. Some of my colleagues on that body sit on the provincial executive for the association for restorative justice in British Columbia. We also have colleagues who sit on the national consortium for restorative justice. Although I’m going to be speaking about the Comox Valley, we’re referring to a much broader circumstance around restorative justice.

At the front of the submission that we made, you’ll find the summary of our suggestions and recommendations. But what I really want to do is to go through a couple of the details in our brief. Many people take a look at restorative justice and have either a nebulous understanding of it or an insufficient understanding of it or, unfortunately, no understanding of it at all. I’m rather hopeful that the members of this committee will come to a full, thorough, complete understanding of restorative justice by careful scrutiny of the brief that I’ve submitted.

The Community Justice Initiatives program in Langley notes that the restorative justice approach provides “an alternative process for dealing with a significant number of cases which would be unlikely to be resolved in a positive, meaningful way in the courts.” It provides “a low-cost means of resolving those cases.”

It’s “an effective alternative to the court process, helping to reduce Crown counsel caseloads and to address the issue of overcrowded courtrooms and lengthy delays.”

It is “an effective way to increase” — and I think this is really important — “community understanding of and participation in the justice system.” It provides “a process that can reduce victim frustrations and the anger that would otherwise be projected on the system itself.”

[3:05 p.m.]

Although restorative justice is not a court-based program — it’s an alternative to the court-based program — it’s a community-developed, community-initiated, community-run program. It could, in fact, substantially reduce costs for the court system in the province. I’m sure members of the committee would want to make sure that they explore every alternative for reducing costs in the provincial government.

Restorative justice works not just with youth. This is one of the myths of restorative justice. In fact, there’s considerable evidence that it works more effectively with older citizens, those over 18.

There’s also another myth that restorative justice is most effective and most important to be used in minor, low-level-incident crimes — things like shoplifting a piece of gum or stealing a steak or throwing an egg at a house during Halloween celebrations or other such minor and relatively trivial offences. The evidence really is that it is much more effective and much more profound in higher-level, category 1 and 2 incidents. Those are serious incidents — arson, fraud, assault, assault with a weapon, assaulting an officer and even, quite frankly, up to the cases of murder.

Now, you might think that referring murder to restorative justice may not be the appropriate approach, and I would agree. It’s probably not. But restorative justice can occur in all sorts of different entry levels to the justice system.

It can occur pre-charge, which is where the police make the discretionary referral to restorative justice. That’s where you find most of the shoplifting files and the minor vandalism and little cases of property disturbance. But it can also occur at the level of the Crown attorney. The Crown can refer to restorative justice pretrial, although it is post-charge. Judicial members can refer during trial or post-trial, and corrections Canada can refer cases of profound criminal responsibility post-release — after the service of the sentence has occurred.

These discretionary referrals are aided and/or prohibited or interfered with by, essentially, public attitudes. Within the police referral system, which is a pre-charge basis, there is…. The majority of RCMP officers are not predisposed to restorative justice because the training structure and the population of officers attracted into the RCMP have sort of an American television view of the world, which is that their job is to catch the bad guys and lock ’em up.

If you’re looking at every instance of criminal activity from that lens, then they’re doing their job. But if you have a wider lens that understands that there are many factors that contribute to an incident of harm that’s caused as a result of a breach of the criminal law or a breach of civil behaviour, you’ll see that there are many alternatives to the court system that will work more effectively, with more profound results, and have a deeper impact on, importantly, not only the individual who committed the offence or caused the harm but also on the individual who has suffered the harm — or, as the police call them, the victims of crime.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Bruce, we’re at about six minutes, a bit over time on the initial presentation. So if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, I’d appreciate it.

B. Curtis: I can wrap up relatively quickly because you have the brief.

Certainly, one of the incidents that we need to be paying close attention to is the fact of the rise in deep, underlying issues related to alcoholism, addiction, homelessness, poverty, social collapse, family dysfunction, and so on. They have risen dramatically. In one year, the difference between cases that we did in a case file review…. One year, 24 percent of our files had those deep, underlying issues. The next year, we had 40 percent of those underlying issues.

It is a result of the diminution of the provision of social services in the communities and access to the resources that are needed to assist them.

One of our deepest concerns is that funding for CAP programs, community accountability programs, which are administered by the Solicitor General’s program, be substantially increased. It was introduced in 1998 at $2,500 per program.

[3:10 p.m.]

It is now, after some 20 years, $2,500 per program. Some of those programs handle two, three or four files in a year. Others, like ours, handle between 120 and 150 files per year. The level of complexity is dramatically different. The range of programs across the province is dramatically different.

We would encourage a substantial funding of efforts within the Solicitor General’s budget for the CAP program and across multiple ministries that are using restorative justice approaches within their programs. MCFD, Education, Health, Attorney General, Solicitor General — those are all areas which utilize some form of restorative justice, and we would encourage enhancing that. But mostly we would encourage a substantial enhancement to the funding for public education around that. The programs and the government could work collaboratively, very well together, on that kind of a project.

I thank you for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thanks, Bruce.

We don’t have a lot of time for questions. We’re at about eight minutes now.

Do you have a question, Nicholas?

N. Simons: When we’re talking about restorative justice, are we talking about justice circles? Are we talking about victim-offender reconciliation? Can you describe, just for our benefit, some examples?

B. Curtis: The short answer is yes. The programs across British Columbia and even our own program in the Comox Valley use justice circles, peacemaking circles, and short-term, transformative dialogue. We utilize the family conferencing model out of New Zealand. The one program that we don’t actually use is the RCMP-based community justice forums model. It is the dominant model that’s used in B.C. because it used to be funded by the RCMP, up until 2016 when they removed the funding for those program supports and shifted the goals of the E division RCMP program for restorative justice.

N. Simons: What did they shift to?

B. Curtis: They shifted to having a provincial coordinator who would be responsible for encouraging police detachments to do more referrals to the programs which were no longer being supported by the RCMP for training purposes and the resources for training. That’s shifted a training burden onto all of the RJ programs themselves to figure out how to get their volunteers trained.

We have, in the Comox Valley, 150 volunteers. We are one of the largest volunteer programs that is not single event–based in the Comox Valley. I mean, Music Fest, of course, has 2,000, 3,000 or 4,000 volunteers, but it’s only for two days.

N. Simons: Quick follow-up. I’m not sure that this is the measure that we need to go by, but is recidivism — the commission of another offence after — impacted by using community justice versus the traditional justice system?

B. Curtis: I can’t tell you from the point of view of the Comox Valley, because we are not embedded in the RCMP. We’re a community-based program so we don’t have access to the criminal records that the police database does. But from other programs that are embedded in the RCMP, yes, that is a strong impact for reducing recidivism.

It’s a strange measure, because when you steal something at age seven from a grocery store, that’s a bit different than, you know, knocking off a bank when you’re 21. People change. People grow. People develop. Restorative justice feeds into that developmental growth pattern to help to install a sense of civic responsibility and collegiality and community connection. But recidivism alone is not the offer.

We do have some former criminals who are volunteers in the justice centre and have been convicted of, for example…. Well, I can think of four or five of our volunteers who were convicted of tree hugging in the Clayoquot Valley in the 1990s. They have a criminal record, but we don’t consider that a threat to our program.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Bruce, We’re actually over time now by a couple of minutes.

R. Leonard: Can I just ask one more question?

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, we’re done. Sorry, it’s 12 minutes. I appreciate that, but we’re done.

Thank you so much, Bruce, and thanks for the work in restorative justice. We appreciate your comments.

I’m going to take a five-minute break, please, and then we will be back. So a short recess.

The committee recessed from 3:14 p.m. to 3:21 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the Vancouver Island University Faculty Association — Christopher Jaeger.

How are you?

C. Jaeger: I am well. How are you?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Excellent. The floor is yours. Go ahead.

VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY
FACULTY ASSOCIATION

C. Jaeger: Good afternoon. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that we are on the traditional lands of the Wei Wai Kum First Nation. I want to thank them for hosting this consultation process of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I also want to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. I say this knowing that the opportunity to engage in open, respectful dialogue such as this is a privilege that is not available everywhere.

I appreciate too that the work you, the members of the committee, are doing is difficult. You are presented with a seemingly infinite number of important and worthy requests to eventually be weighed against what is a limited and constrained purse. I do not envy you your task, but nonetheless, I thank you for taking it on.

My name is Chris Jaeger, and I’m fortunate to be the president of the Vancouver Island University Faculty Association, or VIUFA for short. Our membership includes the elders, professors, counsellors, librarians and IT professionals who serve the students of Vancouver Island University at its Nanaimo, Cowichan, Powell River and Parksville campuses.

Our university is built on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation, the Cowichan Tribes, the Qualicum First Nation and the Tla’amin First Nation. On behalf of VIUFA, I thank them for the opportunity to live, learn, work and play on their lands.

VIUFA is Local 8 of Federation of Post-Secondary Educators, also known as FPSE. FPSE represents some 10,000 employees working in post-secondary education in this province. One of the tasks FPSE is currently undertaking is a comprehensive position paper related to the post-secondary education funding model as it currently exists in B.C. Our intent is to make recommendations as to what needs to occur to make funding education in B.C. more equitable for all of its citizens and in all of its regions.

Based on the work FPSE has done to date, I would like to give you and draw your attention to some of the disparities in the system. I will use examples from both VIU and other locals to illustrate a couple of key points.

To begin with, B.C.’s publicly supported post-secondary landscape is governed by four separate pieces of legislation. This patchwork quilt of legislation reflects a series of historical responses to the growth of post-secondary education in B.C.

[3:25 p.m.]

What has emerged is an uneven system in which a domestic B.C. student has very different opportunities based on what school they attend — even what campus they attend. Much of this reflects how much value they represent to their chosen school.

Let me illustrate with an example. At VIU, my school, a master’s education student will be allocated zero dollars of base funding of support, while at one of the research universities, the same student is allocated a significant amount of base funding from the province. By our estimation, this amount can be anywhere from $14,000 to $22,000. From this simple example, you can see how VIU has to do more with less, and we do, do more with less.

Despite everything, students still seek out VIU’s master of education program because of its quality. But the disparity is wearing our infrastructure thin. We struggle to keep up. We’re forced to focus on transactional costs before transformational content.

Next, the funding models don’t account for the geographic dispersion of our campuses where travel is expensive in financial and time-related terms. This often results in slowly withering satellite campuses and missed opportunities to engage with peers.

Our student populations are starting their educational jour­neys economically and socially disadvantaged. Our cam­puses are remote, and our students’ homes are even more remote. All of this means that we have increasingly complex student bodies to support, and we simply don’t have the needed resources to support them the way they deserve.

Why do we need to address fairness in B.C.’s post-secondary education funding model? Let’s begin by looking at the issue through the lens of the truth and reconciliation committee. A strong, healthy and vibrant regional college and university system is what B.C. needs to respond to the recommendations of the TRC, particularly recommendation 62. The likelihood of an Aboriginal student from northern B.C. or an island off of the west coast making their first foray into the world of post-secondary education by going to Vancouver is close to nil. B.C. owes it to that student to be ready and available to them when they are ready.

Secondly, plain even-handedness. Our mandates go beyond what is reasonable to ask of what we are given to do the jobs we’ve been tasked with.

You can see the strain of always being stretched on people’s faces. We teach the same content and meet the same goals. I think it’s only fair to ask for the same backing. My understanding is that the funding model has not been revisited for 35 years — since 1983.

Where do we go from here? Well, I guess we challenge the government of B.C., no matter its ideology, to begin the process of addressing the uneven funding it provides to taxpayers, whether they be the students themselves or their families. A good place to start would include revisiting and rationalizing the province’s dissonant legislation with respect to this sector. I know FPSE are more than willing to constructively support any efforts towards this end.

In closing, I thank the committee again for inviting me to engage in this consultation process. And again, I also thank the Wei Wai Kum First Nation for hosting this important work of the committee. Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Christopher. I appreciate that.

Questions from the…?

N. Simons: I appreciate it very much. I think you’ve said some things that people in my community would echo, and that is, in Powell River, the wish to be able to further their education in more ways than are currently offered. So I appreciate that.

Do you think that the change of the status of colleges to universities created a bit of a gap that has sort of continued, or is that not relevant to our discussion?

[3:30 p.m.]

C. Jaeger: I think it’s very relevant, and I’ll answer that in two ways. First of all, the conversion of the four or five colleges or arts schools to university standing came without any financial support.

I think, in our case, the conversion from Malaspina University College to Vancouver Island University, just in branding and everything else, cost us $1 million — a million dollars towards the end of a financial year, a million dollars we didn’t have and a million dollars we hadn’t budgeted for. It was a huge hit to our institution.

I understand that that pattern repeated itself, whether it was Kwantlen, Fraser Valley or Emily Carr. So that’s one thing.

The other thing I’d like to point out is that yes, we are a special teaching university at Vancouver Island University, but what we have is a college infrastructure. Quite frankly, a college infrastructure cannot keep up with the demands of being a university.

It may not seem obvious to a layperson or from a distance, but universities suddenly attract more students. We have more wear and tear on the system. We have more demands on us. We have to function at a higher level. Quite frankly, we just cannot do it where we have an infrastructure that was built with a 25-year life cycle. What we really need is a 100-year life cycle out of our infrastructure. We just don’t have it. And the wear and tear is showing everywhere.

Does that answer your question?

N. Simons: Yes, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Christopher. You mentioned the four pieces of legislation. Are you suggesting that there should be a consolidation of those or bringing together or…? You mentioned that there are four pieces that create sort of ad hoc approaches to things. I wasn’t sure what the solution was that you were proposing in terms of those four pieces of legislation.

C. Jaeger: I think that the solution is based on a dialogue and a consultation. If I could just illustrate for you. UBC and the research universities have one piece of legislation. Thompson Rivers — as a school, one school — has its own legislation. Special teaching universities have their legislation. And the colleges have a fourth piece of legislation.

In the research university legislation, the Minister of Advanced Ed is, I think, mentioned once in the last third of the document, whereas I understand that in the special teaching universities, the Ministry of Advanced Education is mentioned within the first two pages and then again repeatedly.

That right there just illustrates very clearly how much involvement the government will have and intends to have with two groups operating within the same sector. So right there is sort of a disparity whereby there’s clearly an offhand approach with one group and a very involved approach with another group.

The question is: how do you reconcile that? How do you make that so that the reporting functions, the demands and the expectations are all on an even playing field?

B. D’Eith (Chair): That makes a lot of sense.

C. Jaeger: If I could just embellish a bit more.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes. We’re just out of time, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, I’d appreciate it.

C. Jaeger: I like to think that the laws of gravity are the same whether they’re being taught at a regional university or at a research university. Debits and credits are the same. Shakespeare is the same. There are no differences in the content and the results, but there are big differences from the starting point.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Christopher. We appreciate your comments. That was wonderful.

Next up we have the B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Services — Jim Powell.

Please go ahead.

B.C. CENTRE FOR AQUATIC
HEALTH SCIENCES SOCIETY

J. Powell: Thanks very much. I appreciate the opportunity to come and talk to you.

[3:35 p.m.]

My name is Jim Powell, and I’m the CEO of the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences. I want to welcome you all to Campbell River, which is the salmon capital of the world. Anybody here from Port Alberni? That’s a good thing.

All right. I did send a presentation out to the group. I want to run through it on a page-by-page basis.

First of all, to qualify us and who we are, the B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences is a non-profit society. We don’t take any government funding for operation. We’re a fee-for-services group, so that means for whatever we do, we’d use that money in our revenues.

We’re involved in fisheries and aquaculture research and diagnostics. We have two programs there of fisheries and aquaculture research and then the detection of diseases. We’re a third-party, unbiased and independent laboratory. We don’t have the government funds. We don’t have strict operational funds from industry or from any vested party. We have a board of directors who are stakeholders. We do not have shareholders, so we remain independent to do this work.

We’ve been in the business for 13 years, so we have staying power. We have annual revenues of about $1.5 million. And of course, we have spending of about $1.5 million because we are a non-profit society.

We have 14 staff members, and they’re all local. They all work in a high-tech molecular lab here in Campbell River, and we work on all aspects of salmon research. This is a dry lab. A dry lab is something where you take bits and pieces in.

What the province really needs, and what salmon really need, is a wet lab. A wet lab is where there are experimental tanks — if you can imagine that in your mind, what you think a hatchery would look like with tanks with fish in them — that have flow-through seawater. The reason we want to put it on land is because we want to eliminate those environmental influences. We can focus on the root causes of what’s really troubling salmon at the moment. We want to work on wild and farmed salmon interactions. That usually has to do with pathogen transfer between the two.

You can imagine, with the news of late and for the last few years, what we want to investigate and how we want to investigate it. It’s in tanks at the level of the organism.

We also want to work on land-based aquaculture. If there is going to be a migration to land, there are a lot of things we have to work on. That can be done only in the wet lab situation. It also does things for mitigating those diseases, like vaccine development, like better deployment of therapeutants, like protecting the environment as well as wild salmon for this. It has to do with feed improvements, because if we’re going to be working with feeds, we want to minimize the inputs to the environment, but we also want to maximize what our land-based aquaculture can do.

There are a number of drivers for a wet lab, and the first of them is that wild salmon are a priority — I can’t say that enough — and that we know that those issues are going to be addressed by science-based solutions. That’s going to work the best.

The MAACFA, which is the Minister of Agriculture’s advisory committee on fisheries and aquaculture, has had two full sets of recommendations where farmed and wild interactions have to be looked at. They also said they need the establishment of a level 2 wet lab capacity, which we do not have in the province of B.C. DFO has got some, but that’s booked solid, and it works on DFO projects. The province needs to take a lead on that. We do not have a provincial-level wet lab. That means that important work is not getting done to protect wild salmon.

There are a variety of stakeholders in this, obviously. We’re on the People of the Salmon’s land, the Wei Wai Kai and the Wei Wai Kum, for commercial and ceremonial purposes. Governments are involved in this — the Indigenous, the federal, the provincial and the city — and NGOs that work on wild salmon — the Pacific Salmon Foundation, the Campbell River Salmon Foundation. All of those enhancement groups that are up and down the island will benefit from this wet lab.

Industry has got to work with us and with other interested parties to look at: what are the mitigating procedures that they can use for therapeutants? How are they going to minimize reaction between the two? How can we best serve? Salmon farms don’t look like they’re going away soon, but we should be working on that right now.

Also, there are other services that we want to work on, like net-washing and fouling — what are the effects of that? — and, again, making sure we have the right biofilters for land-based.

[3:40 p.m.]

The RSMeans cost for this — that’s a way of calculating — is up to about $4.3 million, if we’ve got to buy the land, build a building, all of that sort of infrastructure. Industry has already committed to the point where they say that they will contribute for this. Federal funding is available with DFO and with Western Economic Diversification, but the province needs to commit first. We’ve taken a leadership role in that. The province has to be there to say: “Here’s the seed funding for this. We support it.” There’s a demonstrated need and a commitment, and the projects are waiting right now. We’re stalled in what we can do in several avenues of our investigations because we don’t have that wet lab.

Now, the full story is about the abundance of wild salmon. The big picture of that is: can and how do wild salmon co-exist with industrial salmon production? Let’s find out what those impediments are. But we need a wet lab to do that.

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

S. Furstenau: Thank you very much. That was very interesting. When you say industry is already committed to funding, is there an amount that they’ve committed out of that $4.3 million, or offered?

J. Powell: I’ll tell you that what they’re saying is they would like to be last in, because they want to follow, not lead, on this. Obviously, if they came in to lead for building a wet lab, the label is going to be right there and say: “This is industry funded and industry driven.” They don’t want that.

N. Simons: Can you describe what the infrastructure for a wet lab would look like and what an approximate cost of its construction would be? I might have missed that, sorry.

J. Powell: Okay. We have been working on scenarios for quite some time. If we use an existing building, it could be as little as $2 million or so.

Imagine a room that’s this size. What we do is put walls through, and we put tanks in that are each self-controlled with their own filtration and water purification in, water purification out in those tanks. If you can imagine this lovely room here, that’s what it looks like. It just has tanks, and it’s white and sterile. We wear lab coats, and we wear gloves and that sort of thing. But there are fish in there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a quick question for you in regards to…. This is kind of a chicken-and-egg question. As we move forward with fish farm policy and those types of things and looking at closed containment or on land, are you saying that the wet lab would help with all those scenarios? Would it be specifically the ones that are in the ocean already or…?

J. Powell: There are scenarios that can’t…. Policy can’t be decided upon by “ifs.” It can only be by solid and controlled conditions. That’s what we’re proposing in this circumstance — that we have controlled conditions to investigate to give you science-based…. So it’s all done to scientific rigour. You’re exactly right. It will help guide policy.

N. Simons: This is something, and I’m not sure if this was answered. If DFO isn’t studying the impacts of farm-raised salmon on wild salmon, what are they studying?

J. Powell: I’m not saying that they’re not. But their scope is a little bit different than ours. They’re looking at it from a fisheries and aquaculture production perspective, in many ways. I’m not going to speak for them, but they’re looking at it from a different angle, where we, as the people who are involved with that, are a little bit different.

N. Simons: Wouldn’t the results of their investigations be sort of an objective measurement rather than something that’s geared towards production versus science?

J. Powell: There are questions that are not in the scientific mandate of theirs that need to be answered as well, so this is a complementary method towards that, yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): This is primarily, what you’re talking about, the interaction between farmed versus wild salmon. Are there other aspects to a wet lab that would also help to increase the stock of wild salmon — period?

J. Powell: Absolutely, and that’s….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Maybe you could elaborate on that.

J. Powell: Yes, okay. For instance, we’re talking about the enhancement societies. If there are culture methods that will keep a new way of culture…. For instance, sorry to get geeky on you, but there’s a thing called neuroplasticity. That means: do the brains in enhanced salmon work the same as in a wild salmon?

There are measures that you can take, and you can test to show that when those salmon are released from a hatchery, say from an enhancement hatchery, they’re prepared to go into the environment, able to face a certain broad spectrum of environments and choices, whereas the fish that has only lived in a tank all of its life and then goes into the water may not survive long. That’s been demonstrated in the Columbia River, for instance. We can do that testing.

[3:45 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): So the wet lab is not only for the interaction between farmed and wild.

J. Powell: No, it’s not just farmed.

B. D’Eith (Chair): This also could be used to help en­hance the restocking of the wild salmon generally?

J. Powell: Absolutely. There’s also the genetic factor of that too, by developing genetic markers that we can test in “whose salmon is it?”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much for the presentation. We appreciate you being…. Geeking out a bit on us is fine. We don’t mind at all. That’s fantastic. Thanks so much.

J. Powell: If you have any questions and you want to follow up with it, you have my contact. Thanks very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Dennis Evans.

DENNIS EVANS

D. Evans: I’m a criminal legal aid lawyer, so you can guess where my bias stands. It doesn’t mean I’m employed by legal aid, because legal aid has very few employees left. It means I’m a private lawyer who takes on…. Essentially, all of my practice is legal aid criminal contracts. My pitch will be obvious. It needs more funding, and it’s desperate.

It really is. Just as an example, yesterday in Powell River, there were six individuals in custody who had been there overnight, and not one lawyer. The judge wouldn’t hear anybody by telephone. Legal aid didn’t cover any duty counsel that day, so I don’t know what happened to those six individuals. But they were still there at the end of the court day yesterday. I was duty counsel in Courtenay. They were asking me if I could do anything, and I said no.

That’s just the criminal point of view. If I can just go back a little, I’m sure many of you are familiar with the history of the relationship between the provincial sales tax, or social services tax, and legal aid funding. In 1991, there was a fairly substantial increase in legal aid funding, including our last raise as counsel. In 1992, the tax was applied to private lawyers’ fees.

At the time, in 1992, the legal aid budget approximated what was being collected in PST. I can advise that in 2016, $193.1 million was collected on the tax on lawyers’ fees, and $72.6 million actually went to legal aid, and $14.7 million of that was a federal transfer payment. So only $58 million, out of the $193 million that was collected, went to Legal Services Society, which is about 30 percent.

When this tax was originally introduced, it wasn’t explicitly allocated to legal services funding, but that was the understanding. Certainly, the opposition at that time were fairly critical of the fact that not 100 percent of the tax went to legal services.

That has decreased and decreased, gradually, over the years. In 2002, some $30 million was slashed from the legal aid budget. That was somewhere between 25 and 30 percent of the budget that just got cut out. The result, from a ground-level practitioner, has been that legal aid clinics were shut down. There used to be somewhere around 50 legal aid clinics in B.C.

What isn’t as obvious and visible is that those clinics did poverty law. Poverty law is not covered by any legal services tariff. So all of those people fell by the wayside when those clinics closed. There is a constitutional mandate to cover criminal law, so the cuts, although they’ve certainly been there in criminal law, are not anywhere near as drastic as they are in family law.

I can follow up with Mr. Curtis’s assertion that there are ways to cut court budgets, and I’ll tell you that one of them is to fund family lawyers. I don’t practise family law, and I can’t tell you how many times I can sit in a courtroom and watch two individuals at the most emotional time of their lives, who are drastically incapable of advancing their own cases, arguing about things before a Provincial Court judge who’s being paid $250,000 a year.

[3:50 p.m.]

Court staff, sheriffs, taking up a courtroom — spending all of that time and all of that money on something that could have been resolved in 20 minutes if they’d had counsel, had family counsel.

Now, there have been some recent — this year, thank you — influxes to the legal aid budget. Those have been spent increasing services to Indigenous peoples, particularly in the areas of the Child, Family and Community Service Act, matters where extended family are now being covered. This is going to go a long way to reducing families being destroyed, and it will allow extended family to get into the case early, so that they can have that connection with the child.

The other area that’s been funded — again, better — has been Gladue reports for Indigenous accused. What is still not funded are the majority of family law cases.

I also do some contract work for family maintenance enforcement program. There used to be a program where women on income assistance — usually women — would get counsel paid for to get child support orders from the fathers of their children. That’s no longer there.

The problem is that a lot of these men didn’t qualify for legal aid — because family had been absolutely slashed — but are functionally illiterate, incapable of coping in court, and they had these maintenance…. They just ignored them. They put their heads in the sand. They get these maintenance orders, based on an income they’ve never had and aren’t capable of earning, aren’t capable of paying. So by the time I get in there as counsel for the director of maintenance enforcement, I’m trying to put these guys in jail, and they still don’t qualify for legal aid.

It’s a system that’s in crisis. It’s decimating the underprivileged, particularly with the lack of poverty law and with the lack of coverage for family law. It’s got to the point, as I briefly mentioned…. They haven’t raised lawyers’ rates since 1991. They’ve been unable to. I’ve only been a lawyer for 21 years, so I’ve never had a raise. Younger lawyers can’t take legal aid cases. They have student loans. They have debts. They are now at a position where in every registry, from Duncan on, north, they’re begging for family legal aid lawyers. And nobody will take it. I won’t take it; I can’t afford it.

As far as criminal law goes, I practise from Courtenay to Port Hardy. I don’t think there’s any lawyer in Port Hardy now who takes legal aid. In Campbell River, there are two main lawyers and one who takes a bit of legal aid, criminal. In Courtenay, there are four of us, and I’m the youngest at 56.

In any event, this is a system that’s going into crisis. With the aging of the professional population, it’s not going to get any better. It does need funding.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s great. Thank you. I’m a lawyer, and I remember…. I think we’re the only service that PST is charged on. Maybe there are others, but certainly, that was the intention when it was originally brought in. The law society has, I think, given up the fight, because it’s been 20 years trying to fight that fight for legal aid. I certainly remember when all the legal aid lawyers got fired and had to be…. It was a very sad day.

I appreciate what you’re saying. I also appreciate the fact that this does affect, often, the people who are most vulnerable in our community. So thank you for the presentation.

N. Simons: Thank you for speaking out on an issue…. There are not a lot of people coming to present to us about not being able to access a lawyer or that kind of thing, so we count on the voices of those who represent people who are in trouble with the law, and who are facing child and family court action or even family disputes. I think you point to some really important issues.

You didn’t mention Powell River when you said how many legal aid lawyers are available. You do practise there.

D. Evans: I think there are only two. I don’t actually practise in Powell River very much, because they won’t cover the travel time for me to go over, and it takes all day. I have stopped taking cases there.

N. Simons: Well, that’s actually quite important to know. It’s costly, and those costs aren’t recovered.

Is it also something to do with the number of court days available for criminal court?

[3:55 p.m.]

D. Evans: There’s one remand day a week in Powell River.

Port Hardy has a similar situation, only it’s a little easier to get a lawyer up from Campbell River to Port Hardy. There is one criminal remand day.

Basically, what a criminal remand day is, is one where everybody is sort of procedural in first appearances, and applications happen. The problem is that those will sometimes go over to the next day. There is court scheduled, but it’s not a remand day. So legal aid only covers the duty counsel for the remand day. It’s probably a budget choice on their part, obviously.

N. Simons: So people remain in custody?

D. Evans: Yes. One of the sheriffs was saying that this happened a few months ago, and there were people in custody for five days as they moved them around the province, trying to find a lawyer for them, and a judge and a courtroom. I’ve had clients shipped from Port Hardy to Campbell River. The last bus going back north leaves at two o’clock. So if they don’t get finished court in Campbell River by two, then they’re stuck in Campbell River with no way to get back to Port Hardy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re just out of time now, Dennis, but thank you very much for your presentation. I appreciate it. And I like your Star Trek tie pin. It’s awesome.

D. Evans: Thank you. I didn’t try to beam myself up.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next we have B.C. Parks Foundation — Dr. Andy Day.

Hi, Dr. Day. How are you?

A. Day: Great.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Excellent. The floor is yours. Go ahead.

B.C. PARKS FOUNDATION

A. Day: Okay. Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here. It’s great to live in a province where elected officials actually listen to people, especially about something as important as the budget. But I know that comes at a personal cost, as you travel away from your family and friends. So thank you for the opportunity.

I’ve come here today to present a solution, because I also know that you are having to listen to a lot of very worthy needs for government resources. We put our heads together to say: how can we help ease the kinds of difficult choices you have to make?

I’m here, obviously, to talk about parks. Before I talk about the solution, I’ll just frame the problem a little bit so you understand.

The problem is that there’s a gap between what successive governments have provided to parks over the last number of years; the level of support for parks amongst the public; the increasing use of parks; the way we brand and market beautiful, “Super, natural British Columbia”; and the massive opportunities we’re losing by chronically underfunding our arguably greatest asset. One out of every seven hectares in B.C. is parkland. That’s 15 percent of our province.

Let’s look at some numbers. In British Columbia, the budget equates to about $2.80 per hectare that we spend on parks. In Alberta, our supposedly redneck neighbours, they spend $36 per hectare on parks. Nationally, they’re spending an average of over $30 per hectare. Metro Vancouver regional parks spends $3,000 per hectare on parks.

In absolute numbers, Alberta is about $100 million on parks. Federally, it’s about $800 million. Metro Vancouver is $41.3 million. We spend about $40 million on parks, on average.

Again, for some more perspective, Metro Vancouver — that $41.3 million is on 13,000 hectares of parks. We have 14 million hectares of parks in British Columbia that we spend $40 million on. So it’s a bit of an embarrassment amongst our peers. We’re not even in the same city or ballpark as any of the….

Again, looking historically, we spend less today than we spent in 1985 when adjusted for inflation, even though, during that time, the number of parks has tripled and the number of visitors has gone up ten million. Five years ago in one park near Vancouver, there were about 34,000 people visiting per year. Now there are 37,000 per month. So you can imagine the increase in fire risk, in garbage, in wear and tear on trails, etc.

[4:00 p.m.]

Okay. That’s the problem, but I said I was here to present a solution.

That story, if we continue it, does not end well. The story that ends well is if we bring partners together to address this problem. I’m not here to say government should shoulder this burden solely. I’m here to say that government is one of a number of players that we need to have brought together. That includes the private sector, tourism agencies, non-profits and volunteers, educational institutions and park visitors.

Bringing those groups together, we then have to lay out our quest. Our quest, I believe, should be that we make the B.C. parks system the most revered parks system on the planet. That’s both in the experiences that we can provide and the quality of stewardship that we provide.

Why is that important? Because if we create an iconic brand like “I love New York” or “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” we will create huge economic, social and environmental benefits over time. And that’s not just me saying that; that’s actually an effect. It’s called the Central Park effect or the park halo effect. Parks are one of the best investments because they have health benefits, they have educational benefits, they have environmental benefits and significant economic benefits.

How do we do that? As I said, we bring the parties together. We identify our goal. My request to you is that you look at the short-term incremental crisis situations that need be funded by B.C. Parks agency, as the regulatory agency. They do enforcement. They’re the only ones who can do that.

They’re right now paying $1,200 an hour to helicopter garbage out of some of these parks, and that’s putting a huge strain on all of the other stuff they do. So, certainly, they need the support. But we’re saying there’s a ton of other stuff that we can do through a partnership. What we’re saying is that for every dollar that we raise, we’re asking the provincial government to match.

That will allow us, based on the strategy that we come up with, with these parties, to make a huge impact on our parks system. Again, that’s not me talking. There are examples of this in the Golden Gate, where the Golden Gate Conservancy, which is a foundation like ours, works with the national parks system. The conservancy’s annual budget is now $176 million in revenue, and 50 percent of that is earned revenue. The major chunk of the remainder is grants and contributions from philanthropic and other sectors.

This is not small money. Central Park is another example. This is a great opportunity, and I hope that you’ll consider it. I look forward to your questions. I’ve got tons of stats and other information I’m happy to provide.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Dr. Day.

P. Milobar: Thank you for the presentation. Just doing a quick look at the B.C. Parks Foundation. It looks like you’re a relatively new foundation, but it also looks like you’ve done the right step in that you’re listing some fairly high deputy ministers and such on your board, as well as listing the province of B.C. and B.C. Parks as sponsors. What have the board-level conversations with government been like and the outlook for future budgetary bumps to B.C. Parks, then, in terms of what you would be expecting out of, say, a recommendation from us?

A. Day: Just rephrase that again, that last bit.

P. Milobar: I’m just trying to ascertain what conversations have been around…. I mean, we’re asked to make recommendations out of this, right? Obviously, you’ve got a board structure and an organizational structure that’s tied in already by outwardly looking — fairly high levels within B.C. Parks. You list B.C. Parks as a supporter. You have the Deputy Minister of Parks on your board. Is there a sense that…? How do we fit into this puzzle?

A. Day: We have a collaborative agreement. We are independent and separate from government. We’re not an arm of government or anything like that. We have a collaborative agreement with B.C. Parks that lays out how we work together, and what some of the priorities are. It’s a great framework.

[4:05 p.m.]

We have the ability, with that, to then start engaging other partners and bring in funding. However, it’s really up to you and the government to make the budget appropriations that provide funding to B.C. Parks for its core services. We can’t fund that. And, secondly, for you to make the budget appropriations to come to a party like the foundation to match all those other donations that come in.

The park agency itself is so limited in what it can do. We have some projects we’re doing, but it’s just such a small drop in the bucket. There needs to be a new approach.

S. Furstenau: You’ve got both environment critics in here.

Further to Peter’s question, how much do you think you could raise in a year? Like, if we’re looking at dollar-for-dollar matching, what do you think B.C. Parks Foundation could be raising per year?

A. Day: Well, we’ve had a few years of building brand recognition — all that kind of stuff. One of our biggest challenges, as we go out into the market right now, is people are saying: “Well, that’s government’s job.” It’s a bit like hospital foundations. Before, everybody said: “Oh yeah, hospitals. Government is supposed to fund that.” Then people got used to the idea, and now they’re major fundraisers. So allowing a bit of a ramp-up time.

Our aim this year is to try to raise $5 million and then have a matching $5 million from the provincial government, a matching $5 million from the federal government.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. I guess that’s important from a budgetary point of view. A matching could be any amount. I guess, as a committee, it’s good to have some sort of…. Is there a blue-sky goal? I mean, are you aiming for tens of millions? Is that what you’re trying to aim for?

That’s where I could see a bit of a push-back from the Minister of Finance. It’s like: “Well, we can’t just match dollar for dollar not knowing what the upside or downside is.”

A. Day: Yeah, you don’t want a blank cheque. Sure. Obviously, you need to set a cap. Each year, that’s going to vary. I would say in your first couple of years, we’re looking at something like a $10 million maximum or something like that. Again we are, like, $2.80, $40 million…. We really, according to some estimates, need to be more like $100 million for the park system. But you don’t want to do that all at once anyway.

So working, developing a strategic plan with a bunch of parties, bringing that forward, saying, “This year were looking at this kind of budget for these activities….” That’ll set that kind of parameter.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Fee for use — is that some­thing that’s been discussed?

A. Day: British Columbians are pretty adamant that they want their parks free.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): With all due respect, there is no such thing as a free lunch. I’m just saying. I just got back from Roosevelt Lake. It’s $10 for seven days to park there. There’s a watchman in there. You don’t need to worry about your car getting broken into. The lot is paved. The boat launches are great. The parks are immaculate down there.

There are things that are going to have to be overcome at some point in time. I concur that use is an issue. To pay $1,200 to fly garbage out when people are that orientated…. What are they leaving that crap in there for anyway, first of all?

There are opportunities to look at. I would hope that collectively, because we all want to be able to utilize those facilities that belong to the people of British Columbia, and they’re utilized by people in the world…. I just think there should be a wholesale discussion about…. There are opportunities where a little bit doesn’t hurt, especially if you get more bang for your buck.

A. Day: Yeah. I think part of that strategy…. It can be a task force or commission or something that lays out some of those ideas.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): It should be on the table.

A. Day: I think we are at a point where everything does have to be on the table, and people need to understand that you can’t kind of have it both ways, right? For sure.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, we’re out of time. Thank you very much, Dr. Day, for coming. We really appreciate it.

I believe that’s our last speaker, so we’re all done. A motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:09 p.m.