The committee met at 9:02 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

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

We’re very pleased to be here in Vancouver and would like to begin by recognizing that our meeting today is taking place on the traditional territory of the Coast Salish people and, specifically, the Musqueam people.

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

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

In addition to these in-person meetings, British Columbians can also provide their thoughts in writing or fill out our on-line survey. The deadline for input is 5 p.m. on Monday, October 15, 2018. For more information, you can come to our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/finance. We, as a committee, 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 provincial budget. Our report will be available November 15, 2018.

To everyone here today, thank you for taking the time to participate. We had some great discussions and presentations last week — all over British Columbia. We managed to get to Haida Gwaii, which we were all very excited about, amongst other cities. We look forward to hearing from more British Columbians.

As far as the format, we have a number of registered speakers today. Each will be given five minutes to speak with five minutes for questions from the committee. There’s also a — time permitting, because we’re very busy today in Vancouver — first-come, first-served open-mike period near the end of the meeting, which would give five minutes to each speaker. If you would like to speak, please see Mariana at the information table.

[9:05 a.m.]

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

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

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

My name is Dan Ashton. Good morning, everyone. I represent the area of Penticton to Peachland in the Okanagan.

S. Cadieux: Good morning. It’s Stephanie Cadieux, and I am the MLA for Surrey South.

T. Redies: Good morning. I’m Tracy Redies. I’m the MLA for Surrey–White Rock.

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

S. Furstenau: Sonia Furstenau, MLA for Cowichan Valley.

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

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great, thank you.

Assisting the committee today will be Jennifer Arril, to my right, and Mariana Novis, who’s at the back, from our wonderful Parliamentary Clerks Office, who deal with our committees and do an amazing amount of work for us.

Also, we have Michael Baer and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard — hi, and welcome — who will be recording the proceedings.

Without further ado, our first presenter today is the B.C. Federation of Labour — Irene Lanzinger.

Hello, Irene. How are you? Welcome.

Budget Consultation Presentations

B.C. FEDERATION OF LABOUR

I. Lanzinger: Good morning, and thank you for allowing me to present.

The fundamental principle of our presentation, which we have submitted in writing as well so you have all this, is that if you want a strong economy, you need to invest in workers. We currently have a legacy of low-wage work, precarious work and instability for workers in the province. Deep cuts to public services have taken a toll on families and communities, and that’s the situation that we find ourselves in.

We are happy to see the $15 minimum wage and some of the initiatives of the current government. Eliminating the liquor server wage, eliminating MSP premiums, the establishment of a child care program — these are all things that will assist workers to be more stable and to be able to afford to live in our province.

We are eagerly awaiting the outcome of the poverty reduction process and that plan, which is coming. These are all good things in terms of workers.

There will be many people who present on issues like education, health care, child care, poverty reduction, so I won’t say any more about those things. I’m going to talk about a few things, and they are not actually very expensive things, that need to be done for workers. One is to invest in the employment standards branch.

Under the previous government, the employment standards branch was cut to less than half of what it was. It went from 151 employees at the branch to 74 — a 51 percent reduction. It went from 17 offices to nine offices. We are calling for a significant investment in the employment standards branch.

The complaints to the employment standards branch are down by 60 percent, and that is not because workers are not being exploited. That is because nobody gets any relief from making a complaint to the employment standards branch. Currently, if you have a complaint, if you are a non-union worker, and you are being exploited by your boss — which happens in many, many ways, because we get these calls at the Fed all the time — your option is to fill out a self-help kit, the first step of which is to confront your employer. You can imagine, for any employee, that is a very, very difficult task. But for a new Canadian, for a young worker, it is virtually impossible.

We’re calling for significant improvements to employment standards, including improving conditions for the employment of children, increasing the minimum work age from 12 to 16 years, increasing the wage recovery period, restoring and improving hours of work provisions, introducing seven days of paid sick leave for all workers, introducing paid leave for victims of domestic violence and restoring the employment standards as a minimum for all workers, with no exemptions. Addressing things like wage theft, which is unpaid overtime; forcing employees to end their shift early; having breaks; stealing tips on the part of the employer; not giving proper holiday pay — all of these things are happening today in this province with very little recourse for workers.

[9:10 a.m.]

Expand the penalties for employers. We want broader enforcement and application of employment standards. There is no point in making these improvements if we don’t have people on the ground to enforce the improvements and to inspect worksites.

We also applaud the government for the establishment of a registry for the temporary foreign worker program. We are dealing with a farm in the valley right now exploiting workers, sending them back early, not giving them work. We have many abuses of that program, and the registry will assist us and assist everybody in that regard.

Along with employment standards, we want to see an increase in funding for the Labour Relations Board. It is a charter right to join a union and a charter right to bargain collectively. These are rights that have been established by various cases that have gone to the Supreme Court of Canada.

There are millions — well, certainly hundreds of thousands — of workers who don’t have access to that right to join a union because it is so difficult to organize in certain sectors — in particular, low-wage sectors, the fast-food sector, gas stations and all areas where workers are earning very low wages. It is virtually impossible to organize in those sectors. Believe me, our affiliates have tried and failed more than once.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Irene, we’re at five minutes. If you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, then we’d have time for questions. That’d be great. Thank you.

I. Lanzinger: Sure, that’s fine.

There is a great need to increase funding to the employment standards branch.

The other thing that you will see in our brief is the Workers Compensation Board. Compensation to employees was greatly reduced over the last 16 years. We have people who have been injured on the job who are not getting fair compensation. They are accessing our health care system, and their compensation is not being paid for by their employer through the Workers Compensation Board in the way it was intended when we made the historic compromise that formed the board.

I will say about all of these things that they are not enormous costs. We are talking about tens of millions of dollars, not hundreds of millions of dollars. The current budget for the employment standards branch is about $8 million or $9 million. It should be doubled, and it should be more than doubled because the number of employees and employers has increased in the last 17 or 18 years.

I’ll leave it there and leave time for questions.

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

Questions?

N. Simons: Thank you very much for your presentation. You mentioned — not quite in passing, but five minutes doesn’t leave a lot of time to go into depth — the issue around workers compensation. You described the lowered amount paid out to workers over the last 16 years. Can you just describe what that looks like a little bit?

I. Lanzinger: Yeah. I mean, the lifetime pension was taken away. For someone who is injured and cannot go back to work, they used to have a pension that carried them to retirement and into the future, but that was taken away. We have lump sum payments. We have other forms of addressing those. So you will have people who are injured so severely that they can’t go back to work, and they are not getting full compensation.

The other issue that I think is really important at the WCB is that it is very difficult still — it’s getting better — to get compensation for mental health–related injuries and stress injuries. People are forced to go through a very long process, jump through a lot of hoops, to get compensation in those areas.

The other issue is ergonomic issues. We do not do a very good job of compensating people on those issues.

The really important piece here is that if there is a surplus at the WCB, which there currently is, it should not be returned to employers. It should be used for prevention and better compensation. We hear a lot of pressure from employers to return that surplus to them, but we still have hundreds of workers who die every year on the job. We could be doing a lot more in terms of prevention and compensation.

[9:15 a.m.]

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation, Irene. Can you speak to the issue…? You said it’s very hard to organize unions in certain industries. Why is that, and what’s the issue?

I. Lanzinger: The reason…. In, say, the fast-food sector — places like McDonald’s, Starbucks, gas stations — you have to organize site by site, so you have a very small group of employees. You have 15 employees, you win a vote with eight employees, and then six employees change, and the employer is careful of who they hire, and then you have a decert, right? So we’ve had a few McDonald’s and Starbucks that have been organized, but it’s very difficult to organize in that sector.

One of the things that we proposed to the review of the labour relations code is a form of sectoral bargaining, where you could have an application to organize all the Starbucks in Burnaby, for example. So you would have a vote of all of those employees, and then have certifications that went across the board. Or a system where you organize one, and another Starbucks can get on board simply by having a vote and then get the collective agreement that was bargained in the other one.

The franchise model really is a very difficult model to organize in because you’re dealing with separate employers, but the overall employer of these people is a very large multinational corporation that is making money by paying poverty wages. So you look at Tim Hortons, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Walmart…. Walmart has very, very aggressive anti-union tactics. They’re well known for that. They have a manual for their managers on how to avoid unionization.

These are all things that we struggle with in terms of trying to organize.

T. Redies: I just have one quick question. Can you give me some insight in terms of, like, what would be the union dues for somebody who was, say, working for Starbucks?

I. Lanzinger: It depends who organizes them. Union dues typically range from 0.5 percent to 2 percent of salary.

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

All right. Next up we have Inclusion B.C. We have Karla Verschoor and Danielle.

Is Danielle here today? No, okay.

INCLUSION B.C.

K. Verschoor: Good morning. Before I get started, I just have to say I very much enjoyed your van selfie on Twitter. It’s lovely to see.

Karla Verschoor with Inclusion B.C. For those of you who don’t know, Inclusion B.C. is a provincial federation whose members include people with intellectual disabilities, families, and 60 community agencies that deliver child, family and adult services around the province. Our work includes advocacy, training and support, with a focus on partnership and collaboration to advance systems change and public awareness.

Today we’ll touch briefly on the power and the promise of inclusion and highlight three recommendations. You’ll find additional information in our written submission.

What’s great about advocating for inclusion is that it’s not a zero-sum game. Inclusive schools work for all kids and help build inclusive communities. Inclusive employment provides a win-win-win solution — for the job seeker, for the employer and the community. These are exciting times to talk about inclusion. We’re building powerful partnerships and watching real progress unfold, and all of you in this room can take part in that.

Our first recommendation: $500,000 in targeted funding for a professional development day to equip teachers with the tools for safe inclusive learning. This could provide positive behavioural support strategies which reflect best practice for creating safe inclusive schools.

Despite setbacks and challenges, educators want to honour B.C.’s unfulfilled commitment of inclusive education. When we fail to remove barriers to support diverse learners, students with disabilities are denied safe learning environments. These failures have been disproportionate, discriminatory and inconsistent with B.C.’s commitment to human rights and equal opportunity.

Our collective work in this past year has highlighted two opportunities to correct this: professional development and positive behavioural supports training.

Our second recommendation: a $43 million increase to the community living annual budget to support adult services.

[9:20 a.m.]

Roughly 600 youths are transitioning into adult services annually, and another 400 aging adults live in unstable arrangements that depend on elderly parents. CLBC’s caseload increases by 6 percent every year. Approximately 70 percent of adults with disabilities live with their parents, and 82 percent of those parents are over 65 years old. The population of aging parents has grown by over 20 percent in the last four years. From 2008 to 2016, requests for support at Independent Living increased by 161 percent, and this trend is expected to continue.

We are deeply concerned that CLBC is financially unable to meet the growing needs of a diverse population, with families across the province being told there isn’t enough money to fund the supports they need. Inclusion B.C. consistently hears from families who have been denied necessary supports.

Aging parents trying to find alternative homes for their adult child are told funding is only available for individuals classified as health and safety risks. Young families entering CLBC’s mandate are also told: “Not in this year’s budget.” Families are thrown into crisis when the family fragments or a parent passes away. Proactive supports are more effective and financially responsible than funding crisis.

Our last recommendation for this morning: $3.4 million in new funding for an additional 400 portable rental housing supplements to ensure that people who rely on PWD benefits can access safe, accessible and inclusive housing anywhere in the province.

People with intellectual disabilities have been hit hard by B.C.’s affordable housing crisis. We are leveraging our experience and relationship to advance long-term solutions that boosts supply of inclusive housing in British Columbia. A rental supplement would allow someone with an intellectual disability to access market housing in the community of their choice and within an inclusive environment.

Thank you for the opportunity to partner with you in increasing better lives for people with disabilities and creating a more inclusive world where we all truly belong. A written submission will support the recommendations I highlighted this morning.

Are there any questions?

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

N. Simons: Thank you very much for your presentation and for being such strong advocates.

The housing situation is one that’s obviously facing a lot of people around the province. What are the current subsidies or supports available to adults that are on your client list?

K. Verschoor: Well, there’s the $375 shelter allowance, which is part of the PWD benefits. Then there are a series of grandfathered supplements that, I think, go back ten or 15 years, but there is a huge gap between the shelter allowance of PWD that would allow anyone to necessarily enter into the market economy of housing.

N. Simons: Is the focus still, on CLBC’s part, to emphasize home share? Is that sort of being pushed less than it had been?

K. Verschoor: I think there’s an acknowledgment on CLBC’s behalf that families and individuals are looking for different options. Inclusion B.C. and CLBC have just embarked on a three-year joint housing plan, where we’re really looking at different options and creating inclusive settings across the housing spectrum, all the way from transition housing to home ownership. I do think there’s an acknowledgment that people are looking for something different.

S. Furstenau: One of the things we hear a lot in our constituency offices from home care providers through CLBC…. Can you speak a little bit to the challenges you’re seeing generally for them? We’re hearing of the financial pressures. They’re expected to do more and more, but the budgets aren’t meeting those travel arrangements, insurance, all these kinds of things.

K. Verschoor: I don’t know if I can speak on behalf of the home-share providers themselves. They do have a separate association, but I can speak on behalf of the individuals that are receiving those supports. So I know it’s increasingly difficult to find people to do shared living, which doesn’t leave the luxury of a choice of a good match in terms of where an individual is able to live. But I do know that that is a concern. Our ability to recruit shared-living environments is the low rate.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just a quick question.

Could you elaborate a little bit more? The $43 million — could you tell me a little bit more about exactly what you see that being spent on?

[9:25 a.m.]

K. Verschoor: Sure. The 600 youth as well as the 400 aging individuals and the $43 million was calculated by using the annual amount of service for CLBC. It’s really to support those 1,000 individuals to be in a better situation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, I see. So you’ve taken the numbers and sort of extrapolated that out into the need, and that’s the cost.

K. Verschoor: Correct.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, fantastic.

Are there any other questions? Great.

Thank you so much for your presentation, Karla. I really appreciate it. And thank you for everything you do.

K. Verschoor: Thank you. Enjoy the rest of your day.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Langara College. We have Ajay Patel, Viktor Sokha and Lane Trotter.

Welcome.

LANGARA COLLEGE

L. Trotter: Good morning, everyone. My name is Dr. Lane Trotter, and I am the president and CEO of Langara College. I’m pleased to be here and thank the committee for the opportunity to make this presentation with my colleagues: Mr. Viktor Sokha, our vice-president of administration and finance; and Mr. Ajay Patel, our vice-president of external development, who, coincidentally, is a proud alumnus of Langara College.

Located in Vancouver, Langara serves over 23,000 students a year, providing university transfer, career and continuing education programs. The college is also known as snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓, a name bestowed upon us by the Musqueam people on whose unceded traditional territory the college is located.

As you will see in the materials we have provided, Langara’s programming is well aligned to meet the needs of the Lower Mainland communities we serve and local industries, including business, community, health, social services, technology and the creative sectors.

Like many public post-secondary institutions in the province, we have faced challenges in maintaining financial sustainability while modernizing our facilities and operations. Through entrepreneurial efforts and fiscal discipline, we have managed our way through those challenges, growing our international student and continuing studies enrolments, and we have invested revenues from those sources into additional academic and student supports, indigenization, interculturalization and infrastructure requirements.

Through the introduction of a student capital legacy fee some years ago and with accumulated operational surpluses over many years, we were able to self-fund a $54 million stunning new LEED-gold science and technology building, which opened for classes just two years ago. This is in line with the college’s capital plan.

We have demonstrated our ability to be sound financial stewards and innovative entrepreneurs, but we need the province’s support in three key areas. First, we need assistance in continuing the important work of modernizing our campus facilities and IT. Our main classroom building, the first building built on campus and opened in 1970, creatively named the A building, is long past its useful life. Engineering reports have indicated that it will sustain catastrophic failure in the event of an earthquake. We have brought this issue to the attention of the committee in previous years.

Through self-funding our new science and technology building, we’ve been able to vacate parts of the A building, but we need to move the remaining programs and instructional activities to safer and more modern spaces. When that happens, we will be able to retire and demolish the A building and provide additional space on campus to further our growth and development.

Langara had previously expressed interest in acquiring the Emily Carr South Building on Granville Island. However, a decision was made late last year to relinquish this space to another organization. Similarly, our IT infrastructure, as with many institutions, requires significant upgrades, and the college continues to need access to accumulated surpluses in order to complete those upgrades.

In addition, we are about to embark on the replacement of our enterprise resource planning system, which is the main system that runs the college. This is a multi-year project essential for the college’s operations.

Next, we have worked incredibly hard to collaborate with the Musqueam people, on whose unceded territory the college sits, as evidenced by Musqueam bestowing the name snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ upon us. We are committed to expanding Aboriginal recruitment and services for Indigenous students and meeting the important recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

[9:30 a.m.]

Unfortunately, despite serving the province’s largest urban Aboriginal population, Langara does not receive Aboriginal service plan funding. All Indigenous students in B.C. deserve equal programs and supports, and in order to deliver those, it is our belief that all B.C. institutions need to be funded equally under this program. So we would very much like to see the institutions currently not part of ASP, including Langara, be added to it.

Finally, approximately 50 percent of our operating budget is now reliant on variable sources of income — namely, international student tuition fees. These revenues come with significant risks, as they are subject to issues outside of our control. Any decline in these revenues would put the institution at risk for significant operational deficit and impact our ability to deliver quality programming and services.

On average, B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions receive $10,000 per student from the government. Langara, however, receives only $6,100 per student to educate that individual. At the same time, we have one of the lowest per-credit tuition fees in the system. Without more stable, equitable operational grants from government, our success is at risk.

Thank you for your consideration. Myself and my colleagues would be happy to answer any questions that you have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Lane.

P. Milobar: Thanks for the presentation.

On the Indigenous side of the presentation, it looks like you have 205 Indigenous students right now. Is there a target, if you had that extra funding? What is the target to try to get that number to?

L. Trotter: We have 205 students who are self-declared, because students self-identify. We do know that we have more Indigenous students on campus, but it’s up to the students to declare. For us, we would like to have more Indigenous students, and that’s part of our strategy with Musqueam but also other First Nations outside of Vancouver — to bring the students in.

One of the challenges that the students have, when they’re coming from a small community in the north, is having the supports as they adjust to going from, perhaps, a community of 400 or 500 people to Vancouver. I remember when I was 17. I moved from Smithers, from 5,000 people, to Vancouver and went to the University of British Columbia. The best word I could use is “culture shock.” We need supports to help those students as well.

P. Milobar: Maybe just a follow-up. I’m not disputing any of that. I’m just wondering: is there a target you have — that you could go from 200 to 300, 400 or 500 — if you had better funding in place?

L. Trotter: Currently we are at about 2.4 or 2.6 percent of Aboriginal students as our total population. We would like to increase that as a percentage of the population in Vancouver, a little bit above average. But we do want to increase it. The target isn’t to say 300 or 400 or 500. It’s to accommodate as many students as we can take.

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation.

What is the expected budget on building A?

L. Trotter: Building A is a quantum of $240 million.

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

N. Simons: I would just ask about the housing and issues around housing. I think one of the big indicators of a young person’s success is having a stable place to be supported where they live.

I’m wondering. What are the options for people coming to Langara from out of town? Do they just face the same issues that everyone else faces? Is there housing available? Has Langara contemplated that?

L. Trotter: Let me ask my colleague Ajay Patel to answer one part of that.

A. Patel: I’ll answer part of the question. We have primarily been a commuter campus throughout our entire history, but we do offer…. We don’t have residences. Because we’re landlocked, academic education is our priority.

We have put forward a couple of creative options, possibly modular housing, that we could bring onto campus. One of the things we have currently available for students is our own homestay program. It’s a bit of an entrepreneurial enterprise of the institution. It initially started off with international students but is available to any student that’s coming from outside of the Lower Mainland.

It also helps the Metro Vancouver families. It particularly helps support whatever challenges they may have with housing affordability, mortgage payments, things like that. We have 1,200 homestay families in the Vancouver district, east Burnaby district and part of Richmond that accommodate that. We also provide it as a shared service to Vancouver school district and Burnaby school district as well.

We’re trying to do our part in trying to assist students. But the reality is our priority, probably, given our landlock, has to be around the buildings for academic instruction.

We also provide opportunities with some of the private sector. On Marine and Cambie, there has been some opening of some housing beds. We try and refer students to that.

[9:35 a.m.]

I think all we’re there is providing a service where we think it’s somewhat affordable, relatively speaking. Also, at least we’ve seen the place. We believe it’s safe. It’s secure. So somebody coming from out of town can be at least assured that Langara has done some due diligence to ensure versus just going onto Craigslist and getting something.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great, thank you.

Could you talk a little bit more about the issue around the FTEs? Could you just expand a bit on that? We’re hearing a lot about the challenge of foreign students to balancing budgets and things and pressure on that and increasing…. We’ve already had a number of presentations that basically talk about how foreign students are actually seeing increased tuition because of pressures with college and university campuses. I’m just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about that.

L. Trotter: Absolutely. We charge, for domestic students, approximately $95 a credit hour. For an international student, we charge $590 a credit hour. We have been charging that for the last three years. We have not seen an increase or increased that in the last three years. The reason for that is…. We take a look at our overall budget. We take a look at what we can do. We need to make sure when we bring an international student in that…. Once they’re in, they’re a student. So they get the supports.

Those resources that we have received from the international student tuition have allowed us to increase our supports for counselling. They’ve allowed us to increase our supports across the board for various other services that the college offers, whether it’s our student engagement, whether it’s supports for Indigenous students. That’s how we’ve been able to fund it.

For the international students, it’s giving them stability in terms of what their tuition will be moving forward. Our tuition is roughly half of that of UBC’s for international students.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So you actually haven’t increased the….

L. Trotter: For three years.

B. D’Eith (Chair): One of the things that’s interesting is that we have student organizations coming in, who are normally worried about domestic tuition fees going up, and actually advocating on behalf of foreign students. Some will come, and then two years in they get a 20 or 30 percent increase.

Anyway, I just wanted to see what your institution’s policy was on that.

L. Trotter: All I can say is that at this point in time, we have not increased our international student fees in three years. Again, we look at everything, but we want to make sure that our students have a sense of what it’ll cost them and not just be changing things arbitrarily.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you, Dr. Trotter. We’re actually out of time, but we really appreciate your presentation.

Next up we have the Building Owners and Managers Association of British Columbia — Damian Stathonikos and Muneesh Sharma.

Is she here? No, okay.

BUILDING OWNERS AND MANAGERS
ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

D. Stathonikos: It’s all right. It’s a mispronunciation I’ve become accustomed to my whole life, so don’t worry about it.

Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to present on behalf of the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C. My name is Damian Stathonikos, and I’m the president.

Our over 300 members represent most of the commercial space in B.C., companies that own and manage properties as well as the businesses that support them. Our industry contributes over $3.5 billion annually to the provincial economy and employs over 37,000 British Columbians. We certainly support your objective to build a strong, sustainable and innovative economy for all British Columbians.

We’ve submitted our detailed recommendations. This morning I just wanted to highlight five key areas where provincial investment would bring more opportunities to British Columbians.

First, energy and the environment. We provide energy and environmental services to our members, including BOMA BESt — a world-leading, created-in-B.C. environmental as­sess­ment and certification standard with over 7,000 registrations nationally and expanding internationally.

We’ve also been active in the provincial energy step code council since its inception and work closely with B.C. Hydro to provide energy management services to our members, as well as a business energy adviser service through the province’s innovative clean energy fund.

[9:40 a.m.]

Through this work, we’ve identified the need to provide direct support to transition industry towards our climate action objectives. Earlier this year we responded to the province’s clean growth strategy position paper and included 12 recommendations to help the province meet its climate action targets. We’ve included a copy of those recommendations in our submission, and we would encourage the province to continue to fund these important energy advisory services to support industry.

Second, labour market development. BOMA and a group of our senior industry leaders have been working with the Ministry of Advanced Education, Skills and Training to study the labour market needs of the commercial property and facility management industry. Much of the work so far has been focused on training and how to match employees from traditionally underrepresented communities — such as Indigenous people, immigrants and women — with good-paying local jobs.

According to the province’s own labour market outlook from August, facilities operations and maintenance managers will be among the highest-in-demand occupations in B.C., with 5,000 openings over the next decade. We have developed a three-year strategy to address these labour market challenges, and we are prepared to invest our industry’s time and resources to implement it. We would encourage the province to work with our industry to fund this sector labour market program talent strategy and ensure that the significant labour market drop is addressed by developing employment opportunities in the commercial property management industry.

Third, property taxes. Our members are telling us that property taxes are rising at unsustainable rates for small businesses. This issue has been raised by other groups as well. Municipal officials have asked the province to make changes to property tax laws, which would also have a significant impact on the sector. BOMA would be pleased to work on a stakeholder advisory committee to help address the issue of property taxes impacting our communities. We offer our support in any way possible to ensure that property taxes are fair and equitable.

Fourth, resiliency. Resiliency reflects the ability to recover quickly from difficulties or to easily adjust to change. BOMA B.C. has been working closely with the Rick Hansen Foundation accessibility certification program, which, as you may know, was funded by the province. We’d like to thank you for the contribution to the program and incentive funding for the RHFAC, which we think will be a significant contributing factor to increasing accessibility in our communities.

BOMA is also developing a 2030 resiliency district in the capital regional district to assist buildings in achieving a 50 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, in addition to making accessibility improvements as well as seismic safety upgrades. We would be interested in working with the Ministry of Energy and Mines and other ministries to develop resiliency districts in different municipalities across the province.

We have also implemented the BOMA alert emergency mass communication system to communicate directly with our members in the event of a natural disaster or emergency. The city of Vancouver office of emergency management is working with BOMA to relay information directly to our members. We recommend that the province work with our association to fund a feasibility study on a 24-hour emergency monitoring communication service, where events could be monitored in real time and communicated directly to affected stakeholders.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Damian, we’re at just over five minutes, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up so we have time for questions.

D. Stathonikos: Absolutely.

Fifth, renovation permit wait times. We were pleased to hear the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing’s announcement last month to work with municipalities to improve development and renovation wait times. We would ask the province to incentivize municipalities to prioritize or fast-track applications that include energy reduction initiatives, and we would be pleased to work with you to develop that process.

To conclude, we’ve been a leader in transforming the commercial building industry toward energy efficiency and environmental responsibility. We are delighted to have such a productive working relationship with government and would like to further strengthen our mutual engagement to benefit all regions of B.C.

We believe in the government’s commitment to a strong, sustainable economy and look forward to helping bring more opportunities for all British Columbians. Thank you to the committee and to provincial staff for making this possible.

Any questions?

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

T. Redies: Thanks very much for your comprehensive presentation. Just wondering if you could add a little colour to the request around provincial support or government support for the talent strategy. What are you talking about there in terms of numbers and other support?

D. Stathonikos: We’ve calculated that over three years, it would cost approximately $900,000 to look at implementing the strategy that was drafted between government and our stakeholder group. We’re certainly prepared to contribute a significant amount to make this a reality.

[9:45 a.m.]

Our members identify that there is a great labour shortage for them. I’m sure you’ve heard that from other industries as well, so it really is looking at what the province is able to contribute in terms of finances to help make that a reality.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the energy and environment piece, just in terms of…. There will be an environment strategy, especially on climate change, coming up. Have you had interaction with that process to date at all?

D. Stathonikos: Yes. As I mentioned, we submitted our response to the province’s consultation on the climate action strategy, and we have a very good relationship with B.C. Hydro and Fortis and the Ministry of Environment. We’re really looking to the province to continue that engagement with industry. We think it’s really important, when you create targets or objectives, that industry is involved. We are often able to do a better job ourselves, as opposed to having something dictated from the outside.

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

Did you want to add anything else before we go?

D. Stathonikos: That’s it, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate the very detailed submission. We appreciate it.

All right. Next up we have Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia — Dr. George Davison.

FEDERATION OF
POST-SECONDARY EDUCATORS OF B.C.

G. Davison: Good morning. Thanks for conducting this public budget consultation. I’d like to begin by recognizing that we’re on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations.

My name is George Davison. I’m here as the president pf the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators and the 10,000 post-secondary faculty and staff that we represent. I’m going to talk to you today about four things: funding, funding, funding and funding.

As we’ve outlined in previous budget submissions, over the past 17 years, post-secondary funding has shifted from a majority government, or public, funding model to private funding in the form of domestic and international student tuition. This shift in funding is placing a great deal of pressure on the post-secondary system, translating into stress for both educators and students in the form of affordability for students, and fair and sustainable employment for educators.

FPSE has produced a written report…. It’s always a mistake, actually, to give things to students while you’re talking. Anyway, we’ve produced a written report that we provided to the committee, so I’ll be using my time today to highlight our key recommendations: addressing sustainable funding, fair employment, student affordability and decolonizing the post-secondary system. Our recommendations focus on individual measures intended to address post-secondary affordability, accessibility and sustainability. I’ll get to it.

Recommendation 1, we encourage the government to form a broad stakeholder group to investigate and discuss all aspects of fairness for international students during the formation of a new, strategic approach to international education. The investigation should include tuition; recruiters; educational and social supports; and the impacts of international education on class composition, educator workloads and the cost of attending post-secondary for international and domestic students.

Two, we suggest that student affordability be addressed by making all developmental programs tuition-free. Thanks very much for starting with adult basic education, English language learning and former youth in care, but that policy should be expanded to allow all students taking developmental programs access to free tuition and the adult upgrading grant.

Three, FPSE supports the call from student unions for broad policies to further reduce financial barriers and student debt for B.C. learners through non-repayable grants, an additional reduction in student loan interest rates and increased availability of open textbooks.

Four, FPSE encourages the government to work with all post-secondary stakeholders to reduce institutional reliance on precarious academic labour and to ensure that contract faculty are provided with a fair wage and fair working conditions.

[9:50 a.m.]

Finally, we commend the government on their efforts to implement the calls for action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We encourage all levels of government to provide the necessary funding to answer these calls, including those related to post-secondary education such as call No. 63.2 to fund professional development for educators to integrate Indigenous knowledge and teaching methods into our classrooms.

Thanks for the opportunity to present our recommendations for the 2019 budget. I’m happy to take any questions.

S. Furstenau: Thanks very much for the presentation. I was noticing by the end of last week that, particularly, post-secondary education has become a theme in the hearings so far and the calls for ensuring that we can continue to have the high level of post-secondary education that we do because it’s so important. I appreciate your concise and informative presentation on this. I assure you it adds to many calls that we’ve heard so far.

One thing I want to ask you specifically — we heard this from VIU last week — is about the funding model generally for post-secondary institutions across the province. Could you just briefly speak to that for us?

G. Davison: Well, I’m an historian, not an economist or an accountant.

At one point, we had funding based on student FTEs and programs — program profile funding. That varied from…. University transfer arts instructor, it was about $4,400 per student. This is back in the ’90s. Nursing was the most expensive program in the institution, at $12,000 per FTE.

In the early 2000s, the government went away from program profile funding to block funding. They’d give the institution X amount of dollars. There’d probably be some discussion between the institution and the government, Advanced Education, about how that would play out. Then there have been other things that have been tacked on to that.

There’s really been no review of post-secondary funding since the early 2000s. There was a Campus 2020 exercise in about 2007 that recommended that university colleges morph into teaching universities, but there was no additional funding for those institutions in doing that. We’re left with a model that’s basically 20 years old, and what’s happened is that tuition has made up a huge gap. Now there’s as much tuition paid as there are government operating grants — $1.8 billion in our sector.

Tuition revenues have gone up over 400 percent in that 2002 to 2018 period. Inflation has gone up 33 percent. When I talk about operating grants in institutions that used to be in the 80 percent range for small institutions like mine, it’s now down in the 50 percent range. Langara, which we heard from just a few minutes ago, is at 29 percent operating grants, 60 percent tuition. That’s a huge burden on students whether they’re international or domestic.

Also, what’s this B.C. post-secondary system supposed to be serving? Is it supposed to be serving British Columbians or international students? International students have actually become the business model for funding the system. The government is neglecting that. I think we need a stakeholder process to review how that’s done.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Interesting. Could you tell a little bit more…? When you talk about development programs being free, could you give some more examples of the types of development programs? Are we talking about programs that allow entry into…?

G. Davison: Yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So any program that would allow an entry? Maybe you could just elaborate.

G. Davison: The adult basic education is high school upgrading. English language learning is basically for domestic new Canadians. International students are a little different. Adult special education is a program that still has $1,600 per term associated with it. It’s a program for students with disabilities. Many institutions offset that funding in a variety of ways. But we’re thinking that if you’re going to get people into the system, it should be a level playing field, and tuition shouldn’t be a barrier.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Just wanted to clarify that.

Are there any other questions?

Thank you very much for your presentation. Appreciate it.

Next up we have the Canadian Bar Association B.C. — Margaret Mereigh.

[9:55 a.m.]

CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION,
B.C. BRANCH

M. Mereigh: Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. My name is Margaret Mereigh. I’m the president of the B.C. branch of the Canadian Bar Association. Thank you for hosting these consultations today. I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you and to speak with you on the topics that follow.

We advocate for a fair, just and affordable justice system and for the concerns of our members. We support the rule of law, access to justice, improvements in the law and the administration of justice. Our association is a member-funded organization, not for profit, representing approximately 7,000 lawyers, judges and law students in this province.

The Canadian Bar Association nationally is a network of provincial and territorial bar associations representing 36,000 members. Our membership is diverse and includes individuals from small and major law firms as well as sole practitioners and in-house counsel.

One of our major functions is advocacy for improved access to justice. To that end, last year we released a platform paper entitled An Agenda for Justice, 2017. The paper included or outlined several recommendations and reforms to address gaps in B.C.’s justice system and to identify ways to improve. On October 1, we will be releasing the 2018 update to our Agenda for Justice, and we will ensure that it’s sent to you.

In keeping with our advocacy, I would like to talk to you today about two main points, and those are legal aid and unified family courts. As it stands, legal aid representation in family law cases is provided only in very specific circumstances. For instance, it is provided for actual or threatened safety or violence issues or to resolve serious denial of access to children, such as potential removal of children from the jurisdiction.

There is another underlying problem, a larger one, surrounding legal aid access in British Columbia. Lawyers performing legal aid work are paid based on a tariff. The current state of the tariff has real consequences for people already amongst the most vulnerable. The tariff has increased only once since 1991 and does not provide reasonable compensation to represent legal aid clients. This leaves dedicated lawyers in British Columbia unable to help, because they cannot afford to do so. The current tariff simply does not cover the overhead costs of most lawyers.

The Legal Services Society regularly pays travel costs to lawyers to commute to communities where lawyers are unable or unwilling to work. They have to spend money on travel to make sure our most vulnerable are represented. This situation is particularly acute in family and child protection cases, areas in which familiarity with local issues and support programs is especially important.

The legal aid tariff is paid on an hourly basis or on what are known as block fees. When compensation is paid on hours of work, the rate in B.C. ranges from approximately $84 to $92 per hour, depending on the lawyer’s experience. This is far behind Ontario’s general rate of $135 per hour. Also, there are significant restrictions on the number of hours that can be charged for any particular task. The allowable hours are well below what is necessary in most cases for legal work that is required. Where block fees are paid, as in the case of most criminal matters, the effective rate is usually substantially lower than $84 per hour.

The Attorney General has acknowledged that the legal aid tariff in British Columbia continues to be a concern. We were disappointed that the 2018 budget did not address the tariff. We urge a review of the current legal aid tariff. We recommend an increase in funding for Legal Services Society to match rates in comparable jurisdictions and to improve block funding. By increasing the legal aid tariff, B.C. lawyers can better serve B.C. families.

Thank you for hearing our position on legal aid.

[10:00 a.m.]

Our second and final area of discussion today is a unified family court. We understand that effective access to justice includes providing B.C. families with timely and efficient resolution of legal conflicts.

The Supreme Court and the provincial court divide jurisdiction over family law matters. This model is inefficient and expensive, as parties sometimes have proceedings in both courts. It requires the maintenance of two parallel systems of court and often leads to delays.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Margaret, we’re at about five minutes, so if you wouldn’t mind to start wrapping up.

M. Mereigh: We believe a better structure is a unified family court whereby there is a simplified set of rules and procedures, a specialized bench, federally appointed section 96 judges, a strong and cooperative resolution focus, and extensive services for children and families.

Back in 1974, British Columbia was the pioneer in establishing a UFC pilot project. That project lapsed and was not renewed. In other parts of the country, the federal government has supported the funding of UFC, most recently in Alberta, and has expanded existing funding for UFCs in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

We strongly encourage B.C.’s government to negotiate with the federal government to implement UFCs in British Columbia in the 2019 budget and to leverage federal dollars to increase access to justice in our province.

Any questions?

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a quick question. Back in the day, legal fees were…. Clients had to start paying PST on legal fees, on services. It’s my understanding that it’s still the only service that actually has PST attached to it. The idea, if I remember correctly, was that that was supposed to go legal aid. That was the whole point of it, and it doesn’t. I know that for years, the Canadian Bar Association was advocating that it should.

I’m wondering if that’s still something the Canadian Bar Association is advocating for, or is that something that you’re not? I mean, the point is that if there’s going to be an increase in legal aid, it’s got to come from somewhere. Is that somewhere the PST, or is it just general revenue? Maybe you could comment on that.

M. Mereigh: The answer to that question is that the Canadian Bar Association continues to advocate the position that a tax on lawyers’ bills was meant to assist in the funding of legal aid within the province of British Columbia. We still maintain that position. What has happened, as we all know, is that this money has gone into general revenue. It is now lost, and the ability to track the amount of money….

Our membership continues to advocate strongly, but to be honest, it has fallen on deaf ears over the last approximately 20-plus years. We would like to see the increase in legal aid. It has been part of the justice system that has been starved. We have seen increases happening within the salaries for lawyers who are assisting, whether they are Crown counsel or whether they are in the area of child protection. I think those salaries have increased quite dramatically. They have not, with respect to the legal aid tariff and block fees.

To answer your question, yes, we still maintain our position that we should look to the moneys that were originally intended to support legal aid, and they should be defined and put aside for legal aid.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just a follow up. Are you advocating for an increase of legal aid services for things like family law or increase it…? Because before, legal aid used to have a much broader application, and it’s much more narrow now.

M. Mereigh: As a result of the limited funds available, the focus has narrowed. We continue to advocate, and in our original agenda for justice platform in 2017, it was for Indigenous and family law issues. We continue to advocate for that, and you will see that in our update that you will receive at the beginning of October. We also say that in addition to the expansion in areas of Indigenous and family law in the programming, we have to also address the tariff and block fees across.

T. Redies: Thanks very much for your presentation. I had some questions on the unified family court idea, which seems to make sense.

[10:05 a.m.]

Any sense of how much the federal government provides other provinces for this? Would this be an additional cost on top of the existing court? How do you see that funding work?

M. Mereigh: As far as I understand, how this works is that the federal government is prepared to provide and pay for the salaries of the section 96 judges, who are federally appointed judges. What we understand, in the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch, is that they have not sought the provinces to repay those moneys. In our view, if they are prepared to pay for the judges to run these courts, there would be, presumably, other assets or funds available, or resources that the provinces could then utilize to create that environment of a cooperative courthouse where the associated services in relation to family issues could be present in one location.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time now. Thank you very much for your presentation.

Next up we have I think the first association that talked to me when I was an MLA, the Cement Association of Canada — Ken Carrusca.

Come on up.

K. Carrusca: I’ve come and presented, and I guess I’ve learned that it’s good to have a speech. It’s good to have pictures and slides; they’re worth a thousand words. And now to bring samples takes it to the next level.

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right, props. Do we allow props?

Okay, I have started the timer.

CEMENT ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

K. Carrusca: You can open them, if you like. I’ve sealed off the cement one, because obviously, it’s a bit messy.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak. Again, I’m Ken Carrusca with the Cement Association of Canada. Our association represents the cement and concrete industries. Lafarge and Lehigh are the two companies here locally. We have spoken with many of you in the past.

I’ve got a number of slides. I’ll go through that fairly quickly. Five minutes, as you know, doesn’t give you a lot of time.

Again, right on the first page, Lafarge and Lehigh operating here in B.C., as well as the concrete batch plants — for anyone that knows, once you make concrete, you’ve got a couple hours before, obviously, it sets — so a significant investment by the industry across the province and, obviously, a tremendous number of jobs.

The next slide is the schematics of making cement. A big focus of our industry is climate change and addressing the mandate to reduce emissions by 40 percent by 2030. In our industry, the cement-making process, that limestone — in the sample No. 1 — is heated to about 1,500 degrees Celsius. The combustion emissions — the fuel produces emissions — and then it’s also a chemical process. So, quite a focus on reducing emissions. We’ve spoken lots with government on how we can reduce emissions but also how, as an industry, we can address the whole issue of energy-intensive, trade-exposed industry.

The next page, the one with the graph, shows — and we’ve spoken lots about this…. Again, a picture being worth a thousand words, the top line there, the graph, is the imports of cement into B.C. over the years. The carbon tax started in 2008. Over the years, we’ve seen an increase in the number of imports of about 30 to 40 percent. And the heading on the slide, “Cement imports equal carbon leakage” — what that means is that instead of reducing emissions here, what’s happening is that emissions worldwide are increasing.

What we also like to point out is that it’s coming into the province tax-free. It’s lost tax revenue. We’ve spoken with government on a number of ways of addressing that. Of course, yes, exempting the cement industry is an option. We always put that on the table. But really, we’ve worked on — pun intended — concrete options to address the issue of carbon taxation on this type of industry. One of the favourite options by the industry was implemented by the Alberta NDP government a couple of years ago. It’s called output-based allocation.

[10:10 a.m.]

The next slide is lower-carbon fuels. And look at that: more samples. The industry is very focused around the world. In Europe, really, it’s leading. We’re behind the times in North America and B.C. Instead of burning coal or natural gas — there’s a big push on natural gas, but we like to remind folks that natural gas is still a fossil fuel — we continue to incinerate waste in this region. We continue to landfill waste. We’re really, as I like to say, burying our resources. If we process some of that material, we can use it instead of fossil fuels.

What else? The picture on the bottom shows the carbon intensity of the various fuels. Some of the benefits, on the next slide…. Again, they’re readily available in this region, in Metro Vancouver. Right now the region is landfilling 750,000 tonnes a year of waste. In fact, they’re trucking, transporting 80,000 tonnes of waste to the United States.

Very quickly, Portland-limestone cement is a lower-carbon-intensity cement that we’ve, again, spoken to many of you about. It’s available in B.C. It allows the industry to reduce its carbon intensity by about 10 percent. Some great examples of buildings in Vancouver. We’d like to push government to mandate that as really the preferred product in public infrastructure.

Life-cycle assessment for infrastructure. Again, we often talk about, in terms of cement and concrete: “Build it once. Build it right. Build it to last.” One of the speakers, I think the speaker from BOMA, talked about a mandate to reduce emissions from buildings. Buildings are, indeed, a huge emitter. The science shows that concrete buildings, just by their nature, can reduce heating and cooling loads over their many years of life cycle.

Coming to the end, our ask of government, four points: again, protect and work with us to find a solution to addressing the challenges for the EITE industry, the energy-intensive, trade-exposed industry; help us with waste materials and lower-carbon fuels; put policy in place that prevents or at least makes it much more difficult to incinerate and landfill waste; and help us help society, in terms of moving to a lower-carbon-intensity building material with Portland-limestone cement.

I’ll leave it at that. My time is over. Thank you. Happy to take questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much. I have a quick question and a comment.

I mentioned when you came in that, actually, you were one of the first organizations I met with. I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised that the first thing that was talked about was reducing carbon emissions. I really applaud the association for trying to take a lead on that. Thank you very much for that.

I was wondering if you could explain a little bit more about the output-based allocation and just how that works.

K. Carrusca: Sure. In its most straightforward terms, it’s specific to an industry. In the cement industry, it’s finding what would be an appropriate benchmark and, by that benchmark, the emissions per widget — in our industry, it’s about 750 or 800 kilograms of CO₂ emissions per tonne of cement — establishing that as an appropriate benchmark. In Alberta and in other areas of the world where it’s been established, that’s been done in consultation with industry, and then that’s reduced over time so that you do have a tangible reduction.

That benchmark is set. Below that benchmark, the industry doesn’t pay carbon pricing. Above that benchmark, the industry would pay carbon pricing. There’s a credit system involved as well, so there’s a strong incentive for industry to continue to reduce. They’re not exempted. It’s establishing what an appropriate benchmark is for the industry given the industry’s conditions.

With the cement industry, the opportunity, then, is for the industry to work with government to transition away from fossil fuels and reduce that carbon intensity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): How does that help the foreign cement that’s coming in, in terms of cost?

K. Carrusca: Actually, that’s a good question. That system doesn’t…. It’s not that we’re helping. It helps domestic producers. Domestic producers also export cement. But it doesn’t, maybe to your question, capture lost tax revenue from imports. It doesn’t prohibit…. It doesn’t prevent imported cement, but it puts the domestic producers now more on par with those that might be importing.

[10:15 a.m.]

Our industry often talks about fairness. It’s not illegal or immoral to bring cement into the province. But again, the domestic producers don’t have a level playing field in that they’re paying, in ballpark terms, about $8 million a year in carbon tax. The importers are bringing cement in, generally, from jurisdictions that don’t pay any carbon pricing, and they’re bringing it in carbon tax–free.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Got it. Thank you.

Ronna-Rae Leonard has joined us. Did you want to say hi before we…?

R. Leonard: Hi, I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox. I apologize for my lateness, but I’m here now.

N. Simons: I’m just curious. Thank you very much. Obviously, the Sunshine Coast is familiar with Lafarge and Lehigh.

What amount of concrete does B.C. import? How much?

K. Carrusca: Tons. I’m an engineer so….

N. Simons: I’m just looking at the amount on the graph. I’m wondering if that’s been supplemented by increased exports from B.C. as well.

K. Carrusca: I’d say, around ballpark terms, the industry in B.C. produces about two million tonnes a year of cement to cement plants — each producing about one million tonnes a year. Some of that is exported to the U.S. as well. The figure of 30 to 40 percent would be about 300,000 or so tonnes of cement.

Again, cement is used by the concrete companies to mix with sand, water and gravel to make concrete. I’d say, overall in the province, around 300,000 tonnes or so as a conservative number to put out there.

N. Simons: I’m just trying to clarify that in fact, even with the carbon costs here, the industry is capable of exporting their product.

K. Carrusca: Even with the carbon costs in place, the industry is currently exporting — correct.

N. Simons: Okay, that’s good.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, we’re out of time.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Nice to see you again.

K. Carrusca: Thank you very much.

The committee recessed from 10:17 a.m. to 10:20 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have First Nations Financial Management Board — Brian Titus.

Welcome.

FIRST NATIONS
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT BOARD

B. Titus: I’ve got a statement to read, and then if you have any questions after that, please ask them.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Finance and Government Services.

I am the chief operating officer for the First Nations Financial Management Board or, as we call it, the FMB. The FMB was created by the government of Canada statute now called the First Nations Fiscal Management Act. The federal bill received royal assent in March 2005 and came into force at the beginning of the 2006-2007 fiscal year. This means we’ve been around for about 12 years.

Your committee is required by the Budget Transparency and Accountability Act to hold an annual budget consultation process with British Colombians and then to present a report with recommendations to the Legislature.

My presentation today on behalf of the FMB does not, strictly speaking, address the province’s upcoming budget that will be unveiled in February 2019. However, I intend to outline a way in which B.C. First Nations may advance our economic development opportunities, which in turn will provide a significant boost to British Columbia’s economy.

By working together, we can encourage British Colombians that First Nations economies can grow and create new jobs that will have remarkable historic impact on all future B.C. budgets. Very simply, we would like this year’s report from your committee to contain a recommendation that would result in an extraordinary stimulus to the provincial economy. That will mean a significant increase in future government budgetary revenues.

I’ll explain. Historically, First Nations in Canada have come under federal jurisdiction, under section 91 of the British North America Act, which enumerates the power of the parliament and lists, as one of those responsibilities, Indians and land reserves for the Indians. For the past 142 years, the federal government has exercised much of its authority through the Indian Act.

Something you may not know. Under the Indian Act, First Nations of Canada have the power, the authority, to pass bylaws related to the taxation of the land. Naturally, the ability to levy taxes on land means that many First Nations have their own independent revenues. First Nations’ own source revenues — and this is true for all levels of the government in Canada — are spent primarily on providing and contracting various services, including education, health care, water, sewage services, police, fire protection and many other items.

The federal statute that created the FMB, the Fiscal Management Act, also puts First Nation governments on the same or similar financial footing as most other governments across the country. Importantly, it allows First Nation governments to borrow long-term capital to finance capital investments and promote economic development and infrastructure at interest rates that are similar to those that are enjoyed by other levels of government.

Specifically, the First Nations Fiscal Management Act provides First Nations across Canada with the authority to administer three areas of governance: financial management, property taxation and local revenues, and financing for infrastructure and economic development.

To make that happen, the statute has set up three distinct entities all across B.C. The First Nations Tax Commission, which is located in Kelowna, provides approval for real property taxation laws enacted by First Nations. The First Nations Finance Authority, headquartered in Westbank, invests First Nations moneys and sets up borrowing pools whereby First Nations governments can access capital markets. And the FMB certifies a credit worthiness for First Nations governments who seek to gain access to the First Nations Finance Authority borrowing pools. Our head office is just up in West Vancouver.

I’ll briefly explain a little more about the FMB and what we do.

[10:25 a.m.]

We provide advice, policy research and review services relating to the fiscal arrangement between First Nations and other governments. We support First Nations to strengthen their own communities through better relationships with financial institutions, business partners and other governments. We assist First Nations to get certified in financial management and performance, and guide First Nations in applying for loans on similar terms as other governments in Canada.

We also act as advisors to the Minister of Indigenous Services, Affairs, on two factors. We certify First Nations so that they can enter into ten-year grant agreements. We also advise the minister on any bylaw that is produced by a First Nation in Canada and make a recommendation to the minister.

As a final point, the FMB is a non-profit First Nations organization. We’re also independent of the Crown. We provide our services at no cost to First Nations, and we offer assistance only when asked by our First Nation clients.

Here is the issue that I want to present to the committee. As I said earlier, under Canada’s constitution, the British North America Act, First Nations come under the purview of the federal government. But with the changes in British Columbia — in which First Nations sign a modern-day treaty agreement, such as those negotiated by the B.C. Treaty Commission — the Indian Act no longer applies to a treaty First Nation. Instead, a treaty First Nation in B.C. that wishes to levy its own taxes and borrow long-term capital is governed by the British Columbia statute, the Treaty First Nation Taxation Act. That B.C. statute does not permit treaty First Nations to work with the FMB or the First Nations Finance Authority to participate in borrowing pools that provide access to long-term capital at low interest rates.

So we have a dilemma. First Nations who do not sign a treaty can take advantage of the pool borrowing opportunities under the federal government’s First Nations Fiscal Management Act. But those First Nations who sign a modern-day treaty — such as the Tsawwassen First Nation, the Maa-nulth and a number of other ones — are prevented from doing so by the provincial statute, the Treaty First Nation Taxation Act. In essence, treaty and self-governing First Nations are penalized for signing modern-day treaties and attempting to encourage economic development and job creation.

What do we need to do to allow those First Nations under treaty to participate in long-term borrowing through the pools of the First Nations Fiscal Management Act? We need the provincial government to amend the Treaty First Nation Taxation Act, especially the Real Property Taxation Co-ordination Agreement, as defined by the statute. Those amendments would allow treaty First Nations in B.C. to make long-term borrowing for capital projects to build infrastructure needed by modern-day economies.

Those borrowings will not only grow First Nation economies; they will stimulate the expansion of the B.C. economy. And the economic expansion will generate additional and growing revenues for the B.C. budget, which is definitely within the purview of this committee.

I’d just like to thank you for your time. Do you have any questions?

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

T. Redies: Brian, thanks very much for your presentation. I actually didn’t know too much about the First Nations Financial Management Board, so I appreciate the insight. Can you speak to why — I mean, I’m suspicious of why — this provincial statute is such that the treaty First Nations cannot access this pool? What was the history on that?

B. Titus: Well, the history behind it, from my view, is that when treaties were signed, it was the intention that they would be able to sign under the B.C. municipal lending act. When the time came, those First Nations were unable to access that pool, for whatever reason. It’s still that way today.

T. Redies: So if the provincial statute were changed, they’d be able to access the federal pools of money?

B. Titus: Yeah. Another reason would be, basically, how the treaties are set up. When it comes down to issues around when a First Nation goes into default, or whatever, what mechanism does the municipal lending authority have…

T. Redies: …to recover.

[10:30 a.m.]

B. Titus: Yes, and it’s the issue between the province, as the government, and the lending authority. Through Ottawa…. I hate to say this, but this legislation has been going through amendments for the last almost eight years now. It’s getting to the point now…. We just got the first draft a week ago, and we made a few more requests for changes. We’ve been talking to the provincial government over the last year and a half or so, and it’s getting really close now.

What we’re here for today is to really put the word out there, and when the time comes, everybody doesn’t need to do the research. They’ll go: “Oh, I remember Brian. I remember Harold. We’re ready to vote.” It’s a good piece of legislation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, we’re out of time, but thank you very much, Brian. We appreciate seeing you again.

Next up we have First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition — Adrienne Montani.

Hello. How are you?

FIRST CALL: B.C. CHILD AND YOUTH
ADVOCACY COALITION

A. Montani: Hello. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am speaking on behalf of First Call: B.C. Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. We’re a non-partisan coalition of 105 provincial and regional organizations committed to ensuring that B.C.’s children have the rights, the opportunities and the resources they need to thrive.

The protection of children’s rights and well-being is a moral imperative for all of us, including for governments. Children are raised in families, so it’s incumbent on us to craft a budget that supports families, in all their diversity, and in particular, those who struggle with poverty or systemic challenges, discrimination or other challenges to their physical and mental health.

What’s the current situation? I don’t have time in this short presentation to go through all the facts about child and family poverty in B.C., the inequities created by underfunding of public schools or the lists of young children waiting for therapies that are crucial to their development, families unable to afford a place to rent, and so on. We’ll reference many of these issues in our full submission at a later date. But suffice to say that we still have a long way to go to fulfill our responsibilities to children and youth in this province on a number of fronts.

We want to acknowledge to this committee the significant investments that were made in the 2018 budget in supports and services for children, youth and families, particularly in starting to create a universal child care system that has accountability for public funds, and also the commitment to legislated provincial poverty reduction plans. Those are two biggies for us.

Additional funding for social housing, children and youth with special needs and mental health challenges, post-secondary education and the reduction of MSP premiums are other examples of welcome investments. We applaud these commitments and recognize that government has been working hard to deal with a wide range of social and economic challenges, some at the crisis stage, which will take several years to fix.

However, we do have recommendations for next year’s budget. Our annual child poverty report card and our submission to Minister Simpson’s poverty reduction consultations contain a comprehensive list of recommendations to reduce and eliminate child and family poverty. These include measures to prevent poverty through significantly bigger investments in early childhood development and public education, two areas of investment that have the most significant impacts on child and youth health and well-being and accrue the largest downstream savings over the long term.

Today I’m going to highlight four recommendations for next year’s budget, starting with one targeted poverty reduction measure. That would be to redesign or reform the B.C. early childhood tax benefit into a general B.C. child benefit, not just an early childhood one. So it would cover children under 18, as opposed to just under six, and increase the maximum benefit to $1,320 per year, up from $660 — basically doubling it — and index it annually to the cost of living.

That’s what we’re recommending. This one measure will reduce the depth of poverty for the majority of children in both working-poor families and families on social assistance. Part of the cost of this measure would be recouped by lowering the threshold for eligibility. We have a research report that compares our benefit to the child benefits in other provinces, and you have a copy, I believe, in front of you or distributed to you. We have presented this already to government and, as I say, we have copies here today. So that’s one.

[10:35 a.m.]

The second recommendation I want to highlight today is targeted to eliminating poverty and homelessness for youth aging out of foster care. Achieving this requires, simply, guaranteed, consistent and adequate financial support until the age of 25, through the agreements with young adults program, and eliminating all eligibility criteria. Currently these agreements are only supporting a small minority, about 13 percent of youth aging out of care, with the most vulnerable youth being the least likely to be able to access them because of the eligibility barriers. The Premier has promised a cross-ministry action plan in response to this and other recommendations for youth transitioning from government care. We look to Budget 2019 to contain additional investments to realize this promise.

Thirdly, as mentioned earlier, we’re strongly supportive of the initial investments made in universal child care, including the fee reduction initiative, the affordable child care benefit, funds to train additional early childhood educators, the wage enhancement initiative and building more spaces. All of these pieces of the puzzle are necessary to build a high-quality child care system and address the child care chaos for families. We recommend that these investments be sustained and that government ensure that the ongoing rollout of universal child care in B.C. is consistent with the broadly supported and evidenced-based $10-a-day child care plan.

Fourthly, increasingly, we are hearing from families around the province, especially low-income families with children, that public transportation is inaccessible to them. This prevents them from reaching doctor’s appointments and public services and going to school, job interviews, etc. We recommend that the provincial government work with local governments and transit authorities to develop a plan that will provide free public transit for minors, zero to 18, and free or reduced transit access for low-income families.

In conclusion, there are, as I said, many other important issues we have recommendations on that affect children and youth and families. We don’t have time to address them today, but we will address them in our full submission.

I leave you with a reminder that children can’t vote, and families who struggle with poverty and other challenges have little energy left or time away from work to appear before you or to write a brief. Yet First Call hears from these families regularly when they are already in crisis.

It’s up to all of us to remember our duty to make sure all B.C. children and youth have equal opportunities and needed supports and to make sure government budgets and policies are crafted with this duty in mind. The result will be a healthier, happier society for all of us.

That’s it. Thank you very much, and I welcome your questions.

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

S. Cadieux: Thanks, Adrienne. Nice to see you. I have a question relating to the recommendation around changing the child benefit. You said part of the cost would be covered by reducing the threshold for eligibility. I have looked through, just quickly, the examples from the other provinces. Currently our benefits…. Families are eligible at somewhere up to $150,000. In the other provinces, the base range starts at anywhere, for a full benefit, from $15,000 to about $42,000 in Alberta and decreases from there.

What are you recommending for B.C.? There’s nothing in here on that.

A. Montani: There is, actually. It’s on page 4. The second recommendation is to ensure that…. We also run the living wage for families campaign. We’ve benchmarked this on the living wage of a two-parent family earning a living wage, roughly, so full benefit up to $80,000.

S. Cadieux: So roughly double what it is in any other province for the minimum, for the full. Okay.

A. Montani: And phase it out at $100,000 instead of $150,000.

S. Cadieux: Fair enough. So then what you think the additional cost is?

A. Montani: We don’t have the capacity to do that, other than…. We know that increasing the age range will pretty much triple the number of children, looking at age brackets. This is a tax measure that will cost the government revenue, but it will save government revenue in large measure through poverty reduction, which costs us a lot.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I was wondering if you could expand a bit on the children aging out of foster care piece. You feel that 25 is…. I mean, I think about the fact that when we have kids, when they’re 18, 19, we don’t just say: “Okay, see you later.” We help them develop. I probably see the same thing with foster care and children in care. Can you just expand on that, and why 25? Has there been thought about the cost of that at all? Have you looked at that?

A. Montani: We’ve had ministry officials come to our coalition meeting to discuss…. Again, we don’t have a capacity in our little office to cost things out across government.

[10:40 a.m.]

What we know is that the current agreements with young adults program is barriered for lots…. You have to be in school or some kind of program, even the life skills programs. And life skills programs have to be certified, so organizations that want to offer them are still having trouble getting them recognized. So there’s inequity around the province.

The agreements with young adults at this point isn’t treated as an entitlement, as we would for our own children, perhaps, when they age out at 19 and are still living with us. It’s treated almost like welfare. So it’s: “We’re going to claw back this much.” It’s only $1,250 a month at max, but kids don’t get the max. As I say, those who are least able, because of the trauma they’ve experienced before coming into care or while they were in care, to jump through hoops and are not ready for post-secondary are the ones who are least able to access this agreements with young adults.

We’re seeing it as a floor, and what young people are asking for is a floor. When you turn 19, there’s a program that you don’t have to jump through hoops to get into, but based on your need you have access to a place to live and supports to get ready to go to post-secondary or mental health supports or whatever. So a safety net you can’t fall out of.

The age 25 is…. Again, looking at demographics, a lot of young people live at home until 29 these days — and, also, to be consistent with some other government programs, like the tuition waiver program and stuff like that, that have a higher threshold.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, we’re out of time, but thank you very much for your presentation and everything you do for our children.

Next up we have CMPA-BC — Liz Shorten and Rob Simmons.

CANADIAN MEDIA PRODUCERS
ASSOCIATION, B.C. BRANCH

L. Shorten: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having us. It’s nice to see some familiar faces around the table. My name is Liz Shorten. I am the senior vice-president at the Canadian Media Producers Association, B.C. producers branch. With me is Rob Simmons, who is the chair of my board and also a film-maker.

Hopefully you’ve got our presentation in front of you, and we’ll walk you through that. I just wanted to first start to talk a little bit about the creative industries in B.C. The film and television industry is the cornerstone of a larger creative sector which now represents over 90,000 full-time workers, both direct and indirect, and contributes $6 billion annually to the B.C. economy. These are stats that have been put together by Creative B.C.

We wanted to just put a snapshot there in terms of how this direct employment compares to other industries in B.C. You’ll see on the next slide mining, the wine industry and the creative industry. You can see that our direct employment figures well exceed those other very established industries in British Columbia.

The next slide is just an overview of some of the different sectors in the creative industries. Of course, music and sound recording, interactive and digital media, books and magazine publishing and film and television. I’m really here to talk today a little bit more about film and television and the independent part of the industry.

The sector here in B.C. is really the third-largest centre in North America. We’ve now hit $3.4 billion last year in production activity. Lots of studio space and infrastructure, a lot of commitments made, and it’s estimated that we’ve got over 450 producers and businesses working in this industry.

I’m going to throw it over to Rob.

R. Simmons: I’ll focus a little bit more on the Canadian Media Producers Association itself. We do represent 100 independent producers — typically, very entrepreneurial companies that are B.C.-owned and -established. Distinctive about those companies is that they develop and create and own their own content, apart from the service productions that are also an important part of our industry. We, as producers, own the content long after we’ve finished shooting the content.

As indicated on the next page of the slide, we are involved in motion picture production, both scripted and unscripted — factual and reality programming, documentaries themselves, animation, web series and interactive digital media. It’s quite a breadth, a representation of the industry as well.

[10:45 a.m.]

How does the film sector contribute to the financial health of B.C.? Given the mandate of this committee, we focused on the financial health contributions that the industry makes, but I think there’s a broader argument that can be made that our influence and contribution extends beyond that, but we’ll focus on the financial health, given the mandate of this committee.

We’re employers. We’re entrepreneurs. We’re employers. There are over 100 domestic producers that we represent, as I indicated earlier, that own the content. We develop and produce it. We take financial risks. We are the employers. We hire the actors, the writers, the post-production people — again, a distinction apart from the service sector, the big Hollywood productions that come here that typically just shoot here. We employ writers. We employ post-production. We employ the directors. We employ the above-the-line talent domestically — so a distinction from our friends in the service business.

We’re exporters. Our business models insist that we export, and we habitually, as producers, aspire to and do execute on exporting to over 180 territories in the world. I’d be hard-pressed to name 100 of those, but trust me, they exist, and we sell, and our product is seen in those territories around the world.

The expertise of our skilled local workforce is now recognized globally. As Liz indicated, we’re the third-largest production centre in North America. We are a centre of excellence, indisputably. We’ve become a centre of excellence in the world, renowned for our talent and the vibrancy of our industry.

We’re also high tech. We’ve got a very significant visual effects cluster, an animation cluster, and in fact, we’ve brought many technical innovations to the live action sector as well, which have been recognized — including an Oscar for a local producer for a green screen technology that they created, invented and deployed and won an Oscar for two years ago, I believe. So we’re leaders in the high-tech application in the industry as well.

We’re green. Inherently, as a non-extractive industry in the province, we’re green. But we’ve gone beyond that, and as the CMPA, we’ve spearheaded a number of initiatives to make the industry even more green that we’ve enumerated here with the bullet points. Our membership has embraced that notion as well, because we’ve made it economically viable for them, and they’ve understood that, and they aspire to contribute to the greening of the industry as well.

We’re provincewide. We have got a significant cluster, obviously, in the Vancouver and Lower Mainland area, but we see more and more activity in what we call “the 250,” colloquially, with significant investments made on Vancouver Island recently in terms of studios and also a vibrant animation sector in the Okanagan as well.

How can B.C. Budget 2019 support this sector? We’ve proposed and emphasized three points on our penultimate slide.

The tax credit program is always of importance to us, of course. The tax credit program’s been around for, I believe, 20 years or better, and it’s a model worldwide. Other jurisdictions have modelled our tax credit program because it’s labour-based, and it does directly influence employment in the sector, in the industry. So the second piece of that…. The fact that it’s labour-based is critically important, I think, for public policy reasons, but the stability of it is critically important for the sector itself. It’s become reliable and renowned and known for its stability. It has got an enduring, understandable tax credit regime, and it’s critical that it remain stable into the future as well.

We’re asking that Creative B.C. core funding is increased by $5 million per year. It’s an economic development agency that’s critical to the success of the industry that we collectively enjoy the fruits of their labours.

Last, we’re very interested in the future of the industry. We’re at our smartest when we’re long-term smart. We believe that this industry has a bright and shining future, and it’s critical that we get support from our partners in public education to help light kids up about working in the industry. They’re real jobs. They’re enduring jobs. They’re good jobs. They’re well-paying jobs, and we need to engage young people in this industry as well. So some support on that front would be more than welcome as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, we went a bit over time on the initial….

R. Simmons: Sorry about that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, it’s fine, but we have to keep the questions a little bit short.

I just have one quick question. In regards to the $5 million of extra funding, could you just elaborate a little bit more on what you feel that would be used for and why it’s important?

[10:50 a.m.]

L. Shorten: Sure. Rob talked about the critical role that our members play in developing shows that they own. Currently Creative B.C. does not have sufficient funding to have a really robust development or R-and-D program. That’s one of the ways that we would want to see some additional funding be used.

As new entrants come into the marketplace…. Everyone probably has some kind of OTT subscription — Netflix or others. Those entities actually don’t develop shows; they buy shows. More and more, companies are having to develop on their own or with other partners. So that’s one of the focuses for that funding.

S. Furstenau: Just in terms of the secondary and post-secondary education targeted initiatives, how much of a deficit would you say there is in terms of finding skilled employees?

R. Simmons: I’m from the animation industry. In animation — not visual effects, but animation — there are approximately 3,000 people working in the industry in B.C. now. The eminent program that’s publicly funded at Capilano College graduates 44 people per year. Simple math says that we have to have people working 100 years in order to have that be a sustainable model. It’s not sustainable. So that gives you an indication of the kind of deficit we’re seeing in terms of talent generation.

There are other schools. There are private institutions, of course, that also supply the industry. And there’s a significant immigration of people from across Canada coming here to work because it is a centre of excellence. But we believe that establishment of the publicly funded at our secondary and post-secondary, geared towards this industry, is very, very important.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’ll have to keep the questions short.

R. Leonard: My question is around the tax credit. You talked about needing to keep it sustainable and stable. I just would like to understand a little bit more about what the benefits are. What is the impact of stability on the industry?

R. Simmons: Predictability is very important to our client base and for the producers like me who create our own content — understanding that the tax credit is going to be reliable as we move into the future. The projects that we’re talking about and developing now won’t be produced for three or four years, in some cases. In many cases, it’s a long row to hoe to get to production. So having that stability, reliability and dependability is critical for me as an entrepreneur to rely on — that that financing will be there when we get there.

Likewise for our customers as well. As we make investments in this sector in terms of physical production, like the Vancouver Island examples, having that reliability and sustainability and stability is critical for our customer base in the service sector as well.

Have I answered your question?

R. Leonard: You’ve helped, yes. Thank you.

T. Redies: Just a quick question. Do you have any data with respect to the average wages paid in your sector?

L. Shorten: Well, we’re actually working on that right now. We’ve commissioned a study through MNP, the consulting firm. But it’s different with various parts of the industry. I don’t know in animation. Rob, you could probably speak to the animation.

R. Simmons: Yeah. Broadly speaking, the median is about $65,000 to $75,000 on a per annum basis equivalent. And the median age is around 30 to 31 years old in that sector. That’s a subsector of the industry though.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, we’re out of time. Thank you very much, both of you. It was wonderful seeing you.

Next up we have the British Columbia Schizophrenia Society. We have Thomas Conway and Andrew Stewart.

B.C. SCHIZOPHRENIA SOCIETY

T. Conway: Good morning. I’m Tom Conway. I’m the executive director of the British Columbia Schizophrenia Society. With me is Andrew Stewart, our operations manager.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to share highlights of our proposal to build on our existing partnership with government by providing services that support the caregivers of severely mentally ill British Columbians and eradicate the stigma of schizophrenia and severe mental illness.

The British Columbia Schizophrenia Society was founded by families and friends of people with schizophrenia in 1982. The society’s mission is to improve the quality of life for those affected by schizophrenia and psychosis through education, support, advocacy and research into the causes, treatment and ultimate cure of schizophrenia.

One in 100, nearly 47,000, British Columbians are living with some form of schizophrenia. It affects people of all ages, cultures, education and income levels, and it also impacts their family members.

[10:55 a.m.]

I’m sure you can all relate to challenges that individuals and families face on a regular basis. But imagine what it is like to have a family member who is actively psychotic, paranoid or so deeply depressed that they can’t get out of bed, or to live with a loved one who has uncontrollable manic swings, who is grandiose and full of energy one minute, then suddenly in a furious rage.

There are grave health and economic consequences for individuals living with schizophrenia. Overall, 40 to 60 percent of schizophrenia patients will attempt suicide. Physical and sexual violence against women with schizophrenia is double that of the general population. And people living with mental illness are 2½ times more likely to be the victims of violence than those without mental illness. Negative impacts can be reduced with a system that proactively champions health literacy, access to services and supports for families and their ill relatives.

BCSS partners with and offers powerful programs to thousands of individuals coping with serious mental illness, throughout the province — programs that give families a reason to hope and the means to cope.

Consistent with these services and our core values, we ask you to consider funding to expand existing BCSS programming throughout the province over the next five years, including sustainable funding that will demonstrate a commitment to mental health and family caregivers via Strengthening Families Together and Strengthening Families Together: First Nations, our ten-week support program for people who have a relative with schizophrenia or other serious mental illness; Kids in Control and Teens in Control, so children aged seven to 18 with a family member suffering from mental illness receive support, coping strategies and education; and ReachOut Psychosis tour, an innovative musical group with lived experience who tour high schools throughout the province using music, conversation and audience participation to help students, teachers and counsellors identify and seek help for youth with emerging psychoses.

BCSS is comprised of dedicated staff and volunteers working in partnership with trained family peer support, communities, health agencies and first responders. Thanks to direct funding from the Ministry of Health a couple of years ago, BCSS could offer basic support in Vancouver, Richmond and the Sunshine Coast, as well as in areas where there were identified gaps in services across the province.

Additional funding would allow BCSS to build on those initial successes. The additional funding would also bridge gaps left due to the elimination of contracts with health authorities in the Lower Mainland. Due to the loss of this funding, families in the most populated region of B.C. have been left without the unique and invaluable services BCSS provides, such as direct emergency support during a crisis, free psychosocial education and peer support groups. Families tell us the society services have saved the life of their spouse, parent, child, sibling and friends. We have been cobbling together limited services in those areas, but the need for additional funds is great.

The BCSS system of regional educators and community partnerships has consistently delivered life-saving benefits at low cost. A relatively modest government investment in BCSS resources will reduce acute care services through earlier intervention. We believe that funding from this government will go a long way to support its mandates to deliver the services that children and families count on; ensure people from every background have the opportunity to reach their full potential; fund crucial investments in improvements to mental health and addictions services; improve access, investing in early prevention and youth mental health; and provide the most effective way to deliver quality mental health and addictions services.

BCSS intends to continue to work closely with health authorities to match their local community needs, such as we are doing with Northern Health and Interior Health with our Indigenous family support. We would use the additional funding to expand on such services. We would increase youth services by expanding our Kids in Control and Teens in Control workshops throughout the province.

For more than 35 years, BCSS has worked to support, educate and advocate on behalf of individuals with severe mental illness and their families. The success of this work has been largely due to partnerships with the ministries, health authorities, non-profit organizations and individuals.

We thank the B.C. government and all British Columbians for their support. The society, its staff and volunteers based in communities across B.C. look to the government to review our current proposal to improve mental health for British Columbians and for those who support the mentally ill.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I applaud the work you do. I have a brother who’s been schizophrenic for 35 years, and it’s been…. I know from personal experience how tough it is on families and how heartbreaking it is to see my brother deal with that, and the quality of his life and all that.

My question is…. This is obviously extremely needed work. I’m just curious about housing and the housing needs.

[11:00 a.m.]

One of the challenges that he had — has always had — is where to live. They have different stages. At one point, he could be on his own, and other times he couldn’t be on his own. Now he’s progressed to the point where he needs full-time help. There’s this sort of spectrum of housing needs.

I don’t want to get away too much from your presentation, but I’m really curious to see what the society’s position is on that.

T. Conway: Thank you for your share. I appreciate that. With regard to housing, that isn’t our main mission, but we do work with other organizations who do deal with the housing that individuals can live in when they’re on their own.

One of the things I eliminated from this in order to get to five minutes was our need for acute psych care beds, whether in acute settings or tertiary settings. That’s a different kind of housing need, but that will be in our formal presentation. We’re putting people in shelters or in incorrect places. They get to the hospital. There isn’t the availability of acute psych beds, and unfortunately, they get put in places where they then don’t have adequate care.

We do partner with those organizations that do the housing. Jobs is another issue too, but that isn’t, again, part of our mission. But we support that fully.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. So that will be in the larger….

T. Conway: Yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. And sorry to get off the topic. I was just curious.

T. Conway: Not at all. I’m glad you brought it up.

S. Furstenau: I’m just wondering about data around any increases in numbers of diagnoses. Are you seeing more need for this? If you could just give me some sense of that.

T. Conway: I don’t think the increase is in numbers. One in 100 has been the level set for a while now. However, what we are seeing is that more people are asking and finding a need to have those services to help those families because, quite honestly, navigating the system is very challenging for individuals, to find even an entry point into the system. So we’re seeing an increase not because there are more diagnoses but because the need has been vocalized.

T. Redies: Can you speak to the additional funding that you need in dollar terms, please?

T. Conway: Yeah. In dollar terms, what we’ll probably propose is over five years, but in the coming year, it will be somewhere between $2½ million and $3 million. It would, again, expand…. We have seven regions now throughout the province — we, regional managers — providing the Strengthening Families and Strengthening Families First Nations programs. Right now that’s all part time. What I would love to do is expand that.

We also see a great need for those youth who live in a family where they have a mental illness — to help those children cope. So by the time they become adults, they have a better way to deal with it.

We see in each of those regions an ask for more of those programs. For instance, in our ReachOut Psychosis, we reach about almost 9,000 students, teachers and counsellors a year. In Strengthening Families and First Nations, we touch about 130 families throughout the province, but we could do many more. And in our Kids in Control and Teens in Control, it’s about 100 children with 12 programs, and we have four planned for this coming year. But we could expand on those as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Could I ask one last question in regard to education and stigma? I’m just wondering how much work you do on that and whether or not any of this funding would be helpful in that regard.

T. Conway: It would definitely be helpful in that regard. We could include that in our proposal as well. We do our own education on stigma reduction through our web and through our social media, of course, and other opportunities. We also work with B.C. Partners, which is a group of like-missioned organizations working with mental health and wellness. We are separately funded in that organization, so we do have stigma reduction in that way as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Great. We are out of time now, but obviously, from my heart, thank you very much for everything you do. I really appreciate it.

T. Conway: Thank you all for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Island Coastal Economic Trust — John Jack, Mayor Josie Osborne and Line Robert.

ISLAND COASTAL ECONOMIC TRUST

J. Osborne: Good morning. Thank you so much for having us here. My name is Josie Osborne. I am the new chair of the Island Coastal Economic Trust, and with me is John Jack, who is also a board member of ICET, and Line Robert, our CEO.

For the past 12 years, the Island Coastal Economic Trust, one of three such trusts in British Columbia, has served as a regional resource on Vancouver Island — all of Vancouver Island except for the capital regional district — and the Sunshine Coast area.

[11:05 a.m.]

We use a community-based decision-making model to invest in economic diversification and infrastructure in the communities in that region. The types of infrastructure and initiatives that we have invested in are as diverse as harbours; agrifood; film and creative sector development, which we heard from a little bit earlier today; the land and marine trails that exist throughout the region; and much, much more. We really use the natural and cultural assets of the region to build on that.

The model we have for decision-making, using mayors and regional district chairs and MLAs — such as some of you here at this table — who sit on our regional advisory committees, lends a lot of information and support and depth of knowledge into these communities that the board then uses to make decisions about the larger infrastructure investments.

As a nimble organization, we are able to adapt quite quickly to the changing way that people and communities want to invest. One of the examples that we’ve done recently is to put a lot more focus on the technology and innovation space, because we want to be at the forefront of innovative leadership in the way that we invest these funds.

This leads me to why we are here today. We want to be leaders, and we want to use the assets that we have and the funding that we have to build bridges with First Nations communities in order to achieve more economic reconciliation.

In the past two years, about 30 percent of our funding has been allocated into Indigenous communities. We’ve seen joint economic development strategies between First Nations and local governments. We’ve seen projects that bring together tourism, marketing resources — again, between First Nations and local governments and community organizations. And we’ve been funding remote tourism hubs in some of the First Nations communities like Anacla, where John Jack is from.

This has been a fantastic experience, but the challenge that we face at ICET is that there is no pathway to governance for First Nations, with the exception of the provincial appointments that are made to the board. So what we’re here today to talk to you a little bit more about is…. In this era of reconciliation where we are all wanting to be very active, we see a way forward to build a stronger bridge with First Nations and to work more collaboratively and closely in the way we invest money in our communities.

I’ll hand it over to John.

J. Jack: Hello. I think one of the most beneficial approaches that ICET takes is that they consider the regional economy in such a way that allows for planting seeds of diversity and diversification.

Now, part of what makes an economy successful is if all the actors in an economy act together in a way that makes sense. This you can see in resource-based or energy-based, but also, new and emerging economies allow for more success the more parties you involve in those sectors or economies.

With First Nations establishing influence and a desire for more involvement directly in the economy in ways that make sense but also make things more effective, I think allowing First Nations a pathway into how to make decisions — not just benefiting from those decisions but also helping to make decisions that may not even affect their communities directly but help the entire regional economy as a whole — is some­thing that we really should do. Meaningful involvement will allow for projects to go ahead, even if they’re as small as a walking trail or as large as many other things that we’re doing in the Island Coastal Economic Trust.

J. Osborne: That’s it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s it. Okay. Thank you very much.

Let me just ask a quick question. As far as the Finance Committee, I just wanted to find out…. Could you elaborate a little bit more on the specific ask? I’m a little bit confused as to what you’re asking.

J. Osborne: Yes, thank you.

We’re not here with a financial ask, although we’ll always say thank you to any investments that the province wants to make in ICET. Really, the ask is to consider the governance structures that we’re using at ICET in order to make better decisions with the funding that we do have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

P. Milobar: That ties into what one of my questions was going to be. I’m very familiar with SIDIT, from our area of the world. I was on that board for quite a few years. They were, basically, angel investing and making sure that their original $50 million-plus is still somewhere.

You’re saying that…. I’m just trying to take a really quick look here. You’re not saying that you’ve spent all the $50 million. You’ve had ins and outs and some successes and some misses — right? — as all of these would have. But it’s really around governance, not saying that we need a new $50 million injected in.

J. Osborne: That’s right. There was an initial $50 million, and then we had a $10 million recapitalization very recently. So this is going to let us sustain the operations that we have for a few more years. Really, what we’re asking is around the way we’re making the decisions and a pathway in for First Nations.

[11:10 a.m.]

T. Redies: Can you elaborate on what you mean by a pathway? What’s your recommendation in this regard?

J. Osborne: Right now the way the board is structured, we have eight mayors or regional district chairs who are elected by their colleagues through these regional advisory committees, and then the province makes five appointments. We’re waiting for new appointments right now, but in the past, we’ve had two First Nations who were appointed.

John Jack now sits on our board by virtue of the fact that he is chair of the regional district. His position at the board is not guaranteed in the sense that it’s not an appointment directly made with First Nations engagement or consultation or appointment through that. That’s the differentiation we’re trying to make.

T. Redies: You’re looking for more First Nations on the guaranteed positions, essentially, on the board.

J. Osborne: That’s correct. The Columbia Basin Trust is a good example where, through the tribal council, appointments are made to their board directly.

L. Robert: If I may just add, the difference is just one word in our legislation. For example, with respect to treaty nations being allowed to sit on the regional advisory committees, the shíshálh Nation on the Sunshine Coast can sit because they are considered a local government. Our legislation says “local government.” It does not include treaty nations.

There are some subtleties there that are very small, so I don’t think the changes are very heavy. They just require legislative change.

R. Leonard: Just to be clear, you’re asking for treaty nations to have representation. I’m just looking at the….

J. Osborne: There is the opportunity for treaty nation representation when they are part of a regional district, as John Jack is.

R. Leonard: As long as you’re the regional chair.

J. Osborne: As long as he’s the regional chair. That’s correct. But there is no pathway for non-treaty nations. I’m sure you can elaborate, John.

J. Jack: I think the more salient point is that it’s about First Nations, less specific to treaty nations or not. That’s a decision made for each First Nation. But First Nations will continue to have influence on how things happen in and around their territories. Finding meaningful ways to involve First Nations directly in those decision-making processes — not necessarily having a veto, but just a vote — will mean so much to First Nations in such a way to allow for things to happen and say yes, not just to say no for political leverage reasons.

J. Osborne: I would add that truly, I feel the quality of decision-making will improve if we are able to strengthen this bridge. Right now one of the assets that ICET really has is the direct…. I mean, mayors and regional district chairs and people who live in communities are helping to make decisions about what the best investments are. We want to collaborate and work with First Nations, but we don’t have quite the right structure to be able to get that input at the table where we’re all equals.

B. D’Eith (Chair): In a sense, the financial consideration here is the better governance of the finances of the trust through a recommendation to our committee.

J. Osborne: That’s correct. We really view this as something new and positive.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, just trying to get my head around it all.

Okay, well, we’re out of time, but thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

Next up we have Yorkville University — Daren Hancott.

How are you?

D. Hancott: I’m great. How are you?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Very well. Nice to see you.

YORKVILLE UNIVERSITY

D. Hancott: Good morning, everyone. I think some of you may remember me from last year. I’ve got some good news. We’re growing, and we’re not asking for any money. So even though this is a finance perspective, the good news is that we’re doing well in British Columbia, and we’re delighted to be here, hiring British Columbians and growing.

For you that don’t know, I’m the campus provost, vice-president academic for Yorkville University in British Columbia. We have operations in New Brunswick, Ontario and B.C. We offer bachelor’s, master’s and diploma programs to working adults trying to progress in their careers and develop their skills while they’re continuing to work, which is great.

A lot of our students come from small communities. A lot of communities may not have access to some of the things that we offer, so students are happy to stay at home with their families, working in their communities and studying and advancing their skills. We’re very pleased to continue that.

[11:15 a.m.]

We also own the Toronto Film School. I heard a presentation just before that maybe excites me a little bit more, because we haven’t decided to do an operation here in British Columbia, but I’m thinking about it. Why? It’s growing very quickly. We have lots of in-demand programs. The careers are very attractive to young people, and a lot of young people are not attracted to traditional programs. They want something different. When I heard that presentation, I thought I would take that back and maybe see what we can do. We have three campuses in Toronto, nine programs and nothing in British Columbia at the moment, so there’s an opportunity for me.

What we currently offer is a bachelor of business in British Columbia with energy management, supply chain management, project management and accounting — very traditional specializations and doing well, but it’s probably not enough.

One of my goals is to figure out what we can do in British Columbia to advance our programming, expand our programming and also integrate with government needs and wishes in the future. For example, we’re looking at an MBA right now with specializations and themes that we’ve researched, which would be different from anything out there, and also something in technology — maybe cybersecurity or big data analytics, which is really important. I haven’t decided yet, but I’m doing the research. You might see that in an application at some point in time.

We have a master’s of counselling program in New Brunswick and two master’s of education programs, which I’m thinking about here. Actually, what’s interesting is that counselling and the issues in society that we’re facing — which we heard in another presentation — is growing. That one program is well over 2,000 students, and a lot of these people start their own practices because there’s so much need in counselling in communities. I’m going to try to create something like that here so that it’s not just in one area.

We also provide programs for underserved populations. A lot of our students, as I said, can’t leave home. They may be single moms, single dads, people that are lower-income earners. As you know, tuition is not the biggest cost of going to school; it’s actually leaving home and trying to find somewhere to rent. If you’re doing that in Vancouver, it’s very difficult. We have lots of people that cannot move to Vancouver and live in Vancouver, so our on-line programs are doing very well even though we have a campus in Vancouver.

I won’t take a lot of your time, because I think you might be a little bit behind. I know you’ve heard a lot of presentations.

We want to be a provider of a solution to advanced education. We are members of BCCAT and EQA. We can accept international students. As you know, it’s a very big market here. But it’s not just about international students. We want a blend of both so that they can integrate into society. As you know, that’s a balancing act. We have another big intake in our classes for this October. I think it’s going to be a big influx of international students to blend with the domestic students that we have, so we’re really looking forward to that.

Like I said, we’re doing well. We’re not asking for any finance or anything like that. Basically, as you should be aware, it costs a lot of money to develop a program, to launch a program and to operate a program without any other funding than tuition so we want to make sure we get it right.

If you hear anything, see anything, think of anything that you think the private sector might be interested in looking at in terms of coordinating with other groups or ministries, we’d be all ears. To have a strategy on something is important, but executing that strategy takes a lot of time and effort. We’re a willing partner, and my door is always open.

Thank you very much for the opportunity. I’ll try to address any questions you may have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great, thank you. Like you said, you’re not asking for money per se, but can you maybe just elaborate a little bit more about…? Obviously, we may need up to 80,000 skilled people working in British Columbia over the next ten years. How do you see Yorkville University fitting into that need?

D. Hancott: I think there’s a lot we can do. As I mentioned before, a lot of our programs are applied. Right now they’re probably just generic and need to be expanded. My hope is that we can get programs approved fairly quickly. It takes a long time. Sometimes it takes a year to two years to get a new program approved, so anything that we can do to speed up the process would be great.

[11:20 a.m.]

We can move quickly, but if we don’t have partners that can move as quickly, we just sit and wait and then things don’t happen. Anything that we can do to improve processes, improve operations, improve approval processes with government would be great. We invest a lot of money to approve a program. You can’t hire people until you have approval, you can’t market the program, and you can’t attract students.

I think if you do a little bit of analysis, you’ll find out how long it does take. That’s one of the reasons we haven’t brought another institution here. Toronto Film School is in Toronto. Obviously — it makes sense — it’s tied into TIFF, the Toronto International Film Festival. So even if I brought it here, what would the name be? Could I say “Toronto Film School in Vancouver,” or would I have to come up with some other name because there’s a Vancouver Film School?

It takes some time, but we want to make sure that anything that we do is for the long term. We could be a part of that solution, for sure. We graduate hundreds, if not thousands, of students, especially in diploma programs. They’re growing really quickly, and they’re less than two years. So if they have a degree or they want to change careers, a diploma would be a way to go. A master’s program takes up to two years, so that takes a while.

Did I answer the question?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thanks for being in B.C.

Next up we have Geoscience B.C. — Gavin Dirom and Carlos Salas.

G. Dirom: Good morning.

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right, the floor is yours. Go ahead.

GEOSCIENCE B.C.

G. Dirom: Thank you, Chair. I think everyone has our package. If you know me, you know that I like paper, so there are a lot of reports in there and information from Geoscience B.C. You should have our strategic plan, plus our annual report and our recommendations for this morning. And forgive me. I am going to read a script out, and Carlos will as well, because we’re short on time.

So good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Gavin Dirom, and I’m the president and CEO of Geoscience B.C. With me is Carlos Salas, who is our chief scientific officer and our executive vice-president. We are pleased to present the following two recommendations to the committee today.

Recommendation 1 is to commit $10 million per year for five years, $50 million total commitment, through year-end funding, as of March 31, 2019, to Geoscience B.C. to complete the relevant mineral-, energy- and water-related projects proposed in Geoscience B.C.’s scientific project plan.

Our second recommendation is to increase the B.C. geological survey base funding to at least $5 million per year so that they can effectively collaborate with partners in the delivery of their complementary mandate, such as providing geological mapping and maintaining provincial geological databases.

To provide context to our recommendations, the world’s progression to a cleaner and greener economy is forecast to increase demand for B.C.’s natural resources and, with it, the need for quality geoscience information for people to make good decisions about our mineral, energy and water resources.

Geoscience B.C. is an independent, not-for-profit society, and as per our five-year strategic plan, our vision is to be a leading partner and provider of credible and relevant earth science research and data in the province. Through the power of partnerships, Geoscience B.C. has been delivering high-quality, innovative research since 2005. In fact, we have collaborated with over 75 partners on more than 200 projects.

The majority — over 80 percent — of funding for Geoscience B.C. has been received from the government of British Columbia. This core funding leverages further funding from partners such as the Geological Survey of Canada, Western Economic Diversification and Northern Development Initiative Trust. Since inception, Geoscience B.C. has invested approximately $57 million and attracted partner contributions, both direct and in-kind contributions, of over $27 million, for a total leveraged investment of over $84 million in geoscience research.

[11:25 a.m.]

Geoscience B.C. has earned support from a wide range of partners and public interest groups. This public support is demonstrated by resolutions passed in 2018 by the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, the North Central Local Government Association and UBCM calling for a B.C. government commitment to fund Geoscience B.C. at $50 million.

In addition to Geoscience B.C., the provincial government’s oil and gas division and the geological survey provide the people of British Columbia with an innovative, made-in-B.C. approach to coordinated public geoscience. Ensuring the survey is appropriately resourced means that they will have geologists in the field to map the complicated geology of the province and to share their knowledge with the public.

Carlos will now outline the scientific project plan and provide you with examples of the return on investment and the value of Geoscience B.C. research to the province. Thank you.

C. Salas: Thanks, Gavin.

I will talk about the scientific project planning and our proposed research. Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee. Geoscience B.C. has developed a scientific project plan that outlines 34 proposed research projects over the next five years with the following strategic objectives: identifying new natural resource opportunities; advancing science and innovative technologies; facilitating responsible, natural resource development; increasing geoscience literacy and capacity; enabling clean energy; and understanding water. In our scientific project plan, we’re proposing 16 mineral-related research projects, seven oil and gas research projects, seven geothermal research projects and four water-related research projects.

Let me provide some background on our research. I’ll start with the mineral side. When we consider the extent of our minerals research, I’m proud to state that Geoscience B.C. has completed over 117 mineral-focused projects since 2005 and has 17 projects currently underway, for a total expenditure of $35.4 million to date on minerals.

I’ll give a couple of examples on the mineral side. Based on independent third-party findings from the B.C. Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources assessment report indexing system, ARIS, from 2005 through 2017, Geoscience B.C. data and projects were mentioned 2,483 times in 884 reports and are mentioned in reports with a total expiration expenditure of $154.3 million, which is more than four times the return on investment, ROI, made by Geoscience B.C. in mineral-related research.

Another specific example. Geoscience B.C.’s QUEST-West project directly contributed to extending the mine life of Huckleberry copper mine, located southwest of Houston B.C. As part of the project, the geophysical survey results identified drill targets which led to an increase in their mineral reserves. The continued mine production meant provincial government revenue of $4 million per year was realized. More than 200 jobs were extended and $100 million per year in mine production revenues were continued.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Carlos, we’re at about nearly six minutes. If you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, that would be great.

C. Salas: Will do. I will come to the very end. We will be submitting additional information, supporting material, to the committee, and certainly we thank you very much for considering our recommendations. We’re happy to answer some questions.

R. Leonard: Thanks very much for your presentation. You kind of perked me up onto the edge of my seat. I’m particularly interested in water, since I have a chance to give you a few more moments to speak, if you could give us a little broad brush on the kinds of water projects that you’re looking at.

C. Salas: Sure. In the past, most recently in the Peace region, we did some airborne electromagnetic surveys to map out groundwater in that part of the world, which helps First Nations, communities such as Fort St. John, etc., and also the energy sector.

Other projects that we have worked on are understanding surface water, doing water monitoring in the Horn River Basin with the Fort Nelson First Nation. Now, as the project finished off, we devolved the project back to the Fort Nelson First Nation, so they continue doing the surface water monitoring.

In the future, we’re going to go be putting together a water task force to understand what needs there may be in a province for additional work outside our current water work, which is related to more resource development, but are there other potential areas in the province where water research would be needed.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have just a quick question. In regards to the $10 million per year, is that in new funding, or is this a new ask? It does say “to commit.” Is there any commitment for these already? I’m just wondering. Is this new money; is this additional money?

[11:30 a.m.]

G. Dirom: It’s new money. It’s a new ask.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s a new ask. It’s $10 million a year. Now, are you already getting…? Is there already money being allocated for this increase?

G. Dirom: No. The last time we had funding was 2017, of $10 million — $5 million per year, which takes us to the end of this next year.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, okay. You did have $5 million a year, and now you’re asking for $10 million moving forward, for five years.

G. Dirom: Correct.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Well, you do have a couple more minutes. I cut you off, so I wanted to give you a chance to…. If there’s anything else you wanted to add, please do.

C. Salas: With respect to the question on water, in the past, we’ve done quite a bit of work on understanding groundwater and looking for saline water sources that energy companies can use, rather than using surface water. Companies have spent over $150 million in water treatment plants to use deep saline sources, which are non-potable, rather than using surface water. That’s a good example.

On the geothermal front, we’re working on putting together a project which will assess the southwest corner of B.C., which has probably Canada’s best geothermal potential. It’s in the Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, and we’re teaming up with the Geological Survey of Canada with the intent of a long-term view of understanding the geothermal potential in that area.

N. Simons: I understand that you’re also doing some GHG mapping. I wonder if you could talk a bit about that.

C. Salas: Sure. Thank you for that question.

We are teamed up with a company you may have heard of, NASA, on that project. We’re using their technology, which they developed for the Mars mission. It helps us detect…. We strapped it onto a drone, and with that, we can detect methane, ethane and CO₂ in real time. That’s going to, hopefully, help the province and the government be able to understand what the real emissions are that are coming out, rather than modelled values.

Right now we’re doing projects up in northeast B.C. with the energy companies. Hopefully, we can continue moving on and do the assessment on GHGs in other parts of the various sectors.

N. Simons: Just a quick follow-up, Mr. Chair.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, Nicholas. Make it quick.

N. Simons: Okay. I’m just wondering if, so far, they’ve found that the modelled measurements are similar to what the drones are finding.

C. Salas: We’re still at the beginning of the project. So stay tuned. We’ll be able to provide that information.

N. Simons: Okay. Thank you. That will make the Chair happy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Perfect. Thank you so much for your presentation. We really appreciate seeing you again.

I’d like to call Barbara Brown. Is A.J. coming as well?

B. Brown: Yes, at the same time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, at the same time. Great, thank you. Welcome back. Nice to see you again.

Barbara, can I ask a quick question, just in terms of the format? Are there going to be two full five-minute…? Are you making a presentation and then questions and then another five and then questions?

B. Brown: Yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

B. Brown: If that’s fine. Or we can do it….

B. D’Eith (Chair): If they’re similar topics, it might be better to give a little bit more time to do both, and then we can just ask general questions. Are they different?

B. Brown: Well, I’m the mother of an adult daughter, and I don’t get to see everything. So this is as big a surprise for me as you. I haven’t read what she’s going to present. I’m just going to assume it’s separate.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’ll do yours first, if that’s okay.

Okay, Barbara. Go ahead.

BARBARA BROWN

B. Brown: Thank you very much, everyone. I have to read my notes this morning, and I’ll try and cover it in five minutes. As your Chairperson said, I’ve been here before. This is No. 3 for me and, I think, may be the last one.

[11:35 a.m.]

B.C. has almost 98,000 people with disabilities who receive B.C. disability assistance. At a single rate of $1,165 a month or $13,980 a year, these people live pretty desperate lives. The quickest and best fix is to establish the CPP disability pension as an earned income and halt the clawback that has been B.C. government policy since 1996. I was very surprised when I researched that. It was Mike Harcourt’s government that introduced this policy.

I’m the mother of a multi-disabled adult daughter, A.J., who is profoundly deaf and lives with a progressive form of cerebral palsy. A.J. is left with $845 a month after she pays her subsidized rent of $320. That’s why I say these people in B.C. live pretty desperate lives.

This morning I want to request for the third time that the B.C. government reverse its financial policy dictating that B.C. residents in receipt of B.C. disability assistance will have 100 percent of their CPP disability pension clawed back. And to stop. Reverse your policy, please.

People in B.C. receiving disability assistance may be eligible for supplements, including nutritional supplements. To be eligible for that, you have to have a chronic progressive deterioration of health and you have to have symptoms of wasting. A.J. and I have applied for several supplements and assistance, and we’re still sitting here at the beginning of that process. We’ve been refused many times.

When A.J. was a teenager, she was a student at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We were living there for a brief period of time. She was a community student, not a professional student. Suddenly, her cerebral palsy became exquisitely progressive, at the age of 21. Over the years, she’s lost her voice. She’s lost her balance. She can’t walk unaided. She’s only using crutches because I’m driving today, and I can’t throw the walker into the car anymore. But she prefers and needs the walker, because her loss of balance is progressive.

We can’t get any progressive supplements. A.J.’s health is not deteriorating, and she’s not wasting. I don’t see the sense in that. I have to say when was the last time you tried to thread a camel through the eye of a needle? That’s how difficult it is to get supplements from this B.C. government.

In November 2016, this committee’s report made recommendations, two of them. One was to “review current income assistance and disability rates and consider increases” — to consider the cost of living. The second one was to “recognize CPP benefits as earned income for those accessing disability and income assistance.” That was 2016.

In 2017, this committee’s report said, “Increase the rate of income and disability assistance benefits to ensure they reflect the current cost of living, indexed to inflation, and review policies that stipulate earned income” should identify as a benefit to be received — 100 percent.

It hasn’t happened, and in fact, this policy has been in place since 1996. I was able to research that, at least, for the last five years, someone has sat at this desk and asked for just that.

Last year I went through a long list of all the rights that A.J. has — that we all have. The UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. The B.C. Accessibility Summit for 2024, and its consultation report.

[11:40 a.m.]

The Canadian Human Rights Commission reports that half of the complaints they receive relate to disability-based discrimination. We’re protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Finally, Canada has ratified seven principal human rights conventions and covenants, including the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. So we talk a lot, but we don’t act.

I named the conclusion of my little speech today: “Promises made, promises broken.” In April 2017, the Metro Vancouver Alliance: Election Accountability Assembly was held. Mr. Horgan and Dr. Weaver both attended and listened to four presentations on four very important issues facing British Columbia. I spoke about the CPP disability clawback. At the end of the four presentations, Dr. Weaver and Mr. Horgan stood on the front of the stage, right in front of where A.J. was sitting, with their hands on their hearts, and said: “If elected, I will stop the CPP clawback.” You can watch that any time you want by going to YouTube.

As a disabled person, A.J. is a protected person under the Charter’s laws, and the Supreme Court of Canada has held that section 15 of that Charter not only requires governments to refrain from discriminating against protected groups but may also require governments to adopt positive measures to protect from discrimination by others. You have a responsibility.

So my policy recommendation is: halt the CPP disability clawback, label it earned income, and ensure that no other provincial benefits are negatively affected by this policy change.

Have I got one more minute?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Sure.

B. Brown: I tried to do a little math — not my greatest accomplishment. If we have 97,662 people in B.C. with a disability assistance pension — and now, this year, a single person will receive about $13,980 in income — I’m proposing that we go up to $20,000 a year. That gap is $6,020; let’s call it $6,000. If we did that — knowing that there are families and larger groups, but based on the single one — it would cost you people $58 million, almost $59 million. That’s a lot of money. But I also went through your budgets, your revenue and your expenses, and I found a couple of areas where I think, if I were in your seats, I would take a pencil and change those numbers, and I would come up with $59 million.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Barbara. I appreciate your frustration, I guess, with the process, so to speak. One thing to keep in mind with this particular committee and the recommendations it makes is that they are recommendations. We aren’t the treasury. This isn’t the Treasury Board, and we don’t represent the Minister of Finance. However, this is a three-party committee, and we will make recommendations, as we did last year. This was an issue that we discussed at length and made recommendations on.

I just want you to know that this committee makes recommendations. Then it’s up to the government and the minister to act on those recommendations as they see fit, within the overall stresses of government and the budget. We really appreciate that.

Peter Milobar would like to ask you a question.

P. Milobar: Thank you very much for the thoughtful presentation. After sitting through the second year of this now, and 15 or 16 years worth of municipal budget meetings as well, it’s always an ask for more. I was happy to hear that you have some thoughts on some line items, and it’s fair to have people say: “Why don’t you think about changing or cutting this?” I’m curious. What would be just even a couple of the areas that you feel…?

B. Brown: Well, I look at the home transfer tax, and I think you could charge people more — especially now, with these huge, huge expensive homes. I’m sorry, but I do believe we should be taxing the rich a bit more.

[11:45 a.m.]

Of course, I don’t want you to change personal income taxes.

I also wondered. I don’t know very much about it — B.C. Lottery Corp. I don’t know what taxes they pay, what their contribution is to the B.C. government. That is money that people are throwing away anyway, so why don’t you throw a little bit more to help out this group of people? And the Liquor Distribution Branch…. You know, we all like a glass of wine, but maybe one glass less a day — a little more money, a little more tax to get us up to this amount.

N. Simons: I know that my friend Peter wasn’t expecting you to come up with the way you’re justifying it, and it is the government’s responsibility to balance the needs. You’re making a very good case, one that I think most of us as MLAs in our communities have heard from individuals who are also feeling this and seeing it as an injustice when it’s 100 percent clawed back. We as MLAs are trying to do what we can to push the government in the right direction, regardless of what side we sit on, and this is something that’s important.

It’s my first time to hear you, and I’m glad I got that opportunity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, Barbara — I want to give A.J. a chance too — so thank you very much. Thanks for your perseverance as well. I know that coming back year after year is tough, but sometimes that’s what it takes.

We’re just taking a little break to accommodate an interpreter, for those who are listening. We have A.J. Brown.

Could you introduce yourself as well?

A Voice: I’m Sean, the interpreter.

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

A.J. BROWN

A. Brown: Hello, everyone. I’m A.J. Thank you for having me here today. I’d like to talk a little bit about poverty.

A couple of my friends had their wheelchairs die on them. These are specialized wheelchairs. What the government did was a knee-jerk reaction and gave them the first available wheelchair without consulting.

My friend, who has cerebral palsy, could not work the new wheelchair, so she had to go and create a GoFundMe page to raise the money herself for the specialized wheelchair that she needed.

I would love to work. Unfortunately, the training I need for work that I’m interested in, besides my artwork, is way out of my means to afford. Plus, if I ever did find the money to get the training, we have a limited amount that we are permitted to earn. That’s the $12,000 a year.

I feel that this is keeping many of us in fear that if we do earn $12,000, we are automatically cut off right then and there — fear that the work we do might be unstable, and we have to keep relying on your social assistance. But if we were cut off, what would we do?

[11:50 a.m.]

How can we ever get off social assistance if the amount we are permitted to earn is below the poverty line? I would like to suggest you provide free training for people like me who want to work, as opposed to finding us work just to keep us busy. This is because the work we are interested in gets us motivated, but if it is work just to keep us busy, where is the hope that we can uplift ourselves?

Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, A.J. We really appreciate that.

S. Cadieux: Thanks, A.J. I’m really interested in this. I was the minister responsible when we raised the exemption and made it annualized in attempts to start that conversation forward in terms of providing more opportunity for people with disabilities to better their lives through work and hopefully, potentially, be able to earn enough to leave social assistance. I understand the challenges there personally very well, having been an advocate in the field for eight years before government, but I also understand the government’s realities and challenges in trying to manage a budget.

I’m curious, A.J., as to your perception, from a personal point of view, as to what the best way to encourage work would be. My personal belief is that we should be looking to provide sort of a level playing field for people with disabilities so that disability-related costs — wheelchairs, medical equipment, these sorts of things — are managed so that people then start at work at a level playing field.

I appreciate your comments on education costs. Removing the barrier from an economic perspective, in terms of that cliff, so to speak, with when you reach that earnings exemption, you’re cut off. Do you think it should be a situation where the more you earn, the more they take off your cheque till you get to a zero, or is there a level that would be reasonable in your estimation?

A. Brown: I might suggest that we should be able to earn up to $50,000 without relying on social assistance. That’s my suggestion.

S. Cadieux: Thank you, A.J.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): I just want to reiterate what our Chair said. We do put recommendations in, and we do go to bat for all those recommendations. I can’t look any further into the future than any of us can around here, but you know, this is a presentation that makes us all wonder about the direction sometimes government does take. I can assure you that it will be all of us, right around the table, to ensure that we can put forward a recommendation that not only assists your daughter but assists all those in need, with that balance that has to be taken.

Again, thank you for coming today. It takes a lot to come forward, and I just want to say thanks.

On another question, really quickly: why cats? I’ve looked at your daughter’s artwork before. Why cats?

[11:55 a.m.]

A. Brown: On my grandma’s farm, I met some cats, and they often came to me and crawled up my arm. I really became friends with the cats there, and I really enjoyed them. Ever since, I’ve decided to do my artwork to resemble cats, and that’s the reason.

B. Brown: And she brought one home.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Oh, did she.

And in closing, to refer directly to A.J.

Am I correct? Just a sec.

Thank you, A.J. Is that right? Oh, this way? That was close.

B. Brown: A.J. has a beautiful name sign. So this is the initial “A.,” and she has a beautiful smile, so her name sign is “A.J.,” like a smile. And it has to be at the corner of your mouth — “A.J.”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, that’s a wonderful way to end our morning session. Thank you very much, A.J. and Barbara, for your presentation and making the time to come and present to us.

B. Brown: Thank you all very much, and good luck with your deliberations. I know it’s not easy.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re going to take an hour recess. We will reconvene at one o’clock.

The committee recessed from 11:56 a.m. to 1 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): First up we have the Physiotherapy Association of British Columbia — Christine Bradstock, Janet Lundie and Alex Scott.

Just a reminder that the presentations are five minutes, with five minutes of questions. The floor is yours.

PHYSIOTHERAPY ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

C. Bradstock: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for your time, for being on the committee, for representing your areas of the province and for making this opportunity available for us to be a part of this.

The Physiotherapy Association of B.C. has been around for almost 75 years and our national association almost 100. Our call to action for you is to increase funding for physiotherapists to be a part of the primary care team. We believe that that will help to support your mandate as a provincial government in order to be able to deliver your primary care services to people in British Columbia.

Physiotherapists hold unique roles as primary health care providers. They have a wide scope of practice — not just a sprained ankle and a sore back — and are very much experts in pain management, pediatrics. We just completed a contract with MCFD to write a recruitment and retention strategy and implement that strategy over this last year.

Physiotherapists are also experts in post-operative care, especially hip and knee replacements, and are certainly well used. Seniors care, including balance and falls — with our aging population, that’s something that there will be an increased need for as we move forward. Stroke rehabilitation.

Maternity care. Some of you may have received, over the last year and a half, our position papers that we’ve written and also our videos. There was one video on pelvic health. We produced four videos, but that one, especially, is in alignment with answering some of the need for those of us who have given birth or plan on giving birth.

You’re also, I’m sure, keenly aware of the changes to ICBC and the need that there will be, especially with moving toward that care-based model, for physiotherapists in the province and also with WorkSafeBC. Also, physiotherapists are keenly positioned to help with cancer rehabilitation.

I’ll turn it over to Alex.

A. Scott: Thank you very much.

I also teach at UBC in the physio program. I love research, and I love the numbers. We’ve given you quite a lot of numbers, and you’ve received some of those as an attachment. What that actually, I think, really means is that we’ve got patients who are falling through the cracks in the system. They’re not receiving the care that they need.

It’s not unusual for hospitals in the local health authorities, such as Fraser Health, to be down to 25 percent physiotherapy staffing levels on a fairly regular basis. So this is the idea of primary care–based teams really relying on physiotherapists to get people mobilized after surgery so that they can be discharged early.

I have a colleague who recently worked on such a shift. She had 26 new referrals for priority 1 patients, which means people who either are going to deteriorate if they don’t receive care or are holding up a hospital bed because they are ready to go home but haven’t been fully assessed by the physio.

You can do the math on how much physio you could pay for with somebody who is in a hospital bed that doesn’t need to be, let alone just the impact of spending more time away from their family and loved ones. This is really what it comes down to: patients not getting the care they need because there aren’t enough physiotherapists in the system.

[1:05 p.m.]

J. Lundie: My role on the panel is to represent the clinical side of physiotherapy care delivery. I work in home care in Fraser Health. One of the things we’re seeing, as part of an aging population, is that people are staying home longer, but they’re also becoming more frail as they’re staying at home.

One of the really great initiatives from both this government and from the past government was the initiative and development of primary care and interprofessional team-based care that is actually based in the community. What we’re trying to do is to pull together, in partnership with the divisions of family practice, interprofessional teams that actually can meet people’s needs at home. We’re providing care for people in a place that’s less expensive for the system but also much more desirable for the public.

We’re having difficulty with, again, providing enough physiotherapists to meet the needs of those emerging teams. An example of that is the Kamloops Urgent Care Clinic, which has just recently opened — a great initiative. We have two advanced-practice physiotherapy positions that have been developed as part of that, and we can’t recruit into those positions.

We had a recent initiative out of Burnaby Hospital to look at trying to include a physiotherapist as part of an advanced-practice team to screen people who are needing hip and knee surgery. The developers of the program decided not to even consider a physiotherapist. They decided to replace that position with a nurse because there was this perception that they just weren’t ever going to be able to recruit a physio anyway.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Janet, we’re over six minutes now, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up so we have time for questions, that’d be great.

J. Lundie: Yes, that’s great.

C. Bradstock: I’ll wrap up here. So what are we asking for? We’re asking for funding for physiotherapists to be on the primary care team. The solution is to fund the spots. We need to have the spots there, we need to fund them with quality pay, and we need to fund the training so that we have enough physiotherapists. We’ve left some data with you, and we can provide you with a lot more, if you’d like that.

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

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation. I haven’t had a chance to go through, obviously, all of the numbers. But I’m curious. You’re saying that 300 new physiotherapists are hired annually in B.C. We’re only producing 80 locally. So I guess my first question for you to answer is: are we able to recruit successfully from outside the province? Is that how we’re making up the gap?

C. Bradstock: So 300 are registered with the college. There are still unfilled spots beyond that 300. There is a lot of need beyond the 300. Eighty do come from UBC. Then there’s another 120 that come from outside of Canada, and the rest are from across Canada. Yes, we can provide you with all those numbers and the breakdown.

T. Redies: The second follow-up question I have to that is: how easy is it to ramp up? This is always the challenge with medical schools and this. How easy would it be to ramp up UBC, and over what time would it take?

C. Bradstock: UBC is ready, willing and able to do that. They’re in conversation with the Ministry of Advanced Ed, and the request has gone through.

T. Redies: They have slack capacity, then, or something?

A. Scott: UBC is working actively with the ministry to develop those proposals. I think we can definitely get to the target that we’ve proposed here.

T. Redies: Which is 300.

A. Scott: Yeah.

J. Lundie: And looking at the health authorities as partners as well.

C. Bradstock: I think you need to think outside the box, and certainly, I would leave it up to the experts who are doing the training to do that. But I’m always available with ideas.

I think putting some of these students within the health authorities to get those kinds of practical experiences…. That’s where our massive need is, in the health authorities. Yes, there’s a need in the private sector, but the public sector is crying for physiotherapists, and that’s why you see that with this primary care home.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I know that up north we’ve heard from physiotherapists who want to see training also in more local settings so that people who are trained in the northern areas stay in the northern areas. What can you tell me about that within this framework?

[1:10 p.m.]

C. Bradstock: Within this framework? The north is crying for spots within their public sector. Kamloops is up toward that area, and certainly, they’re looking for people to fill those spots.

An aging population means that some of those people want to retire, as it is across the province, but you’ll see that very much in rural and remote areas. There are not that many physiotherapists living there. When someone wants to retire, there’s no one there to even take their spot, let alone do locums or give them some holiday or time off, so they’re hanging in. They’re doing that because they love their jobs.

We need to train where the need is. If we can get physiotherapists doing more training and understanding of health authorities and the need and the opportunity — amazing places to work and all the pluses of working in a health authority…. I think that if we can get that practicum…. But again, I push that to the post-secondary experts to make those calls.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. We’re actually out of time now, but thank you very much. My daughter just went through a year of physio for ACL, so I say thank you very much for everything you guys do as physios.

A. Scott: I’d wanted to mention about telerehab. It’s another thing that we’re….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh yes, of course, telerehab. Thank you very much.

Next up we have DigiBC — Sarah Frost, Brenda Bailey and Peter Greenwood.

Go ahead.

DIGIBC

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for having us here today and for the opportunity to weigh in on your considerations for the 2019 budget. In front of you, you will find a copy of a 2017 IDMTC proposal, recommendations and also a summary update for this year’s recommendations and proposal.

I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Brenda Bailey. I’m the executive director of DigiBC, which is a trade association representing interactive digital media. Really, you think video games when I say that. Largely, it’s video games.

I’d like also to introduce Sarah Frost, to my left, who is tax director at Electronic Arts Canada. Her perspective is one from working with a large multinational video game company. And on my right is my colleague Peter Greenwood, who’s the chief financial officer at Blackbird Interactive, which is a mid-size, homegrown B.C. video game studio here in Vancouver. Myself, I come from a video game background as well. I’ve started two small studios in Vancouver, the most recent of which was Silicon Sisters Interactive, building high-quality games for girls.

We come in front of you today to make recommendations for the 2019 budget. Specifically, we would like to recommend an increase to the interactive digital media tax credit, the IDMTC, from its current 17.5 percent to 25 percent across all regions. Our second recommendation is to create a regional diversification incentive by increasing the IDMTC in rural and northern regions by an additional 10 percent, bringing the IDMTC in those areas to 35 percent.

To give you a little bit of context about the video game industry in British Columbia and internationally, the size of the market is about 2.2 billion gamers. It was a $108 billion industry in 2017, bigger than both movie and music industries combined. These jobs are permanent, well-paid positions. The average wage in 2016 was $87,000, which is almost twice the B.C.-wide average salary of $46,000.

The video game industry is a clean, knowledge-based industry that employs artists, musicians, writers, designers, computer scientists, coders of all nature and all of the administrative people that go along with that.

[1:15 p.m.]

I’d like to point out to you a diagram that we have in the summary materials. On page 2, there’s an infogram there that we’re referring to as the technology ripple effect. What this is pointing out to you is that a successful interactive digital media sector actually reverberates across all industries. It’s not only about creating entertainment. Video games are remarkably difficult to make, and our consumers demand more and more from us every year that we have new releases.

As a result of that, we’ve really been on the cutting edge of pioneering technologies. Things like virtual reality, artificial intelligence, digital security, payment systems, very advanced computer graphics, and so on have been developed, throughout video games but now are applied throughout traditional industries such as health care, mining, fisheries, forestry and so on. And it’s worth noting that many of the studios — the studios that you see on that ring 2 — are working with the traditional sector, but they’re actually founded by and personed with people from the video games sector.

I’d also like to point out that it’s an extremely competitive environment, and we’ve recently had a new competitor come to the fore, which is Alberta. Governments are understanding the value of a strong video game ecosystem and a vibrant video game sector and what it means for the rest of the technology ecosystem. In March 2018, Alberta announced a 25 percent interactive digital media credit as part of their comprehensive technology strategy.

We have heard, here in Vancouver, that the city of Calgary is meeting with B.C. video game companies to entice them over the Rockies with the 25 percent IDMTC, interest-free loans and a free year of rental space. We’re very concerned about losing our local talent and also losing out on foreign investment, such as the studio that last week announced setting up in Edmonton and, disappointingly, not in British Columbia.

If I could point out page 4 of the short summary that you have in front of you, which points to a bar chart. It depicts the IDMTCs across Canada, and it does, in fact, indicate that B.C.’s is the lowest in the country.

We’re also encouraging a consideration of regional diversification. Including a bump of 10 percent to rural locations can help drive regional diversification. The benefits of this policy are numerous and may include reduced pressure on Vancouver and Victoria housing markets, moving traffic out of the downtown core, challenging rural decline and further increasing the ripple effect to other industries, including partnering with primary industries like fisheries and forestry.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You’re at about 5:30 now, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping it up, it’d be great.

B. Bailey: I’m wrapping up.

If there are three things that you could take away from me today, they would be these. A strong, interactive digital media industry creates high-paying, sustainable jobs. Competition is fierce, and we are currently in last place with our IDMTC. And the IDM sector creates ripple effects across the traditional industries, positioning them for global leadership outside of being only primary industries.

Thank you for your time.

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

Questions?

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation. It’s a really interesting industry.

Do you know, off the top of your head, how much in tax credits, with the 17½ percent, the government paid out last year?

B. Bailey: I do know that in the budget for 2018, it was budgeted around $50 million.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Maybe I could pick up on that. How much do you think it would increase with the new percentages?

B. Bailey: Around $22 million.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So it would be going from $50 million to $72 million.

B. Bailey: Correct. But I would like to point out that this is a revenue-positive tax, if I can invite Sarah to comment on that.

S. Frost: Sure. Just from a tax perspective, a large portion of salaries that are paid — of the employees in the video game industry — is workforce. So those individuals are being taxed at personal tax rates. Just looking at it simply, if you’re paying a 25 percent credit, the majority of those individuals are paying in excess of that in their personal taxes. So the B.C. government is recovering.

P. Greenwood: Does that make sense?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. They still have to use roads, sewers, highways and education and all that stuff.

P. Greenwood: Yeah, so if Blackbird earns $100, we’re probably going to pay $70 of that out to the staff in terms of our salaries. Those staff will pay tax of about 35 percent. So you’ll end up with, for $100 earned of tax generation, about 25 bucks. The IDMTC will cost, at the moment, about 14 bucks. So for every marginal amount of money at $14 from the tax credit, the government earns 25 bucks in terms of the revenue generation out of the tax.

S. Frost: Additionally, you’re paying corporate taxes.

P. Greenwood: PST, GST, etc.

S. Frost: And any income that’s received from that tax credit, from the B.C. IDMTC, is included in the income of the company and taxed by the company that receives it as well.

[1:20 p.m.]

T. Redies: Just to confirm that that $25 is total tax, right?

P. Greenwood: It’s just payroll tax.

T. Redies: Yeah, but that goes to the feds and the province.

P. Greenwood: It goes to the CRA.

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

N. Simons: I’m curious about the labour force and the challenge in recruiting people to work in the industry. Are other factors besides the tax rate impacting on companies’ ability to recruit?

P. Greenwood: I can answer that, Brenda.

Blackbird, back in 2016, employed 35 people. If it hadn’t been…. You can talk about the macro-arguments about the tax credit generating revenue, but from a micro point of view, if it hadn’t been for tax credits, we’d have gone bankrupt in 2016. It was the one and only asset on which we could borrow money. We said: “Here’s your tax credit.” A finance company gave us money. We were able to survive until we signed a new contract. Blackbird went from 35 people in April 2016…. We’re now 150 people here in downtown Vancouver, in principle due to the tax credit.

How have we been able to recruit in? We bring in computer programmers principally, artists, game designers and software designers. Most of our growth in talent has come from B.C. through various places, like recruiting out of the Microsofts or the Amazons and being able to bring people into B.C. into a gaming environment.

B. Bailey: I’ll share with you that DigiBC is working closely with the Ministry of Education and also the Ministry of Culture in terms of delivering education programs throughout the province. We have 60 new schools that we’ve brought on board in northern and regions outside of GVRD and CRD to educate, specifically, high school students on opportunities within the sector and also to get them into a program called Play to Learn, which teaches basic coding.

We also have a provincewide music competition that we’ll be doing with all grade 8 students to get them to code for animation and games to give them some exposure. We’re very intent on helping create opportunities for kids to enter the sector.

I grew up in a small town, Nanaimo, and I’ve always been a geek and a technology person and didn’t know about the opportunities. I’m really, on a personal level, just very engaged in also making sure kids know about the great opportunities in the sector. These are terrific jobs.

N. Simons: Can I just ask a question about…. We talk about the ecosystem. I’m wondering, with the push towards other rural communities, like the ones I represent, being part of that, do you see it as a provincewide ecosystem?

B. Bailey: Without question, yeah. For example, we’re working with a studio right now in Prince George that builds e-games, and they’re working with First Nations kids to get them exposed to technology. One of our partners in the work that we’re doing throughout the education sector is the First Nations Technology Council. We’re very interested in ensuring that this is a provincewide endeavour.

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

Next up we have Vancouver school board — Janet Fraser and Joy Alexander.

VANCOUVER SCHOOL BOARD

J. Fraser: I’m Janet Fraser, the Vancouver school board chair. With me is Joy Alexander, our vice-chair.

I thank you for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the nearly 50,000 students in Vancouver. Our board takes very seriously our district’s vision to inspire students’ success by providing an innovative, caring and responsive learning environment. However, it is very challenging to fulfil this vision due to the lack of consistent and adequate funding.

We are wearing our orange shirts today, as all trustees will be wearing them at our board meeting tonight, to show our commitment to Every Child Matters. Despite much progress in recent years, we need to continue to improve the level of achievement for Indigenous students in Vancouver as, for example, our six-year completion rate falls below the provincial average. The province knows which districts are above the provincial average and should provide funding to identify their best practices so that their strategies and pedagogy can be shared and implemented across the province.

Carrying out this work would speak volumes to the Ministry of Education’s commitment to reconciliation and to eliminating the educational gaps between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students.

J. Alexander: I’d like to address special education funding. The Vancouver board of education, like most school districts, spends more in supporting students with special needs than is provided by the province in its special needs grant.

[1:25 p.m.]

Although I am sure that each district has their own unique concerns regarding children with special needs, Vancouver has some of the poorest households in the country. Poverty often brings with it special learning difficulties and mental health issues. The better we support these children at an early age, the less likely they are to have long-term difficulties.

We need the personnel we presently employ to be funded, and we need more personnel. We need people specially trained in mental health issues to support children as well as the teachers whose classes these children are in.

Money spent up front is far more effective than spending it later on. The Vancouver board of education is fully committed to providing an integrated education program for all children with special needs, but there needs to be recognition of the full costs of providing this inclusive education.

I would like now to turn to the question of area standards. The Vancouver school board has over 50 schools which are deemed seismically unsafe. Many need to be rebuilt. Sounds great. Unfortunately, the area standards which govern new builds dictate that new builds are 40 percent smaller than old schools. A 40 percent reduction in school space means that there are no dedicated art rooms, no dedicated music rooms, no sensory rooms, no space for itinerant personnel and no breakout space, which is required for the implementation of the new curriculum.

These smaller new builds are often too small to accommodate in-catchment children within a few years of construction. In Vancouver, this means that young families, stressed by housing and daycare shortages, are further stressed because they often cannot get their children into local schools, even if that school is across the street from their house.

Some schools in Vancouver have served our community for almost 100 years. Our forefathers were wise enough to properly fund their construction. We urge funding that allows for improved area standards so we can do likewise.

J. Fraser: To continue on capital funding, the funds available for the maintenance and upgrades of aging school facilities are woefully inadequate and are eroding the ability of districts across the province to provide excellent learning environments for their new students. This is especially true with implementing the new curriculum.

Our district estimates that we have between $700 million and $800 million of deferred maintenance costs for our schools. This is $700 million to $800 million of repairs and upgrades that cannot be carried out. We need to repair roofs, replace windows, install efficient boilers and lighting and ensure that our students and staff have safe water to drink.

Our hope is that by speaking to you today, our VSB students and students across B.C. will be better supported in reaching their full potential during their K-to-12 education.

Thank you for listening.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, and thank you for wearing your orange shirts. We really appreciate that. I wish we could do that, but…. I guess we could.

T. Redies: Thanks very much for your presentation. I particularly appreciate your advocacy for special needs children. Can you speak to a little bit more detail around how much funding you need for special needs?

J. Alexander: I can’t come up with a number right off the top of my head. We’re going to do a written submission. We can put that in there for you.

T. Redies: It’s important for us to understand the magnitude, because asking for more doesn’t really clarify….

J. Alexander: Right now, I believe 30 or 40 people that we are employing are not funded by the grants, but we’re also saying that we have mental health issues that aren’t being met, and we need more funding for that. We’ll include that in a written submission as to what that looks like.

T. Redies: The more clarity that you can provide, the better.

J. Alexander: Okay. I can understand that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I mean, FTEs…. If you can’t come up with the money, at least the FTEs…. Then it could be a tangible number. It would be helpful.

N. Simons: I’m just wondering. I’m not sure which one of you mentioned that $800 million in repairs. Can you just elaborate on when those were accrued?

J. Fraser: I think it’s been accrued over the years. The challenge is that when you have the limited maintenance funding, which we get from the Ministry of Education in an annual facilities grant…. Now, we get $11 million a year, and it’s been at that level for many, many years. You may incur $100 million a year, but you just have to defer so much of that work that eventually the buildings become more…. It’s more efficient to replace the building than to actually repair it.

J. Alexander: But it’s built smaller.

[1:30 p.m.]

N. Simons: It’s smaller. I don’t get that.

J. Alexander: Well, it’s a cost-saving measure. I mean, building the smaller schools is seen, in the short term, to be cost-effective. In the long term, I don’t think it is.

J. Fraser: The ministry funds at a unit rate, I presume, per square metre. The smaller the number of square metres, the lower the price.

T. Redies: Another question. I think one of the challenges with schools, of course, is the land. The costs have been going up substantially. Have you been looking at what they do in other countries, which is go up instead of go out? Again, that might actually reduce the cost of funding some of these schools.

J. Alexander: We are actually doing that in Coal Harbour. We’re going up. So I think that’s…

T. Redies: That might be the model.

J. Alexander: …the model. The other thing is, though, that we’re not purchasing land at the moment. We have the land to put buildings on. So that’s not particularly a factor at the moment. It’s how we redo it that’s a factor.

J. Fraser: I’d follow up on that to say…. It’s not particularly effective with the recent schools in Vancouver. Schools do also have to provide outdoor space for their students. We’re able to work with the park board. So if the school is next to a park downtown, that can be the outdoor space. But that’s not always possible in other districts.

R. Leonard: I just wanted to ask a question. First of all, thank you for your presentation. You’ve brought up a few angles that I hadn’t considered, in terms of the whole education system.

The question I have is also around special needs. In a teaching environment, the needs around mental health and that sort of issue…. Is it all seen as an education environment, or are the professionals that are brought in — therapists, mental health workers — outside the scope of education? Are they funded with a different pot of money? I’m just curious because you mentioned that 30 or 40 were not funded by….

J. Alexander: Those are special ed positions. They’re not necessarily for mental health. They’re special ed positions that we employ, but they’re not currently funded by the government. We have deemed, in Vancouver, that we need to have more people out there, so we have robbed this pot to pay for this pot. We’re just saying we need to have that recognized. Mental health is becoming more of an issue, and we would need people, in addition to those, to be paid for by the government.

R. Leonard: And you need space for them.

J. Alexander: They’re itinerant people. Yes, absolutely. I was an itinerant person, and you need that space.

R. Leonard: I’m getting a clearer picture now. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

All right. Next up we have the Canadian Union of Public Employees, British Columbia division — Jordana Feist, Justin Schmid and Paul Faoro.

The floor is yours.

CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES,
B.C. DIVISION

P. Faoro: First off, good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. D’Eith. I want to thank the committee for the travelling roadshow. I think it’s 15 or 16 locations that I counted. You have a thankless task, trying to cobble together every point of view across this great province. I wish you all the best in your deliberations.

My name is Paul Faoro. I’m the president of CUPE, British Columbia. We represent now 92,000 members in this province. We are the largest union in British Columbia.

We also represent members in just about every sector, so trying to tell you the changes in five minutes is very difficult. I’m going to single out a few. We’ve submitted to you a comprehensive brief, and certainly, I know that you’ll take the time to read it. It includes 30 recommendations that I hope you will, again, read tonight.

[1:35 p.m.]

Let me just say this, first off: our union is very pleased with the current government and the direction that it’s going. To date, we certainly are pleased at moving forward together and working together to continue to build British Columbia.

We also want to say…. We want to congratulate the current government for the progress-making that it has made on priority issues to date. We know that there’s lots more to do. We applaud, certainly, the government’s moves to make a fairer, more equitable taxation system, and we urge the government to continue restoring a truly progressive income tax system.

As the province moves forward in infrastructure investments, we will be continually advocating that…. We have serious issues, proven issues, that we can substantiate by research regarding public-private partnerships and/or P3s. We do not believe that they deliver benefits to taxpayers. We will provide case studies after case studies on P3s. We recommend this committee end funding for Partnerships B.C.

On the labour relations side, representing 92,000 members, we certainly have lots to say regarding the LRB and workers rights. Over the last many, many years, the labour board has been starved for funding. We’ve met with the Labour Minister. We continue to advocate for increased funding, in particular for just staffing. We need more bodies down at the labour board to hear claims, to hear from employers and from workers. There is not enough staffing down there, and we ask that this committee look at that.

With 27,000 members in K to 12, we certainly recognize — you just heard from the Vancouver school board — the problems. What happens in school boards across this province is that at budget time the chairs of these boards have to pit CUPE members against teachers, teachers against parents, parents against faculty. It’s very, very difficult. It all roots down to the funding formula. I know the Minister of Education is looking at that. I would address you to look at recommendation 6 in our brief.

I certainly want to talk about the issue of funding private schools. Our union…. While I get that this is controversial, and I get that this is a complicated issue, I believe we need to have a conversation on whether or not public dollars should be going into funding private schools. It’s an issue that I realize is not going to change overnight, but I think we need to have some type of forum on it to discuss that issue.

On K to 12, I just want to say this. It boggles my mind. In one school district, you have special education assistants working four hours per day. In some, you have five. In some, you have six. In some, you have seven. It is a broken system. We need to look after the children. Again, I ask you to look and put a lot of effort into K to 12.

Child care. I’m going to leave that alone. Certainly, I applaud this government so far, to date, for trying to look at those workers who are looking after our children, in regard to the low-wage redress that has already happened.

I want to say this, finally, on the issue of post-secondary. This is an area that we still have concerns over. We are recommending restoring funding levels back to the 2001-2002 levels in current dollars. That would be an increase of $400 million. Yes, that’s a big number, but post-secondary is getting hammered. We have serious concerns about tuition. Tuition for students is out of control. It needs to be addressed. I realize that everybody on this panel gets that. We ask that you look at that.

I’m going to leave it at that. I realize you are jammed for time. You have a lot of work to do. Our union is here to help; we want to help. We’re in this to make British Columbia a better place. We want to work with this government and provide the services, public services, to everybody in this province. If there’s anything we can do, please ask, and we’ll certainly try our best to help move forward together.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Paul. I have a quick question about the Labour Relations Board. You mentioned that it’s starved for resources, in terms of staffing. Are there other issues around the board that you’d like to elaborate on, in a very short period of…?

[1:40 p.m.]

P. Faoro: We could have another task force, actually, on the LRB. Certainly, we can follow up through….

With me, I should introduce, is Justin Schmid, who is our legislative coordinator, and Jordana Feist, who is one of our researchers. Maybe I’ll just send a follow-up, an answer, to all the committee regarding that.

The LRB — there’s another little problem with this. It’s no surprise. We’ve met with the Labour Minister several times. The funding, if I understand it correctly, actually comes from the Ministry of Attorney General, for the board, so there’s a bit of a…. The way the money flows is a little different and difficult on that.

Staffing is one thing. We are short on staffing, investigative officers. What’s causing it…. That’s causing delays in the system. It needs an overall review. Certainly, we’ll follow up on some real key recommendations for you after this meeting today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, thank you, Paul.

Any other questions?

Interjection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, that’s a lot. It’s sort of one of these things that you have ten minutes or ten hours, right?

P. Faoro: Well, we wanted to provide the committee with good bedtime reading, and I’m sure that we’ve done that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your presentation.

P. Faoro: Again, I meant it sincerely. Thank you for the work that all of the committee is doing.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks for your time. And thanks for the surprise visit, Paul.

P. Faoro: It’s all right.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Vancouver Community College Faculty Association — Taryn Thomson.

Hi, Taryn. Welcome.

VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION

T. Thomson: Good afternoon. Thanks for giving me this time.

I’m speaking to you today as an adult basic education instructor at Vancouver Community College. I want to speak with you about the current conditions for our students.

First off, I want to thank the current government for removing tuition fees in ABE. This was the right thing to do, and it has positively impacted so many students.

Secondly, the policy framework document written after consultation with those of us who teach in ABE around the province is a promising start to a much more enlightened approach to education.

However, things are still very difficult for ABE students, and that’s what I want to talk about today. We’re still suffering from the effects of 16 years of government austerity. Sixteen years of money being pulled out of the system has left anyone who relies on any services in the province even more vulnerable.

During these years, life got increasingly more difficult for ABE students. The social safety net has been eroded. We have no anti-poverty strategy. There’s a housing crisis that leaves citizens destitute. Wages have not kept up with inflation. Transit is more expensive. Daycare is ridiculously expensive and hard to find. The proliferation of precarious work has created the new working poor.

Our Metro Vancouver ABE students who live and commute to Vancouver have been severely impacted. In addition, public funding to colleges has dwindled increasingly over the years. Not surprisingly, through this period, enrollment in adult basic education steadily declined. Yes, we have tuition free now, but the overall public funding shortfalls have made living and attending adult ed classes more and more difficult. This means that colleges are forced to prioritize international education as it brings in revenue.

Programs such as adult basic education are seen as too costly. Although administrations might agree that ABE provides education that helps lift folks out of poverty and enrich their lives, because ABE doesn’t generate revenue, it seems like a luxury they can ill afford.

Finally, because of the lack of government support for colleges, these colleges move ever increasingly to a business model. Gone are the days of the community college, there to serve affordably and accessibly the community in which they are situated. This is the environment we are living and working in. This is what faces our students. While one barrier — tuition — has been removed, so many remain.

In light of this, here are some suggestions for how we can continue to move positively forward. First of all, continue to remove any and all financial barriers to ABE. ABE students can have non-tuition-related fees of up to $200 per term. These fees are still out of reach for so many students.

[1:45 p.m.]

The adult upgrading grant which students use to cover these fees continues to be problematic, and its use of post-secondary Canada student loan eligibility criteria has not been a good fit. Going forward, we should be doing all we can to make funding these students seamless.

An effective solution would be to also fund the ancillary fees, especially for fundamental- and intermediate-level ABE students. This would improve student access by eliminating the barriers of cost and red tape imposed by the adult upgrading grant.

Second, we need to recognize that ABE students often face barriers that cross into other jurisdictions — First Nations students, poor students, students with disabilities, students in housing crises, students living with violence, students with addictions, students with mental health issues. We need to view these students as needing a broad base of support and that education is only one piece of the puzzle.

Three, ABE needs its own budget line. Bring in a red line–based funded approach to funding ABE. This is the only way to ensure that ABE programs are accessible and funded adequately and sustainably.

Four, bring back a model of faculty consultation. At one time, ABE instructors were seconded to advise the ministry on adult basic education policy. This is a model that keeps government in touch with the needs of the people who teach and learn in ABE.

Five, ensure that messaging to students, faculty and administrators is clear. In the words of the new adult learning policy framework, “Providing more opportunities for adult learners not only helps make their lives more fulfilling, but contributes to a stronger economy and healthier society,” our policies need to support this commitment at every turn.

Thanks. I’m happy to answer any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you. Can I clarify one thing before I open up the floor? The $200 in non-tuition fees — is that things like textbooks? Could you elaborate on what would be the non-tuition?

T. Thomson: Sure. Students that are taking more than one course need to pay for the bus pass, which is about $140 for four months, and then there’s usually a student association fee and some sort of a college fee.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

T. Thomson: The fees can range. If a student is only taking one course, their fees might only be in the range of $70. If they’re taking more than one, it’s going to be around $200.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is that per annum or for the…?

T. Thomson: Per term.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Per term, so $200 a term.

T. Thomson: Yes, around that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

P. Milobar: Thank you for the presentation.

Several different recommendations here. I’ve asked this question of a couple of other presenters as well. Last year we presented, I think, 119 recommendations to government. I’m not sure how many, if any, actually made it into the budget.

What would be your number one priority that you would like to see in the budget? And would you consider it a failure if it’s not in the budget?

T. Thomson: I don’t know if I’d consider it a failure. I’m used to uphill battles.

I think getting rid of those ancillary fees, just rolling that into what you’re already funding, is a relatively small cost for the government that would have a huge impact on students.

T. Redies: I’m just interested if you have any numbers in terms of…. Now that the government has provided the education for free, have you seen a significant increase in the numbers of people doing adult basic education? Do you have any information on that?

T. Thomson: I didn’t bring any of that information with me. We are rebounding slowly from what has been a very difficult bunch of years, but we are rebounding, for sure. I don’t have hard numbers. I can get them for you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You can follow up with more material, so please, if you can, that would be great. If you wouldn’t mind including some of those ancillary fees in that as well so that we can remember, because we get a lot of presentations. We’d really appreciate that.

Any other questions at all?

Great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. We appreciate it.

T. Thomson: Thanks for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You bet.

Next up we have the Students Union of Vancouver Community College — Sydney Sullivan.

Dan, would you mind chairing for a sec? Thank you.

[D. Ashton in the chair.]

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for coming. There’s five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions. I’ll give you a precautionary right around five minutes.

[1:50 p.m.]

STUDENTS UNION OF
VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE

S. Sullivan: Thank you very much for allowing me to present to you today. I’m from the Students Union of Vancouver Community College, and we are members of the British Columbia Federation of Students. We’re Local 16.

My ask today is to eliminate interest on student loans and to implement a needs-based grants program for our province.

I recently graduated from VIU in June with my bachelor’s degree, and my passion was to work in education in the child care sector. I was forced to leave the job that I loved and I was passionate about because I simply couldn’t afford it. My undergraduate degree cost me $56,000 in student loans. When I have the chance to pay it off completely, I will have paid a total of $67,000, with an addition of $11,000 in interest.

As it stands, students will be paying 3.6 percent interest on student loans. In 2015, 53,000 students took out student loans, totaling a number of $313 million. If you do the math, that works out to be about $11 million of interest on top, once it’s all paid off.

Because of this tax on the poor, I will not be able to afford a house, and starting a family won’t be even in my line of vision for at least ten years. Charging student loans with interest is simply a tax on the poor, because students that cannot afford to pay for their education up front are forced into paying a higher cost than those who can.

At the end of the day, I would rather put my $11,000 of interest into local businesses. I understand that in your budget, a total of $11 million may not seem like that much money. But think about how much it could impact small communities such as Ladysmith or Campbell River or New Westminster.

These are the issues that I have been personally faced with, and they’re issues that affect students at Vancouver Community College every day. Students can’t even afford their highly subsidized transit pass, let alone the cost of school and interest on top of that.

Now, I don’t want to give you any spoilers, but the BCFS will be presenting in Kelowna, and they have similar asks with documents attached for your reference.

I do understand that the province has been faced with 16 years of underfunding to the post-secondary education sector. I also understand that there are a lot of problems to fix. But I do believe that these two recommendations will greatly impact students like myself that are newly graduated and students that are still going to school. Thank you.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thank you. You finished early.

Questions for Sydney?

P. Milobar: Thank you for the presentation. We heard from a lot of student unions last year. We’ve been hearing from a lot of student unions this year. The difference in the request is last year it was around student loans. Everything you said this year was said last year as well. But last year there was still a lot of concern around tuition rates and not freezing tuition rates.

Has your school frozen tuition rates, then, or are they still doing the maximum two percent allowable? If so, why is that suddenly not a concern for student unions this year?

S. Sullivan: I believe that Vancouver Community College still maxes out the cap of two percent, though there’s still no cap for international students. But I think that a big change in what student unions are asking is…. We were recently expelled from the Canadian Federation of Students. I’m not sure if anyone here is familiar with that. But that greatly impacted our asks for the government.

We have done research and polling. It’s simply not plausible to do an ask of reducing tuition fees or fighting for reduced tuition fees, because it’s gotten to a spot where it’s so unaffordable that we realize that asking for eliminating interest on student loans is the place to start.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Any other questions for Sydney?

Sydney, thank you very much for coming today. It was a good presentation.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Tunya Audain is next. Is Tunya here?

Interjections.

[1:55 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’ll come back and give her a chance, which is fair.

Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia — Lori Mathison.

Tunya is here now, I think. Are you here?

T. Audain: Yes, I’m here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, you’re up. Hello, welcome.

T. Audain: Thank you. Happy birthday.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you.

Interjections.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That made me feel special. Thanks, Tunya. I appreciate it.

T. Audain: Just before I introduce myself, I would like to know who are the Liberals — two here, all four?

Interjections.

B. D’Eith (Chair): And then Sonia Furstenau is normally here, but she’s not feeling well. She’s with the Green Party. All three parties are normally represented.

T. Audain: But we don’t have the Green person here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, she’s not here today.

TUNYA AUDAIN

T. Audain: Okay. I really am going to be talking about government, and I’m going to be talking about education. I’m a parent and grandparent and a longtime researcher in education — of course, active in reform and especially about parent involvement.

I have three points I want to make, and they’re in my brief. It’s well articulated, I believe, and quite fully explained. There are three issues I want to talk about. One is about the need for more choice in education. That’s not because of things like funding or buildings or anything like that. It’s about the curriculum: what happens in the classroom to the minds of the children. I think we need a lot more choice about different programs, different innovations that are able to be created by people who can use the taxpayer education dollar to create new approaches, including teachers, who are often wanting to start their own schools.

The second recommendation is for more transparency within the school system so that people — parents, students — can have an idea of what kind of style of teaching is going on in the schools. Not only the style and the method and how things are drawn out in a classroom but also the content — whether there is content, whether there is knowledge or whether knowledge and content are diminished.

We know that there is discussion about, concern about, inquiry approach, discovery approach, where children are tossed into a group. They’re supposed to solve a problem and discover insights which are supposed to help them build academic skills. That’s kind of going backwards because that defies how the traditional way of teaching has been. I know that we have had the B.C. education plan for ten years in British Columbia, and we wonder where it came from.

The third point I want to make is that while there are decisions and choices made about what programs are enacted in the schools, I consider that decision that was made to bring in the B.C. education plan was imposed by people who are outside the sphere of British Columbia. This has been going on for at least ten years.

Tyee, the newspaper on line, did a good story on how this program came in, and I’ve given the link for people to look at that story. It tells us about GELP, Global Education Leaders Program, which carved out 12 jurisdictions in the world over which they assume some colonial kind of oversight. In their paper, they said there is a new sense of urgency emerging in British Columbia where we radically need to overhaul education.

[2:00 p.m.]

Where did that come from? It’s a standard little manual, an eight-point program — how to create social change. One, create a sense of urgency. Well, we’ve got that sense there.

In April 2013, I attended a parent meeting, and a ministry official there was telling us about the brand-new program — how great it was, how passionate. At the end, she said: “Regardless who wins the election, the B.C. education plan goes ahead. It’s international.”

Now, that’s why I wanted to know which representatives we have from the government, because there’s opposition sometimes to programs, and they can raise questions about how a program in the education system totally can be outside the sphere of government because it’s international.

Three years ago, a GELP member was here, and he said: “Now we are at a pivotal moment. We really must accelerate and sustain this program. We want to achieve what no one else has achieved yet.” They’re a little bit in competition with the other 11 jurisdictions over which they have oversight. That’s step 7 in this chart telling you how to make change. I’m showing you that there’s some kind of a process, some engineering going on, and it’s external to British Columbia, with some people who are professionals steering type of people.

A paper was written by Marc Tucker, president of National Center for Education and the Economy, Washington, D.C. He said B.C. is on a great roll with the B.C. education plan. He was giving a pep talk, and he said that the program in place…. Teachers would own the curriculum if it’s implemented properly in a way that will make it very difficult for a new government to change.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Tunya, we’re at about six minutes. I want to make sure there’s time for questions, so if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up. Thank you.

T. Audain: I have just one more point to make, and that’s why I wanted to talk to you, because these outsiders are talking about how this is outside the sphere of government influence.

What’s also happened is that the British Columbia Teachers Federation union has its reports, and their reports bring in opinions like this. I am not convinced that enquiry is appropriate for all students. I feel this approach is being forced on us. It might be devastating. We feel frustrated because we feel being herded, not heard, and there’s a concern about being dumbed down.

I’m asking this committee to consider my points. I’m not the only one. It’s also some international concern, and maybe you could start some kind of an investigation, or have a committee at least, just to see if you can verify or discredit the points that I’m making.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Tunya. I just had a quick question in regards to the actual plan. Was there something specific within the plan that you don’t like, or is there…? What is it that you don’t like about the B.C. education plan?

T. Audain: I don’t like the process by which it was done. It was rammed down without much consultation. They say there was consultation, but they were all sort of selected talking groups. Okay. I didn’t like the process. Parents weren’t really involved. But I’m concerned about the method. The method that has been chosen is called the inquiry method. It is definitely a discredited method by people who are in cognitive science of learning.

The discovery method, inquiry, project-based learning, experiential — these things just don’t work as well as direct instruction. Direct instruction is more or less what you and I have been taught in school, the method by which…. It worked very well. And now there’s a new method. You’ve got four different ways to solve a math problem. Two plus two equals four. It could even equal five as long as you show me the way you got it. I don’t like that new program called inquiry that’s in the B.C. ed plan.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, thank you.

Any questions at all?

Well, thank you very much, Tunya. We really appreciate your time.

[2:05 p.m.]

T. Audain: Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C. — Lori Mathison.

Now it’s your time. Okay, Lori. Go ahead.

CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL
ACCOUNTANTS OF B.C.

L. Mathison: Good afternoon. My name is Lori Mathison. I’m the president and CEO of the Chartered Professional Accountants of B.C., or CPABC. Thank you so much for allowing us the opportunity to appear. By way of context, we are the second-largest professional organization in the province. We have over 35,000 CPA members. There’s no question that our CPAs are on the front lines of business activity within our province.

We have several recommendations to make today that we pulled from our annual B.C. Check-Up publication, which assesses B.C.’s economic performance, and our business outlook survey, which we perform annually to get a general sense as to how our members are feeling about our economy here in B.C. as well as our prospects going forward. This year our budget recommendations focus particularly on business-oriented policy areas, business tax competitiveness, labour skills mismatch and B.C.’s export potential.

Starting with competitiveness, we view business competitiveness and a competitive tax regime as being vital to the long-term economic sustainability of our province. More specifically, when we do the annual business outlook survey of our members, our members have consistently ranked the elimination of PST on business inputs as a priority for the government. So our first recommendation is for the general elimination of PST on business expenditures or inputs to encourage investment and to improve productivity here in B.C.

There’s also significant concern amongst our members over the soon-to-be-implemented employer health tax. B.C. already has a much lower average compensation rate per worker than Alberta or Ontario, and our average compensation is below the national average. This is an issue for the recruitment as well as the retention of skilled workers. For those businesses that did not previously pay for MSP premiums, the additional costs of this tax could further reduce their financial capacity to pay wages. The overall cost of labour will increase, which will, in turn, affect B.C.’s competitiveness.

Our second recommendation. CPABC is certainly aligned with other business organizations in recommending a delay in the implementation of the employer health tax until at least 2020. In making this recommendation, we fully recognize that the employer health tax is to be implemented soon, starting in January, and that a postponement would have a material impact on government revenues. We are also of the view that the government needs to more fulsomely consult with B.C. businesses and further assess the impact of the employer health tax on our businesses and the economy more broadly.

Our next area of focus is on measures to minimize the labour skills gap. Our members have consistently ranked the ability to recruit and retain skilled talent as the top challenge for business success in B.C. Our members are concerned that changes in the tax and regulatory regime in B.C. could erode B.C. competitiveness and have an impact on wages and productivity in the province. We are also concerned that labour shortfalls and a mismatch between available skills and available opportunities can cost the government billions in forgone GDP and millions in forgone tax revenues.

As a practical step, we believe that we need to improve school-to-work transitions by further supporting work-integrated learning models like co-op programs. Our third recommendation is for the government to make work-integrated learning a mandatory component of post-secondary education and to work with post-secondary institutions and industry to explore innovative approaches that would create a broader range of opportunities for students beyond the conventional co-op programs that we have today.

[2:10 p.m.]

Our last recommendations look at B.C.’s export potential. This sector generates not only thousands of direct jobs and income but more indirectly many more. B.C.’s traditional export products are well known. We enjoy a locational advantage, particularly with the U.S. and Asia, and preferential trade relations with markets throughout the world. We acknowledge and support how both the government and B.C.’s exporters have worked to diversify products and to enter new markets to reduce dependency on the U.S. We’re pleased with that.

In that connection, our fourth recommendation is for the province to further explore ways to continue to diversify markets and products by collaborating with other stakeholders to help our businesses maintain existing trade relations and establish new relationships.

In particular, we support the continued efforts by the provincial government to identify new and innovative ways by which the provincial government can further support B.C. exporters to grow their market influence.

These are some of the underlying issues — big picture — that we think can really affect the long-term viability of our economy and our capacity to provide sustainable public services to the people of B.C. We look forward to seeing continued efforts to strengthen B.C.’s economy in the 2019 budget.

Thank you again. I’m happy to take any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a question for you. Does the CPA not consider MSP to be a regressive tax and that replacing it is a good move for the citizens of British Columbia, seeing as it’s the only province in the country that has it? I’m just wondering why it seems that…. Fair enough, you’re talking on the side of businesses, but as a CPA, I mean, obviously, we’re dealing with…. You keep talking about what’s best for the province. I’m just wondering about that, because the whole point of EHT is to replace the regressive MSP tax.

Secondly, in terms of retaining talent, we keep hearing that things like the housing and affordability crisis is one of the biggest issues, and that’s being tackled. But I didn’t hear you talk about that either and things like child care and things like that for retaining talent. If you could just talk to those two things.

L. Mathison: Certainly. Obviously, the attraction and retention of talent in B.C. are top priorities for CPABC and things that we are very concerned about.

I do understand the point about how other jurisdictions may not be using the MSP. That said, it is embedded in our system right now and embedded in the cost of wages and the whole wage equation. To switch it on its head at this point in time will place that burden on employers in the short term. Over time, it will filter through the economy as that increased cost of labour is reflected in terms of the cost of employers carrying on business.

It’s a hard thing to switch at a point in time when wages are set. Many employees have negotiated to have their employers pay the MSP, but others have not. Given where we are, it’s a very difficult thing to switch.

In terms of housing affordability, child care — obviously, huge priorities. Given the constraints of time, we just focused on a few that very directly affect businesses and the employers on that side.

T. Redies: Hi, Lori. Thanks for your presentation. Anecdotally, over the summer, I’ve been hearing about the flight of capital to the United States. Could you comment on that, please?

L. Mathison: Yes. We see concerns in B.C., very broad-reaching, from uncertainty around what the regulatory regime looks like. Business uncertainty is a huge factor in terms of the risk equation that businesses, international or even local, consider when deciding how to invest. That uncertainty, which is brought about by changing rules or rules that are unclear, definitely impacts our ability to attract and retain capital.

There’s that general piece of uncertainty. Also, the ease of carrying on business within B.C. and the amount of bureaucracy and steps that need to be taken are of grave concern to CPABC.

R. Leonard: I notice on page 11 of your submission here that housing prices was the top economic issue, including major and moderate challenges. Given that affordability is obviously at stake in terms of employers’ ability to attract and retain workers, how does your organization see the ability of workers to be able to meet these challenges around affordability and especially around housing?

[2:15 p.m.]

L. Mathison: That’s a great question. We see the issue as not being strictly the price of houses but more the affordability of homes and how the labour and salary compensation relate to the cost of housing. Those two are directly connected.

As part of the equation, we also see the ability of transit and the accessibility of transit to make more housing options available to workers. But I echo the concern of our members that housing is a top challenge, and we as a society — I think it might be multi-layers of government — need to figure out how to address it in the short term.

R. Leonard: Just as a last comment, since we were talking about MSP and the employers health tax, the goal of that is to put more money into the workers’ pockets so that they can afford to pay the rent, pay the groceries, pay the hydro. So it isn’t a single, direct relation, and it all has impacts. I hope that the association takes that into account as they make their recommendations as well. Thank you.

L. Mathison: Might I make a quick point in response? One concern that we have is that by putting the employer health tax on the employers, it gives, in fact, a cost of labour for them, and it ultimately will be borne by the workers, as they need to make their numbers balance. That ultimately will be passed on to the workers, whether it be by numbers of hires or in the wage equation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, we’re out of time, but thank you very much — appreciate it.

Next up we have B.C. Care Providers Association — Mike Klassen.

B.C. CARE PROVIDERS ASSOCIATION

M. Klassen: Good afternoon. First of all, thank you very much for this opportunity, Mr. Chair and committee, and for your tireless work on this committee. At B.C. Care Providers, we have greatly appreciated seeing our recommendations for improving seniors care added to the top of the list of past standing committee reports.

Just very briefly about B.C. Care Providers: we represent approximately 70 percent of non-government providers of residential care, assisted living and home health in the province. There are other details in the slide deck there that tell you a bit about it. We look after about 30,000 seniors on a daily basis.

My time is short here, so I’ll be also submitting a written submission that’ll be coming to the committee shortly, before the deadline. But I’m going to focus most of my remarks, to begin with, on the first slide, which talks about the quality of life fund.

The world of seniors care is changing rapidly. Not only is the number of seniors increasing as a percentage of our population but so are the expectations of those who are coming into care. The first wave of baby boomers is now entering their retirement years. Boomers enjoy unparalleled prosperity, having the best education, the best homes, the best vacations of any generation. Baby boomers, therefore, will one day soon expect the very best care. They are already demanding it for their aging loved ones.

To meet this growing expectation around the quality of life as we age, we must accept that addressing the needs of seniors is not limited only to our health care system but also to housing, transportation, cultural programs and how we develop our communities.

B.C. Care Providers has long been promoting a fund to improve quality of life for seniors. In B.C., the quality of care for seniors is held to be top-notch. Certainly there is always room for improvement, but independent research indicates B.C. seniors are among the healthiest in the country. But life is more than just good health care. Not many of us would consider a visit to the doctor’s office as the best day of the month. Why should we expect, then, that providing good medical care is enough for our seniors?

Where we lack support is in the area of quality of life. Let’s ask ourselves now the one thing in our lives today that brings us joy that we could not live without. Is it reading a book, time with family, a favourite getaway or a fine glass of wine? When we go into a care home, we still desire those things that make life sweet.

In this weekend’s Globe and Mail, Giller Prize–winning author Elizabeth Hay shared her poignant story of dealing with her aging parents. When she asked her mother why she carried on in the face of frailty and dementia, she responded: “Because it’s so beautiful outside.” Hay’s mother is describing what gave her quality of life.

[2:20 p.m.]

For a $25 million annual budget, which works out to be approximately $100 per resident per month in long-term care, care homes could establish a number of programs to enhance quality of life — things like recreation therapy, occupational therapy, music programs and nutritional options for a special meal or to provide meals that are more culturally appropriate.

Social isolation can also be devastating, especially when you’re living in a home. It shortens lives. But adult day programs, located in communities, could help bring people together and provide a better quality of life.

I’m now going to charge through the rest of my slides and the other key things that we’d like for you to consider.

Quality assurance. Currently the home health sector really has no oversight. We are currently looking at a way of trying to develop a quality assurance program for home health. It’s a very large and growing area. We’d also like to see something like this put in place for assisted-living providers.

Home care visits. Currently a typical home care worker has 15 minutes to meet with a client. That’s barely enough time to take your coat and shoes off. We are proposing that a minimum visit time should be 30 minutes for a home care visit, and new funding can support that.

Preventative home health. In Denmark, there is an example of where seniors over the age of 75 are entitled to two visits per year at home for a health assessment. It has been highly successful in reducing emergency department visits and reducing levels of acuity for seniors going into care. B.C. should adopt a similar model for preventative home care for people over the age of 75.

Worker shortages. You just heard about that from the accountants. Right now seniors care has the largest job growth of any sector in British Columbia, and that will continue right until the middle of the next decade. We have been working very hard on this particular challenge and issued a report in the middle of the summer called Situation Critical that has a ten-point plan for dealing with a whole range of issues around immigration, about recruitment. We have a great plan there, and we are actually asking for funding to try and move forward on that plan so we can start getting the people who want to work in care into those jobs.

Dementia care training is something that we should be looking at, with rising rates of dementia. We would like to propose additional funding for care training for dementia so people who are working on the front lines can address these growing rates and the challenges it presents in the workplace.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re about 5-30 right now, if you wouldn’t mind wrapping up.

M. Klassen: Very lastly, infrastructure funding. We’re calling for funding to deal with aging infrastructure over the next four years. We currently have an industry-led fund that is funded by the province for infrastructure and equipment within care homes. We’d like to continue that. We also have the much larger problem of the huge growth and the need for additional beds.

I’ll leave it at that. Thank you very much. I’ll take some questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You did have a fifth one. Why don’t you speak to it?

M. Klassen: That one is just with regards to…. The Conference Board of Canada is actually projecting that about 31,000 new care beds are going to be needed by 2035, including additional demand in assisted living. We already are seeing wait-lists for a number of these facilities. It’d be very nice for us to start building that plan to try and meet that demand over the next decade or so.

N. Simons: Thank you, Mike. I appreciate that, and I appreciate what your members do.

I’m a little bit…. Recently the seniors advocate came out with some findings with respect to, I guess, a number of senior care homes, about the chance or the likelihood of residents being transferred to hospital. There were a number of fairly unflattering, I suppose, percentages identified.

Here I see proposals to fund what many people would consider sort of basic living expectations, like day programs and nutritional options. I’m trying to figure out what the priorities are for the care providers. Is it to address the issues brought up by the seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, or what?

M. Klassen: I can certainly provide and I will actually try and send you some information after this meeting to answer or respond to some of your questions about that report. Unfortunately, the report was lacking some very important key details that we have identified.

[2:25 p.m.]

Of course, we thought it was a very important thing for us to respond to. It’s not our place to necessarily get into a public dispute with this, but I can assure you that not only have we been looking at the details of this report; we’ve actually seen similar responses from the public health authorities that are now telling us about their own concerns about it.

Notwithstanding, if there are any concerns like that, those are the kinds of things that we want to make sure are properly taken care of. With the worker shortages, we’re seeing a number of care homes that are not able to hire the appropriate number of workers to do the minimum set of hours. That’s leading to empty beds and, potentially, communities that are impacted harder.

In terms of priorities, I think, as I stated earlier on, the quality of care is something that people are not necessarily alarmed about. It’s just sort of getting over that understanding that when you’re dealing with seniors, you’re not only dealing with just matters of health, but you’re dealing with their place in society. When you’re looking at things like housing, affordable housing, dealing with social isolation, mobility issues and also just access to cultural programs, those are things that bridge across ministries, of course. So government has to start looking at it a little bit differently. That’s just something that we’re putting our voice to.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Appreciate that.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Mike, thanks for coming. It’s always good to see you. One of the things that I think is missing here is the difference between facilities, what they pay…. When I say facilities, I mean homes that are run by health authorities and those that are provided by the people that you represent.

You just touched on the difficulty with workers and acquiring workers. It not only leads to empty beds; to be very frank, it leads to full beds and less care. I’m being very frank with you. It’s where you see the health care provider having to look after 20 people from five till 11 by themselves — through the dinner hour and trying to get these people into bed, etc.

I would really like to see some form of advocacy where health authorities, which pay $4 or $5 more plus more benefits…. There was a time and a place in our past where the people that you represent were able to provide these services because we had workers and we had opportunities. Those times have changed, and now it’s a catch-up. And to be again upfront, who’s feeling it are those individuals that we should be caring for at that time. Those are the ones that are feeling the lack of it.

If your organization would start taking a look at that and come back to government with some suggestions, because in my opinion, there’s a difference, a definite quality of life, between being in a facility either run by a health organization and that being run by a private enterprise and not for profit. It’s not that they don’t care. These people that work in these places, both of them, love the seniors. It’s just the ability of having the staff there, and the biggest cause is the differential in wages and benefits.

M. Klassen: To your point, first of all, even the seniors advocate’s reports in the last couple of years have indicated that there actually is virtually no difference between the delivery of care and…. There’s no actual evidence of there being a distinctive difference in the level of care from an owned-and-operated or a non-profit care home.

By the way, we try to not use the word “facility.” We call it the “f” word. The reason we do that is because we think facilities are the places that you built cars. These are homes. These are where people are living. It’s just something as we try and deal with how we understand what these places are.

But I’ll tell you something. One of the things that people don’t realize about contracted care is that usually they’re in a bidding process. Therefore, it’s the health authorities themselves that are looking at the actual numbers. As a result, you’re seeing some downward pressure on things like wages and benefits.

To the argument that somebody getting paid master collective agreement is necessarily going to make things better, it doesn’t prove out. If you go around, if you look at care homes around the province, there are people who are paying master collective who are facing the exact same challenges when it comes to trying to hire workers. We’re now seeing Interior Health and Island Health both launching major recruitment campaigns. They both pay master collective agreement, so this is not just a case of private health care.

You have to understand…. We’ve just recently done a survey. We had 1,200 nurses and care aides just complete a survey over the month of August, and we’ll be releasing the results of that survey. We actually had help with the Nurses Union, and we had Island Health and other care providers, to get that into the field.

[2:30 p.m.]

The response we got back, by and large, is that people are extraordinarily proud of the work they do, in terms of prioritizing their own goals and aspirations to the work itself. They feel like they’re making a difference in people’s lives.

Wages and benefits are much lower down the scale. I can appreciate that that is something we’ve heard from a number of groups, but the fact is that it just doesn’t stand up to what evidence shows right now.

T. Redies: Mike, nice to see you. Just a quick question. The 30,900 long-term care beds — did that take into consideration any sort of potential increases in funding for people to stay at home longer — preventative health care funding — or is it just, sort of, as is today?

M. Klassen: The Conference Board result is about long-term care, which, of course, is basically in a care home setting. The reason people do go into care homes and don’t necessarily live out their lives in the homestead is because of the huge amount of pressure on caregivers, the affordability of being able to stay at home, and other things like cognitive decline and other health problems that can make it difficult.

My long answer to your short question is that I think the actual growth we’re seeing is going to be because we are an aging society and because we remain very healthy for a much longer period in our lives.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time. Thank you very much, Mike. We really appreciate it.

Next up we have Innergex Renewable Energy — Colleen Giroux-Schmidt.

Hello, nice to see you. Go ahead.

INNERGEX RENEWABLE ENERGY

C. Giroux-Schmidt: Thank you all very much for the opportunity to present to you today.

This is the fifth year that Innergex Renewable Energy has participated in this prebudget consultation, and the core of our message has remained consistent. Innergex is a committed partner to the transition to a modern, robust and resilient climate economy that will benefit Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities across British Columbia.

Innergex Renewable Energy is a leading Canadian renewable power producer. Active since 1990, we develop, own and operate wind, solar, small hydro and geothermal facilities and carry out our operations with more than 300 employees across Canada — here in British Columbia, in Quebec and Ontario — as well as the United States, France, Chile and Iceland. We’re a publicly traded company listed on the TSX.

We’ve been part of B.C.’s electricity sector since 2004, and we plan to continue to be here indefinitely. To date, we’ve invested over $2 billion in British Columbia. This investment includes 22 facilities, representing, on an average day, approximately 8 percent of the electricity that’s in the grid. All of the electricity we produce is sold to our customer, B.C. Hydro, under long-term power purchase agreements.

Partnerships form the basis of our operations here and abroad, whether it be with Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, as equity partners in our projects with our local contractors and suppliers or with our customers.

Renewable energy is tightly coupled with the climate economy of the future. We stand here — or sit here — ready to support British Columbia in climate leadership, including the development of the clean growth strategy. As recognized in the intention papers, the clean growth strategy has the potential to build a stronger and more resilient economy that will grow existing businesses and attract new high-growth industries while providing increased economic opportunities to British Columbians.

Just this month at the Climate Action Summit, 480 companies, representing $10 trillion of the global economy, adopted a mission reduction commitment in accordance with the Paris Agreement. The RE100 initiative was further bolstered to represent 140 multinational companies committing to 100 percent renewable power.

These actions and commitments are sending clear signals about the increasing expectations of the global business community to produce in, export from, transport through and trade with jurisdictions that take climate action and renewable energy seriously.

The renewable energy industry is poised to join the government in both providing greenhouse gas emission reduction solutions and growing our economy. Renewable energy is a vital natural resource development opportunity for B.C. that is perfectly positioned for both domestic use and export, in complement to other important industries, including the LNG sector.

The Generation Energy Council, assembled by NRCan, recently concluded its assigned work. I had the privilege to be one of the 14 Canadians serving on it. The council was tasked with providing recommendations on how Canada can build a reliable, affordable, safe and low-carbon energy system to power our future economy. The council incorporated the feedback that Canada had collected from over 300,000 Canadians and experts.

[2:35 p.m.]

The report was published in June and outlines a comprehensive strategy for Canada’s energy transition. The pathways identified include wasting less energy, switching to clean power, using more renewable fuels and, finally, producing cleaner oil and gas.

The findings and recommendations of the council have significant relevance to climate action here in British Columbia and hold the keys to unlocking the climate economy on the west coast. We strongly encourage the B.C. government to use the Generation Energy Council’s recommendations and vision to form the basis of B.C.’s low-carbon energy and economic future.

We have an unparalleled opportunity right now to make swift and deep cuts to carbon emissions but leverage our world-class clean electricity to power our homes, vehicles and industry. Over 60 percent of our total energy use is still from fossil fuels in this province, whereas nearly 100 percent of our electricity is renewable. The capital in technology is available today to undergo an unprecedented fuel-switching initiative that will create beneficial economic activity across the province and result in safer and more resilient communities.

It is important to re-emphasize that extensive electrification and B.C.’s promising LNG future are complementary to one another. All too often, people view these two industries as competitors, but this is simply not the case. LNG production is a power-intensive process, and there is an opportunity for LNG from British Columbia to become an even cleaner source of energy if we power its production and transportation with renewable electricity.

To meet the growing demand from electrification, new sources of electricity supply will be required. B.C. also has an opportunity to support neighbouring jurisdictions that are rapidly decarbonizing their energy systems and increasing their renewable energy targets if we position ourselves to take advantage of the opportunity.

During the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco earlier this month, California signed an executive order committing the state to use 100 percent zero-carbon energy by 2045. Furthermore, the Pacific Coast Collaborative renewed its joint climate action commitments, including a commitment to a clean energy economy.

Recognizing that the right combination of political, economic and climate factors is making way for new natural resource export opportunity, we believe it’s time to revisit the opportunity for B.C. to help California meet its climate and energy goals. To achieve this, B.C. needs a clean electricity export strategy to ensure that we harness the cooperation needed between all levels of government, B.C. Hydro and the renewable energy sector to reach our energy superpower potential.

In addition to supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, renewable energy can also be a driving force to revitalize Indigenous and non-Indigenous rural communities across B.C. There is an untapped opportunity to leverage the buildout of the new renewable energy sector to bring new jobs and economic development and to allow communities to take an active role in the transition to a 21st-century low-carbon economy.

Innergex has experienced firsthand the impact that renewable energy projects can have when the local community plays a partnership role in the project. We believe that these partnerships are an indispensable part of the future of renewable energy development, and we know that there is a significant interest in communities across this province to develop renewable energy projects.

B.C. is ready to lead the world in the transition to a carbon-free society and shape the emerging climate economy to the benefit of all British Columbians. The business case for it is abundant. The signals from multinational business leaders are clear. Our neighbours are poised for action, and they need our clean energy resources. By making a strong commitment to electrification and electricity exports, not only can we reduce our GHG emissions within our own province and neighbouring jurisdictions, but we can also unlock unprecedented opportunities for economic benefits in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities across the province.

Thank you very much for your time. I’d welcome any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I didn’t want to interrupt, but we got to nearly seven minutes on that one. We have about three minutes for questions.

I just have a quick question for you. In terms of recommendations, I can see that taking into account what you’re saying in terms of creating policy, are there any specific budgetary asks in terms of incentives or any type of investment that you see that the provincial government should be making in renewable energy? I’m just curious, so if you could answer that….

C. Giroux-Schmidt: I think I would recommend that you fully fund the clean growth strategy as it’s developed to make sure we have a very solid road map going forward on how to do this energy transition. There was some funding in Budget 2018. But there’s an opportunity to make that it can hit the….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Do we know how much that is? How much are we talking?

C. Giroux-Schmidt: I don’t know off the top of my head.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s just helpful for us, as the Finance Committee, to get our heads around the financial obligations. Obviously, supporting renewable clean energy is great. But it’d be nice to know what sort of cost is attached to some of the policies. So if you could add that, it’d be very helpful, I think.

C. Giroux-Schmidt: Sure. I’ll follow up with that.

[2:40 p.m.]

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

I had one other question. A lot of the wind and solar and some other issues…. Those are intermittent, versus, let’s say, the nice big batteries we have with hydro. How do you see that transitioning over time? I know storage is becoming a big issue. Do you see technologies in storage allowing some of the more intermittent renewables like wind to become more viable over time?

C. Giroux-Schmidt: Yeah. I think there are two ways to look at it. The first is that, with our existing investment in large-storage hydro, we haven’t even begun to tap that as a firming and shaping tool for adding more renewables into the mix. B.C. still has a very robust capacity to add new renewables in. It’s something we’re starting to see in Quebec, where Hydro-Québec is partnering with companies like ours to bid a firm renewable energy product into the New England and New York markets. It would be wind coupled with the Hydro-Québec hydro product. I think there’s an increased opportunity there to use our existing investment.

Secondly, increasingly, storage paired with solar or storage paired with wind is becoming commercially competitive in procurement processes. We’re seeing that in multiple states across the United States. So we’re right on the cusp of storage starting to become increasingly commercially competitive.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much. Actually, we’re right on time. Thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

Next up we have the Public Education Network Society — Dr. Michael Zlotnik.

Hello, sir.

PUBLIC EDUCATION NETWORK SOCIETY

M. Zlotnik: I sent you extensive material. The heart of it is that there is a crisis of social inequality. It’s global, it’s national, and it’s provincial. Our field has been education, but this is devastating to public education when you have huge debt loads picked up for students and so on, as was said earlier. I just wanted to go through — and thank you for this opportunity — to present our concerns.

I have mentioned this shift. It’s a threat to democracy. If public education is going to serve democracy, you have to have a general equality of condition. It is also important in terms of what we do in schooling. I commented on one of the articles in the paper from university presidents concerning the technological development that they’re offering in the universities. That is important, but equally important is the ability of the next generation to actually produce a better economy and not just try to fit into that economy.

In order to build that public understanding…. One of the issues, of course, is that we need more tax dollars to serve the public sector, yet there’s resistance to higher taxes. That resistance to higher taxes can only be overcome, in my opinion, through actually involving the public much more fully in the nature of the economy that we have and the services that we offer and what they will cost.

I’ll cut straight to what the ask is. Slides 13, 26, 28, 30, 33, 42, 43 and 44 propose recommendations. I’ll go through the eight recommendations that we are seeking to get support for.

I’m going to put this first one: strategically adopt policies and budgets that reignite and support social equality. You know, following World War II, there was a sustained commitment to make the world more equal and make our country more equal and to give opportunities to children and young people so it wouldn’t matter what the family background was. They would have an opportunity.

[2:45 p.m.]

We want to see that focus, that purpose, at the centre of policy.

Secondly, and this has already been mentioned in previous presentations, the green energy, the green economy. This is necessary to have any kind of future economy, in fact.

The third is to take measures to lift people out of poverty and to put the first priority on families with young children.

I did mention, in the PowerPoint, that there’s a serious problem for many children in this province. It concerns abuse, stress, depression, anxiety. Shockingly, even with kindergarten children, we have issues of that sort. I think that as an immediate step, there need to be more mental health services available for children and families. That would be recommendation 4.

For the longer term, I think we have to understand: why is this happening? Why is there this amount of stress, depression, and so on among young people?

Recommendation 6. There are countries in the world, like Germany and Finland, that do not charge tuition for university education — at least, for the first four years of post-secondary education. Here in this province, this is one of the major contributors to social inequality. Some young people — many of them, in fact — pile up, as you heard from a previous presenter, tens of thousands in debt in order to get the opportunity to participate fully in the economy.

I realize that’s not going to be something that could be done just like that, but a step needs to be taken towards that. I think that if the government can take the bully pulpit and put forward the objective of moving to tuition-free — actually, it’s tuition funded by government — to provide equality for the next generation, that’s where we need to discuss and build support for that. This connects to the suggestion that we actually, in addition to these kinds of hearings, have hearings where citizens can face one another and can explain.

I’ve mentioned the work by Gunnar Myrdal, who looked at the issue of racism. One of the things he pointed out was that we are more selfish, more prejudiced and more cruel in our private life than we are when we have to stand up in public and share, with our neighbours, what we believe in and what we’re prepared to fund.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just so you’re aware, we’re over six minutes now. If you wouldn’t mind wrapping up, I’d really appreciate it.

M. Zlotnik: Okay, sure. I think I’ve made my points. The last one was simply that the government fund and support an involvement of citizens to design an economy that will work for British Columbia, where we can put forward what it would take, in the way of taxes and so on, to do that.

I’m open to questions.

N. Simons: Thank you very much for your advocacy for what, I think, is one of the most fundamental cornerstones of our democracy. Are you actually proposing sort of a fair tax commission, a body of representative people looking at how we need to allocate government resources?

M. Zlotnik: It could be a royal commission. I think we have to connect taxes, the economy, education and other public services. How it’s done, I don’t know. There are many options, but I think we have to put things together into a package. People come, they make requests for all these things, and then we have to look at what we’ve got to pay for it. Why not involve the citizens together in those deliberations? It could be a commission of some sort or an inquiry.

N. Simons: Or a citizens’ assembly.

M. Zlotnik: Yeah.

[2:50 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): I do agree that education and democracy are absolutely tied together. There’s no question about it. We see other countries where education isn’t as great as our education is, relatively, and how tough it is in those countries to get to decisions, by their citizens, that are educated. It opens people up to being manipulated by forces bigger than themselves.

I appreciate everything you’re saying, and thanks for your points.

Peter had a question.

P. Milobar: I was just doing a little research. I wasn’t familiar with this society. Obviously, it looks like there’s been a lot of endorsers of what you’ve been saying, from various groups that have already presented to us. I noticed that, actually, the B.C. New Democrats are also an endorser of your charter. I’m just wondering. Have you had any discussions that we might need to put into our context as we pull forward recommendations — with, say, the government, ahead of today’s presentation — so we kind of know where we would stand?

M. Zlotnik: When the charter was produced, we looked for support everywhere. The charter came from widespread consultations throughout the province. I don’t think it’s a narrowly partisan standpoint at all.

P. Milobar: No, I wasn’t asking that. I was sincerely wondering if there have been ongoing discussions over the last year and a half or so that we should be understanding — maybe a bit more context.

M. Zlotnik: My view is that what we put forward made sense at the time we put it forward.

It’s time now to look at education, public services, taxes and the economy in a holistic way. That would be my point. We were unable to do that. The world has changed enormously since 2003 when we started that process. I think there have been enough major changes that we need a good look at what they are and how we’re going to deal with them in a coherent way.

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

I’m going to take a recess for two minutes so everyone can just have a stretch and a coffee.

The committee recessed from 2:52 p.m. to 2:59 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are back with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Next up we have the B.C. Gaming Industry Association — Peter Goudron and Shiera Stuart.

Welcome. The floor is yours.

B.C. GAMING INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

S. Stuart: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Shiera Stuart, for those of you who don’t know me, and I’m the director of government relations at Gateway Casinos and Entertainment and the vice-chairperson of the B.C. Gaming Industry Association.

With me today is Peter Goudron, the executive director of the association. The chair of our association, Chuck Keeling, from Great Canadian Gaming, couldn’t be with us today.

The B.C. Gaming Industry Association, which we’ll now say as BCGIA for short, was formed in 2015 to act as the unified voice of private sector gaming operators in the province of B.C. This is the fourth time we’ve presented to the Finance Committee, and we are very honoured to have the opportunity to do so again.

[3:00 p.m.]

B.C.’s private sector gaming operators play a significant role in the provincial economy and our local communities. Our membership is composed of 13 of the 16 companies in B.C. that own and operate a total of 38 of 42 gaming properties located across the province. They directly employ over 10,000 people, and annually pay wages and benefits of more than $300 million and property taxes in excess of $10 million.

BCGIA members have invested more than $2 billion in B.C. and continue to invest in their properties to ensure that they are best in class. Gaming facilities include many non-gaming amenities, such as food and beverage outlets, show theatres, conference centres and hotels. It is estimated that collectively, the gaming industry provides 37,000 jobs directly and indirectly in various communities throughout the province.

The gaming industry accounts for approximately 2.4 percent of the province’s annual revenue budget, generating more revenue for the provincial government than forestry, mining or liquor. In 2017-2018, gaming operations generated revenue of $2 billion to B.C. Lottery Corp. Then BCLC delivered $1.4 billion in net income to the provincial government, helping fund health care, education and various other important programs and services in B.C.

The provincial government shares gaming revenues with host local governments. Local governments that host gaming facilities receive a 10 percent share of net gaming income. Last year $102 million was dispersed amongst 32 host local governments to fund programs and projects that are determined by these municipalities.

The B.C. model for the gaming industry is one of the most profitable for a provincial government in Canada. B.C. is able to realize such a big return largely by paying private sector gaming operators some of the lowest operating commissions in North America. We provide this context to underscore the value the B.C. model provides to all British Columbians and not to express a concern. In fact, many operators have recently signed new 20-year agreements with B.C. Lottery Corp. recently. Now over to Peter.

P. Goudron: Thanks, Shiera, and good afternoon. I’ll start with a topical issue. Gaming operators in B.C. strictly adhere to anti-money-laundering protocols, policies and procedures, as set by BCLC in accordance with federal anti-money-laundering requirements. BCGIA members have always been strongly committed to preventing money laundering at their properties.

Gaming operators are appreciative of the work done by Dr. Peter German in his review of anti-money-laundering practices in Lower Mainland casinos, which was published earlier this year. In his report, he recognized that operators had fulfilled all of the requirements and that, in fact, it was their vigorous reporting that shed lights on concerns of money laundering in our province’s economy. Our operators look forward to working with government and regulators to help implement the report’s recommendations.

BCGIA members are also firmly committed to providing socially responsible gaming entertainment and play an active role in the delivery of responsible gambling programs in partnership with BCLC and the gaming policy and enforcement branch.

Nearly three-quarters of adults in B.C. have participated in at least one gambling activity in the last 12 months. According to the province’s 2014 British Columbia Problem Gambling Prevalence Study, 97 percent of British Columbians who gamble do so safely. For the majority of the population, gambling is an entertainment option.

However, for the small percentage of people who have difficulties with their gambling behaviours, there are effective programs and resources available. These include GameSense centres in every gaming facility, RG Check certification, the provincial problem gambling help line and free counselling and treatment and, finally, the voluntary self-exclusion program. BCGIA members strongly support the province’s responsible gambling programs.

Last year the province’s community gaming program distributed $140 million of gaming revenue to over 5,200 charitable and community organizations throughout the province. In addition, private sector gaming operators donated over $1.2 million directly to hundreds of organizations across the province. This is in addition to providing use of their facilities to community groups for events and their employees volunteering countless hours to support local charities.

The members of the B.C. Gaming Industry Association are proud to support and be an active and integral part of the local communities where they live and work. They are also proud to provide socially responsible gaming entertainment and non-gaming amenities that provide good jobs and contribute to the B.C. economy. The gaming industry has been operating successfully here in B.C. for over 20 years, and we look forward to the next 20 years of creating jobs and economic growth.

Thank you for your time today, and we would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Are there any specific recommendations to the Finance Committee, in terms of asks or anything that you’re particularly asking? Or just more of a presentation — sort of the state of the union, so to speak.

[3:05 p.m.]

P. Goudron: You’re right. We didn’t make any specific asks. We want to call to the committee’s attention the importance of the industry. As you think about Budget 2019…. Obviously, we’re coming into a period where there’s going to be some very material reforms made in and around the gaming industry.

I should say that, again, the operators are completely in support of moving forward with the implementation of Dr. German’s recommendations. It’s important that those recommendations be done appropriately so that they address all of the concerns around money laundering or potential threats of criminality but, at the same time, to recognize that this is an industry that is an important contributor and we need to use appropriate care and attention when those recommendations are implemented.

S. Stuart: Just to clarify, it’s not really an ask. It was more a list of reminders of the stuff that we’ve done with the province, the fact that we’re 2.4 percent of the budget, the millions of dollars that the industry operators contribute to the local communities where they live and work. Even in our presentation, we did make a point of saying that we’re not really expressing a concern. It was just more that we get paid a certain amount, and we recently re-signed a new 20-year agreement with B.C. Lottery Corp., obviously stating that our working relationship is going well with them.

T. Redies: Thanks, Shiera, Peter. You guys know I’m an ex-banker, so anything around money laundering makes me very, very nervous and, I think, your industry as well. Clearly, we have to have zero tolerance on money laundering. I think the Peter German report obviously offered some good recommendations as to what needed to be done.

Could you speak, though, to perhaps just something that I’m not sure was clear to me. In terms of what was identified as money laundering, or supposed money laundering, in the report, could you give us some context in terms of what percentage that represented in the context of your overall economic activity?

P. Goudron: Yeah, a lot of numbers have floated around. I think Dr. German was quoted as saying it could be as much as $100 million. Considering that the industry as a whole generates roughly $2 billion a year in revenue, it could be as much, according to Dr. German, as 5 percent.

T. Redies: I thought that $100 million was over ten years.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Wasn’t that a minimum? That wasn’t a maximum, was it?

P. Goudron: I thought that was his best guess.

S. Stuart: That was up to. He basically was clear, and he said that at most, it would be about $100 million. So that wasn’t the worst case.

P. Goudron: And some people did interpret it as being over ten years.

T. Redies: And it was over one year. Okay.

P. Goudron: As I say, a lot of numbers have floated out over the course of it. But I think the most important point is the one you made, which is that there has to be zero tolerance. I can tell you with certainty that operators have no tolerance or desire to accept funds from criminals or that were generated by criminals.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it. It was wonderful seeing you again. I’m sure we’ll see you at the Leg. soon.

S. Stuart: Thank you. Have a great rest of your day.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up, we have the Appraisal Institute of Canada, B.C. Association — Terry Dowle.

Hi, Terry. Welcome. Just a reminder that we’re trying to keep the opening statements to five minutes, if we can.

APPRAISAL INSTITUTE OF CANADA,
B.C. ASSOCIATION

T. Dowle: Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, committee members. My name is Terry Dowle. I am the first vice-president from the B.C. association, the Appraisal Institute of Canada. I’m an AACI, P.App accredited appraiser, and on behalf of the 1,216 members of the AIC-BC, we’re pleased to have this opportunity to present a submission.

The Appraisal Institute of Canada is the premier real estate valuation association in Canada. The AIC was founded in 1938 and is a professional organization that grants the AACI and CRA designations. Our 5,400 members nationwide adhere to strict professional ethics and standards nationally compiled in the Canadian Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. We’re a self-regulating body with a robust discipline process and with each member maintaining a mandatory professional liability insurance program.

[3:10 p.m.]

In 2017, AIC-BC members conducted over 263,000 third-party appraisals with an overall value of approximately $359 billion. This represented $213 billion in residential property and $146 billion of non-residential property.

AIC-BC members are committed to working with legislators, governments and real estate industry stakeholders to ensure all consumers are protected and well informed when making decisions involving real property. We believe our unbiased opinions and strong valuation fundamentals result in a sustainable and healthy marketplace, which enables all British Columbians to prosper. With this in mind, our focus today is on the following: data access, affordable housing and mitigating risk.

With regard to data access, the availability of accurate market data is the foundation of quality valuations. Unbiased and independent real estate appraisals play a vital role in assisting individuals, businesses and governments in making informed decisions during real property transactions. The lack of reliable data puts at risk our financial system, and B.C. residents are at risk for inaccurate valuations. This access provides consumers with reliable documentation and security with respect to financial decisions.

Historically, this data has been extracted from a variety of sources, including real estate boards, municipal and provincial records, and private data providers. Recently some data providers, both public and private, have placed greater restrictions on the ability to access the full scope of data. Increased costs to acquire reliable data may have an impact of affecting the comprehensive details of report findings, thereby increasing the risk to consumers, as appraisers are restricted to less reliable data sources, increased access costs and loss of historical data for analysis. We would recommend the government ensure land titles and assessment databases be accessible at reasonable fees for professional and qualified appraisers.

Affordable housing. Affordable housing in B.C. is of paramount concern to most consumers. The need for municipalities to provide safe, affordable housing is becoming increasingly urgent. Our members offer diverse expertise in these areas. The appraiser can assist in the development of affordable housing at the planning and development stages and consult on the viability of construction and on the rental and sale of these end products.

Our members work with developers, government committees and consumers to understand the impact of housing trends, rental diversity and valuation of end products. Housing groups often need to provide lenders with a third-party estimate of market value for projects in order to receive funding. Governments and non-profits require independent appraisals for transparency in decision-making. A qualified appraiser can provide valuable insight, knowledge and advice to assist with the development and valuation of these projects. We would recommend the government consult qualified appraisers on affordable housing to ensure viable policies and solutions.

Mitigating risk. The real estate market is a key aspect of the B.C. economy. The B.C. real estate market affects every segment of our society and is of paramount concern to most British Columbians. Navigating the real estate market, analyzing trends, determining value and mitigating risk are all ways our appraisers can offer protection to B.C. consumers. Our members are uniquely qualified to offer insight into the details of real property transactions in B.C. Appraisals can help ensure properties are not over valued and can help prevent mortgage fraud.

When conducted by a qualified and experienced professional drawing on sophisticated methodology, an appraisal will validate the characteristics of the property, analyze the current market conditions and take into consideration neighbourhood trends. On-site appraisals are the most effective way to determine the true market value of real estate and can assist with the mitigation of fraudulent applications. Many lenders rely on appraisers as their eyes and ears with respect to the details of the property or the security of the loan.

Strong valuation fundamentals along with the B-20 and B-21 guidelines are particularly valuable in mitigating risk in real property financing. Our members play a vital role in the lending process as one of the few attendees physically at the property.

With the new stress test regulations in place, coupled with potential increases in interest rates, we anticipate a migration towards private lending. In these areas, our members can offer valuable insight. Our recommendation is the government use every tool at its disposal, including qualified appraisers, to ensure the system employs the appropriate risk mitigation measures to protect consumers.

Mr. Chairman and committee members, we’re privileged to have been here today. I’m privileged to have been here today to share the perspective of our members. I’d be happy to respond to any questions.

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

Any questions?

T. Redies: Nice to see you, Terry. You mentioned the increase in secondary lending. I think that’s already happening. It’s going up like that because people are not able to access, perhaps, traditional financial institutions.

What are you particularly asking there? Are you suggesting that the secondary lenders should be required to work with appraisers in order to mitigate the risk of those people who are using that…?

T. Dowle: Yes. I think in those cases, in particular, there are a lot of factors which affect the value. Certainly, there’s a lot more potential for fraud to be involved in those situations. Appraisers are uniquely qualified to try to source out some of that fraudulent activity. As well, since we’re present at the properties in most cases — in all cases when there’s financing going on — we can help identify issues that might be a higher risk on private lending.

[3:15 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Could you just elaborate a little bit more on the access to data bit — the need for that and what the challenge is?

T. Dowle: Sure. Appraisers rely on a variety of sources — real estate boards, B.C. Assessment information, other government repositories. CRA, for example, has a repository of information we use for evaluation — V-day valuations, 1971 valuations, that sort of thing.

The real estate boards are requiring memberships of the appraisers to get access, and they are starting to restrict the level of detail they’re providing to appraisers. The realtors who get the access have more tools at their disposal. The appraisers have less.

The B.C. Assessment Authority has an e-value B.C. platform that they had developed. It’s a very robust platform that all appraisers rely upon for statistical information. That was a free service. They’ve now come back and offered it as a pay-for service only. The pay-for service only is between $12,000 and $24,000 annually. For a lot of our members, that is an exorbitant amount of money.

Most appraisers work from their homes, and with their appraisal fees being eroded with pressures from lenders and from AMCs, that is a cost that they just simply cannot afford anymore.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So are you asking for some kind of legislative solution to this, or a regulatory solution? What are you asking specifically?

T. Dowle: We understand that there are privacy issues around this information, absolutely. But it’s also information that is extremely valuable in the development of valuations. What we’re looking for is reasonable access. We’re not looking for free access. We would prefer to have it at a reasonable user fee, as opposed to what we consider to be a fee that would like us just to go away.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Well, thank you very much, Terry. Really appreciate your presentation.

Next up we have LandlordBC — David Hutniak.

Hi, David. How are you?

D. Hutniak: Hey, how are you? Good to see you. This is going to be less than five minutes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You just made my day.

D. Hutniak: I see a loud cheer coming.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m going to hold you to that, David.

All right. The floor is yours.

LANDLORDBC

D. Hutniak: First of all, thank you for allowing LandlordBC, myself, to speak with you today. Just by way of record here, my name is David Hutniak, and I’m the CEO of LandlordBC. LandlordBC is the industry association representing owners and managers of rental housing in British Columbia. We are very proud to provide homes for over 30 percent of B.C. households in approximately 500,000 units of rental housing.

Providing rental housing is a huge responsibility and one that our industry takes very seriously. I should tell you that what I had originally planned to discuss with you today was the negative impact of property transfer taxes and new school tax on the development of new purpose-built rental. While these two taxes are unnecessary barriers to our building new purpose-built rental housing — and I hope to have an opportunity to discuss their impact with you in the future — today we have an urgent situation unfolding that I must share with you so that the current rental housing crisis isn’t allowed to further persist.

The urgent situation I’m referring to is the serious risk that the current maximum allowable increase formula of 2 percent plus CPI, under the Residential Tenancy Act, will be altered to just CPI by the provincial government, as recommended by the Rental Housing Task Force this morning.

This would cause serious harm to landlords and renters alike by negatively impacting the long-term viability of the rental housing industry in B.C., pushing more landlords from the secondary market, in particular, to home-sharing platforms like Airbnb and thwart new purpose-built rental development.

[3:20 p.m.]

For 2019, the maximum allowable increase under the RTA today is 4.5 percent. Repeatedly, governments have tried to solve the problem of housing by trying to control demand. Rent controls and other restrictions have been around since the 1970s and have never worked to alleviate the issues. These tactics only serve to band-aid the rental housing environment in the short term while ignoring and, more critically, undermining the only true long-term solution: increasing the supply of rental housing sufficiently large enough to drive prices down. By rental housing, I’m referring to purpose-built rental in particular, because it is the most secure form of rental housing.

Such is the case with the current debate over the Residential Tenancy Act maximum allowable increase of 4.5 percent for 2019.

I would like to quickly add that we understand that renters across the province are feeling squeezed, and we are acutely aware of the fact that we are providing homes for local incomes, not selling our homes to wealthy investors like the condo market.

By way of additional background, the 2019 RTA maximum annual increase is based upon a 12-month average of the B.C. consumer price index, CPI, for the period of August 2017 through July 2018. That CPI is calculated to be 2.5 percent plus 2 percent for a total of 4.5 percent.

Based upon the data from B.C. Stats, the government’s statistical database, during the same period of time, the average wage growth for workers in British Columbia was 4.6 percent — and 6.2 percent, on the average, in the past six months.

I can say that we’ve seen the most recent increases show up in the price of construction of building new purpose-built rental.

The rental market in British Columbia is served by a broad constituency of responsible long-term rental housing providers who are invested in the community and genuinely committed to the provision of safe, secure, sustainable rental housing for B.C. families. This critical service can only continue if landlords are able to recover the costs and associated risks of providing rental homes.

The harsh reality under rent controls is that the allowable maximum annual rent increase formula has been consistently inadequate when weighed against the primary expenses a landlord incurs on an annual basis. We would add that while the public and government focus on the current year’s allowable increase, it should be noted that over the past ten years, the allowable maximum rent increases under the RTA’s rent control formula have fluctuated, depending upon CPI inflation for each year, and have been as low as 2.2 percent in 2014 and 2.3 percent in 2011.

As a result, over the ten years from 2009 through to 2018, the compound annual maximum allowed rent increase has been only 3.2 percent. Keep in mind that the RTA rent control formula sets a maximum cap on rent increases. It is by no means a guaranteed increase. During the same ten-year period, our expenses have increased 7.6 percent per annum.

We have taken an expense analysis of a purpose-built rental building in Metro Vancouver, integrating invoice figures provided by the member-owner of the building analyzed. I have provided you with a copy of that analysis, and I presume it’s been distributed to you, which you are welcome to look at, at your own discretion as I will not be going through it today in the limited time.

The analysis attempts to illustrate how much higher the actual operating expense of this typical purpose-built rental building has increased over a ten-year period compared to the maximum allowable rent increases under the RTA rent control formula of 2 percent plus CPI during that same period of time. It confirms that our expenses outstrip the maximum amount we can increase rents year over year. This is not a sustainable business model.

LandlordBC has been very vocal in expressing our concern about the ability of British Columbians to access safe, secure, sustainable and affordable rental housing. However, it is unfair to place the full burden of responsibility for our rental housing crisis on our industry’s back. We did not create this crisis. In fact, we predicted it and were ignored by all levels of government who enthusiastically welcomed all the taxes and fees they were collecting from condo development when we were begging them for support to build purpose-built rental housing.

Renters are not second-class citizens. Many of the right solutions are already in the public domain. We have stakeholders and advocates who are calling for tax policy that is more equitable and balanced for renters when compared to homeowners.

[3:25 p.m.]

LandlordBC has long spoken in favour of more robust tenant supports like portable housing benefits, and while encouraged by the province increasing SAFER and RAP benefits, we believe that considerably more can be done to enhance and, in fact, extend these benefits to more British Columbians in need.

While we need bold action, making it more difficult for landlords to continue to provide rental housing, pushing them to short-term rental platforms and forcing them to build new purpose-built rental housing somewhere other than British Columbia is not going to solve the problem for B.C. renters. It’s only going to make it worse.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, David. We’re at seven minutes, so we only have time for a few questions. I wanted to give you a chance to finish.

I just wanted to clarify something. It sounded like you said that incomes are growing faster than the increase in rent, but my understanding from renters is that the amount of income that is made versus the cost of housing is completely out of whack. I’m wondering if you could really address that. I mean, that’s the crux of why there is such a push to get…. It was 4 percent last year, and now it’s another 4½ percent this year. So could you clarify that?

D. Hutniak: Yeah, we were curious to see what was happening with incomes, so we looked at what we thought was a reliable source, which was B.C. Stats. We were actually surprised to see that over the same period of time that we calculate the allowable increase, which is August through July, 2017-2018 — that 12-month period — the average increases to worker wages in B.C. was 4.6 percent. You’re correct. It’s 0.1 percent more than what we can charge in rent — the maximum increase next year.

We were actually, I have to admit, a little surprised to see that. Having said that, then when we looked at the last six months, it averaged 6.2 percent, and we said, “Ah, that makes sense,” because we’re seeing construction costs increase about 1 percent per month to build new housing. I think we have to look at that.

That doesn’t mean that renters are not challenged. We’re all challenged. I was talking to a person in their late 30s who has a massive mortgage, and they’re renewing their mortgage in six months. They’re very concerned about that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I know. I’m one of those.

D. Hutniak: You know what? We’re not insensitive to this, but we also have to be realistic. We look at our costs. We want to provide housing. We want to build more housing. There has to be a bigger solution here.

N. Simons: You mentioned that you’d been sounding the alarm. What alarm was being sounded, and who was ignoring it?

D. Hutniak: Well, the alarm was that for over 30-plus years, nobody was building purpose-built rental. The reason for that was 40 years ago there were federal incentives. We have been talking to the federal government for many, many years. They’re finally in the housing game again. But it was no different at the municipal level as well and the provincial level.

We’re basically saying: “Okay, this is a critically important housing typology.” In fact, as we’re finding today, it’s probably the most important — purpose-built rental in particular — because nobody can afford to buy a home. If we don’t build a ton of that, this is just going to get worse.

So yeah, we were saying this: “We need to build purpose-built rental. No more condos. We need some support. It’s higher risk, more expensive. We’re competing for the same land and construction costs.”

Really, until the last couple or three years here, Vancouver, New West, North Vancouver, City of North Van were actually providing some incentives. It’s just in the last 12 months that Coquitlam has really come to the table, for example. But there’s a lot more that needs to be done. We don’t have the luxury of preselling anything, and we can’t finance 100 percent. There are a lot of moving parts to this.

T. Redies: Thanks very much, David, for your presentation. Just curious. The R-and-M expenses have gone up substantially. Is that because of labour shortages that that’s gone up so much? What’s driving that? It’s disproportionate to everything else.

D. Hutniak: I think it’s a combination, frankly. Ten years ago it was $300 a unit; now it’s 1,000 bucks a unit. So it’s a combination of the materials, labour, what have you. But this is just what it costs.

Good question. Thank you for asking that.

N. Simons: What’s R and M?

D. Hutniak: Repairs and maintenance.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay, we’re out of time, but thank you very much, David. We appreciate your discussion.

D. Hutniak: Thank you for having me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Fiona Walsh.

Okay, Fiona. The floor is yours.

[3:30 p.m.]

FIONA WALSH

F. Walsh: Hi. My name is Fiona Walsh. I’ve come before you to encourage you to think of my demographic of people who really would like to make a big change in their mode of transportation to cycling, walking or taking transit. We might not have a loud voice or lots of financial support to create or back an awareness campaign, but we’re living longer, and we want to be active. But we need encouragement to transition away from a dependency on cars in urban and rural communities. We need the goodwill of the government to understand the needs of our demographic and our communities.

I admit there are downsides to cycling, walking and taking transit — bad weather, long distances, hilly terrain and challenges to carrying things — but the upside of cycling, walking and taking transit is by far greater.

I’d like to focus this presentation on cycling. Cycling means freedom, no traffic congestion issues, low cost. And heavy lifting is easier when it’s on a bike. It also means a healthy person, physically and mentally, and a healthy environment. B.C. is blessed with an extraordinary natural environment.

Of course, there are greater challenges to cycling in terms of safe cycling infrastructure and street design. It would be great if the provincial government could lead the creation of a standard for street design that would make cycling safe and attractive to people of all ages and abilities, for short or long trips, in rural or urban communities.

Retired folks on a fixed income have a hard time living in Metro Vancouver, and many downsize to one or no car because of the cost of maintaining a car, estimated at $8,000 to $10,000 a year.

When I was 60, nine years ago, I really wanted to move away from driving. Part of the reason was the statistics regarding drivers involved in a crash which resulted in death; serious injury; a list of less serious, life-changing and chronic injuries; or at the very least, expensive repairs to the car and the disruption that that involves. That’s when I decided to buy a bicycle, but not just any bike — an electric assist bike. I live on the North Shore, and I knew that if I wanted to be successful in embarking on this new plan, I’d be wise to get help. My first bike weighed more than 50 pounds. I called it my Clydesdale, a real workhorse.

Since January 2011, buses won’t take an e-bike on their bike rack, so in 2013 I decided to transition to a regular bike, my stallion. Much lighter and easy to put on a bus rack if necessary — in bad weather, at night or to get up the North Shore hills if I have a heavy load.

My transition to a regular bike at age 64 is not typical. Most seniors would get on an e-bike and stick with it before they’d try a regular bike. And it’s fun. E-bikes are fun. I’m now researching three-wheel e-bikes for when I turn 80.

My second point today is about cycle highways. When my family emigrated from the U.K. to Canada in the ’50s, my father was most impressed with the highway network in the U.S. and Canada. Driving was such a breeze, even when we travelled from Vancouver to Massachusetts in 1956. He didn’t know that the powerful automotive industry in the U.S. had bought up many rail lines with the intention of shutting them down to favour the automobile for transportation. What a tragedy, and what a paradigm shift they created.

Well, in the 21st century, we’re thinking of more healthy, environmentally friendly, economic modes of transportation. But many of the rail lines are still there, on land owned by the government, and cycling advocacy groups are eagerly eyeing them for cycling highways. Rail lines have lower grades, which are perfect for cycle touring, for example. That means long distances, right?

Thinking of how railways and highways were designed — direct routes, higher speeds and no impediments such as intersections, or at least, very few intersections in rural areas…. Cycle highways would greatly help me, travelling from the North Shore to Burnaby and beyond. If time is an important factor in cycling a longer distance, I don’t have the option to take the SkyTrain at peak traffic times. I can’t put my bike on it. I only have the option of taking a bus, if there’s room on the bike rack that can only take two bikes at a time.

The Central Valley Greenway from Vancouver through Burnaby to New Westminster would be a perfect east-west cycle highway, but it needs serious improvements east of North Road along the Brunette River to Braid Street and United Boulevard to Coquitlam. A pedestrian-cycling railway overpass at the Braid station in New Westminster would be a big project, but what a fantastic route that would make.

You may not be aware that there are many cyclists who commute to work from Coquitlam to Vancouver, a trip of more than an hour. But how many drivers spend more than an hour behind the wheel in heavy traffic to get to work or back home? We’ve built highways for them to go long distances faster and more directly. We need highways for commuter cyclists and for touring cyclists and for feisty retired folk who want to spend the day on their bikes, separated from those hasty, nasty drivers and their mean machines.

[3:35 p.m.]

In Burnaby, anyway, there’s no north-south route that might easily be converted to a cycle highway. But Boundary Road has the space to accommodate a great separated cycling highway that would connect the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge and the North Shore routes.

At the south end of the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge, a cycling-pedestrian overpass from the west side at the top of the switchback in Vancouver to the east-side slope at Fellowes Street would lead southbound to Boundary Road or east to the Trans Canada Trail, which goes through the forest on the back side of Burnaby.

Alternatively, the provincial government owns the land on either side of its provincial highways. Why not create cycle highways along the same route, set at a distance from the road of, say, 20 to 30 metres, such as they do in the Netherlands?

That’s the end of what I have to say.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much. I was going to say that I when was in New York, one of the really cool highlights for me was the High Line, which is the old overhead highway they’ve turned into a walkway into the old meat-packing district. What an amazing thing that is.

F. Walsh: But our Arbutus Greenway is fantastic. You’ve got to get onto that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It’s very interesting. Obviously, who owns that land? Is it the railway? Is it the province? Is it private?

Have you talked with…? Do you work with HUB at all?

F. Walsh: I’m actually a director of HUB. I’m a director of B.C. Cycling Coalition, and that’s why I’m here, wearing a HUB T-shirt.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Ah, I thought there might be…. I suspected as much, given your knowledge. We really appreciate that. I’m sure a number of us have met with HUB representatives, from all over the province. Thank you for your presentation.

Do we have any questions? No?

Well, thank you very much for your questions and your passion for cycling. We really appreciate it.

F. Walsh: All right. Do you like this T-shirt? It is the best.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. Looks great, thanks. It’s nice to get some energy. I appreciate it.

Next we have the Parkinson Society British Columbia — Jean Blake and Richard Mayede.

Hello. How are you?

J. Blake: We’re fine, and we’ll be talking a little slower than that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s okay.

PARKINSON SOCIETY B.C.

J. Blake: That was fast-paced, a lot of information. I just brought our presentation, hot off the press.

Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present. I’m Jean Blake. I’m the CEO for the Parkinson Society British Columbia, and with me is Richard Mayede, one of our volunteer board members. He also has Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s is a degenerative neurological condition. It affects approximately 13,000 British Columbians. Symptoms include tremors, loss of balance, difficulty with movement. It’s progressive — meaning that the symptoms worsen over time. Many people are able to control those symptoms, though, with medication, for some time. However, some people progress to more advanced Parkinson’s and have severe, disabling, motor fluctuations.

Deep brain stimulation, or DBS, is a surgical procedure used to treat a variety of those disabling symptoms, but it works only within a certain time period — again, as Parkinson’s disease is progressive. A lost year may be devastating, condemning people to a life of disability, flailing limbs, debilitating tremors, inability to move and, obviously, not being able to work or lead a normal life. The current wait-list to access DBS in British Columbia is five years.

Across Canada, there is at least one functional neurosurgeon for each two million people — except in B.C., where it’s one for five million. Dr. Chris Honey is currently the only trained neurosurgeon in B.C., and he has been performing these complex surgeries for many years. He’s trained another neurosurgeon that’s currently working out of Fraser Health, but he only does non-DBS neurosurgery. We understand Fraser Health is exploring providing DBS, but only in 2024, when their new tower is available. People with Parkinson’s disease cannot wait another five years. Again, there is that lost window of time.

Most people who receive it have their health restored for at least ten years, where they get ten good years of life before the disease progresses further. I urge you to read…. We have some stories, on pages 5 and 6 of our presentation, that talk about the torture, basically, that they live with until they get it. It’s night and day. Once that neural stimulator is turned on, they get their lives back.

[3:40 p.m.]

If you look at those folks, instead, having to go into hospital or long-term care at a cost of $80,000 to $100,000 per year for those ten years, that’s a million bucks a person. So we urge you to include funding — additional DBS to those who need it — as soon as possible and especially in the upcoming budget.

Richard is going to talk about his circumstances.

R. Mayede: My name is Richard Mayede, and I serve as a director on the board of B.C.’s Parkinson Society.

I was diagnosed in 2005 at the age of 37. I’m 50 today. I hope in my lifetime there will be a cure that reverses the damage done to my body and brain. Until that day comes, options to manage Parkinson’s disease as it progresses are few and far between.

First and foremost, what’s been happening with most people with Parkinson’s to manage the symptoms of the illness is a combination of levodopa and carbidopa. It’s been over 40 years since that came into existence. Some other prescription drugs have come about to modify the stretch of time that we have — that we’re able to kind of live life. But until the Parkinson’s community gets a great surge of support to find a cure….

J. Blake: Are you okay? Do you want me to take over?

B. D’Eith (Chair): There’s no rush. Just take your time. Take your time.

J. Blake: You can hear that it’s very, very personal for these people.

R. Mayede: We are limited often to help us manage this disease. I’m into my 14th year since my diagnosis.

I didn’t think I was going to be so emotional about this. Sorry.

My symptoms are gradually changing ever so slightly day to day, month to month, progressively getting worse year to year. My first ten years I was highly independent. Now I’m becoming less and less.

I don’t drive unless I have an adult passenger, and I take transit less now because of my problematic symptoms. Stiffness, weakness and freezing occur more frequently in the window of time the medication works. When it’s great, I can be very mobile for maybe up to six hours. When it’s worse, I can move for about maybe 90 minutes between bouts of up to three hours of stiffness and slow movement.

Deep brain stimulation is a surgical procedure that can address my main challenges that I just shared — stiffness, weakness and freezing — and help also lessen my involuntary movement. It is possibly an option for me, but I do not fully know yet.

My neurologist referred me to Dr. Honey. Dr. Honey acknowledged that he received that reference. I’m still waiting to actually meet Dr. Honey to find out if surgery will help and also to address my concerns that go with any type of invasive surgery.

Mainly because of my concerns, I don’t know if I want to follow through, but as of this moment, I cannot say yes or no until my turn comes up. Until I have that opportunity, I’m only left with questions I can’t get answered.

The wait-list is growing to three-plus years. Where I’m at with this illness, I have to live in the moment because I don’t know how much more my abilities will be taken away as I wait for the chance to follow through, even if I want to follow through. Yes, it scares me to make that decision, but the sooner I’m able to make that decision, the better.

I’m a highly positive person and do the utmost to live life happily and live with reality fully in view. I truly appreciate being born in Vancouver, living and still working in Vancouver and having access to some of the best doctors in the world right here in Vancouver actually because of the support of the government.

I urge you to continue to help us even more. People are struggling with symptoms even more challenging than mine. Help us access the ability to manage our illness with the best solutions available to us so we can live till the day that there’s a cure. Thank you.

[3:45 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. Thank you for your courage and for coming and talking to us today. We very much appreciate it. I can tell you’re a very upbeat person. Thank you so much for that.

What you’re saying is that you’re on a waiting list for DBS right now and you haven’t had a chance to meet with the neurosurgeon yet. Is that what you were saying?

R. Mayede: Yes, that’s right. From what I understand, just waiting that long…. It’ll be three years and, after that, another two years to actually get the procedure.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

N. Simons: How many surgeries are being done in B.C. now?

J. Blake: There are 40 being done a year, but only 20 of those are for Parkinson’s patients. There are other movement disorders as well. We understand from Dr. Honey that there are an additional 12 days being added this fall, and roughly half of those would be for Parkinson’s. You can imagine, if there’s already…. Once you are on the wait-list, there’s already a wait-list of 40 people plus. It’s a long time — and one neurosurgeon.

N. Simons: Is it just the one in B.C.?

J. Blake: One neurosurgeon in all of B.C. That’s here in Vancouver, so Vancouver Coastal hosts the budget. More than half — about three-quarters, they figure — are from outside of the health authority.

N. Simons: Can I ask: is this surgery identified as appropriate for anyone with Parkinson’s? Are there some forms that are not…?

J. Blake: Not everybody will proceed to that advanced stage where it will help them. That’s part of…. The movement disorder specialist, the neurologist who’s trained in Parkinson’s, will do an assessment, and then they will refer someone like Richard to Dr. Honey. Then Dr. Honey does, again, another assessment to decide that the person meets the criteria, that they’re going to benefit from the surgery. It’s quite a rigorous screening process.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is there a recruitment issue for neurosurgeons? What is the…?

J. Blake: Money.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Money.

J. Blake: Money and, I suppose, a willingness to move the…. There is specialized equipment, but it’s not that expensive in the larger scheme of things. It costs about $250,000 to equip an operating room with DBS equipment. Dr. Honey has trained numerous, numerous neurosurgeons over the years. They’ve gone back to their home countries, other provinces.

We currently have one working out of Royal Columbian doing other neurosurgeries. We see that as a little window of opportunity to keep this guy here in B.C., to get him doing DBS, also outside of Vancouver. Also a backup. Dr. Honey is not old but, like all of us, is getting older. To have only one neurosurgeon here in B.C. that’s qualified to do this seems not very far-looking, particularly when we’ve got this large number of people in such desperate straits.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, but….

N. Simons: Can I just ask one quick question? Thank you very much, by the way. It’s very helpful that you’re here and that you present to us. We hear a lot of people, but it’s important that the message resonates with us. You obviously were successful at doing that. Are there other doctors across this country? Are there others provinces that do things differently?

J. Blake: Well, Saskatchewan, with just over a million people, has three neurosurgeons, and they have virtually no wait-list. Once you get in and see them, you get scheduled.

T. Redies: You had said that we could actually do something.

J. Blake: I’m wondering about a reciprocity agreement if we can’t do it here. Alberta has about a six-month wait-list. Same in Ontario. If they’ve got lesser wait-lists, if it is an issue of — I don’t know what here — equipping an OR, or just not enough OR time…. There must be OR time, though, because of the situation where Dr. Honey actually got some additional days this year. He went and asked…. Now the health authority is going to be coordinating a wait-list amongst the neurosurgeons. He went to his colleagues and said: “I’m willing to do extra surgeries if you’ve got any spare time.”

It takes him a day — a surgery a day. It’s about a six-hour operation, so it pretty well consumes an OR for the day, and he has to have it in the operating room that has the specialized equipment. It would be the same thing for Royal Columbian, which is where this other surgeon is currently operating out of.

Yes, reciprocity agreements might be something. For example, we have people on the Alberta border — Sparwood, and so on. They’ve been allowed to go in to Calgary and access movement disorder specialists and have had their DBS done there. If they’ll do a few, why not look at that, at least as an interim solution? It might not be the permanent solution for B.C., but it sure would help.

[3:50 p.m.]

We have a lady in Salmon Arm right now who’s doing a GoFundMe campaign: $100,000, and she can get into the Mayo Clinic right away, but she needs to pay in the U.S. She has considered MAiD because she’s in such pain and it’s so difficult for her. We have two other stories on the post side of DBS that I was just talking about. They turn on that switch, and they get their life back. Now, again, it is a progressive disease, but they get eight to ten years at least. It can really turn into a very painful disease as it progresses.

I thank you very much, and I hope you will consider looking for a way to put it in the budget, or at least some reciprocity agreements. Thank you for that suggestion.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Thanks for coming.

Next up we have Speech and Hearing B.C. — Dr. Kate Chase.

SPEECH AND HEARING B.C.

K. Chase: Thank you, Chair and hon. Members, for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Dr. Kate Ballem Chase. I’m here today in my role as past president of Speech and Hearing B.C. I’m also a clinical assistant professor at UBC and the director of a local non-profit that provides early intensive intervention for children with a variety of special needs, and their families.

Speech and Hearing B.C. is a non-profit association with over 1,200 members — speech language pathologists and audiologists. We are the voice of our profession and patients in British Columbia. Speech and Hearing B.C. works to ensure that all British Columbians experience their human right to communicate. Our member SLPs — speech language pathologists — and audiologists are highly trained health professionals who provide assessment and treatment to individuals of all ages who may experience problems with their speech, language, hearing, voice, swallowing, fluency and social communication.

Speech and Hearing B.C. is here today to highlight the urgent need for a renewed investment in the communication health of British Columbians. Our written submission identifies three of many key areas of need. Today I will focus on the critical issue of early access to speech and language services for the children of British Columbia. B.C. is home to about 220,000 children under the age of five. Research suggests that 10 percent of those children will have difficulty with the development of speech, language and communication, and they’ll need the services of an SLP. So that’s 22,000 British Columbian children.

As I’m sure you know, language and communication development in these early years is linked with cognitive development, social skills, self-regulation and academic learning, and is considered a key social determinant of health that affects the trajectory of a child’s lifetime. So the cost to individuals and to society for missed opportunities to support children’s language development in the earliest years of life is really very huge.

Now, B.C. does not have nearly enough SLPs working with preschoolers to meet this need. Our current data, which we have gathered in many different ways, suggest that there are fewer than 200 full-time equivalents of SLPs working in publicly funded positions to support preschoolers with communication disorders. Recommended caseloads for preschool-age clients range from 20 to 40 children per clinician. Basic math shows that these numbers right now are closer to 115 children per clinician.

Recommended wait times for toddlers and preschoolers with communication delays are zero to four months, but our B.C. preschool children are waiting many months or even years to see a speech pathologist. When they do receive services, they’re often extremely limited. Some children do not even receive any services prior to kindergarten entry.

The research is very clear that the dose of therapy is important and that with the right dose, we really can make a difference.

Many children, with the benefit of therapy, can overcome their communication delays and be successful academically. As you probably know, Dr. Clyde Hertzman and the UBC human early learning partnership project have shown that up to 30 percent of B.C. children are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Children with communication delays form a large part of this group.

[3:55 p.m.]

Difficulties in communication contribute to compromised academic performance and can lead to significant behavioural challenges as well, throughout childhood and across the lifespan. High-quality therapy can make a significant difference. Currently there are just too few SLPs providing services to our youngest citizens.

We really recognize the significant investment the government has made through the early-years action plan in the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and we’re excited to see how those results affect services for kids with language disorders. But to reach many children in need, we need more SLPs in public health units. In many areas of the province, this is the primary route to access SLP services in the preschool years, and there really has been no significant investment in SLPs in the public health units in over ten years.

We estimate that at least 100 more full-time-equivalent speech pathologists working in public health roles are needed to meet the basic communication needs of these youngest British Columbians. So today we’re asking you to consider a new commitment of $8 million per year that would be dedicated to speech pathology services for toddlers and preschoolers in the public health system — in public health units, specifically. This would go a long way towards addressing these critical issues and allow health units across the province to recruit and hire new speech pathologists to meet the needs of these children.

All children have a right to communicate to the best of their ability, and we can help.

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

T. Redies: Having had a daughter with a speech and language issue, we lived in Alberta, came to B.C., and it was a significant difference. We were able to access private care, but obviously, most families can’t. You had me at “speech and language pathologist.”

If we were able to come up with the $8 million, could we find the 100 people quickly?

K. Chase: Not immediately, but over time I believe we could. The government has also funded a significant expansion of the seats at UBC. We’re up to 36 seats now, in the school of audiology and speech sciences, for speech pathologists, and that is making a difference. But these public health unit positions need to be out there before the public service will be able to recapture some of the clinicians that are currently going sometimes to the private sector as well.

T. Redies: But we could also recruit from outside the province, obviously.

K. Chase: Absolutely, yeah.

N. Simons: My mom was a teacher of hearing-impaired and deaf kids for many, many years. I know the importance of early detection and early intervention, for lack of a better word. You say the optimum wait time is, obviously, zero to four — the shorter, the better. What about the period of time before a diagnosis is even achieved? I understand there is the wait to get the diagnosis, and then there’s the wait for the service.

K. Chase: That “zero to four months” really refers to the time that a parent voices concern about their child’s communication delay to getting some service. One of the great things about SLP services is that they don’t really require a highly specific diagnosis to start supporting. Autism is a good example, right? That’s the first point of contact for many kids with autism. There’s often a year or more, in some parts of the province, before an actual diagnosis is made, but in the meantime, if we can be providing therapy, it’s effective.

N. Simons: Is UBC the only institution that provides that course?

K. Chase: Yes. There are only five in Canada. UBC is one, and our only in…. We have great graduates.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Chase. We really appreciate it.

K. Chase: Thank you for having me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Elysia Saundry.

ELYSIA SAUNDRY

E. Saundry: Thank you, Chair, and hon. committee members. My name is Elysia Saundry, and I am also a speech-language pathologist — purely a coincidence of the time slot. I currently work at a treatment centre for children with autism.

[4:00 p.m.]

In my work, I work in interdisciplinary teams with occupational therapists, behaviour consultants and behaviour interventionists. The intervention services that we provide for these children help to develop their communication, socioeconomic, pre-academic, academic and functional life skills. The families that we serve are primarily able to access our services thanks to the B.C. government’s autism funds unit. As we are a private clinic, the families are able to access our services thanks to this funding.

The autism funds unit was established in 2002 for children under six. Families received $20,000 a year to use towards qualified practitioners in the private sector. Similarly, the autism funds unit for school-age children, six to 18, was established in 2003 with $6,000 a year given to families for out-of-school intervention services.

Since then, there has been one increase for the under-six program — from $20,000 to $22,000, in 2010 — but no changes since. There has not been any increase for school-age autism funding since establishment in 2003.

My ask, for the provincial government budget this year, is to consider increasing the funding for families to access treatment. A high-quality intervention program for families can cost $40,000 a year or more for a high-quality, integrated, interdisciplinary team. A few of the families that we’ve seen are able to pay out of pocket once that $22,000 runs out, but the vast, vast majority are not.

The autism funds unit was a leading-edge program when it was established back in 2002. There have been positive changes throughout the year — for example, switching to billing the service providers directly, where previously families had to pay completely out of pocket up front and then get reimbursed.

I’m very pleased to see that there are changes being made. I would like to urge the government to continue its growth by increasing this funding in order for families to access better-quality intervention services so that their children will be able to have the skills to build meaningful relationships with others in society and be more productive members.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks. Just a quick question before I go to the rest of the committee. Obviously, there are different levels of autism — in a sense, a spectrum. When you say $40,000, is that for someone with extreme…? I mean, how does that work? It seems like 20 grand and 40 grand…. But autism is a spectrum. So can you just elaborate a little bit more on why those numbers and how it varies from patient to patient or child to child?

E. Saundry: As you say, autism is quite a wide spectrum for functional level and ability. Practitioners do take that into account when seeing if one-to-one intervention is the best or if a parent-coaching model is the best. The problem, though, is that with the funding that’s given to families, there isn’t any distinction between what your child needs. There are some families for whom $22,000 is enough. But for those who do require more, then there’s no way for them to get any extra.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Right, okay. That makes sense.

Any other questions at all?

Well, thank you very much for your presentation — really appreciate it.

Next up we have viaSport — Ninu Gill and Jennifer Heil.

Hello, welcome. How are you?

VIASPORT

J. Heil: Great, thank you. Good afternoon. We’re really excited for this opportunity because we’re incredibly passionate about what we do. So thank you for that, and thank you to the government for their ongoing commitment and funding to sport.

My name is Jennifer Heil. I’m VP of sport development at viaSport. With the support of the province, viaSport oversees more than 70 B.C. sport organizations and manages approximately $16 million of government investment in sport for provincial leadership development, community initiatives and cross-sector activations. Our purpose at viaSport is to transform and scale the impact of sport to create more equitable, safe, inclusive and meaningful sport experiences.

[4:05 p.m.]

I’ve just told you what we do, but why do we do it? Why sport? Well, it is well researched that the benefits of physical activity and sport are underestimated today. Kids who are active live healthier and more fulfilling lives. Sport is globally recognized as a powerful catalyst in achieving gender equality. When more girls play sports, there’s greater female participation in all of society.

Kids are born with the capacity but not the skills to be physically active. That’s something we often forget. Kids who have the desire to be physically active and play sports have built those skills and created the confidence to do so.

These three things — desire, skills and confidence — when all combined are known as physical literacy. Today that’s where I want to focus my remarks — on physical literacy and how viaSport is activating across the province on this topic.

So viaSport’s aim is to invest in the preventative health care measures of physical literacy and sport. As identified in a May 2018 Auditor General report, the largest burden to B.C.’s health care system is combatting chronic disease. And viaSport’s aim is to make physical literacy accessible and affordable for all by leveraging the expertise, reach and experience of the B.C. sport sector.

So viaSport, along with our 70 organizations, including provincial and multisport organizations, has a long history of delivering physical literacy and fundamental movement skills across sectors. We’ve done a lot to lead the physical literacy movement, where we’ve created a physical literacy advisory group which is cross-sectoral and provides a coordinated approach to advance the goals identified in the Ministry of Health’s Active People, Active Places.

In summary, physical literacy education and training is an incredibly important component to truly make a difference in our community, but alone, it is not enough. We must increase the local leadership and local organizational capacity. That is what MOVE, a viaSport Regional Alliance physical literacy initiative is doing.

MOVE will specialize in building local capacity to deliver physical literacy across four sectors — the sectors of recreation, sport, education and early childhood education. MOVE is able to think provincially but activate locally, because it is created and delivered by the viaSport Regional Alliance. This is a collective of eight regional multisport delivery organizations supporting people across the province, regardless of ability or socioeconomic background.

Today we are recommending an investment in the second phase of the MOVE initiative, expanding it beyond its pilot phase. It will be a major step in a multisector approach to improving the health outcomes of our communities and reducing chronic disease.

A $500,000 investment through viaSport would expand this program by 2020 year-end to include two additional sectors and create sustainability in all four sectors. Namely, it would expand it to all regions of the province. It would impact an estimated 100,000 participants, 10,000 educators, recreation leaders and coaches.

This is essential, because while quality, physical literacy activation is occurring today across the province, it is not yet resulting in widespread local capacity-building, and it is not yet reaching every child in British Columbia, giving them the desire, confidence and competence to move.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Did you want to add anything?

N. Gill: I think maybe one more thing to add is that another aim of MOVE is, really, to create a self-sustaining program. So whether it’s partially or completely self-funded, that is definitely an aim of the program as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Where would the funding come from for the self-financing?

N. Gill: Local sector groups have already actually indicated that they’re on board with diverting some of their funding to this program already.

J. Heil: It’s already being piloted in the Fraser Valley region, and it’s being reached with such enthusiasm that local school districts are actually diverting some of their current funding to support this. They recognize the need, that having the expertise within their school will allow this to be sustainable, rather than always bringing in the outside expertise and retraining people.

N. Simons: Thank you very much for everything and for this work that you’re doing now. We’re hearing this message where…. We’ve been around the province, and we’re going to continue going around the province. We’ve heard about the importance of making it possible for people to deliver it in the small communities — so training the trainer in a sense.

J. Heil: Exactly, so through resources, training, programs and mentorship. That full idea of that four-combination of service is really critical.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Could you just explain the expansion piece? You said the $500,000…. Where is it right now, and where would it expand to?

J. Heil: Today there has been an initial investment of just under $200,000 to pilot it and to create it for the two sectors of education and recreation. In January, that will be expanded to five other regions across our province. The additional investment would be to create the pilot for the other two sectors, early child care and sport, and from there to create scale at all four programs across the province through the regional alliance centres.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Perfect.

Any other questions?

Okay. Well, thank you very much for your presentation.

A two-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 4:10 p.m. to 4:14 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. We’re back with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

[4:15 p.m.]

Next up if we could call the Graduate Student Society at Simon Fraser University. We have Pierre Cenerelli and Noortje De Weers.

GRADUATE STUDENT SOCIETY
AT SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

N. De Weers: On behalf of the Graduate Student Society at Simon Fraser University, we’d like to thank you for giving us the time to tell you what we think would be a valuable investment for the budget of 2019.

GSS is a recognized student society under British Columbia’s University Act and Societies Act. We represent over 4,000 students in nearly 40 academic programs at SFU, in Burnaby, Vancouver and Surrey.

This must have been a long day for you, so I’ll try to keep it short. I would like to start off by thanking you for helping address the maintenance needs at SFU and other post-secondary institutions. We’re very grateful for that.

Now on to our first point. We conducted a large-scale survey among our members in 2016, which revealed that our graduate students struggle to stay afloat financially. Our survey showed that nearly 40 percent of our members did not receive an offer of funding upon admission. More than half of our respondents indicated that they rely on savings, their family or their partners for financial support. The fact that a large number of graduate students depend on unsustainable sources like loans and family assistance to pay for living expenses is concerning for us, as it suggests that they have a very thin buffer against financial insecurity.

Funding, or a lack thereof, is an important concern for graduate students, as you can imagine. Although the introduction of the British Columbia graduate scholarship program has been a much-anticipated step in the right direction, we’re looking forward to what next steps will be undertaken to promote further growth.

The high cost of living in B.C. and the many educational opportunities available elsewhere make it difficult for B.C. universities to contend with the increasingly competitive world of advanced education. While most other provinces have permanent financial support systems in place to attract the best graduate students, the B.C. graduate scholarship program is still temporary. We would, therefore, urge the provincial government to make this program permanent, and we’d be happy to work with both the government and SFU to demonstrate the need for continuing this program past its projected two years.

Another point we would like to raise is that the scholarship program, in its current form, only targets Canadian students, which substantially restricts the pool of applicants. If B.C. truly aims to attract and retain the brightest minds in the world, then the program would benefit greatly from expanding its pool to include international students as well.

The second point that we’d like to raise today is affordable, family-friendly student housing. SFU does not offer any student accommodations that are appropriate for couples or families. Even for single graduate students, accommodation on campus is extremely limited. SFU currently only has 170 beds on campus that are reserved for graduate students, divided into 138 studios, eight two-bedroom units and eight three-bedroom units. Since we have a membership of over 4,000 students, that means that only 4 percent of SFU’s graduate students can be accommodated on campus. As a result, there are always wait-lists for graduate student residences.

Our members made it clear that housing was an important issue to them. Many students, particularly international students, indicated that they would live on campus if suitable housing was available. Suitable housing for graduate students is not living in dorm-style residences, which the university currently offers, but instead, in affordable studios or one-bedroom units. As you know, SFU only has an extremely limited offer of that type, and it is just as difficult to find this type of affordable housing in the Lower Mainland.

In SFU’s current strategic housing plan, family-style housing on campus won’t be built until 2030, at the earliest. Since last year, the graduate student population has increased by 4 percent, with no sign of slowing down. This means that in the years to come, an ever-growing number of graduate students will be looking for family-style residences in the Lower Mainland, which will add further pressure to an already extremely tight housing market.

One way in which the government can actively provide some relief is by helping universities expedite the building of more housing on their campuses for graduate students and their families, or even undergraduate students who have families. The more that affordable housing becomes available for graduate students, the fewer of those students will be competing for housing in the general rental market.

[4:20 p.m.]

In light of these considerations, therefore, we strongly urge the government to consider providing direct investment in the building of family-friendly institutional housing for students, as this will not only provide affordable housing for students but will also take some of the pressure off of the housing market.

We would be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for listening to us.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much. I just had one clarification. Student housing for families that is suitable for grad students — I understand that. It’s been a long day, like you said. Could you go back to what the specific request is for grad students in regards to domestic and international students? You said we should be attracting them, but how? What’s the solution?

P. Cenerelli: I think you’re referring to the first point, which is about the program that the B.C. government has set up to attract talented graduate students. There’s a fellowship program for graduate students, and it is currently not open to people who are not Canadian citizens or residents of Canada.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Got it. So you’re saying to expand that to international?

P. Cenerelli: Yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m sure that’s exactly what you said, and I apologize that it did not actually get into this brain.

P. Cenerelli: It’s fine. No, no, that’s okay.

N. Simons: I understood, as a former graduate student at SFU, that there was a residence that was family friendly. Did they tear it down finally?

N. De Weers: They did. Because of deferred maintenance, it was, at that point, so badly maintained it had to be torn down. Louis Riel, which is the only….

N. Simons: How many residents were in there?

P. Cenerelli: Hundreds, I’m going to guess.

N. De Weers: I would say less than that. Because it was family-style housing, they couldn’t house as many people in that one building. But that has been a grievance of the GSS for a long time: that ever since that building was torn down, nothing has been built to replace it.

T. Redies: Thanks for your presentation. Have you got any data with respect to international students, graduate students, coming here to B.C. — whether or not they stay in B.C. or they go back to their home countries? That’s actually a challenge, because again, government only has so much funding, which is probably why the focus has been on Canadian students. But certainly, if there was evidence that those students were actually staying in the country, then it would make, probably, a better business case for providing scholarships.

N. De Weers: Yeah. We don’t have that data as of yet, but in the housing survey we did, the type of student that indicated that they were most interested in living on campus — which would be part of the package deal, if you will, to come to B.C. and stay as well — was international students. They’re the ones who are most desperate to find housing, because they don’t know anybody here. They have no contacts. So if housing is part of the deal for them, they would be more likely to stay and also just more likely to come in the first place.

P. Cenerelli: We do have anecdotal evidence that some departments at SFU find it difficult to attract students and so, quite frankly, don’t even bother. An example of that was that when competing with universities like Concordia University in Montreal, the various engineering faculty people would not even bother putting an offer in, because they knew that Concordia would have so much more that it wasn’t even worth it. It’s anecdotal. There’s not hard evidence there. But clearly, for some departments it’s a real struggle.

N. De Weers: We could probably get that data though, if that would be of interest.

P. Cenerelli: We could try, yeah.

T. Redies: I totally understand that, again, it’s a war for talent. I guess the issue — I can see some of the challenges for government — is that if they’re funding scholarships for people who don’t actually stay in the country, then that’s problematic, right? So any data that could suggest that those students, these international students, actually stay in the country would probably be helpful in terms of supporting that business case.

N. De Weers: I’ll let the president know, because he’s been actually talking about this, and he apparently does have the story somewhere. So I’ll let him know, and you can bring that up when it’s his turn to talk here.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. Actually, my daughter’s a graduate from SFU, and she did not live on campus. It raises, for me, the question…. It sounds like you see a distinction in the housing for graduate students versus undergrads, so there’s that question.

Then the second question is around the life of a graduate student. When you’re building student housing, the school year is not a full 12 months, generally. Is that still the case with graduate students? How mobile are they? How short term are they?

[4:25 p.m.]

N. De Weers: You mean in terms of student housing on campus for graduate students — if that is a fixed-term contract?

R. Leonard: Well, I’m looking at one of the challenges for student housing, which is…. You have a capital cost to build a unit, and you get your best return on it if it’s occupied 12 months of the year. I’m just asking to see what the distinctions are for graduate housing, student housing, and what the life of a graduate student is like in terms of being able to stay and maximize that housing.

N. De Weers: Well, that depends. If you were to do a PhD, like I’m doing, that would be between four and six years. You could stay in a place.

R. Leonard: Constantly, 12 months a year.

N. De Weers: Yeah, full time. A graduate student, like for masters, would be at least two years. But in practice, it usually takes longer than two years.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I think Ronna-Rae is saying: is that year-round as a graduate student versus undergrad, which is just at the end of April, you’re out of there. Is it normal for grad students to stay?

P. Cenerelli: More the case for graduates. I mean, you’re right to say it depends on the graduate student. But the thing is, it’s true that for many graduate students, it is yearlong. For PhDs, the only time when they would be away is when they’re doing research, and then they go abroad or something like that. But typically, they are there longer than undergrads, where many of them don’t come from this area. As you say, they go back home.

N. De Weers: Yeah, we have to be careful to make a distinction. When we talk about graduate housing, we don’t necessarily exclude undergraduate students. We’re just talking about students who are in a different life phase than undergraduate students who have children. That might be undergraduate students as well. Anybody who is, at this point, no longer living in dorm-style residences cannot find anything like that at SFU. That’s the point that we want to get across.

P. Cenerelli: Families are more stable.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, but thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thanks for your presentation.

Next up we have Downtown Eastside Literacy Roundtable — William Booth and Namorsh Reddy.

DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE
LITERACY ROUNDTABLE

N. Reddy: Good afternoon. I’m really excited to be here, and William here is with me. I acknowledge that we live, learn, work and play on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples — Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam nations.

I’m an outreach worker with 25 years of experience in education, working in the Downtown Eastside–South Granville area. Again, my name is Namorsh Reddy. I begin by thanking the committee for your recommendation in 2017 for the annual funding for community literacy work in B.C. We also acknowledge that the important work of the committee played a role in the decision to lift the punitive tuition fees imposed upon adult learners.

I’m speaking on behalf of the Downtown Eastside Literacy Roundtable, which is a coalition of adult educators. The round table understands literacy as having the knowledge, skills and confidence to participate fully in life. Accessibility to upgrade and receive a B.C. high school diploma does not exist for people living in the Downtown Eastside community. This further oppresses people in the community who are already disconnected, dispossessed and disadvan­taged.

The closure of three Downtown East Education Centres means that people must travel to either the Gathering Place or South Hill Education Centre. Although funding was restored for graduated adults with the change in government, education programming and operating hours have been significantly reduced within the remaining two centres.

This impacts youth ages 16 and older who are being pushed out of the K-to-12 system. In some cases, this is because of attendance issues or their inability to academically succeed either due to diagnosed or undiagnosed learning challenges. Many of these youth also have part-time jobs to assist their caregivers to financially maintain the household. So flexibility and understanding are key for their success.

Adult education facilitates single parents as well as their children attending school. There are also issues of homelessness, mental health and concurrent disorders to consider.

[4:30 p.m.]

Students that were within the foster care system are now living independently on youth agreements through Family Services. It is essential for students on youth agreements to upgrade, graduate and enter post-secondary education in order to achieve financial independence.

The cuts to adult education have left people in this community with limited hope to pursue education. They’re being forced out of their communities to access education in a different community where they’re disoriented and do not feel safe. Safety and a lack of resources to attend another centre are significant barriers.

This community has been devastated by the opioid crisis since 2016. Education is a key factor in harm reduction. Education enriches and promotes a person’s self-esteem.

The community adult literacy program, CALP, has been operating in the province for many, many years and provides support to community-based literacy work throughout B.C. The funds for the program have remained stable, but the demand for the program has almost doubled. This means that programs are receiving less and less money to coordinate the adult, family and Aboriginal literacy programs that are supported by in-kind resources from non-profit partners, post-secondary institutions and volunteer tutors.

Now I’ll share with you a snapshot of students that have successfully navigated their way through and have received their B.C. high school diploma and one that is currently working towards that. A student from China living in poverty came here for a better life. She was, in fact, brought here for sex trafficking. She escaped by accessing an information booklet given to her by an adult education outreach worker at an adult ed centre. She graduated this year and is currently attending BCIT, enrolled in the heart diagnostic technician program. She’s also a permanent resident.

Another success story is about a student who was in and out of the foster care system. Her mother suffered from concurrent disorders and was frequently hospitalized, unable to look after her children. This student began volunteering in the Downtown Eastside, and she enrolled in high school upgrading courses at the Downtown Eastside Education Centre until it closed. Despite not having resources to access transit, she remained focused on her goal to graduate and walked to the Gathering Place every day that she could. She graduated and received a $3,000 scholarship and is now in her third year, studying sciences at UBC.

I cannot end this without sharing one more story about a young person who was bullied at their high school and living in fear of having to face their bullies every day. Their attendance was sporadic, thereby affecting their grades. Their mental and physical wellness was compromised. It became clear that they would not graduate with their peers.

I was contacted by the guidance counsellor to review adult education as a potential option for this student, and we determined that it was. The student is now in her second year at Gathering Place and is thriving in their coursework, leading to graduation. This student also has a planned career path to complete all prerequisite courses to become a dental hygienist.

In conclusion, the community needs sustainable, reliable access to literacy education. Literacy education programs, such as those we described above, open pathways to further learning, employment and possibilities for more stable lives. Education is embedded in a whole life approach to fighting poverty, finding and maintaining stable housing, staying informed about crucial health and wellness issues such as that of the opioid crisis, and staying connected to social networks within the community.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you. I wanted to clarify something. Adult education is being made free with the latest announcement, but you said that there are cuts to adult education. I’m just wondering what…. I’m just trying to get my head around what you’re talking about there and why that’s happening. It seems confusing to me when adult education is being basically made free.

[4:35 p.m.]

N. Reddy: Okay. Just to give you an example. When our centre first opened, we were open 80 hours a week. The hours have been cut to 50, and now we’re operating at 25 hours a week. Also, the course selection and the programming that we used to be able offer…. The courses have been significantly cut. For example, you can’t take French, even though you do require French as a second language to get into some post-secondary institutions. Also, communications 11 and 12 will not be offered next year.

I know that adult ed was not a part of the GED, but people would come to us to upgrade and prepare for that test so that they could get an equivalency to move forward in post-secondary for courses that did offer the GED. That was also taken away, so Canadians…. Or British Columbians, I should say, because Alberta still has it. That’s not an option, either.

W. Booth: Does that answer your question?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Maybe I just need to get my head around the nature of what you’re doing versus what, maybe, other groups are doing so that I can understand what the gap is. I’m not understanding why there’s a gap. What’s causing the gap? Is it…? You’re saying cuts. Who’s cutting? Is it the school board?

Interjection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You can answer that?

N. Simons: I think my question might help answer that. I think we’re talking about different things.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. Maybe we are.

N. Simons: I don’t think we’re talking about recent cuts. I think we’re talking about the cuts that have occurred over the last number of years.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, okay.

T. Redies: Sixteen years.

N. Simons: I’m supposed to say 16 years, not you guys.

I didn’t hear about the education centres closing as well, which makes it worse and harder to pick up again.

W. Booth: You’re absolutely right. The cuts that we’re talking about in education are long term, but they’re impacting what we actually can do today. This government has re-established adult basic education and English as a second language, which are really critical. At the same time, the demand is exponential. The volunteers that work with our various agencies have become, for all intents and purposes, front-line workers because the expectation is that they will help to address some of these issues. The reality is that they don’t have the training to do this kind of work. So we’re dealing with more demands, as Namorsh says, with less resources across the board.

This is different than formal education. The literacy that we’re talking about, the education that we’re talking about and the educational partners that we have…. While some of them are with secondary and post-secondary institutions, a lot of them are with community-based programs and dealing with people with serious multiple issues.

Does that help?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, thank you. I was just trying to understand.

Thank you, Nicholas, for the question.

Any other questions?

My final question is: what would be your specific ask? If you want us to go back and do something, what is it specifically? What do you need the Finance Committee to do? If adult education is being brought back, what is it specifically that you’re asking for?

W. Booth: What this committee recommended last year was $2.5 million annually for literacy. That deals with the whole province. There are 101, I believe, literacy organizations provincially. That money is divided by school districts. So in Vancouver, which we’re a part of, there are eight literacy coordinators like myself, because that’s how the school district is sorted out. That money goes to Decoda Literacy Solutions, which some of you are familiar with. They, in turn, distribute that money across the province.

While you recommended that, and it has been recommended for a number of years now, the government is still not delivering $2.5 million. That’s what we would like you to consider.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So that’s the ask. Got it. I just want to be very clear what the ask is.

Any other questions?

Well, thank you very much for your commitment to literacy. We do recognize how important it is to our citizens.

Next up we have Gregg Garbe and Colleen Garbe.

Welcome.

[4:40 p.m.]

GREGG GARBE

G. Garbe: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today. We want to speak on the issue of equality in health care, or the lack of equality in health care, in regards to addiction and mental health. This is my wife, Colleen, of 41 years. We are not experts in the field, but we may be experts in life’s experience of mental health and addiction, unfortunately.

In 2010, I was in a meeting with a lawyer, and I lost the feeling in my legs. I didn’t walk for nine months. The doctors threw pills at me. I became addicted to opioids. I couldn’t live in my mind. I couldn’t live in my body. I attempted several times to take my life. The following day I walked into VGH, the psych unit, and I was diagnosed with complex PTSD and panic disorder through trauma that happened to me throughout my life. I said to the doctor: “Where do we go from here?” He handed me a leaflet for suicide prevention.

The system is not there, for those of us that are suffering with PTSD and all other mental health issues, as we would like it to be. We are pleased that the provincial government has a dedicated mental health and addictions…. We are excited about the future that that holds for us, and that’s why we’re here today. My wife and I have met with Peter Julian, Carla Qualtrough and Judy Darcy, who has referred us to come and speak to this committee.

We also, two years ago, lost our 30-year-old nephew to the opioid crisis. There’s really something wrong with a system where people that need help and support cannot get it. Or they can get it if they’ve got money, but if they don’t have money, they don’t get it. Who can afford $200…? When you can’t work because of your addiction or mental health issue and it’s $220 or $300 for an assessment from a clinical psychologist, a year waiting list for psychiatry, who, for the most part…?

Nothing on psychiatry — we need it. But throwing pills at it…. They had me on seven different pharmaceuticals. Four of those seven pharmaceuticals had a suicidal component to them. There’s education that needs to be done in that regard.

I feel that if the federal government and the provincial government really want to make a change in mental health…. Everybody says they do. I have not met a person who can talk against mental health or addiction. It is something that should bind us together as Canadians. It may be the biggest crisis and loss of life that we have in this country since the Second World War with the way that we’re losing people. Four more people have died as of today, the way it is going.

If I go into the hospital and I have a broken ankle or I have a life-threatening illness, I get treated. If I go to seek help for mental health or an addiction, I might get help, or I might not. I might have to be able to afford it. We’re not going to remove stigma or discrimination or inequity within our health care system until it’s covered under the MSP plan so that people can get the help when they need it, when they want it. There’s something seriously wrong with that.

If we want to engage and have Canadians feel like they’re accepted in this country, they have to be treated with equality. That, at the present time, is not happening. I know there are great strides to do that. We’re pleased about that. We believe that clinical psychologists should be covered under the plan so that people can get the treatment they want. Those issues of mental health and addiction are bound together. They are one and the same.

[4:45 p.m.]

As a child, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. My teachers used to come up and say: “You seem so far away.”

We want to see early intervention in the school system. We want to see mental health and addiction in the curriculum and taught in the schools so there are coping mechanisms for children as well, and they have the opportunity.

It is: how do we change this? How? We cannot keep throwing band-aids at it and think somehow it’s going to change — doing the same old thinking, thinking that we’re going to get a different result.

There has to be a cultural change in this country, and I can’t think of a better place to start than in B.C. B.C. has the first Mental Health and Addictions Minister, and it may be the epicentre for the loss of life that we’re having in this country. It should start here.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Gregg. Thanks for showing the courage to come and talk about these issues. Part of the challenge is always stigma. It takes people like yourself to come forward to deal with those sort of things in our community.

We really appreciate it. I know you’ve already talked to Minister Judy Darcy, and that’s great, because every day that’s what she does. She gets up every day, and this is what she’s working on.

It’s a complex issue. It’s going to take some time. But she’s a very passionate person, and I have every confidence that she’ll get some solutions to move forward.

Any questions?

T. Redies: Just thank you for coming.

G. Garbe: Thank very much for listening to us.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, I really appreciate it. You know, I think with many of these issues, it’s complex. It’s long term. It’s big. Please continue your advocacy, and please continue to speak up. As I said, thank you for your courage in coming out. We really appreciate it.

Keith Steeves, from Atlantic Pacific Spaceline Enterprises Inc.

Nice to see you. Just a reminder, we have five minutes for presentation and then five minutes for questions.

K. Steeves: I’ll have to make this quick. It goes very fast.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It does. Thanks, Keith.

ATLANTIC PACIFIC
SPACELINE ENTERPRISES

K. Steeves: First of all, my name’s Keith Steeves, and my company that I represent…. I’m here for myself and my company, APSE Inc.

I heard about this through a notice found in the Vancouver Public Library. That was about a week ago. I contacted the Office of the Clerk, I believe, on Friday. I looked at the schedule, and it said Vancouver was filled. The only thing available close by would be Esquimalt. But then I heard, well, you have a vacancy here at the end of the day, so I took this instead.

I turned 66 this year. I guess, looking around, I’m probably the old geezer in the room here. Where should I start? I’m having to do this on the fly because I didn’t have too much time to prepare this presentation. My presentation is more….

The first half is a gripe. I’ve tried to put in, early in the spring, a private bill to the Legislature, and to my dismay, it didn’t go anywhere. I give the documentation on this to you in the documentation I’ve sent in.

I want to change one clause in an existing statute. I got involved in this in the B.C. utility public hearing process for the Site C dam. I put a proposal in to the commission as an alternative, and because of the legislation that was in place, I was, in effect, blocked.

[4:50 p.m.]

I was left scratching my head trying to figure out what to do. It took me a number of months. I thought it would just be a minor change, but apparently, with the standing processes that they have in the Legislature, it’s almost the equivalent of introducing a new act.

This is where I’m at now. I received documentation from the Office of the Clerk on Friday. I noticed…. Now, they tell me I cannot actually bring this to you. Please bear in mind, if you look at the documentation…. The documentation from the Clerk specifies other information, which I was not aware of. I had older information out of the Vancouver Public Library.

I have to now pay $500 to put an application in. I also have to make up 200 applications. I also have to make a double request by filing an advertisement in the B.C. Gazette twice — and in a local paper that’s relevant to my concern, twice. Past activity with the National Energy Board…. I know that with the submissions for the LNG industry, you have to spend a lot of money for ads in newspapers.

So this is a deterrent. I think that this is unfair for myself and my company and for other people as well. It’s undemocratic. I also point out to you — looking at your website here — in this year, you’ve had 35 government bills. You’ve had 20 member bills, and you only had one — count ’em — one private bill. Is this fair, I ask you? So that’s my gripe.

Now, concerning the other information, concerning the budget, I’d like to spend the last minute or two here going on and looking over the documentation that you have. I believe you’ve already seen this — a general feel-good presentation for the average layperson on the street to let him know what’s going on, because budgets are very detailed and hard to get into and hard to understand.

My quick assessment here says that…. First quarterly report update. My assessment is the B.C. government here is losing control. I would say the GDP growth rate will not be as they project. It’ll probably be down, because — why? Because of the Trump administration with NAFTA. Also, the interest rates are going up. That will affect the growth rate, so that will go down. The debt-to-GDP ratio is constant, and the debt-to-revenue ratio is going up, so you won’t have the money there, and you’re going to have problems with the debt.

I’m fiscally conservative. I want to put that on the table. I believe in balanced budgets and reduced debts, low taxes, and I think everybody would like that.

Capital spending is also going up here. Presumably, that may have something to do with the Site C dam, which we know is going up by about $1 billion a year for every stoppage that occurs. You also have the deferred or off-balance-sheet funding in B.C. Hydro. Somebody has got to pay for it — taxpayers or ratepayers at some point in time. You’ve got to bring it forward, got to have clear accounts.

Surplus. Again….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Mr. Steeves, we’re at 5-30, so I just want to…. If you wouldn’t mind wrapping it up, that would be good.

K. Steeves: Okay.

With regards to the presentations that were made here today, I would say Geoscience B.C., Mr. Gavin Dirom, past president of the AME…. I’m a member of the Association for Mineral Exploration. We don’t like…. Well, I don’t like, and I’m sure the other members in my society don’t like the taxes for the mining industry.

Again, we would also support the activities of Geoscience B.C., because without their information, the prospectors in our society cannot operate and develop mines, etc.

Then also, going on, one quick point here. They have questions. They ask you to list out your priorities, and I would say the bottom two — debt reduction and roads, highways and bridges.

We need the money for the roads, highways, bridges, airports, infrastructure, water, electricity for development of mines. You need that infrastructure because the industry can’t do it alone. In today’s society, I must submit, in B.C. we have a mature mining industry. If you don’t get support for the mining industry, it’s going to go down. So you need support. You don’t need extra taxes.

[4:55 p.m.]

I’m probably running out of time. I wanted to give you one final thing. Also in the morning, you had a number of presentations from the education industry. Well, a number of years ago, when Gordon Campbell was in office — that’s in 2007, I believe it was — they had Campus 2020. That was referred to by one of the individuals here. I sat down and wrote a report to the former Premier.

My recommendation here is — and it still is…. The teachers are not going to like it. I would raise the question: what is the purpose of education? It is to train our residential students — for B.C. residents. It’s not geared for the education of foreign students. You have to look at the history here. The history says, going back to Brian Mulroney…. He brought in free trade. He brought in the GST. But that wasn’t enough.

When our Jean Chrétien came in, he had to cut funding. You see that if you go up to UBC, the library. In 1994, all the journals got cut. Why? Because Chrétien downloaded the responsibility for education onto the provinces. The provinces didn’t have the money to go into education, and it got cut. What happened? Education is now a business entity. It has to go on a growth mode by bringing in foreign students and having to get them to pay the shot for the costs that are involved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just so you know, we are actually completely out of time now because we’ve used up your question time as well. I appreciate your presentation, and we will take it into account.

K. Steeves: Could I just make one point?

B. D’Eith (Chair): One quick one.

K. Steeves: A recommendation: close down the education system and send our post-secondary students out of the province as Rhodes Scholars to institutions that have the resources, have the teachers and can do it cheaper and better than what we can do here now. That was my recommendation I made to the Premier, and nothing happened.

I have other things but….

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, no, that’s great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Next up we have the B.C. Alliance for Arts and Culture — Brenda Leadlay.

Welcome. Last but not least.

B. Leadlay: Yeah. I managed to squeak in for some reason. I was not registered again this year. Either I’m a complete idiot or there’s a glitch in the system.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, no. That’s why we had the extra spaces at the end — just for that.

B. Leadlay: Oh, did you? That’s very wise.

B.C. ALLIANCE FOR ARTS AND CULTURE

B. Leadlay: I very much appreciate you having these consultations, and I appreciate the opportunity to make this presentation on behalf of the B.C. Alliance for Arts and Culture, a provincial arts service organization with over 480 members provincewide. It has been serving the cultural sector for about 31 years.

My name is Brenda Leadlay. I’m the executive director. I’m also very grateful to work on the unceded ancestral territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

First off, I want to thank you very much for recognizing the value of arts and culture in British Columbia with the additional $5 million in funding to the B.C. Arts Council over the next three years. It gives the sector hope, and it shows that this government understands that arts and culture are essential parts of who we are, connecting, challenging and inspiring us.

The benefits of the $5 million increase since the spring round of operating grants has enabled the B.C. Arts Council to provide supplemental funding to keep its existing clients sustainable and vital with increases of between 13 and 18 percent. But the B.C. Arts Council still has a very long way to go to fulfill the promises of their new strategic plan, which was just released a few months ago. The plan is focused on equity, diversity and access in order to build a sustainable, innovative economy — a goal that is strongly aligned with the priorities of the new government.

The key objectives of the B.C. Arts Council’s new plan are to improve sustainability and creative development; to enhance engagement with Indigenous arts and culture, which need to be at the forefront because they’re important tools for reconciliation; to expand support for regional arts and community arts because regional priorities are very important in the new plan and also align with the government’s vision; and to increase support for equity, diversity and access so that the multiculturalism of British Columbia is fully represented.

[5:00 p.m.]

As you can well imagine, what I’m saying is that a greater investment in arts, culture, heritage and creativity is needed in order for the B.C. Arts Council to implement these important new objectives and for the government to keep its pledge and fulfill the priorities of Premier Horgan’s mandate letter.

I’d like to recap three of the six priorities that were outlined in the letter to Minister Lisa Beare: to double the province’s investment in the B.C. Arts Council over four years; to establish the arts infrastructure fund to help provide space for B.C. artists; and to work with the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to develop a community capital infrastructure fund to upgrade and build sports facilities, playgrounds, local community centres and arts and culture spaces. Thankfully, as you know, these new moneys have already been committed to that ministry for the community, culture and recreation and the northern communities funds, which are being matched by the federal government.

Not-for-profit arts and culture organizations can apply for it, but it will be very competitive, with local governments, Indigenous communities and recreational facilities all seeking money from the same pot of funding. This is a great new bilateral program with the feds. Don’t get me wrong. I just want to ensure that there is fair access for the cultural community in B.C., because the current facilities are aging, and many, many buildings are still accessible to everyone. This will require collaboration between the sectors to make the best use of this money. There is an active and growing interest in the cultural sector in regional communities, because they know that culture boosts local economies and builds stronger, healthier communities.

I’d like to suggest that this government take an integrated approach to government spending, with cross-ministry initiatives that recognize that the arts, creativity and innovation are at the heart of a growing, sustainable B.C. and that support for culture needs to be embedded across all ministries and sectors, including education, health, social justice, multiculturalism, immigration, reconciliation and poverty.

I recently became aware of the work being done in Richmond by the anti-poverty coalition. They are using a creative curriculum to teach people living in poverty to write, to draw, to sing or dance their stories, and they are seeing amazing results. These people are learning creative skills, building their self-esteem and their confidence so that they can pull themselves out of poverty. Ha, what about that? That’s just one example of the many that I could give you, but I don’t have enough time.

The recognition of creativity and the value of it is growing. The latest research coming out of the U.K. and Scandinavia clearly states that arts make us feel healthier, happier and more connected to each other. The world is beginning to see that individual creative expression is integral to everyone’s health and well-being. So we need you to keep the promises you made during the election campaign and in the minister’s mandate letter. We need you to double the budget of the B.C. Arts Council from $24 million to $48 million. We need you to create an arts infrastructure fund for the cultural sector to ensure that we can continue to have vibrant, accessible gathering spaces.

I believe that you all know that creativity and innovation are key to a growing, sustainable future. I hope you also know that the arts should be at the heart of your strategy for success. The arts are an important part of your plan to revitalize British Columbia. You’ve made a great start, and we are sincerely grateful for that, but you still have three more budgets to keep your promises. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Brenda. We appreciate you making the effort to come today, and you don’t have to tell me how important the arts are. I spent 28 years in the arts.

B. Leadlay: I know you did, Bob.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I’m biased. I disclose my bias.

Questions, thoughts, ideas?

B. Leadlay: I know it seems extreme that I say that it should be a part — that government should be interconnected. I’m sure we would all like to see that. But when you start looking at what’s happening, the research that’s happening — and the fact, the simple example, of the poverty and how teaching people to have creative skills can actually give them what they need to lift themselves out of poverty — it’s just a really great example of what’s happening here in British Columbia already and is continuing to happen, with youth at risk and with seniors who have dementia. The list goes on.

N. Simons: Thank you very much for your presentation. What is the program in Richmond that we should all look up and find out more about?

[5:05 p.m.]

B. Leadlay: It’s called the anti-poverty coalition in Richmond. When I found out about them, I contacted them immediately. It’s because my whole belief about the reason that we can’t get enough support for the arts is because people don’t actually understand the value of them and because, also, we’ve made the mistake, I think, of being seen as elitist and special interest. What I’m trying to do at the alliance is to broaden the idea of what arts and culture is to include everyday creativity. Because that’s, I believe, at the very heart of the problems with drug addiction, with PTSD, with mental health issues.

When we asked people who work in the arts what is the main reason they do and what do they think the value of it is, they tell us many times, over and over, mental health. Mental health is becoming a huge issue, and it’s only getting bigger. So we have to start putting value on things like human creativity, especially in the age of the digital world where human creativity is going to become the commodity. The stuff that we can learn from a machine will not be the commodity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I think that’s interesting. I was involved with a charity that taught songwriting in schools. At first I thought: “Well, you know, this is great. We’re going to have a whole new generation of songwriters.” What I realized, when we went to the first presentation, was that a number of these students really couldn’t play their instruments or sing or do any of that, and they didn’t have a career. But one of the students in particular, whose parents had both died in a car accident, was able to express himself through the songs.

It’s the same way with many arts. It’s transformative. It’s therapeutic. I can’t tell you how many of my kids’ friends have said that art and the arts and music and all these things are what got them through school. So it’s not just…. Yes, it’s mental health, but it’s also motivational. It’s also important to keep our kids motivated.

B. Leadlay: I think, too, when you look at the ParticipACTION…. We all know about ParticipACTION, which made us all aware of how important it was to be physically active. I think what we really need now is a campaign that’s about creative fitness so that we have our professional athletes, but I go swimming three times a week, and that’s what I do. Now, not everybody thinks they even have the ability to have a creative practice, or even thinks they’re creative, but in fact, every human is.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you so much, Brenda. Thanks for coming.

B. Leadlay: Thank you very much for accommodating me. I really appreciate it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): If I could have a motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:07 p.m.