The committee met at 8:01 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

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

The committee is grateful to be holding our public hearing on the traditional territory of the Syilx and Okanagan peoples here in Kelowna.

We are a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties. Normally we travel in the fall, and we hold public consultations and visit different regions of the province to hear directly from British Columbians about their priorities and ideas for the next budget. However, this year we’ve moved our consultation up to June to enable the committee to deliver a final report to the Legislative Assembly earlier in the budget process. We’ll be reviewing this new timeline and welcome your feedback on this change.

Our consultation is based on the budget consultation paper by the Minister of Finance. There are copies of the paper available here today for anyone interested in reading it.

We are visiting a number of communities to hear from British Columbians directly. There are still spots available if anyone would like to reserve a time slot to share their ideas with us. We also invite British Columbians to provide their thoughts in writing or fill out the on-line survey. Details are available on our website at www.leg.bc.ca/cmt/finance. The deadline for input is 5 p.m. on Friday, June 28, 2019.

All of the input we receive is considered carefully and used to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be in the next provincial budget. Our report will be available in late July or early August. I would like to extend a thank-you to everyone who is here today to participate. Your input and insight is greatly appreciated.

To ensure that we can hear from everyone who took the time to hear from us today, I’d kindly ask that everyone respect the following time limits. Each presenter has five minutes to share their input, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee. We welcome you to provide any information that you were not able to share in the presentation in writing.

If there is anyone who hasn’t registered in advance, who’s in the audience and would like to speak, please see Stephanie at the information table, and we will do our best to accommodate you.

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

Next, I’d like, if we could, for the members to introduce themselves. We’ll start with Doug Clovechok.

D. Clovechok: Doug Clovechok. I’m the MLA for Columbia River–Revelstoke.

R. Leonard: I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m from Courtenay-Comox.

N. Simons: Nicholas Simons from the Sunshine Coast.

R. Coleman: Rich Coleman from Langley East.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Good morning. Dan Ashton, Penticton to Peachland.

[8:05 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Once again, I’m Bob D’Eith, the MLA for Maple Ridge–Mission and the Chair of the committee. Assisting the committee today are Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office. We also have Simon DeLaat and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services, who are here taking care of all our technical needs.

First up we have UBC Okanagan — Deborah Buszard.

Good morning, Deborah. How are you?

Budget Consultation Presentations

UBC OKANAGAN

D. Buszard: Good morning. I am very well on this beautiful Okanagan morning.

A hearty welcome to the Syilx Okanagan Nation territory.

You probably are all familiar with UBC. I’m the deputy vice-chancellor of UBC, and I have the privilege of being the principal here in the Okanagan. Okanagan campus, as many of you also know, is only 14 years old. It opened with 3,500 students and now has over 10,000. It is a fabulous B.C. success story. It’s part of the UBC system, which is a top-30 university in the world, with over 65,000 students and an incredible impact locally, globally — really, one of the world’s stars of universities.

The Okanagan campus has a core commitment to serve the people of the southern Interior, and we take approximately 30 percent of our 10,000 students from the region. That’s really maxing the number of students that there are here in the region. We give, for example, completely open access to all Aboriginal applicants, even students who have not completed a Dogwood. That’s one of our most successful programs, and I’ll talk about that in a minute.

The really good news is that while only 30 percent come from this region, 50 percent of our graduates are staying here. That’s what’s contributing to the very exciting economic and social development here. They stay in the professions in health, in engineering. They work in the tech sector. They’re entrepreneurs, and they’re business people.

The first thing I need to do is to thank you all for your continued support of post-secondary education. We are blessed to be in a province that recognizes the social and economic value of investing in our young people and creating opportunities for all. Particularly, we share the commitment to access and success for all students here in British Columbia. Your investments, such as the B.C. graduate scholarships and the elimination of interest on B.C. student loans and access for youth who’ve previously been in care, are really making a difference, and we very much appreciate what you’ve done.

I’d like to talk a little bit about our commitment to access for Indigenous students, because it’s something we brought to your attention for the last round of consultations. Every time a member of the government visits, I point out our need for support for access for students. As I say, we take every Indigenous applicant. Our Aboriginal access studies program is a true beacon of light for what can be done as a form of reconciliation — to make high-quality post-secondary available to all.

In our presentation last year, we pointed out that we have funding for 18 FTEs in that program, and we typically have more than 50. This year, we have 56 students in our Aboriginal access program. So I’d reiterate my request that you are able to consider further support for that kind of active reconciliation, to make access to our universities easier and more seamless for students coming from our Indigenous communities here.

Looking ahead — you all have a small brochure — we have recently undergone a very long-term piece of planning for a university, and that is to plan for the Okanagan campus out to 2040. As you’re all aware, this is a very fast-moving region in terms of economic development, significantly increasing populations.

We’re looking forward to a campus which, over the last 14 years, has more than quadrupled its research income. We’ve gone now to close to $25 million a year of research activity. We see ourselves expanding that to be $100 million over the next 20 years.

[8:10 a.m.]

We’re looking, with a variety of program expansions — including increasing, outside the undergraduate program, professional development, upskilling for the new kinds of jobs that are coming — that we will have a student population of about 18,000, up from the 10,000 today, and an economic impact here of about $4 billion.

I’m happy to provide more detail. I would say that, from our perspective, the Okanagan campus is an incredible experiment here in British Columbia. It’s working, and we are creating here in the Okanagan a community of learners and doers and people who are continuing to build on the pioneering spirit that formed this region in the early days and keeping Kelowna at the forefront.

Thank you very much. I would be happy to take any questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much — obviously, very exciting work that UBC is doing here.

I just had a question in regards to the $100 million for research funding. Where is that research funding coming from? Is there a breakdown of that or where you’re anticipating it coming from?

D. Buszard: I could provide you, certainly, with details in writing on where it comes from now. For example, well over half of it comes from the tri-councils. This is our current level of funding. About $4 million a year comes from an organization called Mitacs, which supports industry, university collaboration and, particularly, graduate students getting hands-on experience working with companies or social enterprises. So it’s a diversity of sources. Of course, there are some that come from the BCKDF, which is a B.C. matching fund for federal funding like Canada Foundation for Innovation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I was just also interested in where the…. Because that’s quite a big uplift that you would like to see. Do you see that there are certain areas that the university is going after in terms of that? Or is it just growing the amount that each of the funders contribute? Or are there new sources?

D. Buszard: I should say that our increase in funding that is coming to the campus has come during a time over the last decade, particularly, where research funding in Canada has been relatively static. So what’s happening here is that the community of scholars, the professors, are becoming more successful in acquiring funding. Some of it comes from industry partners. Some comes from the federal councils like NSERC and SSHRC and the health institutes to fund the kinds of research that are happening here.

The areas on campus, the academic areas, which are getting the most funding are the health and wellness research areas, particularly healthy aging; and on the technical side, particularly engineering fields, technology and computer science.

N. Simons: I was just going to ask about the aboriginal access program. Is UBCO the only post-secondary institution that has that absolute open access?

D. Buszard: I can’t speak for all of the academic, the post-secondary institutions. Many of them in British Columbia are very much open access. UBC, as a member of the research universities of Canada, has typically a more restricted access based on grades and success in previous education. We have that at UBC, so typically, the entering averages required for programs are very, very high. But on our campus, uniquely, we waive that for all Indigenous students.

Being a university, we study what we do. We will take in the students to our access program and track their success and their performance during their regular academic programming. After their second year in their regular program, their grades and their success and outcomes are indistinguishable from all other students. We’re very, very confident that we have a recipe to assist students from previously, if you like, educationally disadvantaged backgrounds to be able to take advantage of the kinds of programming that we’re offering.

N. Simons: It’s such a wonderful program. Thank you very much.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): You know, you have a jewel not only in British Columbia but, specifically, in the Okanagan Valley. My past dates back to the planning stage on the governance side. I would just encourage you in what you’ve just stated about the original people of British Columbia and the opportunities presented to them.

[8:15 a.m.]

One of the things that I strove for in the initial planning of UBCO was to ensure access to those in the Interior of British Columbia and also those…. Because I was one of those students who didn’t know what I wanted to do after I left high school and was in the workforce and then decided to come back. Maybe my marks were not as good as they should have been in high school, but you learn very quickly out in the workforce that maybe there are other things you can do in life.

I just strongly encourage the opportunity for people to have a similar point of entry into that wonderful institution we have here.

D. Buszard: Thank you very much, Mr. Ashton. I very much recognize your contribution to getting us going. Let me reassure you that we are absolutely committed to providing access. I think we have what is one of the most….

You say we are a gem, but we’re part of a set of jewels here, and the other is Okanagan College, which has distributed campuses in smaller centres, which allow students, perhaps, who can’t afford to initially come to university or don’t have the grades to go into the college system and to access our program.

We have highly developed pathways, both in the regular university streams but also for the professions. In engineering, in nursing, in teaching, we are very much bringing students through and have a fully articulated program in engineering and technologies with the college and also in health.

I should say that one of the most exciting things here is the growing interest we have in developing our advanced manufacturing engineering, which is leading us towards a program that is in development on aerospace engineering. Of course, you know the college also has an aviation tech program.

Working with KF Aerospace and with Okanagan College, we’ll create a seamless pathway to aerospace engineering, and that is articulated with our partnership with Boeing and Avcorp, who are based in the Lower Mainland around the development of the digital learning factory, which is part of the B.C.-led national digital supercluster.

Yes, it’s really an amazing thing that’s happened here, and it’s because of the partnerships in the community. We’re the kind of place where no one can do everything on their own. The hospital is a great hospital, because it partners with UBC and with others. The education system is a seamless partnership between the school districts, the college and the university here.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): With your peer Mr. Hamilton and the entity that he has, it’s amazing what we can do when we all work together. I just want to congratulate you, because I know you do that. Keep up the great work. Thanks.

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

D. Buszard: I think we’re out of time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, we are. But thank you so much.

Next up we have Childhood Obesity Foundation — Dr. Tom Warshawski.

Good morning. How are you?

T. Warshawski: Good morning, everybody. This is my fifth year in a row coming to the select standing committee. I don’t want to bore you guys again with the same song and dance. I’m trying to think: “What’s my value-add today?”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Perseverance is key.

CHILDHOOD OBESITY FOUNDATION

T. Warshawski: As I mentioned, this is the fifth year in a row I’ve appeared before the standing committee to talk about removing the exception that sugary drinks have with regards to the PST and implementing the PST on sugary drinks and, basically, using those funds for health promotion.

This, I think, is a no-brainer. Although, it’s something that this committee has recommended four years in a row. I hope to have them recommend it again for the fifth year in row. We can use this as a springboard to meet with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Finance and then reiterate the case for this.

Value-add on this occasion. I think it was circulated to you folks. I don’t know if you received it, but UNICEF just came out with a report. The World Health Organization, the organization for economically developed countries supports taxing sugar-sweetened beverages as a fiscal measure to improve health. The case is very, very strong.

We have, at a federal level, the Liberals considering putting this on their policy platform as a national tax. But I don’t think B.C. should wait to do something for this. I think that the evidence is really quite strong in terms of the ill effects of sugary drinks.

I don’t know if you folks received it. I sent it out a couple of days ago. It’s the usual presentation.

[8:20 a.m.]

It hasn’t really changed much from last year, but I’ll just reiterate. I’ve got five minutes, so I’ll just refresh your memories again around why we’re doing this.

We have a Rethink Sugary Drinks Coalition that’s comprised of all the major health NGOs here in British Columbia. It’s our organization — the Childhood Obesity Foundation — Heart and Stroke Foundation, Diabetes Canada, Canadian Cancer, B.C. Pediatrics and B.C. Alliance for Healthy Living. All of us are concerned about the health of the population and the role that sugary drinks play in actually causing chronic illness.

There’s a strong scientific consensus that sugary drinks are a major risk factor for the development of obesity and all the resultant and accompanying chronic diseases with obesity — type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, hypertension and 13 different cancers.

Sugary drinks are a risk factor independent of your weight. It’s not just: “Okay. I’m slim. I can drink this stuff and not have it harm me.” The components of sugary drinks — that is, the sucrose…. It’s not high-fructose corn syrup that’s the problem. It’s the sucrose. That’s what high-fructose corn syrup gets made into.

Fructose is a type of sugar that is detrimental to human beings. We’re not made to process it. We can probably have it accompany maybe 1½ to 2 percent of our diet. Beyond that, it has detrimental effects, triggering hypertension, heart disease and fatty liver disease. We know that sugary drink consumption is an independent risk factor.

A study came out of Waterloo a few years ago looking at levels of consumption and what a 20 percent tax on sugary drinks would do in terms of decreasing consumption. It would actually save about 180,000 cases of heart disease, 38,000 premature deaths and billions of dollars over 25 years.

We know that British Columbians are heavy consumers of sugary drinks. We’re not the highest. We’re actually one of the lower across the country. But North Americans, in general, are high consumers of sugary drinks. It can be estimated that sugary drink consumption in British Columbia costs the health care system around $130 million per year in direct health care costs.

We have a product here that triggers, I would say, an out-of-proportion, a disproportionate degree of health care costs yet is not subject to the PST, which we use, as a province, to fund health care costs. It’s simply not pulling its weight as a product.

There are effective policy levers to address this. We know that price matters. I’ll show you this graph again. It’s actually around tobacco consumption. If you look at taxation for tobacco and pricing tobacco, as it goes up, consumption goes down. When the tax on tobacco was removed…. When they had the problem in Quebec with the First Nations smuggling across the border, we dropped the tax. Consumption went up again. Tax gets put back on; consumption goes down.

There is high elasticity to these products, even an addictive product such as tobacco. We know that for sugar-sweetened beverages, the price elasticity is around one. So it’ll work as a lever.

This could garner roughly $30 million per year in revenue. For someone like myself — I’m a practising clinician, so I work in a hospital as well — I can see how we are constrained for health care dollars. But in terms of population health, it’s drastically underfunded.

Our organization has worked with the province to create an early intervention program to help kids who are overweight or obese. It would cost roughly $1.5 million per year to run this program. Every year we go cap in hand to the government for end-of-year funding. That’s no way to build a sustainable program. We need sustainable funding. But there’s no money in the kitty right now. This is a way to actually, in a revenue-neutral fashion, garner some revenue and not just help that program but school food programs, subsidized fruit and vegetables.

It would be very popular with the province. We did some polling last year, and 80 percent of British Columbians support the concept of extending the PST to include sugary drinks. Support is highest in lower socioeconomic groups.

We hear so often that this is a regressive tax. We only hear that from academics and industry. We do not hear that from lower socioeconomic groups. They support this measure, especially if the proceeds go to help them. It shouldn’t go back into general revenues. If it helps those programs that are going to help their kids go into physical activity programs, subsidies for fruit and vegetables, subsidies for school breakfast or lunch programs, they are highly supportive of this program.

My ask for this group, once again, is to put this as a recommendation going forward to the Minister of Finance. With that, we can go and, hopefully, open some doors, talk about this again.

[8:25 a.m.]

We’ve talked to people, civil servants within the Ministry of Finance. This is eminently doable. It simply lacks the political will to implement. I’d ask you all to ask me any questions about this measure and to support it.

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

Any questions at all?

Certainly, previous iterations of the committee have supported this. Obviously, we have to deliberate and talk about these things again. But that definitely was one of the push-backs — that the tax might be considered a tax that would hurt lower-income people more than other income groups. So I appreciate you addressing that.

If you wouldn’t mind maybe elaborating a little bit more on that piece, because I think that seems to be the place where there’s resistance.

T. Warshawski: Where it gets hung up?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, yeah.

T. Warshawski: Well, there was a great…. I should circulate this. It came out in the Lancet earlier this year: “Taxes for Health: Evidence Clears the Air.”

What we know for sure is that all chronic disease hits the poor disproportionately. They get all these diseases more than anybody else. All taxes on products — sales taxes — hit them disproportionately. They have a smaller disposable income than anyone else has.

The flip side of that is that these taxes are disproportionately effective. In Mexico, when they instituted this tax, the sugary drink tax, it had its biggest effect on shifting consumption patterns amongst the lower socioeconomic group. They use those funds to provide clean water, which isn’t a problem here in Canada. But in Mexico, it certainly is, and people are drinking pop because that’s all they have to drink. In Canada, we have lots of water.

What we find, then, is that these people are disproportionately affected by sugary drink consumption. They welcome attacks on sugary drinks. They understand the rationale for it, but they say: “Look, if you’re going to do this, help us out.”

The other thing — I talked to Minister Dix about this — is that this is not a good source of calories. This is a terrible source of calories. And the problem for people across North America isn’t that you can’t get enough calories. We’re getting too many calories. So we need to shift consumption. We have safe, free, available, thirst-quenching hydration in water.

So again, this is not regressive.

N. Simons: I’m just wondering what, in other jurisdictions, worked to get the legislators to take this leap.

T. Warshawski: Take this step?

N. Simons: This step. It shouldn’t be called a leap.

I’ll also point out that we could invest in clean water for many of our communities that don’t have it.

T. Warshawski: Well, you’re right. I mean, that’s a whole other thing. I can’t believe that that can happen in Canada. However, it still does.

It has happened different ways in different jurisdictions. Across the U.S., these are done within municipalities that are doing it. So Berkeley, California. San Francisco has done it. Boulder, Colorado, and Philadelphia, for instance. These are local initiatives. They sell this to the population based on that quid pro quo: “This is the tax. This is what we use it for.”

That’s a hard thing to do. Those of you that have been in cabinet recognize, I think, that Finance doesn’t like targeted funding. If you get revenue, they say: “No, no. This goes to general revenue.” And I can understand that because they say: “Well, if we target it for this, in ten years, when it’s no longer needed, then we have to undo this.”

However, there has to be a public statement that we will direct the funds. What the U.K. did on this…. They’re introducing this now in Britain. They started this year. It’s a slightly different tax. They said: “We will use a large proportion of this for school activity.” They didn’t say “all of it.” They didn’t say the number. But they said, “This is where it’s going to be directed,” and they did. They used most of for that. So I think that’s the answer.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time, but thank you very much, once again, for your presentation and your perseverance on this issue. Perseverance is important.

T. Warshawski: Yeah, I think so. Thanks for hearing me once again.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance — Patricia Dunn.

PEACHLAND WATERSHED
PROTECTION ALLIANCE

P. Dunn: Thank you very much for your time. We appreciate you coming all the way to the Interior to hear us out. I’m sure you’d rather be doing lovelier things on a 33 degree day, but we certainly appreciate your presence.

[8:30 a.m.]

I’m Patricia Dunn. I am the former owner of a Vancouver-based communications company. I moved here several years ago after commuting to Vancouver for a couple of years between Peachland and the city.

I’m here representing the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance. I should tell you that I am a civilian. I’m not an expert in hydrology. I can, however, bear witness to what I’ve seen happening in Peachland over the past several years that I’ve lived there.

The alliance is a non-profit society of concerned citizens seeking solutions to our water crisis. Our alliance of 55 people includes farmers, hikers and backwoods enthusiasts who came together in 2016 over concerns about the loss of a consistent supply of drinking water and irrigation, the fear of floods, mudslides and drought, and the cost to purchase bottled water — sometimes for several months at a time — as well as cost to our town’s infrastructure.

In 2017, Peachland taxpayers paid $300,000 to repair one road and more than $200,000 to clean out sediment and rocks from the district’s two water intake systems. There is evidence that both problems were attributable to poorly constructed or maintained logging roads and clearcut logging, which contributes to heavy runoff and soil erosion.

Briefly, over the past years, our alliance has hosted several public information sessions and forums, family tree-planting events and conducted wetlands health assessments. We’re working with Westbank First Nations on a planning stage for an ecological restoration program this autumn.

Once a protected community watershed reserve with limited logging, our watershed was opened for commercial activities in the 1970s. It operates under the control of the B.C. Forest and Range Practices Act, the laws of which reinforce that nothing has precedence over timber extraction. In the watershed, not even the preservation of fish and wildlife habitat and drinking water can “unduly reduce the amount of timber harvested.” Peachland watershed has been steadily clearcut logged since 1992, with more than 40 percent now acting as a clearcut.

To help solve our town’s dirty water problem — we have 5,300 people — we’re building a $24 million water treatment plant and a $5 million extension. This $29 million project is funded jointly by government — thank you very much — and by our town borrowing $9 million. This places quite a heavy financial burden for 25 years on our residential tax base, which is about 2,500 people. While this new plant will treat our water chemically and via UV, it will not protect our water source.

The Narwhal summed up our situation in a recent news story: “Muddied Waters: How Clearcut Logging Is Driving a Water Crisis in B.C.’s Interior.” “Logging and mining put communities like Peachland and resource industries on a collision course. Multiple use of watersheds is resulting in multiple abuse of water resources, with the communities in harm’s way left to foot the bill.” This has been true for our experience.

Our alliance is also concerned about the trees that are planted in our watershed and how this impacts both flood and fire conditions. The Globe and Mail published an editorial last week from Toronto that states our concerns. “The forests of western Canada are not in a natural state because of decades of industrial forestry that have led to an overabundance of combustible, harvestable trees, like spruce, pine and fir, and an absence of trees more resistant to fires, such as aspen.”

The Globe concluded with this observation: “A lot of people live in or near fire zones, and we have made our farmed forests less fire-resistant, thanks to what we have chosen to plant. Climate change threatens to supercharge the problem. Faced with such an acute threat, provincial governments must fight back with equal intensity.”

Supercharging our concerns here in Peachland is that the district has never had an overall watershed health assessment. A provincial water sustainability fund would allow Peachland to conduct a complete watershed review by an independent hydrologist. To make informed decisions about how much is logged and when and where, we need to know how all watershed values are functioning — water, soil, wildlife and fish-spawning habitat.

Hydrogeological engineer — she’s three times an engineer — Bryer Manwell reviewed Peachland’s official community plan at one of our events this past April. She said: “Peachland hasn’t, as yet, fully identified potential impacts or quantified…impacts to its water source in the Peachland and Trepanier watersheds.” She noted, “The best way to secure a water source is to limit development and not allow water to become contaminated in the first place.” That seems fundamental. She suggested restricting land use in the watershed and identifying conservation lakes that would have no human impact.

Over the past three years, Peachland has been dramatically affected by drought, floods and fires. It would be irresponsible to think that this will not be our future.

[8:35 a.m.]

From our perspective, a provincial water sustainability fund is a key budget priority. It would help our committee obtain its first independent watershed health assessment, as well as develop and implement a climate change plan and strategy.

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

Any questions?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Patricia, for yourself and for Mrs. Skalbania, to ensure that this has been addressed.

I just want to say this once, on the record. It has been presented to the ministry — the letters that have been forwarded to me. I know there is interest, and as you said, it’s going to be a combined effort by all to ensure.

Peachland may be the tip of the iceberg because of the drainage patterns here in the valley. It’s a very selected area of drainage, as is Penticton and as is Kelowna. We’re all going to have to work together. Okanagan Basin Water Board — I know that they’ve been doing some hydrology studies in the upper levels.

Like I said, now is the time we can currently all work together to try and address this — not just to include Peachland. It needs to be a valley-wide assessment.

P. Dunn: Great. We’d be happy to participate.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Yep, I know. Thank you again for coming.

P. Dunn: Pleasure. Thank you for listening.

R. Leonard: Thanks very much for your presentation. I feel your pain, living in a community that has had months-long boil-water advisories because of what’s going on in our watershed.

You mentioned something about the use of the water sustainability fund that you’re proposing, which we’ve heard about, certainly, so your voice is echoing throughout this process. You mentioned the use of it for climate action, and I was hoping you could expand on that just a little bit.

P. Dunn: Well, we don’t know too much about what’s going on in our watershed. It seems to be done…. Decisions made there are on an ad hoc basis. For example, when a licensee comes to our district, they generally just give that approval. So we don’t know, really, how much is going to be logged in the future and how that will impact us.

We’d like to have overall watershed health assessments studied, and that will also give us an idea about what we can log and what we can’t log and help us make decisions about how to combat the changing climate, which…. In Peachland, in the last few years we’ve lived there, our experience has been a lack of rain or drought and these combustible trees that are planted near us, in our watershed and in the tree farms, going up very quickly.

Does that not quite answer your question?

R. Leonard: No, no. I’ll ponder what you’ve said. Thank you.

P. Dunn: I mean, as I mentioned to you, I’m not an expert. I’m a fairly recent arrival to the valley. When I moved here…. I’m from the coast, and I’ve always oriented myself towards the ocean. It came as a surprise to me that I would move to this mysterious place called the Interior, but I do love it here.

But my husband and I are considering about moving back to his home province of Quebec, because the threat to living here is so profound in terms of flooding and fires. The lack of water, certainly, that we’re experiencing this year, as in past years, doesn’t portend well for a happy future living in Peachland. So I was compelled to come out of my pleasant retirement and do some research and come speak to you kind people today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much for your time. Appreciate it.

Okay. Next up we have Convenience Industry Council of Canada — Victor Vrsnik.

Just a reminder that if we could keep the initial comments to about five minutes so that we have time for questions, that would be great.

CONVENIENCE INDUSTRY
COUNCIL OF CANADA

V. Vrsnik: Mr. Chair, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to present the views of the convenience industry to this committee.

My name is Victor Vrsnik, and I’m here today representing the Convenience Industry Council of Canada, or CICC for short. I also work for 7-Eleven. I mean, my employer is 7-Eleven. I am a senior manager of corporate affairs and business development. In British Columbia, 7-Eleven owns and operates 215 locations in communities throughout B.C. and employs about 3,000 people.

[8:40 a.m.]

The CICC is a national association that brings together retailers and distributors and manufacturers of a variety of products sold in our stores. I’m not sure how familiar you are, so I’ll just briefly explain. Our products would range from single-serve grocery items; general merchandise; hot and cold beverages; prepared foods; and age-restricted and regulated products, including fuel, beverage alcohol in other provinces, lottery, tobacco and vape products.

The CICC represents almost 3,000 gas and convenience retailers and distributors here in B.C., and it employs 24,000 people across the province.

A little bit more about our industry. Two key drivers affect our financial performance. It’s really quite simple: high employment and growing disposable incomes. Our convenience model really is there to serve our customers on the go, on their way to and from work. High employment supports that model. Growing disposable incomes support that model.

Headwinds for our channel are, obviously, economic sluggishness, increasing cost and industry competition through convergence of retail channels. That’s grocery, pharmacy, dollar stores, convenience stores — all converging, providing a similar customer experience, competing for the same customer. So at risk is fewer customers, fewer transactions, fewer sales.

To turn it around is what I want to talk to you about today — that is, to open the discussion, as is happening in other provinces in Canada, on liberalizing rules on the sale of beer and wine products in British Columbia.

In the convenience sector in B.C., we’re squeezed at every angle. To serve our customers is getting more challenging all the time. Just in general: higher rents, taxes, labour and energy costs, leading to decreased margins, decreased ability to serve our customers. We also face unfair competition with other grocers that are licensed to carry wine products. We face lost opportunity costs, and we also lose out on customers who opt to make their purchases at a grocery store where they can find all the products they’re looking for, including wine.

This is what’s really happening in the retail industry. You’re seeing, because of the time constraints people are facing today, there are fewer occasions when they will go shopping, and they are looking to consolidate their trips.

Across Canada, other provinces, from Alberta…. They have begun conversations around liberalizing the sale of beer and wine to adult customers. Most recently, an announcement in New Brunswick, where I believe 66 grocers will be licensed by October for beer products. You may have heard, in Ontario, the Ontario government is looking to license corner stores, grocery stores and big-box stores. Grocery, like B.C., already carries wine products. They’ll be expanding grocery and expanding to our channel as well.

You look at Quebec, which already has beer and wine sold in convenience stores. There are 8,000 points of distribution. You go to Ontario, and there are 1,000. They see an opportunity there to serve customers in Ontario. In B.C., in terms of that density, per capita distribution, we are somewhere in the middle of Canada.

There’s good reason to license our stores from, obviously, a government and financial perspective. Liberalizing the rules on the sale of beer and wine would enhance government revenues via licensing and taxation, but a better reason is just to respond to customers and their needs for convenience and choice. Consolidated shopping trips are necessary for time-strapped customers. More points of access for distribution for beer and wine sales with other essentials improves that customer experience. It means we’re listening to the customer.

Licensing our channel would then, as well, create a level playing field with grocery. It would support small distributors of wine products, for example. Right here in the Okanagan, a large winery might sell 50,000 cases, and a small one, somewhere between 1,000 and 5,000 cases. Small wineries cannot get listed in large B.C. liquor stores or in some larger private liquor stores. You do see them in the grocery stores, where it’s B.C. wine only, but those days are ending come November, I believe, where they’ll face global competition for their products.

[8:45 a.m.]

Our channel however, would sell very…. It’s slower volume, so we would be better suited for small wineries in British Columbia. We would not have the supply problem that some of the larger retailers are facing.

This is what I’d like to advocate today: to begin an open discussion and public consultation, hopefully, on this matter. At stake, really, are the public’s interests and the consumer’s interest, which I think I’ve outlined. There’s obviously the public safety perspective as well.

The CICC and members across Canada take our responsibility concerning age verification and purchase of restrictive products — including beverage, alcohol, tobacco, lottery, vape products — very seriously. We’re committed to being responsible community retailers through our ID Please program, which will begin rolling out this month. It’s a national program to support smaller retailers on age-restricted products. So 7-Eleven, for instance, being a large retailer, a pretty big brand, almost 70,000 locations around the world….

We don’t have a problem committing resources for age-restricted products — the policies and procedures; training; documentation; reminders; ID scanning, even. That has led to…. You go to Ontario, where the government does mystery shops….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Victor, we’re at about seven minutes, so we’re quite over time. If you could wrap it up, I’d appreciate it.

V. Vrsnik: Oh, we’re at seven minutes. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So we take the sale of age-restricted very seriously.

The last point I just want to make is government policy in the retail world has lead to fragmentation of retail. So we see we have now private liquor stores selling almost 90 percent liquor. Now we have private vape stores, and now we’re going to have private cannabis stores. That is not what the customer wants. The customer wants consolidation. One way to start that is to start the dialogue around the licensing of our channel for beer and wine products in British Columbia.

N. Simons: I was just going to ask why cannabis wasn’t included in your…. Like, if you’re starting this as a concerted effort, is there a particular reason that…?

V. Vrsnik: Well, that would probably take at least another five minutes. We had to be selective. We will submit, in paper, a larger presentation. It will touch on some other issues. But here in my short period of time, I’ll just talk about beer and wine.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, and please feel free to put that in the written submission as well.

Do we have any other questions at all?

I guess one of the issues, of course, is that as the rules have changed, businesses have grown, like the private liquor stores and things. So it’s sort of like the U.S. medical system: the way to make it public would be to have to start all over again, and that’s something that is not practical. In a similar sense, how do we move from what we have now to things like 7-Elevens having beer and wine, when we have all these other types of sales going on? It’s something to grapple with, I guess.

V. Vrsnik: Yeah. And one solution might be to allow private liquor stores to become more like convenience stores and allow them to offer other products because of the customer demand for…. They don’t want to just go to a liquor store and buy just liquor, they want to pick up some other essentials, but they can’t do that a liquor store.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You get more members out of it too, right?

V. Vrsnik: Well, that’s true.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much for your time, Victor.

V. Vrsnik: You’ve discovered our hidden motivation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, no. It’s all good. Thank you so much, Victor. Appreciate it.

Okay. Next up we have Kelowna Chamber of Commerce — Caroline Miller and Jeff Robinson.

Interjection.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is it just Jeff?

J. Robinson: Yeah. Caroline is in the back with Dan. Caroline is our policy analyst and Dan Rogers is our executive director.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, okay.

KELOWNA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

J. Robinson: My name is Jeff Robinson. I am the executive vice-president, that’s second in line to be president next year, and the chair of the policy committee for the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. We appreciate this opportunity to be before you and to present to the committee. The presentation I have should run about six minutes, but I’m known to trip on my words, so forgive me if I go slightly longer.

We have a more comprehensive written submission for you. That document represents the concerns of our 1,200 members. Just so you know, Kelowna is the largest chamber of commerce in B.C. outside the Lower Mainland. Our area of Kelowna continues to be one of the fastest-growing census metropolitan areas, so we have a front-row seat to explosive growth, vast opportunity and, of course, the problems and challenges that come with it.

As I begin my eight points, I want to start by saying we support the Canadian Chamber’s 2019 election platform, which is “Vote prosperity.” The chamber of commerce strives to be scrupulously non-partisan, and that platform reflects that. At root, what we want is fairness. We want a tax system that is fair and efficient and modern.

[8:50 a.m.]

We see that over the years, taxation has grown and multiplied, and it’s become a real burden on business. The average business takes 131 hours to prepare their taxes. The last time there was a royal commission on our federal tax system, we hadn’t set foot on the moon yet. We want B.C. to show leadership in simplifying our tax laws because that will help everyone. Efficiency is going to benefit individuals, as well as business.

Let’s get on to our first issue. The first issue is the impact of layered taxes on business. There have been 12 new or additional taxes in B.C. introduced since 2017, and the point here is that layering taxes has a cumulative effect on business, and not just on the taxes that target business. Taxes that target customers also affect business. So we’re calling on government to pay attention to how the tax will have a spill-on effect on business.

There are two I’ll bring up right now. First, is employer health tax. As you know, employer health tax and MSP are being collected at the same time. That is a major drain on business that is going to reduce business-to-business commerce, reduce reinvestment in capital in business. Second is speculation tax. I’ll have more to say about that later. For now, suffice to say that we see that tax as being anti-Canadian because Kelowna hosts a lot of Albertans who are seasonal residents. This has really damaged our construction and development industries.

The second issue is transportation. We’re one of Canada’s fastest-growing regions. We need to move goods and people. We need to eliminate backups, and we want to use less fossil fuel. The fact is that there is great infrastructure that the province has built to get people into the Okanagan Valley. The Coquihalla Connector has been a great boon for us. The problem is that once people get here, we don’t have the infrastructure to move them around.

We’re asking the provincial government to take a leadership role in coordinating integrated, long-term planning throughout the region. I’m talking right from Osoyoos, right up to Vernon. We’d like the government to look again at completion of connectors, bypasses, safety improvements and talking about a second crossing. We know a second crossing is going to be 15 or 20 years away. We need to keep that conversation going.

Number 3 is labour shortages. The government, of course, does invest terrifically in training and building capacity of our workforce. But we continue to hear from members. Their hands are tied because they can’t get the labour force they need, both skilled and unskilled. The best example I can give you is KF Aerospace, the largest private employer in town. They would expand tomorrow, they say, by 2,000 employees if they could. That’s a business that really fits our neighborhood here. You fly in planes from all over the world.

I was at their hangars a little less than a month ago. They had planes in from Hawaii and New Zealand. They are globally competitive. They also find their competitive advantage in having employees, not contractors. They want employees because they know that lets them promise their customers that they are going to get deliveries done. They’re responsible to their employees; their employees are accountable to them. We want business like that. We want investment in people to grow those businesses.

We also think that the province could do more to integrate the provincial nominee program with federal programs, supporting both the tech sector, which has grown great, but can grow more, and our agricultural sector.

Point 4 is the red tape. We say: “Let business get on with it.” I want to be clear here. We’re not saying: “Scrap regulation.” We’re not saying: “Cut regulation blindly.” What we want is a cost-benefit approach to regulation. If there’s going to be regulation, the benefit is going to be obvious — a certain protection for the environment. But the government needs to ask: “What is the cost of doing that? Is there a way to do it at less cost and get the same benefit?” So it’s really a mindset that we’re asking the government to take forward when it is considering new regulation or a change in regulation.

The fifth point is interprovincial trade. B.C., of course, has been a leader in trying to break down interprovincial trade boundaries. This may be a federal election issue. We’re hoping the B.C. government will capitalize on that. We have great products that we need to get into other provinces. We don’t understand why we should be having internal trade barriers. We have free trade agreements going forward with Europe and with the United States and Mexico. Why can’t we get our beer and wine into Alberta, Quebec, Ontario, as we would get them into other countries? We think B.C., again, can continue its leadership role here and move that forward.

Issue 6 is housing affordability. Of course, that’s high on everyone’s radar. We see that we need housing affordability to continue to grow our regional economy. We do have additional pressures because we are a seasonal-resident destination. We think that government is taking steps in that way.

One thing I point out to you. As part of our submission, we have an economic score card. That’s something that we sponsored, and we had the research done in partnership with local higher-education institutions. Housing affordability is one of the key issues that is driving down our social indicator score relative to our comparators. I invite you to look at that report. It compares us to leading communities of our size globally — so places in New Zealand, places in Colorado, all across the world. We can see that housing affordability is a real challenge for us.

[8:55 a.m.]

Issue 7 is protection of our fresh waters from invasive mussels. I’ve presented to this committee before, a number of times. This is a perennial point for us. We don’t want our lakes being destroyed. Lakes basically east of Manitoba have been destroyed by this mussel threat. You’re going to hear it again later today from the Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society. We’re on board with them. We need 24-7 monitoring of points of entry. Mussels come in on boats. They come in on other sorts of watercraft. We need to be vigilant 24-7.

Finally, No. 8: spec tax. In two words, we have to scrap it. A slightly more nuanced point there is that we feel the spec tax is really a Lower Mainland–driven initiative, and it wasn’t sensitive to the Okanagan. Why do I say that? We have a very large seasonal-resident economy. We have heard from our construction and development industries about the spec tax and how it is causing customers to go away from the Okanagan.

People with that kind of money, who can have a second home in B.C., who can pour money in our local economy, will go elsewhere, where they feel welcome. This tax appears, to people outside of the province, to be targeted at them. We don’t like those optics. We don’t like the effect it has on our business. We don’t like the brake it is putting on money coming into our economy from seasonal residents. We’re asking the government to scrap it, at least as it applies to the Okanagan area.

With that, I’m ready for your questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just before we start…. So Nick and then Rich. I’m just a little bit confused, and maybe you could help me with this. You said that affordable housing was critical. In terms of the labour shortage, if you don’t have housing for your employees — rental stock and ability to buy — then how can we have more employees?

The measure of the speculation and vacancy tax is that it’s primarily to allow for more rentals, primarily to make sure people rent their properties. It addresses that. I’m just curious. On the one hand, you’re saying we need to address it. On the other hand, you’re saying the measures that are being taken to address that aren’t appropriate.

How do you see us solving the affordable housing issue if the government doesn’t take measures to deal with vacancy?

J. Robinson: Well, you need to take measures. The spec tax is a measure. We say it is not the correct measure.

The fact is that many of the people who’ve come from Alberta are having luxury residences, things that are quite high end. They don’t want to rent out. You’re not going to make them rent out by saying: “We’re going to tax your vacancy.” A person that has a house on a lake isn’t going to rent it out to avoid paying the tax. They’re going to sell it and find another lake to live on.

We think that there are actually two different markets. We have the seasonal-resident market, in which the housing is typically higher-end, and they want it at their convenience. If they want to come to ski in the winter for a couple of weeks, they’ll do that. We don’t think the spec tax is necessarily the right approach for that. We think there are other ways the government can support increased rental housing, increased rental stock, microsuites — things of that nature.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Such as? I’m just curious. You’ve isolated an issue, but you haven’t given a solution.

That’s okay. Think about it.

J. Robinson: We have other policies, like tax-based policies. For example, GST rebate is a federal one. There are other policies that don’t come to the top of mind right now that we have concerning how to make housing more affordable. If Caroline were next to me, she could probably help me out.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s okay. It’s, like I said, something to think about.

J. Robinson: One of the big ones is the Residential Tenancy Act. The pendulum has swung quite far forward, in terms of tenant rights, which is, we think, discouraging landlords or would-be landlords, discouraging investment in purpose-built rentals. It becomes difficult for the landlord to be assured a return on their investment when you’ve got difficult residential tenancy laws.

There are many, many aspects of this. Sorry, I wasn’t prepared to answer your question.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s fine. Just throwing it out there.

Nicholas and then Rich.

N. Simons: You can let Rich go.

R. Coleman: I had two things. One thing, on the residential tenancy change, I think that was a mistake. Seasonal ownership is dead for rental, because you can’t do a lease with a tenant. When you took the lease away, you can’t have a tenant in there for eight months and then get your own personal use of it the rest of the year, because that was closed last fall. People didn’t realize the impact.

You make a statement in your presentation that, as a member of the Langley Chamber of Commerce, disturbs me, and it is that now that employers are paying both MSP and EHT, the burden is twice as heavy. It’s actually 1½ times, because half the MSP. But you make a recommendation I never thought I’d ever see out of a chamber. It says: “We recommend that the province raise the contribution limit for paying the employer health tax in order to avoid undue negative impacts.”

I know a lot of small businesses in my community are hurting because of the employer health tax on top of their other costs, including triple-net flow-down from municipalities, what have you, that they’re putting the EHT into. You actually are advocating for it to go up. Can you square that circle for me?

J. Robinson: I’m not prepared to square that circle at the moment, no. I’m not totally familiar with that aspect of the issue.

[9:00 a.m.]

R. Coleman: It’s on page 3, paragraph 2, of your presentation. You can get back to me on that. I’m just curious.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Again, you can always expand that in the written submission. It’s completely fine if you want to add that in. We read everything again once we go away. So if you wanted to address a few of those….

J. Robinson: I do have the reference though. I’m looking at page 3 of the speaking notes, and I don’t see it.

R. Coleman: No, this is your presentation that was sent to me electronically, on line, that you submitted. You guys should just have a look at that.

J. Robinson: Sure.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah. If you wanted to make some amendment to that.

Nicholas, just quickly, because we’re a bit over time.

N. Simons: I was going to make a comment about all the infrastructure requests or needs, all the training needs, all the support that government gives to the agriculture sector. I can’t square this idea that taxes are generally bad, regulations are bad, but government is needed. I just think that there’s an imbalance there.

When you think about the MSP as not only a regressive form of taxation but as a very significant…. It’s like the largest single middle-class tax cut that’s occurred in the province. That impacts every one of the employees that you’re talking about. It impacts every one of those people that’s seeking housing. We have a number of crises in this province around homelessness that I think needed drastic action.

I just think that there has to be some relative recognition of the cost of ensuring our communities have their necessary infrastructure — and growing communities as much as other communities that need to restore their infrastructure. So I’m just….

J. Robinson: Don’t get me wrong. Business should pay tax, but this falls back on my very, very first point, which is that we need a simplification, because then it’s more transparent. How much money does government need? Where is it coming from? Let’s look at fewer sources of that tax revenue instead of having to sort out among 12, 15, 20 different taxes and figure out who is paying what. It becomes more difficult to see if it’s fair when it’s complex like that.

N. Simons: Yeah, sort of a harmonization of the taxes perhaps.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Ha. That’s funny. HST — is that what you’re talking about? You’re a funny guy, Nicholas.

We’re way over time, but I appreciate you spending the extra time with us.

Thanks for the questions, Members.

Okey-dokey. Next up…. How are we doing for time? Actually, you know what? Let’s just take a short, two-minute recess before our next….

The committee recessed from 9:03 a.m. to 9:07 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. We’re back with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Next up I’d like to call the Bridge — Celine Thompson and John Yarschenko.

BRIDGE YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES

J. Yarschenko: Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee this morning. My name is John Yarschenko. I’m the director of recovery and addictions with the Bridge Youth and Family Services. Joining me today is my colleague, Celine Thompson, executive director of the Bridge. We are honoured to be here with you on the traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan people of the Westbank First Nation.

On April 14, 2016, British Columbia’s provincial health officer declared a public health emergency due to an increasing number of overdose deaths. As a result of this declaration, many individuals have accessed opioid agonist therapies such as methadone and Suboxone. It also increased the distribution of naloxone, a life-saving overdose intervention medication.

In Kelowna, resources were added by Interior Health to support individuals who present to the hospital with substance use concerns as well as provide an outpatient day program. The addition of these services, however, has highlighted challenges and deficiencies in the rest of the system of care — namely, limited access to community-based withdrawal management services and facility-based treatment services for both youth and adults.

As the largest community-based provider of substance use resources in the Central Okanagan, the Bridge Youth and Family Services is at the forefront of supporting this community’s response to individuals and families impacted by addiction. The vantage point afforded by this role informs our position that the current system of recovery care is inadequately resourced to meet growing community needs.

The Central Okanagan is comparatively underserved and under-resourced in its efforts to meet a burgeoning demand. The Bridge’s aim is for the Central Okanagan to have an accessible and responsive recovery-oriented system of care. We have repeatedly heard from program participants, family members and community partners that in Kelowna, community resources are inadequate, and there’s increased frustration with this lack of access. We’ve also heard that services are delivered in inappropriate settings, like withdrawal management in acute care and acute intoxication in city cells.

Developing a network of responsive services allows individuals to access care before they experience the acute and often catastrophic impact of substance use and concurrent mental health issues. Timely access diverts people from engaging with high-cost government services such as the emergency department and the legal system. Individuals who are able to access care also have an increased chance of engaging with their community in a positive way, which, in turn, improves our collective economic and social well-being.

[9:10 a.m.]

Our submission to you this morning is to invite the provincial government to invest in this region’s system of recovery care to bring it to comparable levels realized elsewhere in the province. Our commitment to you, in turn, is to leverage our considerable expertise and infrastructure and have those services in place within two months of the investment.

Our experience highlights three areas that would immediately produce meaningful system improvements that would create resiliency systemwide and provide care to people when and where they need it.

The first area for improvement — we highlighted it at this forum last year — is the need for local live-in treatment resource for as many as 16 young people under the age of 19 who struggle with substance use issues. We brought to your attention that the province of B.C. has only 45 publicly funded beds in the entire province and none in the Okanagan. That situation hasn’t changed. We have nonetheless carried on with our campaign to build an Okanagan youth recovery house, and we will continue to do so.

The demand for this life-saving resource remains compelling, and our submission to you today is to implore you to invest in a smaller resource to at least begin to meet the needs of the most at-risk young people in our community. Within two months of such consideration, we can implement this evidence-based, effective and responsive live-in treatment program for six children and youth. These are young people that, at this moment, are being profoundly victimized and damaged by their substance use.

The second area for improvement is to establish rapid access to facility-based treatment. Rapid access will allow adults to engage in recovery when their motivation is highest, supporting more positive outcomes. We currently provide 20 publicly funded community-based treatment beds, serving men and women, respectively, in six-week cycles. This in-demand program serves the entire health region, and individuals often have to wait up to four months for access.

We propose to build on the existing capacity of the Bridge to create an additional six rapid-access treatment beds. These beds would help people safely transition from services like withdrawal management or acute care into a structured, supported environment. The addition of these six beds would improve the responsiveness of the overall system and allow individuals increased choice in navigating their recovery journey. We know that supporting smooth and seamless transitions in care is a best-practice approach that increases client success and decreases overall system cost.

The third improvement area is in the domain of withdrawal management services, most commonly referred to as detox. This has been an area of focus recently up and down the valley. South Okanagan social-serving organizations and the city council of Penticton have highlighted the need for a service that’s more accessible. We know that in comparing the two largest Interior Health communities, there’s a significant disparity of service availability based on population. The Central Okanagan serves a population of almost 200,000 people and has only ten funded detox beds, compared to Thompson-Nicola, which has 20 beds. In order to have an equal amount of beds per capita, the central Okanagan would require triple its current inventory.

In 2018-19, the existing ten-bed program in Kelowna was oversubscribed, running at over 100 percent capacity. It supported almost 600 admissions from across the region. This program is poised for expansion and already licensed for an additional five beds at the existing site. We know that by expanding our existing service with these five beds and implementing a mobile withdrawal management program, access would greatly increase. We would utilize a hub-and-spoke model and deliver valley-wide services that include dedicated access for the North and South Okanagan.

In conclusion, the government of British Columbia has the opportunity to continue leading the way forward on this complex social and health epidemic. The addition of dedicated community resources that meaningfully influence the effectiveness of the current system of care is required. We’re proposing solutions, but in the absence of investment, effective response to our community members who struggle with substance use will remain hit-or-miss. These individuals need access to care, not wait-lists that waste their fleeting moments of courage.

We believe that the legacy of under-resourcing is the untreated illness of British Columbians. It can be seen on our streets, in our parks, in our schools and in our communities. In desperation, individuals access the hospital, which is expensive and ill-equipped to respond. Some families remortgage their homes and incur significant debt to try to secure privately what they cannot access publicly — trying to get the help their loved ones need to survive and thrive. It’s our position that the ability to access services should be based on need, not predicated on geography or means. We present these opportunities for your consideration.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, John. I appreciate the presentation. Certainly, we all know that the need is huge in this province.

R. Coleman: John, did you say you had 20 publicly funded beds now, going forward?

J. Yarschenko: Yeah, facility-based treatment beds.

R. Coleman: Can you tell me what your recidivism is on those?

J. Yarschenko: What do you mean by recidivism?

R. Coleman: It’s how often they can come in for you. You say you have a six-week cycle. After the six-week cycle, how many recidivate back into drugs after being in your six-week cycle, basically?

[9:15 a.m.]

J. Yarschenko: It’s a really complex question. The challenge with that is the way our current system of care is designed: there are episodes of service. We’re funded to deliver service for six weeks, and then these individuals return to their home communities — to their local supported services, health authority services and other things.

Our service is currently contracted from day 1 to day 42. In terms of what the legacy impact of that is, it’s really difficult to know. What we do know are some key pieces of service, like aftercare and transitions in care, are missing. Those things need to be built into services so that services are connected for people actually having a path to wellness.

R. Coleman: What about therapeutic communities? Where do you guys sit with those?

J. Yarschenko: We embrace…. Everybody’s recovery journey is individual, and people can access the appropriate service for themselves. Sometimes that’s a 12-step-type program; sometimes that’s a spiritual program. Other times, it’s something that’s more in the harm-reduction realm. We think that people need to be worked with where they’re at in the ways that they’re most willing to receive that service.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just a quick question for you: have you presented these three needs for the community to the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions? Have you talked to the minister?

C. Thompson: We met with Minister Darcy. I believe it was last November or December. At that time, the focus of our presentation was the youth recovery house, knowing that there was a similar build happening in Fraser Health Authority. We wanted equal consideration here. She invited us to submit our interim plan for the smaller service. We’ve not heard a response since.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So you have made that specifically for the youth recovery house?

C. Thompson: Yes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): What about the two other options?

C. Thompson: The two other options we didn’t present to Minister Darcy at that time. We’ve been pretty vocal about our needs elsewhere, but not at that meeting with Minister Darcy that we had.

J. Yarschenko: We’ve met with the local health authority, certainly, who’s responsible for the system of care in the valley.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s great. Just in terms of expectations around this committee and what we do…. Because we’re looking at the entire budget, once we get drilling down into individual community needs, it gets a lot tougher for the committee to make very specific recommendations.

Of course, we all know there’s this massive need in the province. We hear this everywhere we go. This is being echoed in every community, so I appreciate what you’re struggling with. I just want to make sure of your expectations, as to what this forum would bring.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. Now, you have basically three asks: detox and withdrawal, rapid response and then treatment — live-in treatment or residential treatment. Of the three, which is the most important to address first?

J. Yarschenko: There’s an absolute gap in access for youth treatment services. For any young person in the Interior Health region, which is vast, the closest service they can access is either in Prince George or in Vancouver. So we’re uprooting children from their families and support services to go to these urban centres and these really isolating places.

We know that connecting people back to their support system, whether it’s their schools, families or others in their circle, is key for their success. The current system for youth is unacceptable.

C. Thompson: I think, from a really pragmatic point of view, the return on investment for young people would be really significant. We firmly believe that if we can connect with these young people while their brains are still developing, we can have incredible impact for years to come in this community and actually look at youth treatment as a preventative response to what the Okanagan is currently experiencing.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is there a Foundry in the…?

J. Yarschenko: There is.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay.

N. Simons: I was just wondering — it’s more of a policy idea question. There’s some push for secure care. Do you think that we need to be offering the voluntary supportive care before we start looking at secure care?

C. Thompson: I think that you’ve framed the question really well. We deal with some of the most street-entrenched children in this community, so we certainly understand parents’ and politicians’ motivation to keep these young people alive. Secure care is, really, the tip-of-the-iceberg kids. It’s a life-or-death situation. My belief is that secure care will not be as effective as it should be if we don’t have a continuum of services. If we can get a young person in, involuntarily, stabilize…. But if they have nowhere to go after, once they’re volunteering for those support services, we just say no and send them back? I think it’s a recipe for failure.

[9:20 a.m.]

N. Simons: Is this crisis for youth partly a failure of our…? Is it partly attributable to a child welfare system that…? Where are these young people going? Are they in secure housing? Are these youth that are street-entrenched really just indigent and homeless?

C. Thompson: I think it might be a product of our health system and children’s services system not working together. Where the health system primarily focuses on adults, the Ministry of Children and Family Development focuses on children but doesn’t have the health expertise. So think it has created some natural chasms in the policy landscape that exacerbate the problem. I don’t think it’s the only reason for the problem, though.

J. Yarschenko: I think, you know, you have multiple government-funded organizations that have various aspects of accountability for this population. There’s not a consistent accountability provincially for this population. We know that this group is undertreated and underserved in our current system of care. So lack of a concerted response for them really is a failure.

C. Thompson: I think substance use resources in general are really playing catch-up right now. There was inadequate investment for quite a long time. The current crisis creates a lot of heat and light on the matter, but the issue has always been there. We just haven’t had the resources to respond to the people in need.

N. Simons: Thank you for your presentation.

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

Next up we have Bradley Dahl.

Hi, Bradley. If we could try to keep the initial comments to five minutes, we’d appreciate that.

BRADLEY DAHL

B. Dahl: Hello. My name is Brad Dahl. I’m an independent observer, gatherer, connector and facilitator. I’m here to talk about the film-TV community in B.C. and the regional outcomes related to the tax incentives for the film-TV industry.

I participated in last year’s standing committee through a written submission. One of my observations about the strategic use of incentives to steer investments into the regions was included in the final report submitted to Treasury Board and Finance.

Today I want to provide information in support of that recommendation. I don’t have much time, so I’m just going to dive in with some key performance indicators. Hopefully, the standing committee will take those forward to the Treasury Board for the 2020 budget deliberations.

I provided a spreadsheet, and it has all the usual numbers in it that I got from Creative B.C. and B.C. budget annual reports. So $30.6 billion in spending since ’92, $23 billion of that being foreign production work and $6.8 billion being Canadian content. Last year $3.4 billion, with $2 billion spending on live action and $1 billion on visual effects, approximately, and 88 percent of that being foreign production work, 12 percent Canadian content.

And 50 to 70 percent of that spending is on wages, creating 27,000 full-time jobs in B.C. In the spreadsheet, I calculated adjusting for inflation over the period of the incentives. It’s about 410,000 person-years of direct employment.

In 2017, this was all supported by provincial tax credits of $391 million, which attracted $2.6 billion. It’s interesting that the incentive amount is only 15 percent of the amount of money brought into the province through that incentive.

Last year in the report on the Budget 2019 consultation, it just said: “Production location decision-making in the film industry is almost entirely driven by budget.” So incentives are critical. I explained that tax credits could be used strategically to expand the film industry and its benefits beyond Metro Vancouver.

What I’m really here to talk about is to give two examples of how powerful these incentives are. In the first example, I’m going to talk about the Okanagan, because I’m very familiar with it. In 1998, it was reported that the film commission had $2.6 million of spending in the area of the $808 million reported by the province. That equated to less than 1 percent. Actually, it was 0.32 percent of the total spending in B.C.

If we compare that to now, there is $3.4 billion in production spending, and it’s an estimated $31.8 million being spent in the Okanagan. This is pretty positive, but it’s still only 0.93 percent of the overall production spending. That’s using 20 years of compounded growth.

The positive is that the regions are experiencing about 14.2 percent growth, on average, versus the province, which is 7.5 percent. So the incentives are working.

[9:25 a.m.]

Another example. When the regional incentives were added to the Victoria area, the south Island, in 2014, there was a 6 percent bump for the distant location. That 6 percent bump ultimately led to reports in the local press and to a doubling and tripling of production spending the next year to nearly $20 million. This was over and above averages prior to that, which were in the $5 million to $6 million range. Since then, they’ve been reporting in the press about a $12 million to $13 million annual spend in the Victoria area. This all sounds good, but the actual spends that are staying in the regions and who’s actually benefiting in the regions is a little bit sketchy.

Creative B.C., in this last year, reported that 187 productions of the 452 they supported, or 41 percent, leveraged regional tax credits — that was outside of the designated Vancouver area — and 19 percent used the distant location tax credit. That sounds good too, but this is a bit misleading because the average…. Leveraging meant that they could shoot for a few weeks, a month, in the area. Then those were mostly companies from Metro Vancouver, Burnaby and North Vancouver, so the tax credits kind of leak back to the designated Vancouver area.

Since last year’s report, I’ve been trying to work with Finance to get numbers specific to the regional and distant location tax credits. They don’t break those out. They’re aggregated into the overall tax credit of $391 million in 2017, for instance. Last year, I estimated that only 5 percent of all the spending actually stays and occurs in the regions. That would be about $175 million of last year’s production numbers.

That was called into question by various support agencies around the province — that I was being disruptive and didn’t know my numbers. So I requested them from Finance so that I could actually speak to the exact numbers, like: “This is how much the regional tax credit is, this is how much the distant location tax credit is, and this is where the outcome is.” But I’ve never gotten those numbers. So part of why I’m here today is to request that those numbers be sought by the standing committee from Treasury Board so that we actually know what the data is so we can make an informed decision.

Just another example I want to give on the power of the tax credits was in the Comox area. The Vancouver Island North Film Commission did a training program that was sponsored by the government for $650,000 for key grip live-action people. That took their spending from $6 million to $60 million over a couple of years, and that had 91 percent local-hire employment, because they had trained the people and that kind of thing in the area.

Those are just two examples of the power of the tax credits. My theory is that these tax credits could really be used to leverage economic diversification in the regions. You know, we have lumber mills being closed down, and we have a great opportunity for these programs to create jobs, which they’d be great at, and to continue that.

The long and short of it is that when I did my investigation of my $175 million number I proposed last year, I could only come up with about $100 million. So we still don’t know, effectively, how much money is being spent in the regions relative to the tax credits, and that would be good to rectify.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Bradley, we’re at about 6½ minutes, so we’re about 1½ minutes over. If you could wrap it up, I’d appreciate it.

B. Dahl: Last year I just said that I would like to see the regional tax credit adjusted to 9 percent for all PSTC work, which is foreign production work, and have the distant location tax credit bumped to 12 percent from 6 percent for both PSTC and FIBC. That’ll allow the training tax credits to be used for foreign production work, because it’s only allowed for Canadian content work right now. We have no way of training new people in the regions without them being funded by the big budget shows that come through from foreign work.

Sorry for taking so long.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, no. That’s fine. Could you maybe give us a bit of your background, just so we know where you’re speaking from, so we have some context?

B. Dahl: I’ve been in the animation industry for about 25 or 30 years in B.C. I’ve always been employed by foreign entities, so I understand the flow of the money. I worked for Bardel entertainment for three years, dealing with….

B. D’Eith (Chair): So did I. I was their business legal affairs — for Barry and Delna.

B. Dahl: Okay, yeah. So I worked for them for….

N. Simons: Are you in a conflict here?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Am I in a conflict? No, I’m not in a conflict. Anytime we talk about the creative industries, I’m in a conflict. You know that, Nicholas.

B. Dahl: So I worked for them in their government relations. There was a tax credit change that impacted the company, and I tried to figure out ways to create a more positive outcome.

[9:30 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): So if I get what you’re saying, you’re trying to get a handle on trying to ensure that the regional credits are actually landing in those regions and that we track that. Is that something? And then also increasing….

B. Dahl: Yeah, just so that we know that the regional tax credits…. Everybody pays into it in the province. So 80 percent of the benefits going to 20 percent of the population. I think that could be changed over time to sort of spread the wealth, because the incentives are very focused on providing income to those three centres I mentioned.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I appreciate that.

Any questions at all?

N. Simons: It would be interesting to know what the direct impacts of those regional credits are. I agree with you. Maybe we’ll be able to find them.

B. D’Eith (Chair): There are two things though, aren’t there? There’s the spend in the region. I mean, certainly the regions are benefiting from the spend. So if the incentive pushes people to…. Like, I notice that in Maple Ridge, where I live, we have the Ridge Studios. It’s just inside the regional tax area, so it’s an incentive to come out to Maple Ridge, for example, which is good. That spend is there.

At least there’s kind of a…. There are two issues. One is the tax credit coming back to the company. The other issue is the spend in the area and, sort of, the benefit for that region in terms of the spend. I guess there are really a few issues there.

B. Dahl: If you use the Kelowna example, if we doubled spending in the region from $32 million to $64 million, that’s a $320 million impact over five years. That’s a $450 billion economic impact, and it creates jobs. If we have studios like Bardel and Yeti putting infrastructure into place, it locks them into the region instead of having people come in for a couple days, weeks, months and then leave.

We have 160 kids in animation in school district 23 right now, a program I designed. We’re working with UBCO and OC to create all this talent. There’s a lot of opportunity here. It just needs to be incented.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Bradley, there are a number of bits to your presentation here. What you’re reading off of — was that actually submitted as well?

B. Dahl: No. I’ll submit this as a written submission afterwards.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Please do. Because I was going to say that we have the background information in terms of your stats and Creative B.C., but I didn’t actually have the presentation. We’d really appreciate that.

B. Dahl: These were just sort of guidelines for me to try and talk to.

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

Next up we have Okanagan Indian Band — Coun. Val Chiba.

How are you?

V. Chiba: Good, thank you. Wáy x̌ast sx̌əlx̌ʕált. Thank you for inviting us and lending your ear for a few minutes. My apologies for not getting a copy to you. I’m sure we can email.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just so you know, too, anything you say is transcribed, so we actually have it in writing anyway. But you can send it in writing.

V. Chiba: All your bases are covered?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, we’re all covered.

V. Chiba: I’ll try not to make any mistakes.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, no. Don’t worry. You’ll be in good company.

OKANAGAN INDIAN BAND

V. Chiba: This is awesome. We have an awesome beautiful day to enjoy each other’s energy and ideas and, hopefully, constructive plans to go forward. I have just a few notes from a couple of our staff members who have politely put them together for me. This is my second year sitting on council. The first two years were kind of like learning. Now we’re knowing the roles and rules and regulations.

Our key message is that the Okanagan Indian Band appreciates the province’s move to include First Nations in gaming revenue-sharing. We hope that there are no unnecessary delays in getting the finances into the communities as soon as possible. The Okanagan Indian Band appreciates the support for our daycare in becoming one of the $10-a-day pilot sites. This is providing quality, low-cost daycare spaces to our community.

Our community needs immediate attention to some of the forestry roads on the IR 1. They have not been maintained and are now impassable, leaving the community without adequate emergency exits in case of fire. We need resources to hire an emergency management coordinator to plan and execute emergency functions. Floods and fires are commonplace. Our community is uniquely located where many Indigenous and non-Indigenous residents rely on us for assistance and emergency situations.

[9:35 a.m.]

I must commend…. We did have a lot of support with the funds. We did get a lot of positive feedback from our community for being there, providing the sandbags and first aid. We just coordinated, and we just helped as many people as possible. It was really well done. So thank you. But we need more help.

The Indigenous housing fund introduced in 2018 was a good first step in helping with on-reserve housing. However, the application process is difficult, and help would be appreciated in helping us better understand how to benefit from the program.

Our community has been hit hard by the fentanyl epidemic, and we need resources to help our members get the necessary addiction treatments they need. I know we’re not the only…. You know, it’s everywhere. That darned drug doesn’t discriminate against anybody or anywhere. We all need to pull together and come with a really productive program that can help our poor lost brothers and sisters of all walks of life.

Our background. Over the past two years, we have experienced high impacts from flooding in our community. The freshets of 2017 and 2018 caused severe erosion and flooding impacts on our reserve lands. The Okanagan Indian Band has, for the past two years, attempted to work with different representatives from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations and emergency management to address the road concerns. At this time, we have not been given any indication that these concerns will be addressed.

The following roads have been identified as emergency evacuation routes in the event that Westside Road is compromised by floods or fire. Bouleau Forest Service Road, Granite Creek Forest Service Road, Salmon River Forest Service Road — no access, and they’re washed out. Bouleau Forest Service Road, Granite Creek Forest Service Road, Ingram Creek Forest Service Road — four-wheel-drive access only can get in there. Whiteman Creek Forest Service Road, South Fork Forest Service Road — no access at all; it’s all washed out. Whiteman Creek Forest Service Road, Mowing Machine Forest Service Road — rough; four-wheel-drive access only. Pinaus Lake, Ingram Creek Forest Service Road — no access; slide and washout. We’re really, really concerned about Pinaus Lake.

Facts and our stats. The 2016 census has the population on the Okanagan Indian Reserve #1 as 2,870 people. This identifies the full-time residents. In addition to this, there is in excess of 1,000 seasonal cabins along Okanagan Lake, which increases our population up to 3,000 people.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Fantastic. Thank you so much. Appreciate that.

N. Simons: I really like that name — White Man’s road. It’s interesting the way names come about, isn’t it?

It’s good that we have it on record and that we can relay this, also, to the ministry.

V. Chiba: I just wanted to note that Pinaus Lake has been on our radar. We know it is sliding. We would be really appreciative if we could get some sort of an alarm system up there, because if that dam breaks, it’s going to be a major, major catastrophe. If we had prior notice of that, we would be more prepped to evacuate the residents that are in danger of that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is there any issue that the dam is…?

V. Chiba: There’s lots of sloughing. We’ve been going up there monitoring it. Yeah, there’s lots of….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Is it a hydro dam? No. Just a lake?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): A water retention lake.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Whose responsibility is the dam? I’m just curious.

V. Chiba: Good question. I could ask my staff and get that question back to you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That would be great, if you wouldn’t mind.

Any other questions?

Thank you so much for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

V. Chiba: Excellent. Thank you for your time, and you all have an awesome rest of the day.

Limləmt.

[9:40 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Okanagan Regional Library — Don Nettleton.

Hi, Don. How are you?

D. Nettleton: Very good, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. So if we could try to keep the initial comments to about five minutes, we’d appreciate that.

D. Nettleton: Okay. I’m just confirming…. I sent the thing electronically. You all have that already?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, thank you.

OKANAGAN REGIONAL LIBRARY

D. Nettleton: Okay, great.

Thank you again for allowing me the opportunity. I know that you hear lots of things and there’s a lot going at you, so I appreciate you taking the time to listen to this as well.

I’m presenting today not only for the Okanagan Regional Library but for all of the libraries of B.C., all the public libraries. There are about 247 different sites, so this is a presentation made sort of broadly.

A quick background on the Okanagan Regional Library. It’s one of the regional library systems in the province. We have 31 branches. We serve about 400,000 people, stretching from Golden right through to Princeton, all throughout the Okanagan and Shuswap. It’s been going for about a little over 80 years. It really helps to ensure that all of the communities, the smallest ones as well as the largest ones, have some equal treatment that the small ones couldn’t do by themselves.

What I really wanted to urgently help bring to your attention is the importance of provincial support for the public libraries. Public libraries are really the only public institutions that are truly equitable in providing services for all community members so that they may participate in and benefit from the social and economic development of their communities. They’re also the only really freely available space for all British Columbians to understand and connect with the services of the province. They’re kind of unique in this way.

They are particularly critical, I think, to the more socially disadvantaged and economically disadvantaged people. Those are the ones who don’t otherwise, probably, have access to electronic means, to the Internet, to other types of things. They also can’t afford books or materials. For those who are on the lower end of that spectrum, it’s particularly important. If they also have diverse abilities — such as they can’t read properly, eyesight, hearing — those types of things are important.

Libraries have changed a whole lot from what most of us would have thought of ten, 20 years ago. In addition to the traditional things, such as reading and literacy and that sort of thing, we’re now into the whole community engagement, the digital learning. There are a lot of things…. You’ve probably heard of STEAM and that sort of thing. Those are all skills which are critical to getting by in this particular world that we live in.

They’re also increasingly becoming more of gathering spaces for teaching, for support for accessing services and for just connecting within the community.

There is past history with this committee and with the government in the sense of knowing that these libraries are making life more affordable. The committee’s aware of this role from the annual UBCM resolutions. There are also annual submissions from library trustees, from staff, from community members and from local government officials across the province.

I appreciate that the provincial government did recognize that the library public funding was an issue. Back in 2017, they acknowledged that the cost of public library services has increased and changing technology and other demands are putting pressures on there. We’re heartened by that, but we’re still waiting for action to happen on that.

I’ve given a number of issues or examples of how public libraries throughout the province are connecting and helping throughout some of the provincial government’s things, such as the reconciliation calls for action, how to do services, personal enjoyment, life-learning needs, those kinds of things — for newcomers to be integrated into the community, finding their way about, for those who have other languages and need some help and for just finding community resources.

I’d encourage the committee to look at some of those links. You’ll find them quite interesting as to how they work. But I won’t go through them at this time because of the time that we have.

As an example, with the Okanagan Regional Library, just to give you an idea on where we are at with the funding, the province as a whole has $14 million over the last number of years that they have provided for libraries across the province. We have…. It’s been frozen for over a decade.

[9:45 a.m.]

The impact on the library, the local library, for that, over the past 25 or 30 years, is that we’ve gone from about 23, 24 percent of our annual funding coming from the province down to about 5 percent now. That’s just with our system. It’s probably very similar for a lot of others.

That’s a huge impact, particularly on the rural and smaller communities. The way the provincial funding goes is that it’s weighted so that rural areas get larger funding than what urban do, with the recognition that it costs more to service rural areas. We certainly find that in our area.

As we’re trying to balance out the dollars that have come from tax areas to what’s being spent in those areas, we’ve had to pull back services in some of the more rural areas to try and keep it in balance to keep our regional areas going. It’s really disheartening when you see some of the smaller areas, which probably need it more, getting cut back.

What our ask is, is that libraries across the province…. For the 247 libraries, we’d ask that in 2020, the budget move from $14 million to $20 million and that it be ongoingly increased for inflation. That would be a recognition of a number of years of frozen budgets and being underfunded. That’s really the ask that we’re making. I hope that you’ll be able to bring that forward to the Ministry of Finance and put that into the budget through the Ministry of Education.

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

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thank you for presenting. I’ve been very vocal on this, and I’ll continue to be. I think it’s a wonderful entity, an incredible entity, that we have, but we have to all live within our means. In my past life here, in local government, the Okanagan Regional Library has always far exceeded cost-of-living adjustments, with taxation requests coming through to regional boards, and I think it’s something that we need to address at some point in time, sooner than later.

The requisition and…. The new facilities are incredible. They’re utilized. But I still think we all have to live within…. You’ve mentioned that the province hasn’t been able to support, but the taxation levels at the regional level have increased dramatically with the predecessor. I’ve had the conversation numerous times, and I’ll continue to have it. I just hope that we continue to live within our means, because there is only one taxpayer.

D. Nettleton: I agree. Certainly within the last number of years, our increases have been 1, 1½ percent for the last four or five years. There was a period of time back in the early 2000s when they weren’t. That’s when we were having to build infrastructure.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): But that carries on. That taxation level carries on. Again, I cannot commend you enough for the facilities and the operation and the services that you provide, but let’s just do it within a reasonable opportunity for people to continue to pay for those services.

D. Nettleton: Certainly, Dan. I will just add one comment, just in defence. When we look at provincial averages of library spending, the Okanagan Regional Library, as an example, is more than 30 percent below on staffing compared to other libraries in the province. So I don’t feel we’re out of line in those kinds of things.

I think the ask, as I say, I’m making is that with the provincial libraries as a whole, they have had their budgets frozen for more than a decade, and anybody would agree that the cost of living, for more than a decade, has certainly increased, probably close to 2 percent a year, I would guess. So that’s a 20 percent adjustment over that period of time out of libraries.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Again, I just want to say you do a wonderful job. Thank you. You provide those services, but let’s just live within our means.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation. I sat on the Vancouver Island regional library board and was the chair for a couple of years.

D. Nettleton: That’s why I knew your name.

R. Leonard: Yeah. Eight years is a long time to be supporting libraries. I certainly appreciate Okanagan, because you were the ones that kind of cracked open the opportunities for libraries to be able to find a way to borrow money to build new libraries. That’s made a big difference in a lot of communities.

I wanted to just say that the work that you do is bigger than books. I know that there have been a lot of different ways of approaching the ask of the province. When I left, it was eight cents on the dollar, down to seven cents, and now you’re saying it’s five cents. So, obviously, the needs are great in our communities, and you’re working hard to meet those needs. And it’s bigger, as I say, than books. I really appreciate that. I just wanted to thank you.

D. Nettleton: Thank you.

[9:50 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We have maybe just one more minute, but I wanted to ask about the impact of digital on libraries and the morphing of libraries in terms of…. I think of our libraries in Maple Ridge and Mission. As you said, if I go in, it’s definitely providing services well beyond books — so digitization and also the other services, sort of the societal services that it provides as well. If you could just talk to those briefly.

D. Nettleton: Digitization is huge. Obviously, we’re in that transition period where we’ve got both the, still, traditional as well as digitization happening at the same time. So that adds to double the challenge. I think you may have heard that there’s a digitization challenge for libraries as a whole, both being able to access digital materials and also the cost of them. I’m particularly thinking of e-books, audio books, that sort of thing.

Some of it we can’t get due to copyright. We’re pushing the federal government on those types of issues. Some of it is a case of just that the cost of a digital product would be $60 or $80 for a limited number of uses. The same cost would be $10 to $15 for, you know, a paperback or $20 for a hard copy. So the costs are significantly more, but that’s the demand of what people want and increasingly need. I think that’s the way the world, ultimately, will go, to some extent.

It has allowed some opportunities. With our space adjustments, we’ve been able to free up space to do more of the community services and some of the meeting and teaching and programming that we otherwise didn’t have space for. So that’s been a positive, but it’s certainly…. Yeah, I think in Fraser Valley, you would have …. They call it sort of a library — I think it’s called Playground — sort of thing, where they’re really trying to focus on the digital skills that young people need and that seniors, as well, need just to survive.

You have to have an understanding of computerization, of programming, of doing those kinds of things in order to get by in the world. You have to know how to use a smartphone or how to do other things to really get along with the rest of society these days.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much, Don. We really appreciate all the work you do, and we all appreciate how important libraries are to our communities. So thank you.

D. Nettleton: Thank you for your time.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thank you, sir. Appreciate it.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Next up we have Tina Rader.

Welcome, Tina. How are you?

T. Rader: I’m good, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Excellent.

TINA RADER

T. Rader: Thank you for this opportunity to speak to the budget committee. I am new to the Okanagan. I came here in September from the Comox Valley, where I was for 40 years. So I’m speaking to you primarily from my experience living on Vancouver Island, but I think that is a microcosm for the rest of the province. So my comments are about the provincial situation.

I’m a registered clinical social worker, and I worked most of my career with children, youth and families. For the bulk of that time, I was with youth forensic psychiatric services for the north Island. You may know what that is, or you may not. But it’s a program that is presently under the auspices of the Ministry for Children and Family Development. We provide assessment and treatment services to youth involved in the criminal justice system.

So one of the things that has been an increasing or pervasive and recurring problem is youth who are aging out of care, aging out of the youth criminal justice system and supports for those kids. Those young people do not have financial support when they leave care. The government does offer an agreement with young adults, and those are sometimes available but not always.

Most of these kids, young people who’ve aged out of care or out of the criminal justice system, don’t have the financial or emotional support when they leave care. They’re often left to manage in the world on their own, with no opportunity to prepare for independence or to practise being independent. Most don’t have foster or family homes to go to. They’re on their own. Many are disconnected from their family and community of origin.

[9:55 a.m.]

These young people lack the financial resources and emotional supports available to most young people in early adulthood, who have family to lean on and lend a hand.

Most parents offer support financially, physically and emotionally to their young adults transitioning to adulthood. Most young people have parents to fall back on when the responsibilities of adulthood are too great. They are able to return home for holidays, call parents to assist with extraordinary expenditures, participate in family celebrations, etc. The presence of a financial safety net and the emotional connections with family offer young adults healthy, gradual and successful transitions from adolescence to adulthood.

Evidence from B.C. and elsewhere indicates that young people aging out of care and the youth justice system are not equipped to transition successfully into adulthood. They may be struggling with the burden of early parenting, mental health and emotional issues, learning difficulties, and disconnection from family and culture as well as other barriers to success.

Without ongoing financial support, young adults aging out are at risk of becoming trapped in the welfare cycle, homelessness, addictions and mental health problems. They may be forced into the sex trade and/or to engage in crime or become the victims of crime. This results in higher costs to government in the form of increased health costs, corrections, policing, social assistance and much, much more.

And 60 percent of young adults aging out of care are Indigenous. There is, likewise, an inordinate percentage of Indigenous youth involved in the criminal justice system, making our collective social responsibility to ensure successful transition even more acute in this time of reconciliation.

MCFD offers agreements with young adults, but the eligibility criteria are such that only 21 percent of youth aging out of care access the program, and most of those are in the large urban areas of Metro Vancouver. Youth outside the Lower Mainland, too often Indigenous youth, are not making use of the program because the criteria to access — that is, enrolment in full-time school or life skills programs — are simply not available in their community.

The costs of adverse outcomes for youth aging out of care are high, somewhere between $222 million and $268 million for the cohort of 1,000 youth aging out of care each year, plus significant intangible costs.

While there is a possibility of tuition waiver for post-secondary education for young adults aging out, it’s not a given that financial support will be made available to the young person while attending school — again, putting our young people aging out at a significant disadvantage.

The cost of increased supports is small compared to the potential savings and benefits to youth aging out and to society as a whole. I would recommend that you look at the excellent report Opportunities in Transition: An Economic Analysis of Investing in Youth Aging out of Foster Care for a brief and comprehensive analysis of the economic and social cost of extending supports to youth aging out of care and leaving the youth justice system.

I make three recommendations: that the eligibility criteria be removed so that all young adults aging out of care and youth justice programs across the province have access to AYAs from the ages of 19 to 24; that AYAs and access to tuition-free post-secondary education be joined so as to offer a basic income to young adults seeking a post-secondary education, thereby promoting and supporting their success; and that more funding be made available to existing programs that offer social and emotional support to young people aging out of the system so that they may continue to be supported to young people toward a gradual and successful transition to adulthood.

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

Tina, we have actually heard a number of presenters so far dealing with youth aging out of foster care. We really appreciate your wisdom and all the years you’ve put into this. It makes a difference when people come with that sort of experience — to be able to say: “Hey, look. There’s an issue.” You see it, and we hear it. So thank you, Tina. We appreciate that.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Real quick. Tina, thanks for the presentation. Yesterday, we were really fortunate to hear from a young lady that was in the system and her view on it, and it was a real eye-opener for people like myself.

[10:00 a.m.]

I had the opportunity to carry that conversation on last night with a single mom who has raised a daughter in turbulent times and how she became successful. Some of the ideas that she passed along to me that I’ll have the opportunity…. I relate to my good friend Nicholas over there, who was involved in the system. I’ll be sticking some of those ideas in his head.

I just want to thank you. It’s good for somebody like me to hear both sides of it and, as Bob said, with your experience. So I really appreciate you coming today. Thanks.

T. Rader: It’s always been a really difficult thing to see how we put money and time and energy and resources into kids, and then, when they reach 19, we just abandon them. It’s not good. For kids in the youth justice system, it’s even worse, because you know that they’re going to end up right back where they started. It’s not good.

R. Coleman: Tina, we’ve had a couple of presentations about this — when they’re aging out of care and having them supported with the tuition piece and other…. Nobody has actually come up with the numbers. When somebody is aging out of care, how much income do they need?

I know there are different areas of the province. Costs are different. Housing is different. But what is in the mind, being a professional, having been in this field as long as you have? What is the amount of money per month or per year that’s needed per child as an income?

T. Rader: Well, again, you’re right. It depends on where they live, obviously. In the Lower Mainland, it’s usually expensive to live. But my hunch would be somewhere around $1,300 a month, because that would provide young people with the capacity to rent a place to live and some moneys for food and utilities. It would allow them to work and still be comfortable, knowing that they’ve got this backup.

R. Coleman: So you would allow them an earning exemption on top of that? Like they would be able to earn and….

B. D’Eith (Chair): So, in other words, they could work on top of that.

T. Rader: Yeah. Oh, for sure. They would need to do that, I think.

D. Clovechok: I just wanted to say thank you, Tina, for your presentation. The stories we’ve heard yesterday were compelling as well. Incredibly important. I just wanted to thank you for coming and sharing that with us today.

T. Rader: You’re welcome.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thanks, Tina. I appreciate it.

Next up we have the Canadian Union of Public Employees, British Columbia — Paul Faoro and Karen Ranalletta.

Paul, just a reminder. We’re trying to keep comments to about five minutes.

P. Faoro: That’s what I heard. I got the memo.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you so much. I know there’s way more than five minutes to talk about, but I appreciate that.

CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES,
B.C. DIVISION

P. Faoro: Well, first off, good morning, committee. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I don’t envy your job having to cobble together all of the comments made around this great province in a report. So I wish you all the best in your deliberations.

My name is Paul Faoro. I’m the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, B.C. Division. I’m here with Karen Ranalletta, one of our general vice-presidents. You probably are aware that CUPE B.C. is the largest union in British Columbia. We’re now at 97,000 workers. We’ll probably hit 100,000 next year.

We’ve got members in just about every town in this city. It makes it complicated. We represent workers in just about every sector in British Columbia. Certainly, you’ll see that in our report — talking about every sector.

You’ll see from our submission that we have made 30 recommendations to you. Certainly, I know that you’re going to look at those. They represent the viewpoints from our members in all of those sectors. But in the interest of the five-minute time lot, we’re going to focus in on a sector that I think needs more attention.

I am pleased to follow…. I believe it was from the Okanagan library area. We’re going to talk about libraries today. We represent about 3,700 library workers in more than 50 communities in the province.

[10:05 a.m.]

Unfortunately, the former provincial government cut funding from libraries nearly 20 percent in 2010, and that funding has not increased since. We believe restoring provincial funding to public libraries is critically important to ensure that libraries can continue to provide the services in communities throughout B.C.

You know that libraries provide free access to lifelong learning, which is becoming more important as tuition, in particular in post-secondary, increases. These libraries are centres for community building — I call them hubs — but are important spots for celebrating and promoting local arts and culture.

Libraries play an important role in addressing the digital divide in B.C., providing free access to Internet and technology. It’s very important in our society when the Internet is becoming central to how we work, how we operate. I think it’s really important that on-line application forms — this is the part where I think we need to keep our eye on the ball — are becoming, really, the default now, in particular for accessing government services. There’s an important link between libraries and accessing government services, including those folks who are applying for social assistance.

Libraries provide an important safety net for vulnerable populations — the homeless, people struggling with mental health, seniors, new immigrants. We believe that libraries should receive proper funding to support resources to respond to addressing poverty and those folks who are really on the front lines. We know public libraries significantly contribute to the government’s goals for making life more affordable, building a strong, sustainable and innovative economy for all British Columbians.

Our first recommendation. I’m sure you’re going to hear this over and over, but we believe and we support the provincial government increasing funding for public libraries to $20 million in 2020. When you look at that, that’s just an increase of $6 million over the current funding, but I would remind the committee that it’s time that we actually move library funding up, because it’s been literally frozen.

Library workers provide a vital service — I know you know this — in every community, yet library jobs are often precarious and poorly paid. Many library workers are part-time, do not have a regular schedule and lack benefits such as extended health and pensions.

The majority of library workers are women. In general, library workers have these pay grids like other municipal workers, but they’re paid less than those municipal workers with similar levels of responsibilities and experience. We think the library sector is a great sector to begin addressing the issue of pay equity in British Columbia to ensure that the quality of service library workers are providing is recognized by decent compensation and benefits.

Our second recommendation, you’ll see in the brief that you have before you, is to provide extra funding to libraries for the purpose of pay equity with other municipal workers.

Moving on, Indigenous communities in B.C. have little access to library service. I commend the government for their efforts on reconciliation. Without specific agreements in place, residents of Indigenous reserve communities may not have access to nearby library services. We believe the B.C. government should be investing in staffing, training and infrastructure required so that Indigenous communities on reserve have access to borrowing print materials, access to the Internet or other digital or technological resources provided by libraries.

So the final recommendation today on the library sector is that we’re requesting this committee to consider putting forward a recommendation to specifically increase funding for Indigenous communities to access library services and free Internet.

That sums up our three recommendations today in a five-minute window. I certainly would like more opportunity, but I would ask that you would consider those recommendations and please look at the other areas that we’ve put forward.

If there are any questions on the library sector or anything moving forward, our union wants to help. Our union wants to help this government continue to build a British Columbia, making it better for everyone. Certainly, you’ve got my commitment to work with you. Thanks for your time, and I look forward to reading your final report.

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

Any questions for Paul at all, or for CUPE?

[10:10 a.m.]

R. Leonard: Thank you, Paul, for your presentation. Good morning. Interesting that you focused on public libraries when we just had the….

P. Faoro: That wasn’t set up. We would never do that.

R. Leonard: So you have three areas that you cover. The $20 million is one ask, but then the second one is around pay equity and access to library services for Indigenous people on reserve. Those are two different asks.

P. Faoro: Yes. That’s correct.

R. Leonard: Do you have numbers that you have attached to that?

P. Faoro: We don’t, but we would be happy to provide you a secondary addendum to those numbers. We have a very good partnership with the British Columbia Library Association that we’ve just actually started developing. You probably heard that we just invested in the Summer Reading Club. We’re now one of the major sponsors of the Summer Reading Club.

Certainly, we’d be happy to sit down and figure out those numbers. I appreciate it would be helpful to have hard numbers for making those recommendations, but we could provide you something in the follow-up email.

R. Leonard: Okay. The reason I ask that is because I know that there are different library systems throughout the province, and there are different circumstances — particularly, for instance, with library services for people on reserve.

I know Vancouver Island Regional Library is open to providing services with them, and there are other library systems that don’t allow Indigenous people to get a library card and access services. So it’s so spread out and different across the province that it is challenging. I thought maybe you’d already done the work.

P. Faoro: No. Again, we could find that out for you. I don’t know if Karen, my colleague, has any comments on that.

K. Ranalletta: No, just that we are allying ourselves with our partners in the Indigenous community — with the First Nations Technology Council, with the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, etc. Those are the kinds of groups who are the main drivers of this, and they’ve come to us for support. We recognize that there are library systems that do have agreements with local communities, but what we’re asking for is that we can open up access to as many people in the province as we can.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Thanks, both of you, for coming today. I’ve had the opportunity to be on the other side of the table with the individuals that you represent, specifically at the municipal level, and I cannot say enough about the incredible staff that the municipalities have that you are fortunate enough to represent. You do a very good job, and they do an incredible job for the communities where they work. So thank you.

P. Faoro: Well, I appreciate those comments. We’re proud of the public services that our members…. I’ll end with this. They’re doing it because they want to help, and that’s why we’re all doing this work. It’s about helping people, and that’s what makes this work so…. It keeps me smiling every day. Again, I thank you for what you’re doing today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Paul, there are 29 recommendations….

P. Faoro: Yes. Do you want me to talk about the other 26? I’d be happy to.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Last year we had a total of 100 for the entire province, and this submission has 29. We’re actually out of time, Paul, but I just wanted to make sure. Has this been submitted electronically so we have a copy of this? I didn’t see it in the electronic….

P. Faoro: Yes. I understand that that’s happening as we speak.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Good. I just wanted to make sure, because there’s a lot here.

Any closing remarks?

P. Faoro: No. That’s great. As I said, it’s a good problem for myself to have, representing members in every sector. I just have to pick one, and we honestly believe that it’s time for the library sector to get some extra attention. I’ll leave it with that. You have a great day, my friends.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have the UBC Students Union Okanagan — Taylor Dotto, Sarah Furgason and Ali Poostizadeh.

[10:15 a.m.]

Okay. Just a reminder to you that if we could keep the initial comments to about five minutes so then we have time for questions, that’d be great. Thank you. Please, go ahead.

UBC STUDENTS UNION OKANAGAN

T. Dotto: My name is Taylor Dotto, and I’m the VP external with the UBC Students Union Okanagan. Thank you very much for taking the time to hear from us today and for the decisions made in the previous budget that have positively impacted post-secondary students in British Columbia.

We are grateful that the government has eliminated interest on student loans in British Columbia and has recently announced $3.26 million in funding for open educational resources. We are confident that these investments will help reduce the barriers to post-secondary education for B.C. students.

This year our organization is requesting improvements in three key areas that will continue to increase access to post-secondary education in British Columbia: the creation of a B.C. grants program; a plan to reduce tuition fees; and an increase in funding for institutions.

Recently a student reached out to me regarding the high tuition cost at our institution. She had completed her third year of a four-year degree program and should be starting the final year of her degree this fall. However, she is unable to afford tuition for the upcoming year and has now decided to postpone her degree and work full-time to afford to return to our institution next year. She made this decision in order to avoid taking out yet another student loan and increasing her already daunting level of student debt.

Because of her financial situation and the strenuous fees required by the institution, she is choosing to delay her graduation an entire year. This will mean a delay in the achievement of other important and meaningful milestones as well, such as buying a house, getting married or having children.

Unfortunately, stories like this one are much too common amongst post-secondary students in British Columbia. In 2018, a B.C. graduate survey found that one in two students graduated with debt, and nearly 65 percent of them owe more than $20,000. This is why we need a comprehensive, upfront, needs-based grants program in B.C.

An increase in non-repayable student financial assistance options for students from low- and middle-income backgrounds would make a huge difference for students who are struggling to continue their studies.

Post-secondary students today are confronted by many more challenges than students were facing in the early 1990s. In B.C., average tuition fees for an undergraduate education have increased by 212 percent since 1990. My older brothers, who were students around this time, were capable of paying for their education by working a summer job, as well as a part-time job during their academic year, consisting of about 10 to 12 hours a week.

In order for me to access the same standard of education that they did, I’m working upwards of 30 hours a week during the academic year, as well as two summer jobs, and I still struggle with the costs associated with being a student.

Sadly, this, as well, is not at all uncommon. Many students in 2019 are having to work excessive hours and often more than one job at a time during their studies to adequately afford their education, which often results in a reduced course load in order to make time for more working hours.

It isn’t only high tuition fees that are causing financial strain. Students are faced with a multitude of additional expenses and hardships, such as rising housing costs, inflation and transportation costs. This, in turn, has led to an increase in student food insecurity. In 2018, a survey found that 47 percent of UBCO students identified food insecurity as an issue on our campus.

A plan to reduce tuition fees, starting with a freeze on domestic tuition, will help alleviate the financial stress students are facing. It isn’t only domestic students who are struggling. International students in B.C. are finding it nearly impossible to budget for their education, due to the abrupt and unexpected increases in their tuition fees.

Just last month SFU announced that international student tuition would go up as much as 20 percent in the upcoming academic year. This is exactly why government regulation is needed for international student tuition. The absence of a tuition cap means that their tuition rates can increase by any amount at any time, making it extremely difficult for them to budget their year accordingly.

International students contribute to our economy and to the financial stability of our post-secondary institutions, so it’s important to ensure increases to international student fees are both reasonable and predictable.

Institutions could afford to freeze or even reduce tuition if the government provides increased funding. In the ’70s, post-secondary institutions were largely funded by the government. As government funding has decreased over the years, B.C. post-secondary institutions have had no choice but to raise fees. We saw a significant spike during years where it was unregulated in B.C. While we now have a cap on domestic tuition, students today are still feeling the burden of large increases from previous years, as tuition has soared far beyond inflation.

We believe that these challenges can be overcome. By creating a B.C. grants program, reducing tuition costs and providing more funding to institutions, the government can create investments in education that will greatly reduce barriers to post-secondary education for all British Columbians.

[10:20 a.m.]

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

I have a question. I know that there has been some new money for open textbooks. Did you have any comments on that initiative at all?

S. Furgason: Yeah. We were hugely excited to hear that announcement. We think that’s going to definitely have a positive impact on the costs associated with post-secondary education. We know that textbook costs are a huge issue for students. We hear that from students every year. Seeing that there will be more open education resources available is fantastic news. We’re very grateful that the government made that commitment.

B. D’Eith (Chair): What about student housing, especially in the Okanagan? Maybe you could talk a little bit about that and its impact on these costs. You talk about the student costs. Obviously, housing has got to be one of them — one of the bigger ones. I’m just curious if you could comment on that, in this particular region, so that we’re familiar with that.

S. Furgason: Our organization was recently at a hearing, here in Kelowna, to do with short-term rentals in this city. We were just looking into some statistics around that as well. I think last year Kelowna had the highest rental increase overall, which I think was about 9.4 percent, according to statistics.

We hear a lot about the high cost of housing in Vancouver, but our area actually has significant high costs for housing. We’ve got some additional student housing going in at UBC Okanagan. I think it’s going to increase by 700 beds within the next two years or so. That’s going to really help. But certainly, overall, the cost of housing is an issue for students — absolutely.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So tuition fees, the grant program and international students are really the three main asks, if I got all those right. Was there…?

S. Furgason: Well, tuition is sort of an issue itself, both for domestic students and international students. Increase funding to institutions so that we can actually tackle that issue of those high tuition costs. The institutions are raising tuition by 2 percent every year just as a matter of course.

We do the consultations with students. How do they feel about the increase in tuition? Of course, they don’t like it, but we just see that happen systematically every year because the institutions are kind of…. You know, without more funding, what else can they really do? So it’s increased funding for institutions, the upfront needs-based grants and then the tuition freeze or some kind of plan to tackle that issue…

B. D’Eith (Chair): For foreign students?

S. Furgason: …of tuition costs, overall. Yeah.

R. Coleman: I’ve got a question that comes more from a domestic constituency perspective. Maybe you, as students, can answer it for me. Are there students from British Columbia being bumped out of positions going into post-secondary because of the influx of international students?

S. Furgason: I will admit that I don’t know the answer to that question. We would be happy to look into it at our institution and find out and get back to you. I would absolutely be happy to do that.

R. Coleman: Okay. It seems to come up from parents, basically at this time of year, as their children are graduating from high school. They’re saying: “My child is having difficulty getting into a university in B.C. Are they being bumped because of an influx of students from outside the tax-paying public?”

B. D’Eith (Chair): There’s a second part to that too. I’ve heard from students who, let’s say, have to do prerequisite programs. It might be an elective, and then they’re not able to get that course. Then all of a sudden, they can’t move forward. They have to take another year because they can’t get the prerequisites — that kind of thing.

It’s anecdotal that it’s potentially foreign students or other students coming in that are bumping them out of those courses. I don’t know if it’s true or anything. It certainly would be good to know, if there’s any data out there on that. It’s generally placements in those programs but, also, once they’re in the programs, not being able to get the courses. Obviously, you could think, from an institution point of view, that they’re going to make more money from a foreign student paying the full shot than a domestic student. Anyway, if you can, that would be wonderful.

S. Furgason: Yeah, and it obviously is problematic, regardless of whether it’s something that is a perception or if it’s reality. But certainly, if it is reality, it’s very problematic. It’s another reason why we believe funding for post-secondary institutions is so important.

[10:25 a.m.]

From our perspective, the institutions are trying to attract those international student dollars. They don’t have a cap on the tuition. That’s the place where they can make up the difference. Yeah.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation. We really appreciate it. Good luck with your education.

Next up we have Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, B.C. chapter — Savannah Eidse.

S. Eidse: Thanks for having me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. So if we could just try to keep the initial comments to about five minutes, I’d appreciate it. Thanks.

CANADIAN PARKS AND WILDERNESS
SOCIETY, B.C. CHAPTER

S. Eidse: Good morning. My name is Savannah Eidse. I’m speaking to you on behalf of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, B.C. chapter. I wanted to start by acknowledging the fact that we are gathered on the unceded territories of the Syilx Okanagan people.

I recognize that I am an immigrant to this land and someone who continues to benefit from the historic and continued oppression and assimilation of Indigenous peoples. I’d like to acknowledge the immense privilege that has allowed me to be here presenting at this consultation today and to acknowledge the responsibility that we have to work meaningfully towards reconciliation and the accountability we have to these relationships with Indigenous people.

Just as a background on CPAWS, we are a non-profit grassroots-based conservation organization. The B.C. chapter is one of 13 chapters across Canada that has helped to protect over 400 square kilometres of threatened areas in the country. In B.C., we have played a significant role in the creation of our provincial and national parks, which now account for more than 15 percent of our land base in the province.

On behalf of the members and supporters of CPAWS across the province, we’d like to thank the B.C. Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for your time and consideration of our recommendations for B.C. Budget 2020. Today our recommendations are focused on the need for provincial financial support for Indigenous-led conservation as a means to combat biodiversity loss and climate change.

The health of this planet, including human beings, is inseparable from and intrinsically tied to biodiversity. However, current global estimates indicate that human beings have increased the rate of species extinction 1,000 times over background rates. These unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss are only expected to continue with the continued negative impacts from climate change.

But it isn’t too late to act. Conserving intact ecosystems and restoring habitat connectivity can address this crisis while simultaneously providing opportunities to meet many of the B.C. government’s objectives and residents’ interests. In fact, experts have shown that protecting intact ecosystems provides the best defence against climate change.

Currently governments across the country are collaborating to meet Canada’s targets for biodiversity conservation. This includes the goal of protecting 17 percent of land and inland waters by 2020. To support this, in 2018, the federal government created a fund that provinces, territories and Indigenous governments can access for the purposes of creating new protected areas.

More than 100 proposals were submitted to the federal call for funding applications — the Canada nature fund — and over 60 of these were from B.C., many of which are being led by First Nations.

It is the strong belief of CPAWS that the conservation vision being put forward by these First Nations is an essential part of the strategy to combat climate change and address global biodiversity declines. We would like to see many of these proposals go forward, but federal funding is limited, and not all projects will receive the adequate resources.

CPAWS is asking the province to step in and fill that gap. The recognition of the need for more Indigenous-led conservation efforts is growing and dedicating funding to support these initiatives presents B.C. with the important opportunity to meet multiple objectives and mandates.

For example, supporting these project proposals gives the B.C. government an immediate opportunity to deliver on the existing commitments to work with First Nations, to protect and recover species at risk and to reform land use planning. Connecting and expanding our protected areas network through collaborative management with First Nations communities will open the door to sustainable land stewardship, while providing tangible long-term economic benefits and employment opportunities in local and often rural communities.

As a resident of this region, an example of this near to my heart is the proposed South Okanagan–Lower Similkameen national park reserve. Nearly 20 years in the making, this project received new life after being stalled under the previous government. It is now bringing together First Nations, provincial and federal governments to help protect one of the richest areas of biodiversity in Canada.

[10:30 a.m.]

This project also comes with opportunities to connect protected habitat through other Indigenous-led conservation areas, such as the challenge grant proposal that was put forward by the Lower Similkameen Indian band.

We have two recommendations for how the government can support these initiatives that will help the province meet its current commitments and protect biodiversity for a sustainable future.

The first recommendation is that the government set aside dedicated funding of $40 million in 2020 to work with First Nations to support their vision of land protection for their territories and expand the network of protected areas in B.C. We are recommending this be done by (a) prioritizing areas that act as climate refugia — they are underrepresented in the protected areas system, contain intact and uneroded landscapes that support a broad diversity of species, act as carbon sinks and increase ecological resilience — and (b) ensuring ongoing funding mechanisms exist to support the First Nations stewardship of these places in the long term.

Our second recommendation is that there be a permanent increase to annual funding of B.C. Parks by $50 million in order to bolster its ability to preserve ecological integrity of our existing and potential new areas in the provincial protected area system.

I think I sped through that to try to make sure that it was five minutes. I hope I was on target.

This is a monumental opportunity for the province of B.C. to address the biodiversity crisis. We’re looking forward to the B.C. budget report and working with all members of government to make B.C. a leader in conservation. I thank you for taking the time to listen and consider the ways that supporting Indigenous-led conservation in B.C. can benefit us all.

R. Leonard: Thank you so much for your presentation. I just have two things.

The first is a question. You say right now there’s 15 percent of the land base in B.C. Parks. Is that what you said?

S. Eidse: It’s under the provincial and national parks account for….

R. Leonard: Provincial and national, and the goal is to have 17 percent?

S. Eidse: That’s the federal goal. We’d definitely like to see a lot more, but that’s what the federal target for meeting biodiversity declines was set as.

R. Leonard: Okay. You say you have a different one. What’s the basis of the 17 percent or your number?

S. Eidse: We would like to see…. Currently being at 15 percent in the province — that’s not part of Canada’s total for 17. I mean, it’s part of Canada’s total for 17, but that’s…. Right now species are still declining at extremely rapid rates. I mean, a million species are expected to be at risk of extinction in the world, many within decades. Clearly, what we have protected right now is not sufficient. We have species declining all over British Columbia. There are 1,807 species that are in decline in B.C. right now.

We just want to see more protected areas and more Indigenous-led protected areas. Right now we’re not presenting a different target but just that we need to do more. We think these numbers, in terms of the budget, to help promote Indigenous-led conservation will go a long way towards reversing that decline in biodiversity.

R. Leonard: Just one last thing. I just wanted to let you that we have a wonderful example in my community where the province has supported an initiative to preserve a brownfield site on the river, which is going to have incredible wildlife and fish benefits as well as stormwater mitigation, because it’s managed retreat. It’s also involving First Nations in the stewardship. It was all put forward by a local stewardship, which has been supported by the community.

We are waiting for some federal funds to make sure that we can complete the purchase of the property, but the province has given $1 million for that to proceed. It’s a really good example — a model — of how things can go and really represents what you’re talking about.

S. Eidse: Great. Thank you so much for that example.

R. Leonard: It’s called Kus-kus-sum, for the record.

S. Eidse: I was just going to ask.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I had a question for you. We’ve heard from some presenters in regards to the impact of roads on wildlife — forest roads but also just roads generally. I don’t know if you had any comment on that. We had a First Nations presentation, as well, about maintaining roads. It just seems to be a theme this year that roads keep coming up and the impact on wildlife, the impact on watersheds, the impact on access and egress for safety and things like that.

Do you have any comments on that at all or any thoughts on that, seeing as everyone seems to be talking about that?

[10:35 a.m.]

S. Eidse: Definitely roads are a large concern, and the way in which we handle those roads is obviously going to be area-specific in terms of what’s required to manage that. Of course, in this area, part of the reason badgers are going extinct in the Okanagan is that they have 500 square kilometres of territory, and they’re bound to come in contact with a bunch of roads around here.

Depending on where the protected areas are…. I mean, you want to have connectivity, whether that’s, in some areas, making sure that forestry roads get decommissioned when they don’t need to be there anymore, or making sure, in areas where roads do need to be maintained, that we invest in aspects like wildlife crossing areas so that we can kind of still live our lives — what we need to do and the access that we need — while maintaining that biodiversity that we depend on by giving them access.

I don’t, at this point, have specific examples, which I can certainly find for you. But I think it would be definitely area-dependent, and dealing with roads will be a big factor in managing any of these protected areas that would go in.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Interesting. Great. Well, thank you very much for your presentation and your thoughts.

Okay. We’re going to have a short recess — five minutes. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 10:36 a.m. to 10:46 a.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 Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society — Lisa Scott and Barb Stewart.

If we could try and keep the initial comments to about five minutes, I’d appreciate that.

OKANAGAN AND SIMILKAMEEN
INVASIVE SPECIES SOCIETY

L. Scott: Good morning, Mr. Chairman and select standing committee members. My name is Lisa Scott. I’m the executive director of the Okanagan and Similkameen Invasive Species Society. Here with me today is Barb Stewart. She’s actually program manager of the Boundary Invasive Species Society.

You may remember us presenting last year, and several of the years prior, with concerns about the impacts of invasive species. This includes invasive plants that reduce available forage for your cattle range clients or invasive plants affecting flood and fire recovery. We’ve also spoken on identifying gaps in legislation as well as the need to prevent the introduction of invasive zebra and quagga mussels. Today our talk will be a little bit different.

Last year we spoke, and you listened. You provided a particularly impressive summary on invasive species in the report. So thank you very much for that.

Our presentations the last two years have placed importance on responding to areas that have been disturbed by floods and wildfires. The ecosystems in these areas are especially vulnerable to invasive species. I ask that you refer to one of the handouts we provided today with the photographs that show the before-and-after images of just one example, on Park Rill Creek near Oliver. There are just hard copies, not digital.

This just shows what happens during emergency management operations — the significant impact, somewhat of the flooding but more of the recovery phase, and the damage to the ecological integrity of this particular area. There’s no seeding. There’s no replanting. These areas are hugely vulnerable to invasive plant establishment.

In 2018, your committee concluded that invasive species are an urgent priority. You expressed concern about the potential damage invasive species could inflict on a wide range of industries as well as the economy. Recommendation 28 in last year’s report stated that there be provided “robust funding and legislative authority to support education, pre­vention, monitoring, response and enforcement” through­out B.C.

When I saw this, it made me go back and reflect on the last five years. That’s what we’ve provided in the other handout. It’s five years of recommendations relating to invasive species by this committee. I will just briefly go through them. I’ve read out the 2018 recommendation.

Going back in time to 2017: “Increase coordination with local and regional organizations and provide increased, stable funding.”

In 2016: “Ban the possession, ownership, propagation or sale of aquatic or land-based invasive species.” Also in 2016: “Increase funding for the eradication and control of invasive species and noxious weeds.”

[10:50 a.m.]

In 2015: “Ensure sufficient funding for the proactive prevention and management of invasive species and noxious weeds and update existing legislation.”

In 2014: “Allocate sufficient funding for the proactive prevention and management of invasive species, including noxious weeds.”

I’ll pass it over to Barb.

B. Stewart: So where are we at now? We have a Weed Control Act that’s too archaic to update. That’s what the lawyers said. No legislation to prevent the sale of invasive garden plants. They’re still being sold. No line item in the main dirt ministry budget, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, who manage 80 percent of the land base. No line item for invasive plant management. They struggle to find funds allocated to other programs to deliver what they do now.

We’re experiencing more frequent floods and fires and no dedicated funding within the response program to address the spread of opportunistic invasive plants post fire or flood. The Red Cross understands and is addressing the spread of opportunistic invasive plants — over $1 million for invasive plant control and restoration in the Thompson-Nicola. That was the Red Cross. The role and legal responsibility of government is to control designated noxious weeds and protect ecosystems from invasive plants. Where is the government action on this?

On the aquatic side, more invasive mussel inspection crews have been hired, but there are still major gaps in protecting all our borders. Invasive species do not recognize the boundaries and are moving fast. It’s imperative that partnerships are augmented and strengthened. We have many stories of success, but we can only do so much, and we need additional funds to deal with the new normal.

What we would like to see the province do is put effective legislation in place. That’s the very first thing. Invest more into on-ground management to address the declining range forage on the land base, provide dedicated funding to address effective rehabilitation of fire- and flood-impacted areas of the province, and ensure action is taken to prevent new introductions and establishment of new species.

We would like to see you guys invest at least $15 million annually to address these goals and objectives from the Invasive Species Strategy for British Columbia. That’s across the province.

That concludes our talk. Hopefully we’re under time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s great. I really appreciate that.

Was that $15 million or $50 million?

B. Stewart: It was $15 million across B.C. Within the province, there is an invasive species strategy for B.C., and that’s what the need is to address the objectives within that strategy.

R. Leonard: This is where things can get complicated. I appreciate your presentation. You definitely see the trend where we can make recommendations, but they don’t always follow through.

I know that we have introduced funding for recovery efforts and rehabilitation and prevention and resiliency and all of that around the wildfires, for sure. It may not be specifically in invasive species, but I don’t know if there’s an opportunity there, perhaps, for more coordination. I don’t know what your relationship is with FLNRORD or MOTI. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit.

B. Stewart: I’ll let you, because you had the most recent fire here.

L. Scott: Okay. We forge very strong relationships, in particular with those ministries. At least in the Okanagan-Similkameen, MOTI and FLNRORD are two major funders. They sit as members of our councils. They are part of our planning committee. We also work with range agrologists and others.

But we’re seeing fires like the Princeton fire that did not receive any seed whatsoever in terms of rehabilitation, and there are grave concerns. That’s what we spoke about last year with the rancher, your client who uses that Crown range, who’s very concerned about the impacts of invasive plants in there, in part because of the lack of seeding.

B. Stewart: I think some resources have been invested up in the Cariboo region, where there were the massive fires, but what’s happening is that the other fires in B.C. are not necessarily being addressed. Maybe that’s because they’re just overwhelmed with the sheer size of the area affected.

[10:55 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Which begs the question: you say $15 million, but is that enough, given the way things are moving in terms of climate change and whatnot?

L. Scott: I’d suggest that that’s at least $15 million in, if we can even say, a normal year. This is the first year we didn’t have floods in the Okanagan that we were dealing with, yet we’re still dealing with….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Past floods.

L. Scott: Yeah, exactly — the mitigative measures and the recovery based on the last two springs. You think floods and water, but that has significant impact on potential spread of invasive species as well, even from the sandbags that were left on site. Invasive plants started propagating.

So no, it’s probably not enough, as we have different changes happening to our ecosystems and further impacts and stresses on our natural environments, which are ultimately what we’re trying to recover and managing for.

B. D’Eith (Chair): One thing we’ve heard quite a bit about is roads.

L. Scott: Yes, I heard.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It was interesting, and you showed us a road. I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about that, because it seems to me that, especially the way roads…. When you have floods or you have fires, and there seem to be some real impacts in terms of…. You can see from the pictures the impacts that they have.

Can you talk a little bit about that — a little bit more about what we need to do with our roads and forest roads?

B. Stewart: It’s interesting that you bring that up. That’s been a topic within our society and partners for quite a while. It’s actually been discussed regionally with parks and quite a few.

We believe that the forest industry should be rehabilitating more roads. There’s a lot of talk around, especially, the forest service roads, which are…. I think there are actually rates in our region of more than two kilometres of road per square kilometre of forest land, which is huge, when you think. The amount for, actually, grizzly bears, I think is less than 0.5 kilometres per square kilometre.

We have way too many roads out there, and those are increasing or spreading invasive plants as people are allowed to recreate. We do need to be starting to remove some of those roads, rehabilitating them. There obviously is a need to keep some roads open, because people need to access through. But we have too many roads out there, which are too many vectors of spread.

I wanted to just focus on the rehabilitation as opposed to deactivation. Deactivation involves cutting cross-ditches, burying it so people can’t get through. Rehabilitation is you recontour the road. It’s no longer a road. You plant it back to trees. That way, you won’t have the invasive plant issue on those sites, because they’ll start growing the native species again.

Right now within the forest industry, it’s within the appraisal system, but there’s a disincentive for forest companies to do it. We need to change that within the appraisal system, which is beyond you guys, because this is budget, right? This is not legislation change. But if you change that to make an incentive for the forest companies to rehabilitate roads, we’ll start to see a decline in the amount of roads out there, which will reduce the impacts to our wildlife, our water. We’ll have less washouts, less maintenance costs. Anyway, long answer.

Our society will be sending a letter shortly to the province on this topic.

B. D’Eith (Chair): If you can get a copy of that in before the end of this month, it doesn’t hurt to have it in there.

B. Stewart: I can certainly send a copy in to you. It’s already drafted, actually. It just needs to be signed and sent in.

B. D’Eith (Chair): The more the merrier.

B. Stewart: Roads are actually a very important topic, and it’s interesting that you guys have received and want feedback.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We just flew all over B.C., and you can just see all the forest roads just everywhere, all the way through. It’s quite fascinating. So thank you.

B. Stewart: You’re welcome. Thank you for taking the time to hear from us.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have Sheri Wood and Savita Mitra.

SAVITA MITRA, SHERI WOOD

S. Mitra: My name is Savita. We’re colleagues, and we work with and around MCFD. Sheri has been a foster parent for over 30 years, and I have spent the last decade working, first as an independent contractor for MCFD and then as part of Sheri’s foster family.

[11:00 a.m.]

I’d like to begin my presentation by saying I am not an economist. These numbers that I have found are based on Stats Canada figures, B.C. gov figures, CBC, Globe and Mail and Maclean’s articles. My calculations are rudimentary, but they illustrate a larger truth.

We can spend money now properly supporting our youth in care as they transition into adulthood, or we can pay over 15-fold in dealing with the natural consequences of youth who’ve been discriminated against their whole life trying to make their way into the world.

This year, there was additional funding added to MCFD’s AYAs, agreements with young adults. Now they can receive up to $1,250 a month if they qualify. Not all kids qualify. Not all kids qualify for the full amount. What that adds up to is about $15,000 a year, which is less than what a full-time worker making minimum wage would pay.

Annually, the province spends $7 million a year on AYAs. If they get the maximum four years of funding…. Sorry, it says two in my work there. It’s very, very confusing. The system is still very piecemeal. That equals about $28 million a year spent per cohort. That’s approximately 1,000 youth who age out every year.

The investment that’s currently being gotten is negative $246 million, give or take, spent on cleaning up the costs after AYA ends — kids having to deal with being incarcerated, unplanned pregnancies, homelessness, revictimization. Right now, our youth are five times more likely to die before their 25th birthday than youth who are not in care. It’s a reality that is hard to comprehend for anyone that hasn’t actually been there. But one thing I know that we can all understand is money and taxes.

I looked at what achievement is attained by non-in-care peers. So 54 percent of peers who are not in care will earn a college diploma or higher. For male non-in-care peers, this means they’ll eventually earn a median income of about $73,000; females, $55,000 a year.

Gender pay gap aside, that usually ends up being $17,000 a year in taxes and $12,000 a year in taxes. An additional 7 percent of these male peers will earn an apprenticeship certificate and eventually reach a median salary of about $75,000 a year. In B.C., they roughly pay $17,000 in taxes.

I want you to imagine a world where former youth in care achieve education and employment on par with their peers. In one year, 540 youth in our cohort would go on to earn a college degree or higher and the median income that goes with it. At least 35 would go on and earn an apprenticeship certificate, and 840, instead of 470, would graduate high school.

Men, on average, with a high school diploma, earn a median salary of about $60,000 a year, and women, $45,000 a year. Again, that’s $13,000 a year in taxes and $9,000 a year in taxes.

I don’t need to tell you how expensive it is to live in this province. For many reasons, youth who aren’t in care choose to stay in their parents’ homes long after 19. And 51 percent of all university students in Canada will ask the bank of mom and dad for additional money to get them through the year.

With what we provide youth currently, 50 percent of it is eaten up by their housing needs, leaving $625 a month for food, fuel and essentials. That’s no room for savings. A car is unimaginable, and any other extra therapy or tutoring is unthinkable. While there is a patchwork of services to provide extras on top of the AYAs, they’re not throughout the province and they don’t cover everybody.

But $2,500 a month for four years would create parity in the province and give youth the option they deserve to submit themselves in adulthood. That would cost $120 million over four years per cohort, which is still cheaper than the on-average $248 million that is spent dealing with the tragedy, ill health and poverty that are otherwise experienced by this cohort.

If you add in the taxes that would be paid if all 840 of those 1,000 students graduate high school and 540 of them go on to college and university, they have the potential to collectively generate $48 million a year in taxes. The additional tradesmen would make that $51 million a year in taxes.

Obviously, I’m not really a professional public speaker, either. I’m just a very concerned activist and caregiver.

It would be a massive change to see that these youth could then go on and generate positive income that would be injected into the economy every year, instead of costing the province.

[11:05 a.m.]

When I added it all up together, these youth would be paying $6 million a year in federal tax and $2 million a year in provincial tax. If they worked 20 years, that’s $124 million in federal and $48 million over those 20 years in provincial tax, making that $248 million currently spent after AYAs end unnecessary. You don’t need a university degree or even a high school diploma to see that you can invest in our tax base now, or pay astronomically more later.

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

N. Simons: Yeah, well, thanks very much for speaking on behalf of the young people who, for one reason or another, are unable to live at home or with guardians. Sheri, you’ve been a foster parent, and you’ve likely seen young people come through your place and live at your place. What’s their experience, in general, as they age out?

S. Wood: They have a hard time, basically, not an easy time. What I usually have said, in my years of fostering…. Our children that we foster — we do not get good outcomes. Compared to all the other children in my life — my own, my grandchildren and all this — they don’t usually achieve university. They have mental health issues.

I have an example of the child that’s in my home right now, where we have managed with supports. I’ve had her since she was two. She’s now taking her first year of university. But her mother, who had a similar background in foster homes and whatever, was unable to get an education. I think she got to about grade 9. She was unable to hold a job, unable to parent her children.

That’s the future that the foster child that’s with me right now would have if I wasn’t able to provide support. So I’ve been doing that up until…. She’ll turn 19 in November, and she’s completed her first year of university. So what we need, I think…. Then I’ve had many other kids go through. They are much like — the child I’m speaking of — their mother: hard time keeping a job, hard time parenting, hard time keeping a relationship, all of these issues. They’re, some of them, on disability pension. They’re costing society money anyway.

N. Simons: Do you think that there are ways of supporting families — foster families, caregiver, kinship caregiver families — more, so as the child is aging in a safe home, that preparation can be better for when they ultimately do age out, and how?

S. Wood: Yeah. Absolutely, more support for either foster families or kin families, more financial support…. The things that aren’t covered…. For therapy, tutoring and those kinds of things, if a child is going to get it in a foster home or with kin, the foster home or the kin have to get it from some place else. They don’t normally have the funds themselves to get that.

S. Mitra: My $2,500 a month would take into tutoring and counselling that were not provided in the foster home. The biggest thing with our girl that we’ve had, with success in university, is that she was provided tutoring and counselling often, paid by you. You know, Sheri’s a real…. She says: “Anything I’d do for my kids, I’d do for my foster kids.” So she has the luxury of being able to do that.

If kids don’t get that, they still need it. They need the tutoring to stay in university, to finish their grade 12. They need all different kinds of therapy to address unmet trauma and have them succeed. You’ve got lots of former kids in care from your home, you know. One of them — they’ve lost a child, of the three that they’ve had. They haven’t been able to keep their own children in care. They struggle with drugs and alcohol — right? Homelessness. It’s the typical outcomes you see, with the exception of our youngest.

[11:10 a.m.]

N. Simons: I used to work in the sector, and what I seem to notice now is that the guardianship workers maybe are overworked. They don’t have…. What I always presumed should happen is that the young person and the social worker have a relationship, such that it would allow the young person to access the necessary services and prepare them for….

I know; I know. I see the shaking of the heads.

Can you tell us the reality of the social worker’s interaction? And I know we have very little time. I don’t want the Chair too mad at me.

S. Wood: The social workers that support my children are very nice people — totally overworked. They cannot, within their criteria of their…. They cannot provide what the child needs. It’s astounding how I’ve had…. There’s basically no therapy provided. If you ask for a child assessed who needed therapy, essentially the answer is no.

Then just the time thing, to get the social worker’s ear, is a problem, and then to get their understanding of the situation. It’s very lacking in the system we’ve got now. I excuse them all because of heavy caseloads and lack of support. They don’t have a system that says: “Support the kids.”

S. Mitra: They don’t have the decision-making power to give the kid the therapy even if they wanted. It’s quite an intense structure to even ask for anything.

N. Simons: It wasn’t always that way.

S. Mitra: That’s good to hear.

S. Wood: Yeah, 30 years ago I started out differently. You’re right.

N. Simons: I know, and those were the social workers that I learned from.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We’re out of time. Obviously, I hate to cut this off. It’s a very important discussion, and I appreciate both of you coming and making this presentation. We have heard from other presenters in regards to youth aging out and the gaps in the system, and now we’re hearing leading up to that aging out — issues around that as well. Thank you so much.

N. Simons: And thank you for what you do.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Okay. Next up we have Chute Lake Lodge and Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association — Patrick Field and Mike Overend.

CHUTE LAKE LODGE, THOMPSON
OKANAGAN TOURISM ASSOCIATION

P. Field: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and fellow committee members. My name is Pat Field. I represent the Chute Lake Lodge owners group. I have with me Mike Overend from the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association.

In 2012, it was a big freshet year, and there were a number of culverts or bridges that had to be removed due to imminent threats to communities in the Okanagan. Chute Lake is halfway between Kelowna and Penticton on the east side of the lake, over Okanagan Mountain Park. There was a twin set of culverts that was ordered removed from the dam inspection officer. FLNRO, at that time, made sure that happened, and those have not been replaced.

The result of that is that all of the traffic that comes down that road ends up going through our private property. We have a number of kids camps there, and now the traffic has become quite busy. We have motorcycles, ATVs, vehicles, racers, those kinds of things. We also have a number of other property owners that are on either side of us on the KVR.

We’re stuck in this position of having some liability issues now. The only thing that we can see to do is that we may have to gate the property. If we do that, we’ll end up stranding private property owners and leasehold owners on either side of our property along the KVR.

Our request is a fairly small request, but it’s an important one. That is that Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure work with FLNRO and reinstate that access across Chute Creek so that we have the ability to manage access. I’d like Mike to speak to where the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association is at.

M. Overend: My name is Mike, and I work for the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association. We are the regional association that’s a representative of Destination B.C. We do a lot of work in marketing but also in development.

Back in 2016, we created a rail trails tourism strategy which focused primarily on the Kettle Valley Railway Trail and it as a world-class tourism destination and also a public recreational corridor.

[11:15 a.m.]

Really, the benefits to this recreational corridor were economic diversification, particularly in rural communities, and also as far as being healthy for the community. We created that strategy and completed it in 2016. From there, there were recommendations. However, what we recognized was that this recreational corridor, from a management perspective — it’s managed by FLNRO — is considered unresolved just because of all the different uses that are on the corridor right now.

We believe that it is a trail corridor. Due to that, we were given direction from the minister himself to create a master planning process. You guys received a digital copy of the executive summary of the master planning process. It basically talks about the KVR between Midway and Naramata and looks at a management opportunity for that corridor and how we can turn that into a world-class recreational corridor.

Basically, this conversation we’re having about roads…. As far as recreation goes, we need to look at these primary recreational corridors that are the best for economic diversification and sustainability and put our resources behind those. KVR is absolutely one of those resources.

Our master plan has lots of recommendations. However, one of the primary recommendations in this that will make this strategy move forward would be the alternate access between Kelowna and Chute Lake Lodge. Right now people utilize the KVR trail, so it’s essentially a road. It’s not a trail. In order for it to be a trail and a world-class recreational corridor, that alternate access has to be put in place.

We’ve had lots of conversations, at Rec Sites and Trails B.C., with the ministry. We’re moving that forward. We would ask that you guys recognize that in your budget recommendations.

Then that alternate access across the Ratnip Creek that Pat talked about — it’s absolutely crucial for that alternate road to be put in place. The Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association completely supports this. Moving forward, we put the strategy together, with the support of Rec Sites and Trails B.C. Those are just a few of the recommendations in place for this to become a world-class trail corridor.

I think that’s what I wanted to talk about on that.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Mike, Pat, thanks for coming. I know the area very well. I have spoken to the ministry on it. I have not spoken to Minister Beare or Minister Trevena, just to Minister Donaldson. I was there during the freshet, when this had to be yanked out. To make this work, we’re all going to have to work together.

To the members of the committee — and I will brief my peers when they come back — this area is intensely used, the old KVR trail. There are so many people who not only use the wine corridor along there for riding…. As Pat has said, they’ve been so accommodating to allow people to go through their property on a continual basis. But at some point in time, because of liability issues, we as the government are going to have to step in and make sure that that road can come back.

Between Gorman mills, FLNRO, Tourism…. We don’t need a bridge in there, as Pat has said. We can just put the culverts back in. The cost is a low six-figure cost — between $100,00 and $200,000 maximum. There is an opportunity here. Like I said, if all these ministries can work together, and with TOTA being able to help out, also, in the promotion of this area, to have that restored again will make an incredible difference.

As I spoke to the gentleman before, this is in the minister’s purview at this point in time through estimates. We’ll continue to follow up on it.

One of the issues that we have to realize is the liability issue that private land owners are facing at this point in time by allowing egress through their property. Also, it is another way…. Unfortunately, when we had the slide blocking north of Summerland, it was an access route for people to get through the valley. So it’s something that is going to have to be addressed.

P. Field: I think the cost could be significantly reduced if we can leverage the other work that’s going on. There’s a dam being recommissioned this September, so the environmental assessment reports and the geotechnical reports are all in place. As long as we can leverage those, and as developers, we’re more than willing to lend engineering support and excavators and anything else that has to happen to make it work.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Pat, thanks for bringing that up.

I apologize, Mr. Chair. Pat spoke about that earlier, and I forgot. Private property owners are raising…. They’re replacing the dam, as we had talked about — that one at Papoose.

B. D’Eith (Chair): That’s the dam…? Oh, is that different?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): It’s the same lake. It’s another one at Chute Lake that has to be…. It has been claimed by the government as an issue. It’s going to be fixed up by private property owners. And there is an opportunity, as Pat says, to leverage that expertise to ensure that we can get around it.

Thanks, gentlemen.

[11:20 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Excellent. Thanks for your presentation. We really appreciate it.

Next up we have AAPS at UBC — Joey Hansen and Sarah Muff.

We’re running a little bit behind. We appreciate your patience. If you wouldn’t mind keeping your comments to about five minutes, we’d appreciate it. Then we have time for questions.

ASSOCIATION OF ADMINISTRATIVE
AND PROFESSIONAL STAFF AT UBC

J. Hansen: My name is Joey Hansen. I’m the executive director of the Association of Administrative and Professional Staff at UBC. I’m here with my colleague, Sarah Muff, who is our communications and government relations officer.

What we are. We’re the organization that represents about 5,000 managers and professional staff at the university. Our members are involved in all aspects of the university. They’re involved in academic faculties. They’re involved in research. They’re involved in the central service units. We’ve used the last year as an opportunity to reach out to our members and really hear from them about what many of their needs are and about things that can happen, whether it’s happening at the university through collective bargaining or, outside of collective bargaining, things that can be done provincewide or through the government to make their lives a little easier.

Those members have come up with three specific recommendations. The first is that we propose that research universities should be removed from the Public Sector Employers Council mandate and that they should be free to engage in free collective bargaining. We’re proposing that the province improve support for family care and ensure that it applies to more working people. And we’re proposing that the province improve the accessibility and safety of public transportation. I’m going to talk about the first piece, removing the research universities from the PSEC mandate, and my colleague will speak to the other two points.

We believe research universities should be removed from the PSEC mandate. It’s important to look both at the role that research universities play within the economy and at the types of folks that research universities need to attract. That’s one of the reasons we’re proposing this. Most of the research that occurs in the province and that drives our economy is driven through our various research universities. That research, much of it in the STEM fields, provides economic advancement for the province.

Research universities also produce the bulk of the skilled graduates and skilled workers in the province, so it’s not just about the economy today. Research universities are also engaged in building the economies in the workforces of tomorrow. I don’t need to tell anyone in the province that B.C. is a really, really expensive place to live. I would say that, particularly for the class of employees that are our members, in the research universities in B.C., the salary lags behind what it is, certainly, in other parts of Canada and definitely compared to the United States.

It’s not just the global…. The job market is global for many, many of these fields. A large number of our members have advanced degrees. They’re highly sought-after specialists. In order to attract and retain the top talent in these fields, it’s important that universities be free to determine what fair compensation is in those fields and that they be free to collectively bargain that compensation with the various employee groups they represent. We’re not asking, necessarily, for a specific allocation. We’re just asking that research universities not be hamstrung by the PSEC mandate and that the province recognize the unique staffing and human resources needs of research universities.

S. Muff: I think we can all agree that caring for loved ones at any stage in life is both challenging and rewarding.

Based on the feedback that we’ve heard from our members, we are advocating that the provincial government consider a variety of different ways that it could help ease the burden on hard-working families when it comes to care. A number of our members report not being able to properly support the care of their families due to work demands. We need to find solutions that would allow working people to be there when their families need them most. Government support in the area of family care could also help improve other issues facing working people in the province, such as shortages of care spaces, costs of care, costs of housing and mental health issues due to stress.

[11:25 a.m.]

Our members have told us that they often have to make difficult decisions about continuing to work and continuing to stay in the province after they add up the costs and compare them with their salaries. I’m sure you’ll all agree that condos and apartments — in Vancouver, in particular — do not tend to accommodate growing families or aging parents moving in. We hope that the government will consider options to allow working people of British Columbia the opportunity to care for their families at all stages of life.

Then, in the interest of time, I will also note, about transportation and safety, another common topic that came through our consultations with our members. We certainly support the expansion of rapid transit to the University of British Columbia. It’s an important project for all of our members, as it could mean a reduction in traffic congestion and commute times.

As we are in the Okanagan, I did want to highlight that we have nearly 400 members at Okanagan campus who need to commute there daily. As in my experience this morning trying to use public transit to get to this meeting, their feedback around the lack of frequency in public transportation, particularly north of Kelowna, has been experienced by myself this morning as well.

We are also hoping government that the will take strides to im­prove cyclist safety, as cycling is important for all of our members at both campuses. I think they are perennial winners of Bike to Work Week. We have experienced three significant accidents at Point Grey campus this year alone. Cycling safety needs to become a priority for the province as well.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. Just in terms of the role of the Finance Committee and what we do, we’re dealing with the entire budget and all the issues in British Columbia. So sometimes it’s very difficult to get into specific issues, particularly when we’re dealing with legislative changes and things like that. I see the first recommendation probably…. I don’t know if that would be a regulation change, or what kind of change you would need to allow that to happen. Have you met with Minister Mark about this issue?

J. Hansen: Not yet, no.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Again, I would encourage that, because the mandate of this committee may or may not address that specifically. I’m just trying to manage expectations in regard to this committee and what we do. Obviously, we discuss all the issues. Then, as to the family care and transportation, those are issues that we’re hearing around the province. We really appreciate the fact that your faculty is experiencing similar issues to many other people.

Sorry. I didn’t want to take away from the members’ questions, but I know that Nicholas will have a question, because he always does.

N. Simons: No, actually, I don’t.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Really? Okay.

Thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.

Sorry to put you on the spot, MLA Simons, there.

N. Simons: That’s okay, hon. Chair. I’ll survive.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Of course, you know that sarcasm doesn’t show up in the transcripts. It’s just going to look like you and I hate each other. Yeah, you have start putting “sarcasm” in the brackets, Hansard. Thank you.

Insurance Bureau of Canada — Aaron Sutherland.

How are you?

A. Sutherland: Good. Thanks so much for having me today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): If you could keep the initial comments to around five minutes, depending on questions….

A. Sutherland: If I read the agenda right, I think it’s just myself and one other standing between you guys and the door.

B. D’Eith (Chair): There is that.

INSURANCE BUREAU OF CANADA

A. Sutherland: I’ll be sure to be quick. I think I know most of you. My name is Aaron. I work with the Insurance Bureau of Canada. We’re the national association of private insurers, so think of your home insurers, your business insurers and, in most other provinces, your auto insurers.

In front of you, you’ve got our submission to the committee today and a very brief slide deck, which I’ll quickly run through. While our submission focuses on a variety of issues, from earthquake risk to measures that can be undertaken to enhance B.C.’s regulatory marketplace, for the sake of this conversation I just want to focus on two things. One is the risk facing British Columbians from climate change, and the second is the massive challenge we face in our auto insurance system here.

Just quickly, on slide 3, we in the insurance industry like to consider ourselves the canary in the coal mine on our changing climate, because we’re seeing the financial cost of severe weather events directly tied to climate change before anybody else. We’ve tracked those losses, so think of insurance losses related to storms, floods and wildfires.

[11:30 a.m.]

While insurers used to pay out just a few hundred million dollars annually in this country, since 2009 and every year since then, they have paid out at least $1 billion each and every year. While that articulates the financial impact these events are having, it also indicates the human impact and the human toll that our changing climate is having on Canadians right across this country.

Given what we’ve seen, even right here in Kelowna — you think of the flooding in the Mission just last year or the wildfires we’ve seen in recent years — we believe Budget 2020 must substantially increase our investment in measures that better protect British Columbians from these risks, starting with better risk identification — think improved flood mapping and hazard mapping — and then using the understanding that those maps can provide to prioritize infrastructure investments, to build flood defences, to build wildfire defences, to improve our land use planning and to stop building in areas of highest risk.

Frankly, we cannot afford to continue building in floodplains, building right along our waterways. We are seeing too many incidents of too many families in this country and in this province being devastated when those water levels rise and ultimately wash away everything that they have. They have very little to pick up the pieces. So we believe that that’s one priority area that Budget 2020 needs to invest in. I think that’s probably something we can all agree on.

Something we may not all agree on are my recommendations for auto insurance in this province. I think we all know, and as you can see, beginning on slide 5, we have a massive problem in auto insurance here in B.C. When we look across this country, we’re doing things a little bit differently. B.C. is one of just three provinces where a Crown monopoly provides auto insurance to the driving public. When you look at the prices drivers are paying and the benefits they’re receiving, it’s quite clear that the private sector has proven to be a much more effective steward of our auto insurance systems in this country than has ICBC.

I’m going to talk a little bit about prices. I don’t typically compare B.C.’s prices to places like Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Quebec, because those are no-fault provinces. You cannot sue there. When you can’t sue, you take a lot of costs out of the system. But just for your understanding, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the average price of auto insurance is around $1,100. In Quebec, it’s $660.

As you can see on slide 5, Quebec looks a little different than the rest of the country. In Quebec, through your licence, you actually are purchasing the benefits that you would receive to recover in the health system. So you pay about $170 each year for your licence. Then if you get into an auto accident, you’re taken care of through the benefits that entitles you to. It’s actually the private sector that insures your vehicle, and it costs you around $660. So those are sort of the three provinces I don’t talk about.

When you look just at the tort provinces in this country — so B.C. and everybody else, or just comparing B.C. to anyone else — we pay more for auto insurance, far more, than anyone else. A big difference between B.C. and the rest of this country is who sells it to us.

We’ve got a lot of important changes coming to our auto insurance marketplace. I commend this government for their efforts in that regard. But none of them, unfortunately, are going to start to reduce the price drivers are paying, and it’s drivers and taxpayers that we should be focused on. If that is the focus, we need to start looking outside of ICBC for a solution to this challenge.

We had MNP, a fairly large consulting firm, explore this last year. They found that if you opened ICBC to competition — you don’t have to get rid of ICBC — bring that competitive incentive to the marketplace, give drivers the choice and the ability to shop around for the best product at the best possible price, they could expect to save up to $325.

That’s through things like improved claims handling, which can reduce claims costs; settling for a little bit more a little bit earlier; and bundling discounts. When you bundle your insurance, you spread your risk. When you spread your risk, you lower your risk. When you lower your risk, you lower your price. Or through product innovations, things like something as easy as the ability to purchase auto insurance on line. You think…. You can do pretty much every other financial transaction in your life over the Internet, but you can’t buy auto insurance. You can’t renew your auto insurance in this province on line — or other new products and services that can reduce claims costs.

Again, we’re seeing a lot of important changes, things like a limit on payments for minor injuries, but unfortunately, that isn’t going to reduce the price drivers are paying. Instead, ICBC’s calling for a 25 percent rate increase over the next three years. That’s $1.7 billion in increased premiums over the next three years, on top of an already unaffordable auto insurance product.

We think we need to start looking outside ICBC for a solution here. That’s what we’d like to see in Budget 2020. Again, I suspect a few of you may disagree with me on that.

Thank you, guys, for having me today, and I’m happy to take any questions.

R. Leonard: First question. In comparing different provinces, what’s the percentage of drivers who are not eligible to get insurance?

[11:35 a.m.]

A. Sutherland: That’s a really good question, because there’s a lot of confusion on this issue. We’re hearing some people out there suggesting that in other provinces you can’t get insurance if it’s provided by the private sector. That’s categorically untrue.

B. D’Eith (Chair): You just pay a lot more for it.

A. Sutherland: Well, you pay based on risk, which is what ICBC is starting in September. If you have a history of accidents, you are going to pay more for auto insurance in every other province, just like you will here in B.C., starting in September.

Just to the question, in every other province, there’s what’s called an all-comers rule, which means that if you’re going to sell auto insurance, you have to sell it to all customers who come in your door. It’s how government, even though they don’t sell auto insurance through a regulated marketplace, are able to ensure that everyone has access to it.

There isn’t any concern with uninsured individuals in other provinces. It’s always concerning when people don’t have it, but there isn’t a massive amount of people in other provinces that don’t have insurance. I suspect it’d be very, very similar to the uninsured rate here in B.C., if it’s not higher in B.C. because the price is so much higher.

R. Leonard: But do you know the figure?

A. Sutherland: No one tracks those.

R. Leonard: Well, I’ve heard figures.

A. Sutherland: We’ve heard ICBC….

R. Leonard: Not from ICBC, from — who was it that we met? — insurance agents.

A. Sutherland: Yeah, between…. There are stats out there suggesting it’s between 4 and 20 percent in other jurisdictions. I’m going to suggest that those are other American jurisdictions. They’re not Canadian. In some American states, you don’t have to purchase auto insurance, and that’s where the 20 percent figure’s coming from.

As for the industry and the rest of this country, I’m unaware of any statistics on the number of uninsured drivers in any province in this country, including British Columbia.

N. Simons: That would be difficult to estimate.

A. Sutherland: Yeah.

N. Simons: I’m just curious about the premium costs and the averages. Do those averages that you’ve included here include those people who have a poor driving record and who have to purchase the expensive insurance?

A. Sutherland: Another great question. This is everyone. This is everyone in the province. How we calculate the average is how you would expect. You take all the premium dollars, all the prices drivers are playing, and then you add all of that up and you divide it by the number of drivers in each province.

So for B.C., it’s about 3.2 million drivers, divided by $6-point-something billion in total premiums, and you get $1,680. In Alberta, again it’s around three million drivers, a much lower premium pool, and you get an average of about $1,209. It’s really not very difficult. I know there’s a lot of conversation suggesting that B.C. doesn’t have the most expensive auto insurance. But you never hear what the average price here is.

I can tell you, unequivocally, on average, British Columbians are paying much, much more for auto insurance than anyone else in this country. Part of that has to do with the system we have here in B.C. It’s quite expensive. But a big part of that is also who’s selling it to you and, frankly, a lack of efficiency in the system because of that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): A question for you. In the numbers that you have, because there is…. Oh, sorry, Rich. Let me just ask quickly.

The numbers you have. There’s the basic insurance, and then there’s additional insurance that, actually, can go to third parties. Is that taken into account in the numbers?

A. Sutherland: It’s all pooled in.

B. D’Eith (Chair): So there is a certain amount of competition on part of the insurance.

A. Sutherland: You could say it’s technically open to competition. But ICBC holds all of the information on claims data — where claims are happening, how frequently in each neighbourhood and community they’re happening. Driver records, knowing, when a driver comes in their door, how many accidents they’ve had, what their driving history has been — ICBC holds all of that information and won’t share any of it.

In every other province, that information is held by the regulator and shared publicly. It gives the government and other insurers a full understanding of what’s happening in the marketplace. Governments use that to regulate the marketplace, and insurers use that to price their products and compete.

Insurance is a very data-driven industry, and without that data, they can’t compete. That’s why there are really only two insurers that try to compete with ICBC. It’s a huge barrier. It’s why ICBC has a virtual monopoly on optional auto insurance as well. I would argue it’s also one reason why government has had a very challenging time understanding what’s happening in the marketplace, because, again, ICBC doesn’t make that data publicly available.

R. Coleman: So, Aaron, we’re also, up until recently, the only full tort province when it comes to insurance — or jurisdiction in North America — which changes our business model. Alberta went to what we call no-fault-lite a few years ago. I’d be curious how that had an impact on the industry.

[11:40 a.m.]

Although I don’t agree with all of what was done with the changes…. I don’t think brain injuries should have a number on them, but that’s a personal opinion of mine. I’d like to know what the industry, the Insurance Bureau of Canada, sees for those changes having any effect on the medium to long term. It will change the tort piece, which will then change the payouts for bodily injury piece, which then changes how the insurance industry in B.C. looks. For a long time, when you’re the only one of its kind, you’re basically where everybody is trying to do business.

A. Sutherland: That’s a really good question. I’m not going to…. I’m happy to dive into the aspects of B.C.’s cap and the definition there.

R. Coleman: I don’t think we need to get into the cap, but you’ve seen it implemented in other places across Canada. What impact do they have?

A. Sutherland: What I would say about B.C.’s cap is B.C.’s cap is broader. It includes more injuries than any other definition. You mentioned brain injuries, concussions, things like that. Those aren’t included in other definitions.

In other provinces where they have introduced a no-fault light, as you call it, but really a limit on payments for minor injuries, that does help stabilize some of the costs, and it has in the past. Basically, B.C. is trying to catch up to efforts other provinces undertook over a decade ago. But really, it’s what’s going to happen to price in this province. Unfortunately, a minor injury cap is not expected to reduce the price drivers are paying.

ICBC is projecting $1.7 billion in new premiums to try and balance their books over the next three years. They’re only expecting to save $1 billion annually. They’re going to be bringing in much, much more in price increases than any savings they’re seeing from the efforts that have been undertaken. That’s why, again, it doesn’t appear we’re able to fix this affordability challenge in the current system, under ICBC’s cost structure. We need to start looking outside of ICBC for some of these solutions, and that’s why….

Look, you don’t have to get rid of ICBC. But why don’t we just give drivers a choice — a choice they deserve, a choice most other British Columbians and virtually everyone else in North America has? It’s that competitive incentive that works in almost every other aspect of our lives. If we don’t like the price we’re paying or the service we’re getting, we take our business elsewhere. That forces companies to constantly and relentlessly focus on driving efficiencies and doing all that they can to best meet the customer’s needs.

We don’t have that in auto insurance in B.C. It’s a big reason why we’re in the challenge we’re in today. Why is B.C. last to make some of the changes they’ve seen? Because of the monopoly we have in this province.

R. Coleman: In some ways, it would, maybe, be because our customers felt it was good to have a 97 percent insurance rate too. The reality is ICBC, as they’ve done these changes, will have the opportunity to restate their actuarial costs going forward too, which will have….

I can’t quote the numbers that were there last year compared to this year once you start to see actuarial changes, and whether you’re doing it at a higher or lower level. But that’s a different debate for a different day. I know the chair is going to tell me: “Your time is up.”

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, we’re well over. Thank you very much for your presentation.

A. Sutherland: As a taxpayer, I do hope it works. They’ve got good people working on this. I just question if it’s going to help the price I’m paying. Thank you, guys, for having me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you so much.

Next up we have Okanagan College Faculty Association — Sharon Mansiere.

Hi, Sharon. How are you?

OKANAGAN COLLEGE FACULTY ASSOCIATION

S. Mansiere: Hello. I’m well, thank you very much.

Good morning. It’s a pleasure to be here to provide input for the 2020 budget. I’d like to begin by acknowledging, as you have, that we’re on the unceded territory of the Syilx people. I’m here as the president of the Okanagan College Faculty Association and the over 250 post-secondary faculty we represent.

While government has implemented positive changes to post-secondary access and affordability, access for youth in care, elimination of interest charges, tuition-free adult basic ed, that’s not the whole story. The long-term trend of reduced public funding is a concern for everyone and should be a concern for us here today.

This unrelenting erosion has forced institutions to implement what I think are dramatic cost-cutting behaviours. They are sector-wide. One of them that I want to talk to you about is the number of contract academic staff that we hire.

Contract academic staff should be paid using the existing mandated provincial salary scale on a pro rata basis. Equal pay for equal work. Simply stated, secondary scales means this isn’t what’s happening.

You may have heard this before, and that’s okay. I’ve got a different twist. We will go through this information one more time, and I’d appreciate your attention.

[11:45 a.m.]

We have a provincial salary scale, but even some of our continuing faculty are not paid on that in some circumstances. If we are teaching a lab for example, we get paid at 50 percent. You may not know that. If we are teaching summer classes at my institution, we’re limited to seven of 11.

Term faculty have those same restrictions, yet they have all the additional ones as well. So the additional ones are going to be that they’re only paid for 17 weeks of their instruction. We’re paid in a way that we get some prep time. They have none of that. They’re further reduced after all of that. The only get 89 percent of that already-reduced value.

The infographic that you have in front of you — Okanagan College is not on it, because we’re a complicated story. You can basically place us on the left lower triangle and the right lower triangle. The large triangle is indicative of what a continuing faculty would get. We are the bookends of that triangle array.

To pick out the most extreme but not rare example for my institution, they could be making as little as 22 percent to 29 percent of what a continuing faculty member is making. I want to stress again that this could be with partial access to medical and dental. These are significantly lower values than a living salary in our province would want to have.

One of our challenges in explaining this to you is there aren’t secondary scales kicking around all over the place. We can’t say: “Look at the example here or there.” In K to 12, which we’re essentially an extension of, the main salary scale is where people enter. There’s no percent reduction beyond that.

There’s also the example of nurses. They enter the main salary scale again. There’s no percent reduction. I also understand that MLAs don’t have secondary scales, or I would’ve totally used that one as an example.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Well, actually, with all due respect, that’s not true. Many of us cut our teeth in municipal politics or regional politics, where it’s a lot different.

S. Mansiere: It’s a lot different. Okay. And we know each other for longer. So we know….

But nonetheless, faculty is faculty. If these poorly paid term positions had a good chance of transitioning to continuing employment, we could, perhaps, write it off as paying our dues, right? That’s not the case. We have term faculty that bounce from institution to institution. They’re stuck in this role as term. There is no way out.

If we want to solve this, we need a sector-wide solution, and we need fiscal planning for this to happen. We have hiring committees that are occurring right now that are unable to hire because what we’re offering is, simply, fractional pay, poor job security. We’re not getting the candidates. This is a problem for institutions. This is a problem for our education sector.

These poor-salaried precarious positions — they aren’t in alignment, as I see it, with the government’s position on living wages, improved services, especially health care and education. We really need improved funding to provide these improved services.

I’m here to speak out for term, because without permanent employment, they really don’t have a voice. Because if they do speak out, they’re jeopardizing their primary goal, which is remaining employed.

I’d like to urge the committee that they recommend that the government support the elimination of secondary scales in the post-secondary by having a pro rata model for contract academic staff to be paid on the provincial salary scale, as is done for these common things in other sectors, related sectors. Equal pay for equal work is what I’ve come here to ask for.

Thank you to the committee for letting me come to present our position. We’d like you to present our recommendations onto the provincial budget.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much, Sharon. Really appreciate it.

R. Coleman: Sharon, teachers on call do time, and then they eventually build in to where they get into a full-time position in teaching. Do these part-time faculty not have a collective group of people that negotiate for them like the rest of the faculty in post-secondary education? Are they not part of the bargaining group?

S. Mansiere: They are part of my bargaining group. But this was….

R. Coleman: So why aren’t they putting this into part of a contract negotiation?

S. Mansiere: Well, it kind of is, and it kind of has been for a few years. The last round of bargaining, the government set it aside and said it would be dealt with in LOU 5 and that we would deal with this at a side table before we went into negotiations. That never happened. A side table can only be productive if there’s money set aside to use at that side table. That’s what we need.

[11:50 a.m.]

I’m not trying to bargain out of bargaining. I’m trying to make sure that if we’ve got a problem, we are going to have money there to solve it. This is something that was contemplated last round. So we need the money there now.

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): Just for the members, I’ve known Sharon for a long time. She’s always fair and equitable, and she does have a big heart and cause for concern and has always shown that.

I have to concur with Rich. To me, a lot of this is bargaining. In my discussions yesterday, in Castlegar, with the president of the institution over there, I asked him some specific questions. I’m not privy to the answers at this point.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Was that Selkirk or…?

D. Ashton (Deputy Chair): It was Selkirk. To feed into the system…. I really think that Sharon has touched base on the availability of resources for the colleges. Then it’s up to the bargaining committees and up to some good negotiation to ensure that these wages are representative of the individuals who are teaching the kids, who we want to get the best education.

S. Mansiere: This sounds easy. But with a 2, 2 and 2 mandate and no money for the side table to solve this, there’s no 2, 2, 2 and we’re going to solve the secondary scale thing. So we can ask, but we can’t squeeze money from a rock, so to speak. We need this recommendation.

N. Simons: I just want to say that we’ve heard from other faculty representatives, and what you brought today were some unique elements that I hadn’t heard before. I really appreciate it. And this infographic is very clear.

S. Mansiere: Just to contemplate for a moment the 50 percent for labs for all faculty. That really hits our term faculty most because, of course, they’re getting that reduction of the reduction of the reduction. That’s why they’re, for us, all the way on the right-hand side of that.

N. Simons: I’ve been a sessional instructor, so I have a perspective. Thank you.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. One of the new things that we heard from you today is that there is now a hiring problem. I was wondering if you have any numbers around that — how things have changed over time or what they look like right now.

S. Mansiere: We’re gathering those, of course, because we’re going into bargaining, and the stories are varied. But it’s frequent. We are often in a bidding war, essentially, to try and get faculty at our institution. For some disciplines, we’re unable to secure anybody, so we’re actually seconding people out of our own other places in the college that aren’t faculty to take on certain tasks.

This week I got information from the biology…. We were trying to hire three people, and all three have said, “We’ve got offers from other provinces that are better,” so far.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Quick question for you. One of the…. I believe it was Selkirk that brought this up. It was online courses and the challenges around that, not just for part-time but also for full-time faculty. Do you have a…? Is there an issue around those scales for teaching on-line courses as opposed to in person?

S. Mansiere: There are more pieces to answer that. In every collective agreement, there are all sorts of different layers. We do have distance education as well as on-line.

B. D’Eith (Chair): He made a distinction. He said it started as distance, and then it sort of morphed into these on-line courses where you’re actually skyping. You know, it’s an actual course. Anyway, I’m just wondering if you could talk about that.

S. Mansiere: I think there are problems for both because… Well, at my institution, there are faculty members that actually help us with on-line support, and we’re not supporting them very well right now, so we don’t have that infrastructure that would be handy. The DE courses — the remuneration that those faculty get is so low that the two worlds are incomparable. I would agree.

The college is working towards us doing some more on-line work. I’ll have to sort of keep you posted on that, because they’re currently going through a big review. I’m not sure what they’re contemplating for an increase in that area, but there’s a process of investigation that’s going on right now.

B. D’Eith (Chair): It did impact on the part-time faculty as well.

[11:55 a.m.]

The other thing, too, is this idea of the administration keeping people on contract for years, never making it into full faculty, so that they don’t have to pay benefits and don’t have to guarantee courses. If you keep someone on contract, then if five students show up, you just cancel the course.

S. Mansiere: The rapidity with which courses can be cancelled is always faster with term. They’re also the last ones in. Because they’re the last ones in, they’re going to get those last classes that are added. Sometimes those are populated with students that require an awful lot of extra support, as well.

The college is trying different ways to increase its funding options, so sometimes we have large classes of people that we’ve actually just added extra assistance to from other unions. For instance, in the lab, where not all the students understand the language and the instructor has to be concerned for safety.

That’s a significant concern. If you have a new faculty member in that situation, a term faculty member that doesn’t have as much experience…. We’ve actually approached the college and been successful on a couple of occasions to get a student or another instructor helper in those rooms. That’s just a challenge that we’re facing. Those will fall, typically, to the term and the less experienced faculty — the nature of when they’re added in.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, we’re out of time, but thank you very much. We appreciate it because you actually filled in a bunch of interesting gaps and added a new dimension to this whole discussion. Thank you very much.

Okay. A motion to adjourn?

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:56 a.m.