The committee met at 9:04 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, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from government and opposition parties.

I’d like to welcome everyone listening to and participating in this virtual public hearing for the Budget 2021 consultation.

I’m thankful to be joining this meeting from the traditional territories of the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations. I also want to recognize that members and presenters are on their traditional territories throughout the province.

[9:05 a.m.]

The committee typically visits communities around the province to hear from British Columbians about their priorities for the next provincial budget. Of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all public hearings are being held virtually this year.

I thought I would take just a brief moment to address what has been going on in terms of racism in the U.S. and, of course, here in British Columbia with our Chinese-Canadians.

Today there is a movement called Black Tuesday that was started by two music executives. Basically, what that’s about is taking a pause and taking a stand against racism. That is what they have proposed.

From my own point of view, and I talked to the Deputy Chair, I think recognizing what our Lieutenant-Governor has been doing with her #DifferentTogether pledge is really worth acknowledging. I just wanted to read that into the record and to acknowledge the work that we need to do together.

The pledge goes: “Our B.C. is inclusive and respects people of all ethnicities, cultures and faiths and their contributions to our collective well-being. Our B.C. holds diversity as a fundamental value at the heart of the success, strength and resilience of our communities, workplaces, schools, public and private institutions. I pledge to uphold and promote these values, and I commit to speaking up to oppose racism and hate in all forms.”

I wanted to thank the Lieutenant-Governor for making that challenge and that pledge. I think I can speak for all the committee in saying that we are, of course, all opposed to racism and hate in all its forms.

Thank you very much for indulging me, committee. I do think it’s important, especially given what’s been happening over the last few days.

As far as our consultation, the consultation is based on the Minister of Finance’s budget consultation paper, which is available at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. We invite British Columbians to provide a written submission or fill out an online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is 5 p. m. on Friday, June 26, 2020.

We will be carefully considering all input to make recom­mendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be in Budget 2021. The committee intends to release its report sometime in August.

As far as the meeting format, in addition to holding meetings by video conference this year, we’ve also made some changes to the meeting format. Presenters have been organized into small panels based on theme. Today we’ll be continuing with general presentations on a wide range of topics, including labour, immigration and multiculturalism.

Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation, and we kindly ask that presenters be respectful of this time. Following presentations by the panel, there will be time for questions. All panellists will present first, and then we will ask questions. I’ll ask the members to raise their hand, and I will start a speaking list.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will be posted.

Now enough for me talking. If I could ask the members to please introduce themselves.

We’ll start with Rich Coleman.

R. Coleman: Rich Coleman. I’m the MLA for Langley East.

D. Barnett: I’m Donna Barnett. I’m the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin.

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): I’m Doug Clovechok, MLA for Columbia River–Revelstoke.

M. Dean: Mitzi Dean, MLA for Esquimalt-Metchosin and Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity.

R. Leonard: Hi, everybody. Welcome. I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox. This is Seniors Week, so I might as well say that I’m Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors.

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

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, everyone.

Also assisting us today is Susan Sourial and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office, Michael Baer and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services. Thank you so much and just again recognizing all the hard work that the Clerk’s office and Hansard have done to make this possible.

[9:10 a.m.]

First up we have Aaron Mannella from Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 1 – General

WILLIAMS LAKE AND DISTRICT
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

A. Mannella: Good morning, folks. Thank you for having me this morning.

It’s my privilege to be calling you from the traditional territory of the northern Secwépemc and, specifically, the Williams Lake First Nation. It’s great to see all of your faces.

Donna, it’s great to see you.

Would you like me to start?

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yes, please.

A. Mannella: Okay. I’ll try and keep my comments short this morning, folks. We’re talking about Williams Lake. For more than a decade, Williams Lake and area has been in the news, unfortunately, for all of the wrong reasons.

There has been a number of headlines over the last several years. Examples of some of those national headlines that weigh significantly in our community and the region include items like repeatedly holding the number one or top-ten crime ranking across Canada; the devastating Mount Polley TSF mine disaster, the failure, in 2014; intergenerational trauma from a residential school operating until 1981; the 2017 wildfire evacuation, and the trauma that occurred and continues; the local resource economy collapse, if we look at the logging challenges and forestry; of course, the Tolko mill fire that occurred in 2017; and, of course, lingering in comments around gang crisis in the region and around Williams Lake.

As I reflect, statistics continue to show that our children and youth are at greater risk of poverty and hunger than the national and provincial averages. When you couple that with rural isolation and trauma, we recognize that these children and youth often are more vulnerable to mental health issues, human trafficking, addictions and gang life. When we consider the impacts of colonialism, specifically around Williams Lake and the region, this dynamic really continues, especially as we look around us, with three First Nations and over 15 Indigenous communities that represent nearly 20 percent of the population in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

When I look at Williams Lake, Williams Lake is a service hub for the Cariboo-Chilcotin and continues to have long wait-lists, referral requirements, especially in the areas of children and special needs services. Mental health and addiction services are challenges. We would hope that the upcoming budget would deliver significant resources specifically to community social services sectors and those that are supporting our most vulnerable populations.

When I look at business right now, 98 percent of businesses in British Columbia are small businesses. They employ over one million British Columbians. Today many of those businesses are on the brink of bankruptcy. You cannot afford to delay support to them any longer. Our concern would be that we risk losing thousands of small businesses. Of course, these small businesses are critical to strengthen our economy and enrich our communities.

The main asks that we would have on behalf of the chamber of commerce in Williams Lake. We’d ask for considerations around tax breaks, temporary tax breaks on PST, the EHT and hotel tax. We’d request a consideration for small business hardship grants. Finally, we would request a consideration on a moratorium on any new regulations or policies that would add costs for British Columbians and businesses.

Finally, there’s been lots of talk, of course, about a proposed national sick leave program. Of course, we have concerns about this. Small business entrepreneurs can’t afford to take on additional costs. We’re concerned that employees should have to choose between their health and a paycheque, of course. But at the same time, we want to make sure that small business has the opportunity to continue to be sustainable and that increased costs are limited as much as possible.

That’s my presentation this morning. I’m presenting on behalf of our president, who wasn’t able to attend, Vanessa Riplinger. I appreciate your time.

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

Just a reminder to the panellists that we will be going through all of the panellists first and then opening the floor to questions.

Next up we have Clyde MacGregor from Enderby and District Chamber of Commerce.

ENDERBY AND DISTRICT
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

C. MacGregor: Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your schedule to have me today.

The Okanagan-Shuswap is a singular jewel in the crown of British Columbia. Its bucolic country orchards, farm product providers, multitudinous craftspeople and magnificent natural beauty make this area unlike any other. Much of what makes it unique is the wealth and interdependence of microbusiness and sole proprietorship. It is from these businesses that our region derives its character, its structure and its comfort.

[9:15 a.m.]

The COVID-19 epidemic has dealt a stunning and complex series of blows to these treasured businesses, forcing them to weather economic disaster and return to work stunned by a myriad of constantly evolving rules and best practices, all with respect to public health dangers and further necessary closures, tainting their own visceral struggle for survival.

It is here local chambers of commerce can provide much-needed assistance. Small chambers are working tirelessly themselves with reduced staff, resources and funding to aggregate mountains of policies, data and resources and provide it usefully to their member businesses. Chambers are effective mediators between government, the businesses they represent and the customers patiently awaiting the return of proper community life.

Like microbusiness, chambers need your well-considered, properly delivered financial assistance. However, this is not the thrust of my request. I ask you today for what was needed before the COVID-19 pandemic. I ask that you consider immediate, usable deployment of one or more of these requests to assist microbusiness and their faithful chambers to pivot with resiliency, optimism and speed into our new economy.

First, to maintain the unique character of our region’s microbusiness and the large tourist draw these intrepid entrepreneurs provide, consider an increased and immediate focus on the provision of Internet connectivity to rural areas. If lockdown has taught us anything, it’s that business can survive in some form if it has Internet connectivity for orders, emergency procurements and networking. By increasing the connectivity of rural communities, we serve not only business interests but tend to all citizens forced into isolation.

Second, I request you increase worker pivoting in adult post-secondary education. Please provide more access to post-secondary technology, trades and degree programs to address the existing and increasingly profound worker shortage in technology services. As we depend more upon remote solutions, more workers must service these networks and provide support for online platforms and development.

These roles require education. By allowing workers to work at an adapted pace from home, they can provide for their families while pursuing retraining. Whether new COVID-19 certifications, FoodSafe, driving written exams, first aid via Zoom meetings or baccalaureate degrees, allow workers to pursue these with increased freedom of time and location.

I request that the province not only work to increase its already impressive array of online courses but expand into other ticketed arenas so workers may work and learn at their own pace. I request the province work with its fine universities and colleges to further diversify, expand and subsidize programs. I thoroughly recommend we increase training and educational opportunities for students of all ages and income levels to fill worker shortages swiftly.

Finally, I request the development of a separate set of support services specifically for microbusiness and sole proprietorship. I put forth chambers of commerce as the organization par excellence in this regard. Local chambers know well each of their microbusinesses and act as advocates on policy and as facilitators of all new regulation.

Other groups may provide loans or start-up costs. It is a sad fact, however, that thriving businesses of a smaller, more lean financial scope and standing have fallen through these cracks. These are the businesses that we all think of in our local communities that are our anchors.

Support your chambers of commerce to provide worker training initiatives such as work pool, endowments for local business networking, COVID-19 resource kits and pivoting grants on a microscale. Allow small communities to restore the character and quality we all love so very much and hope to see reopen in fullness one day soon.

Thank you very much.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Clyde. Very eloquent.

Robin Cardew from the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce.

GREATER VERNON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

R. Cardew: My name is Robin Cardew, and I’m presenting on behalf of the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce. I’m addressing issues affecting all British Columbians, firstly with child care.

A recent child care space action plan was prepared by the city of Vernon. We support the recommendations in that report, including requests to the provincial government to expedite the implementation of the universal child care $10-a-day care plan. Increase capital funding to support the creation of new licensed spaces and to help with operating costs to sustain those spaces. We also ask to attract early childhood educators to the field by increasing funding or grants to train those educators and support wage increases and/or forgive student loans for education in this area.

[9:20 a.m.]

The year-over-year increases in earning potential compound when a parent is able to confidently work, knowing their children are safely taken care of. Currently the stresses are that there are not enough child care spaces, child care is often too expensive, and child care workers’ wages are too low to attract and sustain those workers and those individuals.

The overarching goals and visions are to obtain safe, high-quality and affordable child care services and to ensure that this is available for parents far into the future while being available as B.C. creates its opportunities.

On the topic of economic development, British Columbia has enjoyed tremendous growth and prosperity due to past decisions in past budgets. Initiatives undertaken through work and highlights in this budgetary process in past years have allowed business to succeed and industries to thrive. However, at this moment in time, there are certain taps being shut off. It is requested that the committee scrutinize the past successful trends and ensure that, going forward, funds are allocated to those initiatives which drive success and funding not be cut due to intricacies in the sources of those funds.

Case in point is the hotel tax. This tax is received by municipalities and DMOs after the funds are received by the province. With deferrals of tax payments by businesses to September 1, those funds are not reaching municipalities. The source of the tax has dwindled due to restrictions on travel. While increasing travel and tourism may not be at the forefront of our minds at this time of crisis, it is tourism that drives a vast number of successful businesses and operators to be able to employ individuals. The spinoffs are many into different industries, and without certain funding, it’s not possible for destination marketing organizations to fulfil their contributions to the B.C. economy.

I applaud the recent $10 million grant from the province to the 59 DMOs, although additional initiatives such as this will need a boost in funding well in advance of someone being charged the hotel tax at a hotel and those funds flowing through the system to the municipalities and the marketing endeavours. The slow-moving process does not allow for advanced planning. Once a solid reopening of the province and country is apparent, funding must flow quickly to ensure tourism bounces back quickly.

There are other examples of sources of funding, such as gaming. By funding these certain sources of funds now lost due to the lack of activities in the economy…. By funding those sources of funds back to their pre-COVID budgets, there will be fewer gaps in many programs.

On the topic of mental health, prolific offenders create a high percentage of crime reported in Canada. The links to drug and alcohol addiction plus the underlying mental health issues are overwhelming, with studies showing that approximately 80 percent of male offenders in federal prisons have substance abuse issues, and 60 percent of female inmates are prescribed psychotropic medicine to manage mental illness.

In connection with the best practices recommendations coming out of the provinces, the provincial government’s blue ribbon panel report of December of 2014, we request increased budgetary support for treating offenders while incarcerated, treatments for post-release to housing with programs to help with successful social reintegration, additional funding to support local and accessible residential treatment for low-income patients battling addiction and those co-occurring mental health diagnoses, and also to provide reimbursements for patients seeking privately operated addiction treatment.

We feel these measures will help communities experiencing issues with prolific offenders and individuals with substance abuse issues as well as help address the many facets of mental health situations experienced by citizens. Psychiatric beds and housing for at-risk individuals will provide safety not only for these individuals but for communities and businesses struggling. This will also help the street-entrenched population by intercepting individuals and providing care and assistance before they fall back to their previous positions.

Thank you so much for your time.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you to all three of our panellists. Wow, that’s a lot of ground that was covered. Thank you very much to all three of you.

We did hear yesterday from other chambers of commerce in regards to connectivity, broadband, especially in rural and remote areas. We heard that. We also have heard in regards to the importance of child care for businesses and for people to get back to work.

[9:25 a.m.]

It’s interesting that you bring up a hotel tax and gaming revenues. With casinos closed and with the tourism industry on hold for the time being, obviously those revenues are going down for municipalities and for everybody who relies on those. It’s going to be a challenge moving forward, and it’s one of the impacts from COVID-19. So rest assured that one of the things that the committee is looking at are the impacts of COVID-19 on businesses.

Okay, I see questions from Rich Coleman and then Donna and then Doug.

R. Coleman: Actually, I didn’t have a question. I was waving at the guy driving by. I’m sorry. I’m okay.

B. D’Eith (Chair): No problem.

R. Coleman: He waved at me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I want to take you to one of our auctions. It’d be great.

D. Barnett: Thank you all for your presentations.

Of course, I’m a little biased. Thank you, Aaron, from Williams Lake. Some of the issues you brought up are becoming more and more evident. Crime has always been a real problem in Williams Lake. Your city council has done a lot of work, and our government did a lot of work a few years ago. We just need to carry on with that.

The biggest problem we have, as you know, is with prolific offenders. We have a huge, huge problem with drugs and alcohol, and we need more supports, as you said, for mental health. The cost to our business community because of break-ins and thefts is horrific.

The other issue of course here that you brought up is business support. Aaron, do you believe that regulations and rules, etc., are creating a problem for our business community with resource development, which is not moving Williams Lake ahead, but backwards?

A. Mannella: Yeah, thanks, Donna. I appreciate those comments. Certainly, I mean, we’re entering into a new frontier. There are multiple challenges that developers and businesses have to deal with. I think they’re certainly challenges that continue.

D. Clovechok (Deputy Chair): Robin, I just want to let you know that the tourism issue, as the Tourism critic, is very alive to all of us, especially the impact that COVID-19 has had on it.

The $10 million is, obviously, a welcome addition, although that money is directed at keeping the lights on for a lot of the operations. It’s something that I think we really have to have a hard look at, so I just want you to know that your words are well placed.

R. Cardew: I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

With the city of Vernon having a previous inflow of about $1 million per year from that hotel tax, receiving $145,000 was helpful to keep the lights on, so to speak, although our local visitor centre is, of course, closed. We don’t have a contract for those services. Getting ahead of that situation is just going to help so many businesses in the province. We appreciate the knowledge that that funding is coming.

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

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

I think the question that I have is around…. We’re now entering into phase 2, and I’m curious about, because you represent a nice array of different communities, what’s going on with the reopening in your businesses. Is it a real slow start? Are people anxious to get going? Is there a sense of optimism that, as we progress, there will be opportunities, especially for tourism-based communities?

C. MacGregor: Well, my business is Enderby and district. That is towards a bit more of a conservative tone, though I thoroughly respect Vernon’s upwardly mobile approach to things. As our businesses, which are mostly sole proprietorships and people with less than ten employees, start to reopen, they are very adaptive. They’re very determined to go back, in most cases, unless health issues have interrupted things.

[9:30 a.m.]

Their biggest concerns are that they have confusion and extreme trepidation about if one of their workers should get sick or have to take quarantine time — if they have to pay for that, if that is an actual WorkSafe claim — and how far in the hole they could be. Those are actual words from some of our businesses.

Then failing that, their other big concern is that they are unsure if they will make changes to local floor plans, local seating arrangements and street plans to be able to accommodate more traffic flow, more parking and business. Then they are unsure how many closures and openings they can withstand before it would put them under.

Chiefly, it is the concern about wages and how to represent closures or worker absences to WorkSafe and what sort of supports they would receive for that that is giving many of them pause in reopening.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Robin, go ahead.

R. Cardew: Just to go on the back of what Clyde was saying there, certainly, helping these businesses get back up and running.

With the implementation or the discussions around the ten days of paid sick leave, we’ve got a number of businesses that flat out say that if they are required to pay for those ten days, they will shut. It’s not sustainable for them to be able to pay the ten days of sick time. Even a few is not going to be sustainable for many businesses. Ten days is one-fifth of the year…. That’s just a lot.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great.

Donna, I’m sorry. We have to shut down the conversation now. I apologize.

Thank you so much, panellists, for coming in today. We appreciate your comments and wish you all the best in your communities.

Okay. Members, we’re going to just take, unfortunately, only a three-minute break. We have to start again at 9:35. So if you just want to stretch your legs. We’ll take a two-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 9:32 a.m. to 9:35 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): To our panellists, thank you so much for presenting today. Just to give you a little bit of an overview of how this will work, all the panellists will present first. You have five minutes each, and then we’ll go to questions afterwards. We’d really appreciate it if you could keep your comments to five minutes, and then we will have time for questions after you’re all done.

If we could please start with Coun. Garth Frizzell from the city of Prince George.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 2 – General

CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE

G. Frizzell: Thank you for inviting us to present to you again.

As I speak to you today from the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh, I bring greetings on behalf of Mayor Lyn Hall and all of Prince George city council.

We believe it’s so important for provincial leaders from all over the province to better connect with our northern communities and cities. After all, northern B.C. plays a vital role in this province’s economic, social and cultural fabric. Local governments are working flat out to keep Canadians safe and to protect people and businesses from the economic storm sparked by COVID-19.

Our first point is that connectivity has become essential for any community’s economic, cultural and social development. Important challenges remain in terms of access to today’s broadband and wireless services in many smaller and rural municipalities. Yet we can already see that the next wave of innovation is upon us.

We’ve been heartened by your government’s announcement two years ago of the Connect to Innovate grant that would see a fibre optic cable from Prince George to Dawson Creek opening up our Internet cul-de-sac and giving us the redundancy to truly be on the information superhighway. Research shows, however, that our current data consumption is expected to grow sixfold by 2022.

Northern B.C. is simply not keeping up with even the current demand. Imagine how much better our response would have been to the wildfire evacuations of 2017 if residents had reliable high-speed access to monitor the situation, to respond to danger and to complete their log-in reports online.

Northern B.C. Internet access must be better. It must be improved. The municipal budget was never designed for that, and now cities and communities are on the brink of financial crisis driven by rising costs. We’ve got non-recoverable losses due to measures to keep people safe from COVID-19. Local governments across Canada face a near-term gap of $10 billion to $15 billion on everything from uncertainty around property taxes to utility charges to user fees.

That’s why, in April, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities urgently appealed to other orders of government for emergency operating funding for municipalities. We’re calling for at least $10 billion in emergency funding to keep vital municipal services going strong and to be ready to drive the recovery British Columbians are counting on. Without it, local governments are out of acceptable options, and we’re out of time. Yesterday the Prime Minister confirmed his readiness to engage with local governments on solutions, but we need provinces coming to the table as well.

B.C. has shown real leadership throughout the pandemic, including by moving quickly to flatten the curve. Tackling this financial crisis is an opportunity for B.C. to continue to show leadership for British Columbians and for the whole country. The best way to do that is by working with Ottawa to support B.C.’s local governments.

The fact is, cities and communities are essential partners in Canada’s recovery, but there can’t be any recovery without a solution to the municipal financial crisis. British Columbians expect their governments to work together, especially in a crisis.

That applies to transit too. Even with a return to fare collection at the beginning of June, ridership in Prince George is not expected to return to normal levels for the remainder of the fiscal year, if not into 2021. Ridership is down 70 percent compared to this time last year.

Approximately half our ridership comes from post-secondary institutions. The U-Pass program makes up about half the revenue on the transit system, and it’s currently suspended. At UNBC and at CNC, where I teach economics, we continue virtual distance learning, and that’s expected to continue through the summer semester. Loss of revenue to the city is $100,000 to $200,000.

[9:40 a.m.]

And there isn’t just one public health emergency right now. We were already trying to cope with the magnitude of the opioid crisis and related social challenges at the beginning of the year. To that end, at the end of 2019, Mayor Hall convened a select committee on a safe, clean and inclusive Prince George.

The operating impact of that is $1.7 million annually, and it reflects severe challenges that were already faced by our most vulnerable population. As you can see, even though COVID is a critical and obvious health pandemic, it’s not the only health crisis hurting people and causing a critical financial impact on our citizens.

Now, you have provided much-needed help in the past. The northern capital and planning grant of $8.1 million in 2019 was important. The follow-up grant of $6.5 million in 2020, coupled with eased restrictions on our reserve rules helped us to achieve some important cash flow benchmarks. Thank you for that.

As you prepare for 2021, there are a lot of challenges that we can all see looming. Strategically, it will help British Columbians when you continue to remember local governments and focus efforts on leveraging your fundamental partnership with us in furthering discussions with the federal government. Thank you for your time today.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Garth. We appreciate your words.

Next up we have Patrice Impey from the city of Vancouver.

CITY OF VANCOUVER

P. Impey: Great, thank you. Thank you for having me here.

I think you have a presentation. I’ll just walk through that presentation. The agenda is really to share with you some information on the city of Vancouver’s response to the pandemic and its impact on our community, the financial situation, and provide you some input to your 2021 budget process and opportunities to partner with the province on the recovery program.

If you go to slide 3…. As a major commercial centre, our economy has been severely impacted. So 90,000 jobs or 22 percent of the workforce has been laid off and over 13,000 businesses closed temporarily or permanently. Businesses have seen a 27 percent drop in revenue.

Slide 4 highlights some of the significant impact it has had on city finances, estimated to be about $163 million for 2020. Just to put that in perspective, that would require a 22 percent tax increase to offset that shortfall. So we’ve taken major actions to mitigate the impact, as outlined on that slide, including a layoff of 1,800 staff, hiring and spending restrictions, a 10 percent wage reduction for our non-union staff. But we still cannot fill that gap ourselves.

Slide 5 tells you a little bit about some of the work that we are doing through our emergency operations centre. We’ve responded very strongly to this crisis, with a significant amount of that work focused on supporting vulnerable communities, and much of that in partnership with Vancouver Coastal Health and B.C. Housing, as you know.

Slide 6 outlines the city’s recovery program. We’re really focusing on the economy and the community recovery, then focusing on the restart of our city operations, and then rebuilding our city service delivery post-pandemic. We see a real opportunity to partner with the province in our recovery program, as noted on slide 7. I’d like to share some of those thoughts with you.

In the context of provincial partnership opportunities, in the recovery phase we’re looking to work with the province on short-term actions to stimulate the economy and create jobs. In the restart phase, some near-term actions to address the financial impacts and enable a safe restart to our services and for our businesses. In the rebuild stage, longer-term infrastructure investments and local government financial reform, which was referenced somewhat by the previous speaker.

Speaking about the specific recovery in slides 8 and 9, some of the immediate actions…. We’re definitely in support of the focus for the COVID-19 recovery stream of the Canadian infrastructure program to focus on creating jobs and addressing physical distancing. We have a number of city programs and projects that we think would fit into that category, including retrofitting our civic facilities and using our city streets to allow people to use city services to support businesses with a safe reopening.

On slide 9, the other area is really focusing on municipal taxes, expanding our property tax deferment program, implementing split assessment through a commercial subclass for 2021 and also continuing financial support to TransLink to provide regional transit services for our economy.

[9:45 a.m.]

If you go to slide 10, that speaks to our restart program. Here our key request is for senior government support. Again, as I mentioned, our $163 million funding gap. These are non-tax revenues such as parking and program fees that will not be recovered, as well as additional costs coming to the city.

We’ve taken a lot of action, as I mentioned earlier, but we can’t fill that gap alone. I think this has really highlighted the fragility of municipal finance tools, and while the federal government has a program for businesses, they have no program for municipalities. So we are really looking for financial support from senior governments. We’re very happy to work with the province to pursue that federal government assistance.

Slide 11 speaks to our third category, which is our rebuild. That’s really about our infrastructure investments and local government fiscal reform. I’ll speak to each of those.

If we move to slide 12, this is our area of focus for infrastructure investments. We’ve prioritized four areas: affordable housing, rapid transit, climate emergency actions and resilient infrastructure, and the overdose crisis and poverty reduction. Some examples of projects, for instance, are permanent modular supportive housing, just in the housing area; on transit, extending the Broadway subway from Arbutus to UBC; under climate, energy retrofits to reduce carbon emissions from buildings — which, of course, are one of the larger emitters; and expansion of safe supply and increased access to pharmaceutical opioids.

Slide 13 speaks to municipal finance reform. Here’s where we know that local governments are facing increasing financial pressures, both from our aging infrastructure, growing asset base and expanding mandates and from emerging needs such as climate, seismic and flood protection resilience. This has just been magnified through the COVID-19 and overdose crisis. So we need to look at what the tools are that we need to support the economy at the municipal level.

Just in conclusion, slide 14. We recognize that ’20-21 will be a challenging budget year for all levels of government, but we very much would like to work with the province on our shared goals to support our local businesses in the economic recovery. We certainly recognize the historic investments in municipal services in areas like housing, child care and transit. We appreciate what you’ve provided already for municipalities and business, but we really look forward to working together to achieve a strong economy and a strong recovery through our recovery, restart and rebuild programs.

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

Next up we have Jerry Dobrovolny from Metro Vancouver.

Would you also please tell us who else is on the call?

METRO VANCOUVER

S. Dhaliwal: This is Sav Dhaliwal. I’m very happy to be here on behalf of Metro Vancouver. Good morning to the committee members as well. It’s a great pleasure to join you this morning.

I was very pleased to hear what Garth Frizzell had to say. I certainly appreciate that. Our message is along the same lines.

I’m not going to deliver my message, but I do have my colleague, whom I’m going to introduce in a second. He is our commissioner and chief administrative officer of Metro Vancouver regional district, Jerry Dobrovolny. We know we have a very short time. So I’m going to hand it off to Mr. Dobrovolny.

Please go ahead.

J. Dobrovolny: Thank you very much, Chair Dhaliwal.

We’ve got a short presentation as well. I’ll just flip to slide 2. I won’t repeat what you’ve heard already from the municipalities. Obviously, local government is on the front lines of the pandemic response and has been very affected. Metro Vancouver is as well.

One of our challenges is that we provide core services, in terms of drinking water, sewage treatment and solid waste services. The demand for those services hasn’t reduced at all. We’re trying to maintain those core services and that core workload, in many cases in ways that are much more difficult than under normal operations.

[9:50 a.m.]

We have formed a mayors task force, which meets every two weeks, so that we can help coordinate the 23 member jurisdictions within Metro Vancouver, both through shutdown and now through recovery. There’s a tremendous amount of coordination and work that’s there — and also, as we start to form ideas for the recovery strategy, both for us and, as well, supporting TransLink in that initiative.

Very quickly about Metro Vancouver, we’re 23 member municipalities and jurisdictions, as I said. We’re over half of the population of the province, 61 percent of the GDP and almost 1.3 million jobs. So really, the economic engine of the province represented in the Metro area.

Our capital budgets and operating budgets are $1.7 billion. As you can imagine, we have tens of billions of dollars of infrastructure in the ground from water supply dams to sewage treatment plants, tunnels, water and sewage tunnels that you could drive a pick-up truck through. So with that scale of infrastructure in the system, our capital projects are over $6 billion for the next five-year plan. And that provides a tremendous opportunity, we think, in terms of stimulus.

Also, we’re the second-largest affordable housing supplier in the province with almost 10,000 residents. And we have a tremendous inventory of natural spaces. We’re stewards of about a quarter of the region’s land base. That’s over 13,000 hectares of regional parks and over 65,000 hectares of sensitive protected areas. That provides a carbon sink for greenhouse gases of over 150,000 tonnes annually each year. So very important from wetlands to coastal wetlands as well.

As I said, we think that it’s an unprecedented opportunity moving forward, because we are very well aligned with both provincial and federal goals and objectives — opportunities to provide resilient infrastructure in a whole variety of different areas.

Affordable housing. I will talk a little bit more specifically about that.

Supporting a vibrant regional economy. I mentioned the number of jobs in the GDP situated here. We’ve also formed a regional economic prosperity group to provide a coordinated approach to economic development across Metro Vancouver, working very closely with the provincial groups as well so that we can provide a coordinated effort not only across Metro Vancouver but also with the province.

Tremendous opportunities around climate change, as I said. As I start to show some of the projects, I’ll show you how we reflect not only GDP and jobs but also the greenhouse gas opportunities, because we’ve got major opportunities for reduction in those projects.

We’ve got a portfolio of over a dozen projects, as I said, representing billions of dollars. We’ve performed fact sheets. I’ll just touch on a couple of them — the largest and one of the smallest as well. But there’s a whole portfolio of not only shovel-ready but shovel-worthy projects. Iona wastewater treatment plant is one of our largest projects. It’s got a 2030 deadline to provide improved sewage treatment in order to meet provincial and federal regulations. That project is on a critical path now to meet that deadline. There’s a tremendous opportunity there to recover heat and treat that sewage as a resource.

We’re looking at district energy systems through South Vancouver and through Richmond and to the airport, looking at opportunities to reuse water so that during the summer months, we actually don’t need to discharge into the ocean environment at all. We can use it for irrigation supplies for golf courses and farmland.

We’re looking at salmon enhancement and biodiversity enhancement — probably one of the largest salmon enhancement projects in the country, working with our partners, the Musqueam Nation. As you can see, the treatment plant is right at the front door of the Musqueam Nation.

One of the smaller projects that we have, and it’s currently in for provincial funding right now, is a $30 million project to better use the energy, the heat, that is coming out of the waste energy plant. It would reduce about 70,000 tonnes of GHGs per year by providing that heat for district energy systems in Burnaby and Vancouver. That would provide, as I said…. We looked at the jobs. The Iona would provide 24,000 jobs as well as opportunities — a 2½ percent increase in local GDP.

Metro Vancouver housing, just as I close. We have a ten-year housing strategy. Metro Vancouver’s projects over the ten years will fund about 1,350 units. But as we have gone through a process, we could provide many more times that number of housing units. We’re shooting for more than double that if we are able to partner with B.C. Housing and CMHC.

[9:55 a.m.]

We’re providing a framework where we can provide affordable housing across the Metro Vancouver region. We will provide funding for 1,350 units, but we can more than double that with provincial and federal partnerships.

The key message is that we think we’re very well positioned to help in both the provincial and federal recovery shovel-worthy projects, not just shovel-ready projects, that are required, not only to boost the economy but also to improve the environment and provide many, many jobs across the region.

Maybe I’ll stop there.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much to all three of you for your presentations.

M. Dean: Thanks for your presentations and for all of your work in the community as well.

I just came off, this morning, a call with the South Island Prosperity Project on Vancouver Island. I know lots of people are coming together to look at the restart specific to our region, for example, and I’m really impressed by the collaboration and how people are coming together in an environment where you might have expected that there might be some competition. So I’m really interested in the level of collaboration and how that might be different or improved.

What are you finding out in the community of how people are able to work together rather than being in competition with each other in these times?

J. Dobrovolny: Well, maybe if you’d like, I can start on the Metro Vancouver perspective.

We’ve got a number of staff committees and a number of political committees with elected officials. So in a whole variety of different subject areas, we work collaboratively across the region. We have both individual projects as member municipalities but also overarching projects. We try to coordinate our strategy, and I’ll just close on housing in particular.

We put out an expression of interest to all the member municipalities to identify lands that might be appropriate for affordable housing. That would be a municipal contribution. Metro Vancouver can construct and operate the housing. That would be our contribution. And as I said, we’re reaching out to B.C. Housing and CMHC for partnership as well. So our housing strategy is across the entire region and collaborating with all the different municipalities.

G. Frizzell: I can say, from observation, we’ve just opened up a new washroom and hand-sanitizing station in our downtown. As COVID hit, the opportunities for the most vulnerable population to be able to have basic bathroom services and hand sanitizers were going down. So we opened that in collaboration with a local social support network.

Our support network here is very tightly intertwined. Our business community is connected very tightly as well, and we’ve seen that. But also, across municipalities, across local governments throughout B.C., we’re sharing best practices, learning what’s happening. And at the national level, there’s been a collection of resources put together on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities website that all local governments go back to, refer to, just to keep in touch with all of the different ways we can help out.

P. Impey: Just on the Metro side, I think all of the municipalities are working really closely around our restart plans and bringing our services back up so that there’s some coordination between the cities. We’re so close together that having sort of a competition between…. “My library’s open, and yours isn’t. We’re faster or slower.” We’re really working together so we’ve got a coordinated approach. I think it’s a really good example of the cities working together.

And certainly partners. If you look at the Downtown Eastside work, it’s just been amazing — the level of partnership between the province, Vancouver Coastal Health, B.C. Housing, the non-profit organizations and the city and even philanthropic. We had people donating masks, donating food for the food programs for those who are living in SROs. It was really just an amazing collective effort to address the issue for that vulnerable population.

D. Barnett: Thank you to all of you for your presentation. I come from rural British Columbia, which is the backbone of British Columbia.

[10:00 a.m.]

Garth, I just have a question for you, if I could. You talked about the opioid crisis in Prince George. I know you’ve been very fortunate there. You’ve got great places like Baldy Hughes and a few other places that are certainly helping people. Does Prince George have a long-term plan and partnership with the federal and the provincial governments? I know you were in dire need of services for these people for recovery, not just to keep them in the situation they’re in but for recovery. So does Prince George have a plan at all?

G. Frizzell: I appreciate the question.

The mayor convened the select committee at the beginning of this year that I was talking about in response to obvious struggles on the street. It is working on developing a plan.

Currently we’ve got a great coalition of service providers. Similar to what Patrice said, it’s non-profits, it’s provincial agencies, and it’s federal agencies. We’ve got our hooks into the direction it should go, but this isn’t something that gets solved overnight. This is, as you say, a long-term, long, day-by-day slog, and we see it every day on the streets of Prince George.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you very much. Seeing no more questions…. We actually are out of time. So thank you very much to the panellists for your presentations and everything that you do for our communities. We really appreciate your presentations and wish you all the best of luck. Thank you. Stay safe.

If I could take a short recess. We will be convening again…. If I could ask members to be back here at 10:09. We will convene again at 10:10. Thank you.

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

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Before we get started, I just wanted to tell you how things are going. Obviously, this is a little different than in past years. Obviously, we wish we could be there with you in person, but we appreciate you participating.

What we’re doing is that we would ask all the panellists to please, if you could, keep your comments to five minutes each. We’ll go to each panellist and then open up the questions to all three of you to members afterwards. If you want to keep your Zoom chat open, I will give you a minute warning, and then I’ll tell you when your time is up. If you could look at that for an indication, I would like that.

If we could start, please, with Stephanie Smith from B.C. Government and Service Employees Union.

Welcome, Stephanie.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 3 – General

BCGEU

S. Smith: Good morning. I’m Stephanie Smith, president of the B.C. Government and Service Employees Union.

I’m joining you today from my home on the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam people. My pronouns are “she” and “her.”

I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the more than 80,000 members of the BCGEU. Shortly Laird Cronk will lay out the policy priorities of B.C.’s labour movement as we collectively navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and prepare to mitigate risks and seize opportunities moving forward. The BCGEU contributed to and supports those priorities.

We’ve learned a lot in the last few months. I’ll focus my brief time today on encouraging the committee to make recommendations that leverage what I think has been the key lesson of this pandemic: government matters.

Because of government, B.C. went into the pandemic in an exceptional fiscal and economic position and having already embarked on an ambitious policy agenda in critical areas like seniors care, child care, poverty reduction and workers’ rights. Because of government, our province went into this pandemic more resilient and less vulnerable than our neighbours to the east and south in ways that have contributed significantly to our comparatively successful pandemic response to date.

Government has the chance to ensure that our province emerges from the pandemic with a renewed economy built on an inclusive social vision, progressive policies, aggressive public investment and a robust and comprehensive system of public services.

Our written submission will provide more detail of our vision, but briefly, the BCGEU believes government’s priorities should be focused on three pillars: protecting our most vulnerable, building what we need and maintaining what we have.

A few weeks ago, in one of her briefings, Dr. Henry said: “We’re all facing the same storm, but we aren’t in the same boat.” The truth is that none of us will be truly safe until all of us are.

Government must protect those who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic. For instance, improve seniors care by eliminating private, for-profit operations and ensuring appropriate wages, benefits and working conditions for the dedicated professionals who care for our seniors and elders.

Expand TogetherBC to include permanent boosts to disability and income assistance, aggressive investment in building and operating affordable and supportive housing options and solid supports for mental health and addictions.

Follow through with the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and other reconciliation measures to support the resilience of our Indigenous communities.

Moving forward will also mean fundamentally reimagining government’s role as an employer and an investor in post-pandemic economy and society.

[10:15 a.m.]

Accelerate the Childcare B.C. plan to create a universal, professional, accessible, affordable public system of child care operated in publicly owned facilities to support our economic recovery.

Work with federal, municipal and Indigenous governments to develop the fiscal and policy frameworks we will need to support our goals moving forward, like bringing seniors care under the Canada Health Act and developing innovative revenue options to support public infrastructure.

Make sure that public agencies like the labour board, residential tenancy branch, food inspectors and WCB, to name just a few, have the resources, funding and authorities they need to support the monitoring, inspection and enforcement mandates that will keep us safe.

Before the pandemic hit, key and critical public programs and services were suffering from years of chronic underfunding. Those challenges remain, and addressing them is more urgent than ever. Government should shore up existing public services and programs by boosting employment in key targeted areas like health care, child and youth services, community social services and income and disability assistance.

As we move through the phases of recovery, government will be the key to our success. We’ve seen the economic projections along with the fiscal implications — record or near-record unemployment, deficits and debt — and we want to emphasize unequivocally: this is not a moment for government to retrench. It will not be enough to maintain the status quo, and it would be disastrous to start cutting back.

This is a moment for the government to commit historic levels of public investment and innovative approaches to public policy to create safer, healthier communities and a more compassionate, inclusive society built on values of respect, equity and social justice.

Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to submitting our written analysis. I’ll now turn it over to the next panellist. Thank you very much.

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

Next up we have Paul Faoro from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, British Columbia.

Thanks, Paul.

CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES,
B.C. DIVISION

P. Faoro: Good morning. It’s good to see you all via Zoom. Certainly, I would have preferred, and I know you all would agree, that we could be doing this in person, but this is the hand that we need to play.

It’s important for our democracy and our province that this happens, and I want to thank you for doing this. I’m going to be as brief as I can today given that I know your schedule and the amount of Zoom calls that you have pending.

Most of you know CUPE B.C. is the largest union in this province. We represent more than 100,000 workers who deliver vital services in just about every community in this province. As Stephanie said, our full submission will be coming at a later date, and it’s going to contain recommendations directed towards all the sectors where our members work. But for this morning, in the interest of time, I’m going to focus on just three of those: libraries, post-secondary education and K-to-12 education.

I think you’ll all agree with me that libraries are the important hubs in our communities, giving all residents, regardless of income, access to a wide range of knowledge, information and services. Libraries are needed to bridge the digital divide throughout our recovery. British Columbians need to be able to access the free Internet and programs libraries offer in their communities that really can’t be found anywhere else. We represent about 3,000 library workers around this province.

First off, I want to thank the government for the recent one-time $3 million investment in public libraries. We support it very strongly. But as we are very fond of saying in the labour movement, it doesn’t go far enough. We ask that the provincial government ensure that all public libraries in B.C. permanently receive a sufficient increase to their annual operating grants so they can continue to provide the fundamental services and programs in their communities.

Post-secondary education. Colleges and universities, as you all know, have been hit hard by this pandemic. Unfortunately, it’s going to be likely several years, at best, before we return to a so-called normal, with international students being able to return back to Canada and B.C. in the same numbers as before, and the revenue that comes with them. We’re going to have large holes in funding.

It’s important to note that even before the pandemic, the proportion of provincial funding dropped by 24 percent between 2000 and 2016, and now approximately only 43 percent of B.C. college and university budgets comes from public funding.

[10:20 a.m.]

We recommend that the post-secondary funding model be reviewed with the goal of increasing per-student funding, reducing the reliance on international students and restoring the majority of public funding.

We also recommend that the provincial government provide a targeted increase in funding to colleges and universities to increase domestic enrolment through increased capacity, specifically in key areas for economic recovery, development and innovation such as red seal–certified trades, child care educators, education assistants and other professional programs.

Finally, K to 12. We represent around 27,000 members in K-to-12 education, and I think you will all agree that this week has been a big, big week for those workers. Our members are teachers, all the other stakeholders providing for students and their families, opening up the schools, giving that ability. I want to thank our members for the work that they’ve done this week and the weeks ahead. They are vital to the system.

I want to say that we recommend that sufficient funding be allocated to the K-to-12 budget to provide full-time hours for custodian staff, to ensure that adequate staffing levels are there. As we all know right now, we’ve seen what this pandemic has done to the education system, and the importance of clean and healthy worksites.

We also recommend that the government fund more training spaces and bursaries for education assistants to ensure that we have enough trained support staff for the years ahead.

Finally, you’ve heard CUPE British Columbia raise this point. I get that it’s controversial, but we’re going to continue to say that public funding to elite private prep schools should be eliminated. We believe that a strong public education system is the best way to ensure that education is inclusive, equitable and accessible. Public resources should only fund public services, full stop. I’m going to leave it at that.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we will have a full submission, a comprehensive submission, covering all of the sectors that we work, trying to put forward ideas to assist government in recovering from this pandemic and ensuring that every British Columbian is looked after for today, tomorrow and the years ahead.

I want to thank you for your time. I’m going to turn it on to the next panellist, my friend Laird Cronk.

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

Next up we have Laird Cronk from the B.C. Federation of Labour.

Please go ahead, Laird.

B.C. FEDERATION OF LABOUR

L. Cronk: Thanks very much. I just want to hold up my library card so Paul sees it.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for this valuable work that you’re doing.

I’d like to begin by recognizing that I’m on the unceded territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people this morning.

I am Laird Cronk, the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. Our affiliate unions represent more than half a million working people across the sectors and regions of British Columbia. We advocate for the rights of all working people in B.C. I’m asking you today to keep them in mind and consider the extraordinary time we’re in as you craft Budget 2020. Or is it 2021? They’re blending.

Extraordinary times because of what we’ve endured together, the challenges faced by working people, communities, businesses and government. But it’s also extraordinary because of this unique opportunity we have to create the economy we want, an economy that works for all us, and prosperous resilient communities throughout British Columbia where everyone can succeed and we don’t leave folks behind.

As with the other panellists this morning, the federation will offer a far more detailed vision of that economy in a full written submission than we can in five minutes. But today let me set out four foundational themes we hope Budget 2020-2021 will reflect.

The first is worker rights and protections. COVID-19 has revealed and highlighted gaps like the significant number of misclassified workers who aren’t covered by the Employment Standards Act, WCB or EI and the limited access to critical supports for thousands of workers, like paid sick leave. Those gaps are one reason the need for emergency supports and benefits has been so great.

The more workers can rely on robust employment standards, decent wages and the support of a union, the less the demand on government in times of crisis. Appreciation and pandemic pay bumps have been welcome. But what workers really need now from this recovery are permanent working conditions and supports that respect our contribution to our communities, whether that’s a living wage for the people who care for our children and our seniors and provide critical support for our communities, a plan for paid sick leave now and in the long term or the strengthening of workers compensation and employment standards.

[10:25 a.m.]

The second theme is expanded and improved public services. Our public health system is a big part of why we have weathered this pandemic as well as we have. Our public services are vital to the health and resilience of our communities, businesses and economy. We’re proposing a range of new investments, such as accelerating our move to universal public child care, expanding public transit and improving long-term care.

Our third theme is strategic investment to build a modern, future-ready economy. We can’t cut and slash our way to long-term prosperity, but we can fuel our recovery through smart investments in our future, investments that respond to the climate crisis, create community infrastructure, help people develop valuable new skills for a changing job market and build on the success and vision of CleanBC.

The fourth and final theme is a recovery for everyone. This pandemic has affected some people dramatically more than others. It has magnified disparities of privilege, power and wealth. The hardest-hit people in this pandemic have been women, members of underrepresented groups, those earning the lowest wages and those working in jobs most at risk of exposure. We need to ensure that our recovery doesn’t leave them behind. We need, in short, an equity lens.

The failure of government responses back in 2008’s economic crisis, with giant corporate bailouts and no accountability, have taught us that this time people must come first. We do that by redoubling our work on reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, not abandoning the progress we’ve made. We do it with permanent increases to social and disability assistance. We do it by including women and Indigenous workers in infrastructure development through community benefit agreements and by supporting core funding for programs like the B.C. Centre for Women in the Trades. We do it with an array of measures geared to closing the deep divides in our society exposed by this pandemic.

Our written submission will address these themes in more detail, along with specific recommendations for addressing the decline in government revenues.

I want to make one final point. A recovery that simply aims to replace what was there before leaves far too many people out in the cold. It will fall short of building the economic and social strength B.C. needs to weather the next crisis, which will come, whether it’s a commodity price collapse, a global economic shock, a new pandemic or a second wave of this one.

We have a brief window here where we can set B.C. on a trajectory to sustainable prosperity, equality and resilience. But we only make the most of that opportunity when we put working people — the people we’ve relied on to sustain this province through the toughest of these times, whose sacrifices have opened this very window for all of us — at the centre of this recovery.

Thank you. I appreciate the work you do and the opportunity to make this submission this morning.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much to all three of you. Of course, five minutes each is certainly not enough to deal with the multiplicity of issues that we’ll read in your written reports, but thank you for highlighting priorities. It’s important for this committee to see priorities and high-level things so that we can make recommendations.

Questions from members.

R. Coleman: Thanks, you guys, for your presentations.

Just to the CUPE rep, you made one comment. I’d just like to get a definition, an understanding, of what you define as an elite private prep school, I think you called it — elite private prep schools.

P. Faoro: I think you could say that St. George’s would be one I would put in that category. I can provide you with all of those fundings. I get that there are…. I chose my words carefully.

I understand. I get that funding goes to faith-based schools. That’s not what I said. I suspect that that’s where you may have been getting to. But the St. Georges of the world would be a model of thinking that…. I think it’s wrong that public dollars are going into that school when we’re having a heck of a time keeping public schools running and properly staffed and open.

It’s about priorities. I think we need to look at the priorities right now.

That’s a good question. Thank you.

R. Coleman: So the elite private prep school wouldn’t include my South Asian community school, a Khalsa-type school; a Catholic; a fundamental Christian school. Those types are not in your definition? You’re targeting a few schools in B.C. that you think are elite.

[10:30 a.m.]

P. Faoro: That’s correct. Definitely. I appreciate and acknowledge those schools and what they provide. That’s not where we’re going, not what we’re saying.

R. Coleman: Okay. Thank you.

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentations.

I just have a question for Stephanie. I find it very interesting that you are coming up with innovative revenue options. Could you please define and tell us what some of those options are going to be?

S. Smith: Thank you. Yes. I don’t actually have them, but one of the stalwart pieces of our presentations to the standing Finance Committee is always to provide recommendations and suggestions on how government can create revenue.

We’ve seen real success in the expansion of the hours of the liquor stores, for example. Those are the sorts of things we turn our minds to, not only to just ask for funding but to work with government to provide other opportunities for creating revenue to pay for the public services that British Columbians rely on.

They’ll be in our submission, for sure.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I had a question for, actually, all three panellists, if that’s okay, just in regard to paid sick leave, especially in regard to what’s been going on with COVID-19 and, in some cases, like the poultry processing, where people were going to work because they needed to feed their families. The idea that you just, in the past, suck it up and you go to work because you’ve got to work has changed. We also heard presentations from many chambers of commerce that are worried about small businesses getting going again and how this will work.

I’m just wondering if you wouldn’t mind elaborating a little bit on your vision for paid sick leave and what that looks like.

Stephanie, maybe you could start.

S. Smith: I was going to actually defer to Laird Cronk, the B.C. president.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Go ahead, Laird.

L. Cronk: I’ve spent a lot of time on this issue. I also sit on the Economic Recovery Task Force, along with business, the Premier and the Finance Minister. We’ve talked about this.

I’ll cut straight to it. It’s a good question. There’s a plethora of folks and organizations espousing a whole bunch of ways that things happen. One thing we know is we don’t want people going to work sick. We know that we don’t want them…. There’s work protection that came in recently for folks that stay home and do the right thing, by the PHO’s orders.

We don’t want the economic issue on the table for folks who are worried about paying the rent, vitamins, medicines and stuff like that, the necessities of life. They’re worried about their jobs, and they’re worried about the economics. That’s been recognized by the Prime Minister and the Premier. It’s been recognized by the business community at the ERT meetings.

Here’s where we are. The Federation of Labour, from the very beginning, has called for the assistance of the provincial and/or federal government for sick pay during the crisis of the pandemic proper. Then we’re calling for the long-term inclusion of sick pay into the Employment Standards Act once business is back on an even keel, beyond the pandemic.

I’ve run my own small business. I’ve made payroll. We recognize, at the federation, there are businesses that can pay it right now. If they can pay sick pay, they should. There are many that have it in collective agreements, and they should pay that.

There are many businesses who are struggling right now. That’s why we’ve called on a combination of the provincial and federal governments, one or the other or both, to step in and take care of that. The Prime Minister has now talked about it. The Premier has talked about it. Then, once this is over and business is back on an even keel, I think we build in some proportional amounts of sick pay in the Employment Standards Act going forward.

It’s a two-phase approach. Recognize the struggles some businesses are having with government funding, and then build it, in an intelligent way, into the Employment Standards Act moving forward.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Laird.

Did you have any comment, Paul?

P. Faoro: Certainly, Laird’s points are spot on.

The other issue that’s kind of tied into this is the whole issue of precarious types of employment. We saw what happened in long-term care, in the sense of people not having full-time jobs and having to bounce from one place to another basically to live and survive.

It’s all connected here. I think we need to be mindful that we have a lot of precarious types of work right now in the public sector, not even alone….

[10:35 a.m.]

I can see my friend Stephanie. If you look at the work that’s done in the areas where CUPE represents and, I would say, with the BCGEU…. A lot of our members, unfortunately, are in a type of precarious work that we need to look at. There should be full-time enrolment. It’s a real problem, particularly in the K-to-12 sector.

We have education assistants who are classified as full-time employees working only four hours per day. That’s wrong. Those education assistants have to go and get another job in order to survive. So the whole sick leave issue is tied into there, and I think we need to be mindful of that. So thank you for that.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Paul.

Were there any other questions from members at all?

M. Dean: Thank you, all, for your presentations.

Thank you for your final point, Laird.

I know this will be on everybody’s minds, but I’m really interested in how we recover in a way that’s different to previous recoveries. So not just investing in infrastructure where it’s traditionally male-dominated labour and paid jobs but making sure that we continue to try and close those gaps and don’t leave anyone behind. I’m really interested in the submissions from all of you providing us with some input in that kind of direction as well.

L. Cronk: I would also recommend…. Aside from the specific submission we’ll be making to this group, the Federation of Labour has put together, with all of our affiliates, an economic recovery document which is publicly on our website that talks to a lot of those innovations.

For example, if there will be, and probably and absolutely needs to be, some public infrastructure like transit, etc…. We have opportunities to do it in a different way than 2008 — sort of white, male-dominated work — where we have community benefits agreements that invite and make space for women, Indigenous workers, underrepresented groups, to participate in that construction and participate at a reasonable income and be there in a full-scope trades-training scenario.

Full-scope trades people, red seal, have resilience as economies changes, as opposed to postage-stamp training where you get one little aspect, and then if the work changes, you don’t know what to do. So there are all sorts of innovative things we can do within the traditional structures as well as innovative on their own.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you. We’re out of time, but thank you so much to all three of you for your presentations. We look forward to your written submissions.

Also, Laird, Paul, and Stephanie, you did mention that you had recovery planning as part of that. We would encourage you to put that, also, in your presentations. We are looking at medium- and long-term recovery as well, and we would very much like to hear your thoughts on that. So thanks, everyone.

We will have a short recess. Be back at 10:40. Three minutes.

The committee recessed from 10:37 a.m. to 10:41 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): All right. Let’s bring the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services back into order, please.

Welcome, panellists. Just to give you an idea about what we’re doing. Firstly, of course, we wish we were there with you in person. We appreciate you coming in via Zoom. We appreciate that. If each one of you could please present for five minutes. We’ll go through all three panellists first and then ask questions afterwards.

Why don’t we start, if we could, with Lori Mathison, Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 4 – General

CHARTERED PROFESSIONAL
ACCOUNTANTS OF B.C.

L. Mathison: Thank you very much. Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to be part of the 2021 budget consultation.

As mentioned, my name is Lori Mathison, and I’m the president and CEO of the Chartered Professional Accountants of British Columbia — CPABC, we are called. We are the training, governing and regulatory body for over 37,000 CPA members and 5,000 CPA students and candidates. Our primary mission is to protect the public. We do that by enforcing the highest professional and ethical standards. We also contribute to the province by advancing responsible public policies that provide long-term benefits to British Columbians.

As our province comes to terms with the pandemic, CPAs are out there every day helping many businesses navigate really challenging circumstances. Provincially, we have seen the economic gains made over the past few years reversed, and as we implement B.C.’s restart plans, we really need to be strategic to ensure that the most people and businesses benefit from government investment in programs. As businesses reopen, we know that many displaced workers will be able to return to work, but some may not be able to secure the same job that they previously held, so we need to think about how to address that.

We also know that some businesses, particularly in the service sector, like hospitality or tourism, may not return to their pre-crisis levels for a long time. Other businesses still will not be at full capacity until health measures have been fully lifted.

Sadly, overall it appears that B.C.’s economic recovery will take years, so we really need to focus on boosting productivity during this time that we are facing right now. Specifically, we think the government can take steps to boost productivity in a couple of ways: by encouraging technology adoption by business and by rescaling and upscaling displaced workers.

Just starting on the technology side, I want to focus on the benefits of technology adoption — in particular, information and communications technology, which I’ll call ICT for short. Greater use of ICT creates more flexible workplaces as employees can work from the office, from home or in different cities.

There are many related benefits to remote working: commuting less and the related impact on the environment. Remote working options can also help to address labour shortages, something that we have been struggling with for a long time, because talent can be sourced from further afield. Also, it can help workers deal with affordability challenges by allowing them to live further away from the downtown core.

[10:45 a.m.]

With COVID-19, adoption of ICT has allowed many businesses to remain open. However, in B.C., we still have relatively low levels of investment into ICT, and this has contributed to our province having lower business sector productivity when compared to the national average. We have identified a couple of barriers to investment in technology and adoption: one, cost; and two, just lack of knowledge.

On the cost side, our first recommendation is that the government provide input tax credits from the provincial sales tax for business investment into ICT over the next three years. Of course, this is investment that would be used directly in connection with the business’s commercial activities, so entirely appropriate for ICTs or input tax credits. Alternatively, there could be an outright exemption from PST on purchases of ICT, again for the next three years. The government should also consider additional targeted financial supports for small- and medium-sized businesses to invest in ICT.

The second barrier to technology investment is knowledge. Simply put, business owners are reluctant to make an investment if they’re not sure of which technology will best suit their business, and they don’t have the resources to fully explore.

As an example of something that really has been working well, the province has done a good job through the crisis providing businesses with information on key supports that are available. We really applaud the COVID-19 support service that has been administered by Small Business B.C. So our second recommendation is that the province should build on this tool that is already working and expand it to include custom, searchable, objective information on ICT to really help to inform businesses. This would allow business owners to more easily identify tools that can help them make the appropriate investments going forward.

I’ve talked about the cost side, and I want to touch briefly on training.

While technology is part of the productivity equation, ensuring workers are appropriately trained is also very important. We are concerned that some displaced workers may find themselves unable to return to work without some re-skilling or upskilling or training, so our third recommendation is the creation of a short-term COVID-19 education grant. The goal of that grant would be to help displaced workers re-skill for the shifting labour market, and they would be able to get the funds without having an employer to fund it or to go through. They could get it directly.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Lori, your time is up. If you could wrap it up, I’d appreciate that. Thank you.

L. Mathison: Just very briefly, the last recommendation is that the province should consider expanding existing programs like the employer training grant and the B.C. access grant, both to broaden eligibility and grant levels but also to really focus on those information and communication technology skills.

I’ll stop there. I’m pleased to take any questions at the end.

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

Next up we have Greg Wilson from Retail Council of Canada.

RETAIL COUNCIL OF CANADA

G. Wilson: Good morning, hon. Members. My name is Greg Wilson, and I’m here today on behalf of British Columbia’s 55,000 retail stores.

The retail industry has been badly damaged by the impacts of COVID-19. In February of 2020, 310,000 British Columbians worked in the retail industry. By April, there were nearly 70,000 less retail jobs; that is to say that 22 percent of retail jobs vanished due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Since the retail recovery is likely to be very slow, more job losses in retail are likely. Retailers face other fixed costs, particularly property costs and inventory, for which government has provided little or very inadequate relief.

The retail industry reality in this extended period of recovery is dark. The picture is of businesses closing, significant financial losses and the loss of meaningful jobs.

There are measures that government can take to protect businesses, relieve financial pressures and protect jobs. Some mainstream commentators have opined that since online retail sales rose by 40 percent on a year-over-year basis, the retail industry was somewhat buffered. I note that even with that increase, e-commerce is still less than 5 percent of total Canadian retail sales.

[10:50 a.m.]

To this point in the crisis, those increased online sales have significantly benefited non-resident retailers. Those retailers have lower property and labour costs than British Columbians. They generally provide their employers significantly lower pay and less benefits. They do not employ our family, friends, neighbours or other residents of British Columbia.

All B.C.-based retailers are asking for is a level playing field. E-commerce entities based in the U.S. have a tax advantage and a tariff advantage that began with NAFTA and continues through CUSMA. Many non-resident e-commerce entities sell into British Columbia without charging or remitting provincial sales tax. They often charge and pay no eco-fees, yet the packaging for their shipment goes into our recycling system.

Obligated producers resident in British Columbia, such as B.C. retailers, charge and remit eco-fees that pay to operate British Columbia’s recycling system. Not only do we have to pay for the management of the packaging and products we sell in our stores; to add insult to injury, we also have to subsidize e-commerce by paying for the cost of managing their product packaging and products too.

Both government, on the sales tax question, and the recycling system from eco-fees could use additional revenue at this time. Why not position yourselves as the champions of fairness, while fighting for B.C. business?

We do have one large other ask for the 2021 budget. Government has required retailers to make significant investments in physical arrangements and in the purchase of PPE. Our ask is that government provide a refundable tax credit for those purchases. RCC is going to make a written submission, and we’ll provide more background on that request in our written submission.

I apologize for the fact that what I’m saying is somewhat negative, but this is the reality of the retail industry in B.C. in 2020. Whether the inaction on the PST and the eco-fees stems from a lack of creativity on the part of government or a malaise — that local businesses employing British Columbians are less important — I implore you. If you can’t provide more financial assistance to retailers and to retail workers, could you at least take strong action to stop providing financial benefits to our competitors?

I’m happy to take questions. I thank the committee for your time.

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

Next up we have Iglika Ivanova from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Please go ahead.

CANADIAN CENTRE FOR
POLICY ALTERNATIVES

I. Ivanova: Thank you for the opportunity to share the CCPA’s recommendations for Budget 2021. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has a long track record of research and policy analysis addressing B.C.’s economic, social and environmental challenges. In our recommendations, we draw from this body of work.

I want to start by commending the B.C. government on launching its initial $5 billion COVID-19 action plan in late March, which was notably larger and more comprehensive in scope than what other Canadian provinces have put forward. However, the important work of supporting B.C. workers, families, businesses and non-profits reeling from the crisis is far from done and must continue in Budget 2021.

The COVID-19 crisis has affected everyone, but it has hit lower-income and vulnerable British Columbians harder, deepening existing social and economic inequalities. Now is the time for the B.C. government to continue showing leadership and to begin addressing these inequalities that the crisis has brought into very sharp focus.

The good news is that B.C. entered the crisis in an enviable fiscal position, with stable finances and low levels of debt relative to GDP. This fiscal advantage should be deployed in Budget 2021 to fast-track recovery and rebuild our economy. Going forward with spending reductions, whether they take the form of cuts to programs and services, pulling back on vital COVID-19 supports too early, or delaying long-overdue investments to expand capacity in affordable housing, child care and other vital public programs at this time will actively damage the economic recovery. We will also further deepen the inequalities COVID-19 has magnified.

[10:55 a.m.]

The private sector is not in a position to serve as an engine of growth at this time. With a vaccine still at least a year away, it’s increasingly likely that most businesses will not be able to operate at full capacity for quite a while. An ambitious program of government investment is the only way to backstop job losses, to put money into peoples’ hands that can be spent in the local economy and to provide much-needed services during what is expected to be a prolonged period of reduced economic activity. Without this, we risk the COVID-19 recession turning into a depression.

Budget 2021 should include large-scale investments in social infrastructure — that is to say, in the systems of care and education that enable us to have a healthier and more inclusive economy and to strike a better balance between paid work and personal, family and community care.

We must fix long-standing issues in seniors care, including but not only long-term care, to ensure that all British Columbians can age with dignity.

Budget 2021 must also redouble our commitment to building an affordable, quality, universal child care system by investing in new public child care spaces to significantly expand capacity, by turning existing licensed child care programs to $10-a-day sites, and by boosting wages for early childhood educators.

We also need better mental health supports, safe and affordable housing and well-funded, accessible community services. We must absolutely improve education and training programs and make them accessible to everyone so that workers whose jobs or hours have been cut can upskill and find meaningful, family-supporting work.

We must also pick up the pace on digital equity and fast-track projects to improve access to broadband Internet in rural and remote areas of the province and on First Nations reserves. We will need to scale up our investments in programs that help low-income households afford Internet services and digital devices.

In addition to strengthening our social infrastructure, planned investments in affordable and lower-market housing must be scaled up significantly, as must investment in climate action.

Budget 2021 must also redouble our efforts to reduce poverty and to address the inequalities in B.C. that were deepened by the economic and health crisis. We see a troubling discrepancy between the standards set by the $2,000-a-month Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB, and the pitifully low income assistance rate of $760 a month. The new standard set by the CERB for what is considered adequate to live on at this time happens to be very close to the poverty line, as measured by the revised 2018 market basket measure for urban areas in B.C.

Budget 2021 must raise welfare rates to at least 75 percent of the poverty line and introduce a medium-term plan to bring them all the way up to the poverty line. Homelessness, food insecurity and access to affordable transportation remain priority issues to tackle.

Finally, Budget 2021 must include increased multi-year funding for charities and non-profit organizations so they are adequately resourced to do their job and have the capacity to actively partner with the provincial government in building a more inclusive and sustainable economy where everyone is supported to reach their full potential. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much to all three panellists.

Before we start with questions from members, Greg, I just read in the newspaper that Jeff Bezos is poised to become a trillionaire by 2026. I think it kind of speaks to what you’re talking about in terms of local business and the power of big international companies in terms of retail generally. But then, with the COVID crisis, it’s actually created more opportunity for some of these bigger online retailers.

Could you speak a little bit more about how to tackle this? I mean, you touched on it, but I’d love to hear a little bit more.

G. Wilson: It’s interesting. Iglika mentioned that the inequities are a bit exaggerated at this time. I think that’s the case here.

Firstly, they had more capacity because their business was focused on e-commerce where most Canadian retailers’ businesses weren’t focused on e-commerce. Frankly, Canadian consumers have been slower than some others in the world to pick up on e-commerce. I mean, we’re meeting the needs of our marketplace, as it were.

[11:00 a.m.]

I think the major difference is that the province has always looked at it as difficult to pursue e-commerce entities because they’re not resident in Canada. We’ve looked at solutions that have been deployed in Europe, notably Belgium and the Netherlands, which have done excellent work in this, where they have pushed that compliance onto courier companies.

What’s happened in Belgium and the Netherlands is, actually, that the courier companies, while they were obligated to ensure that the PST and eco-fees were paid, didn’t actually, for the most part, end up paying that. Instead, they pushed their customers, the e-commerce entities, to do that, to remit the eco-fees and the PST — or the sales taxes — and to ensure that they provided evidence of that at time of shipment.

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

Okay, Members, questions.

D. Barnett: Thank you, Greg, for your presentation. Very, very interesting.

There are so many people, especially in small communities, that rely on jobs in small retail businesses, and I can see them closing before COVID because of a lot of this. But have you approached the federal government regarding Canada Post? That’s where I understand most of the packages come from. Have you approached them at all to deal with this?

G. Wilson: We have, but the federal government doesn’t have interest in provincial issues, for the most part, so they’re motivated mostly to collect the GST. When we left the HST system, we probably lost our advantage on collecting the B.C. PST. Sorry.

On eco-fees, they’ve never indicated any interest or support for the collection of eco-fees. The government’s tone on plastic has changed, but the federal government’s tone on eco-fees hasn’t. They do view those as provincial creations and up to the provinces to enforce.

M. Dean: Thanks for your presentations.

I mean, obviously, we need to be supporting people and recognize where the gaps are being caused by COVID. But of course, that’s going to come at a cost and a price. So I just wonder what your views are on government running a deficit because of what’s happening. When do you see that we’d be able to return to balanced budgets?

I. Ivanova: Is this question for me? I’ll take it.

Well, obviously, right now the priority is to support people and businesses. Non-profit organizations I would add to that as well, as they’re struggling with the immediate aftermath — or not even aftermath but the crisis as it unfolds right now. And we can only talk about balancing budgets after we’ve come out of the woods, so post-vaccine, and we’re very far from that.

Right now the question is: can we stop this from becoming a depression? The level of dropping economic activity and the level of job losses and losses of hours that we have seen in the first two months alone are unprecedented. They are levels of magnitudes above what we’ve seen in previous recessions. We’ve just never had anything like that, and we don’t know how long it’s going to last.

At first, when the crisis supports came out, they were on for three or four months. “Don’t worry. It’s three or four months.” Now it looks very clear that three or four months are just the beginning. This is going to take a really long time.

I think it’s too early to say how long the crisis is going to take. I think we just started the reopening, and we need to watch how it happens. If we don’t support people to actually participate — if we don’t have child care so when these parents get called back to work, they can’t go to their jobs in the retail store or wherever they are — this is going to be a big problem.

I think we need to think about that medium term being like six to 12 months, at least, before a vaccine or 12 to 18 months before a vaccine and then only talk about balancing budgets or anything like that after that’s done.

[11:05 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Lori, did you have any final comments at all?

L. Mathison: Sure, I’ll just weigh in on that point and agree, more or less. We normally are very opposed to a deficit budget, but in the circumstances, I think British Columbians do need the supports right now and investment to help businesses to be more productive going forward and to try to get out of this hole I think is money well spent.

I hope it wouldn’t last for long but do know that B.C. has an attractive debt-to-GDP ratio comparative to other provinces and other countries so is in a good position to be in a deficit position for a short period of time.

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

Thanks very much to all three of our panellists for your presentations. We really appreciate you spending the time to present. And we hope that you all stay well and stay safe. Thank you so much for participating.

I’d like to take a short recess. We’ll be back at 11:15.

The committee recessed from 11:06 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Well, thank you so much to our presenters for coming today. We, of course, wish we could be with you in person, but given the times, this is the best that we can do. We really appreciate you taking the time to present.

Just to tell you how we’re running these, we have three or four presenters per session, and we’ll ask each of you to please present for no more than five minutes. We’ll go through each presentation, and at the end, we’ll ask questions.

If we could start with Janet Morris-Reade from ASPECT B.C. The floor is yours.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 5 – General

ASSOCIATION OF SERVICE
PROVIDERS FOR EMPLOYABILITY
AND CAREER TRAINING

J. Morris-Reade: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you to the committee on behalf of the Association of Service Providers for Employability and Career Training — we’re also known as ASPECT B.C. — for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the consultations this year. I speak on behalf of our nearly 100 member organizations that deliver employment services and supports to over 190 communities throughout B.C.

I am speaking to you today from Oak Bay, which is on the traditional lands of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ people.

ASPECT members play an essential role in upskilling individuals and providing them with the best opportunities to find and maintain success in the workplace. They also work with employers within their communities to provide a bridge to a trained workforce and to provide training in response to their business needs.

ASPECT is made up of community organizations such as Mission Community Skills Centre Society, Horton Ventures in 100 Mile House and Williams Lake, Langley Community Services Society, WorkLink Employment Society in Victoria and LIFT Community Services in Powell River. If some of these names of these organizations seem familiar to you, I’ve highlighted an ASPECT member in each of your ridings. Our member organizations are a mix between not-for-profit societies and private businesses that provide employment services and supports largely through contracts with the provincial and federal governments.

We have three recommendations for you to consider today. Our first recommendation is to further invest in provincewide tech connectivity. Employment service providers have responded quickly by redesigning their workshops and training sessions to go online and creating virtual resource rooms and one-on-one supports for those looking for work. With the COVID-19 crisis, we expect to see a massive career migration as many people reflect on the jobs that they have done in the past and what is available to them now and in the future. Collectively, ASPECT members have the infrastructure and the expertise to be a partner in the province’s restart initiative.

With the move to online services, we have seen a gap between the haves and the have-nots widening at a staggering level. Rural, remote and Indigenous communities need better and more affordable Internet connections to be able to compete and be resilient in the current economy. If our new work world will become a more virtual one, we need to make sure that everyone has equal access regardless of where they live.

I draw your attention to a report from the Northern Development Initiative Trust that was released earlier this year. Broadband connectivity provides employment training and business development and can help to keep young workers in their communities while at the same time providing connections to outside of their communities.

ASPECT members have done a stellar job of moving employment services online but can only do so much with limited connectivity. Investments by both the federal and provincial governments in the past have been appreciated, but I am asking you today to make a significant investment to provide rural, remote and Indigenous communities with affordable high-speed access.

[11:20 a.m.]

Our second recommendation is to invest in providing technology and tech training to B.C.’s most vulnerable. ASPECT members are concerned that those most vulnerable are slipping further through the cracks during the COVID-19 crisis because they do not have access to technology nor the ability to use technology. Throughout the province, I have seen service providers beg and borrow smartphones, tablets and inexpensive laptops to get them into the hands of their vulnerable clients. Without access, these clients are further disconnecting from the job market and the skills development programs they need.

Finally, our third recommendation is to further invest in daycare. Recent announcements for increased funding to daycare spaces, early childhood education, training and supports are encouraging. However, still more public investment is needed so that workers at all income levels have access. This is a challenge that affects families and employers alike.

In conclusion, we anticipate that the world of work will look very different in the following year or two and will have a long-term impact on all of our work environments. If B.C. is to recover and thrive moving forward, further investments into better connectivity for rural and remote communities, access to technology for those most vulnerable and safe and affordable daycare must be addressed.

We recommend that the provincial government increase its funding in all these areas over and above what has already been committed. Because ASPECT members are located in every community, delivering crucial employment supports and services, quickly responding to market conditions and employing experts in their fields, the provincial government can depend on us to help you attain the goal of a resilient and healthy provincial economy.

Thank you for your time today. I have included some references to the submitted version of my presentation with what is known and anticipated for the future of work. I welcome your questions.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, Janet. Just to remind you, we’re going to go through all the panellists before we go up. I believe there’s a presentation from the Manufacturing Safety Alliance that you’ll be referring to.

Lisa McGuire, from the Manufacturing Safety Alliance of B.C., please go ahead.

MANUFACTURING SAFETY
ALLIANCE OF B.C.

L. McGuire: Thank you for the opportunity. The Manufacturing Safety Alliance of B.C. is a not-for-profit health and safety association serving B.C. manufacturing and food processors. Recognizing that we’re in a global health and safety crisis with this pandemic, we play an import role to protect workers in preventing COVID-19 transmission.

We’re one of 13 health and safety associations which collectively provide health and safety support to 30 percent of employers in B.C. We play an important role in helping companies build and maintain effective health and safety programs that include effective COVID-19 safety plans. We’re helping beyond our current membership in an effort to support businesses through this pandemic. While only serving a quarter of the industry, we’re doing what we can to support the entire manufacturing sector.

Health and safety associations help businesses by translating the technical information to important application processes to reduce COVID-19 transmission. This includes developing resources such as tools, checklists and training programs, and we’ve hosted a number of webinars to answer important questions that industry has, and their challenges.

I’ve been interviewed by CKNW and B.C. businesses to help strengthen the understanding and knowledge on how to create a safe environment that workers feel safe to return to. It’s not easy. We also opened up a help line to enable businesses to access support with our team of health and safety advisers and experts to help address any challenges that they face, and we haven’t turned anyone away.

The impact of our efforts to help industry is significant. Alliance members saw more than a doubled premium rate reduction, compared to the rest of manufacturing, from 2014 to 2018. Most importantly, the human impact of the work we do is the most rewarding, with 4,367 time-loss injuries avoided between 2010 and 2018, bringing more workers home to their families safely and well.

Minister Bains’s goal to have B.C. be the safest place to live and work is a noble one, and we are seeing success towards this goal through the flattening of the curve in this pandemic and in B.C. having the lowest mortality of any jurisdiction in Canada, the U.S. and Western Europe, with more than five million people. But with a second wave likely, as Dr. Bonnie Henry has told us, we need to prepare, knowing that every previous pandemic has experienced a second wave.

[11:25 a.m.]

Health and safety associations can help businesses and government through this challenge. By providing financial support to enable broader access to health and safety association services, programs and training to support businesses…. Our organization has seen a tremendous surge in demand for help, and we don’t want to turn anyone away. So supporting essential businesses, which the manufacturers and food processors are, and recognizing that outbreaks have occurred in our industry, especially the food industry. Our support in helping their success….

As the virus evolves, we may need to strengthen our controls and adapt our plans. We’re doing what we can. We are doing what we can to increase support for our sector and beyond. The work we’re doing is increasing the demand for qualified health and safety professionals to support the industry during these times and post pandemic.

The sector labour market funding has enabled the alliance to complete research to identify specific challenges, including the risk of qualified health and safety professionals. We’re currently working on developing a competency and capabilities framework for B.C. occupational health and safety manufacturing professionals.

The government is doing a great job of supporting businesses with the number of support programs that are available. Our recommendations for you to consider in budget planning for 2021 are to create a fund to help businesses establish a COVID-19 safety plan, and maintain it — to meet public health officer requirements — which would be accessible through health and safety associations, to reduce COVID-19 transmission and, secondly, to continue to fund the sector labour market program, which has enabled industry to work to solve difficult challenges.

Thank you.

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

Next up we have Kevin Wainwright from B.C.’s Prior Learning Action Network.

Go ahead, Kevin, for five minutes.

B.C.’S PRIOR LEARNING ACTION NETWORK

K. Wainwright: I’m speaking on behalf of B.C. PLAN. I am an associate dean at BCIT.

B.C. PLAN is a collection of post-secondaries and industry representation, looking at the issue of prior learning, experiential learning and recognition of these skills. BCIT is one of the leaders in this area and has managed to bring over 600 or 700 people through the PLAR process in the last year or so, with similar numbers at places like Thompson Rivers.

This is becoming key in British Columbia, as we have an aging demographic. Even before the breakout of COVID-19, we have seen a lot of adjustment in the industry, where more and more people who have acquired skills in the workplace are being displaced. Without PLAR and advance placement to help them reskill or recredential, they are sort of the missing skill set in Canada. So we have a group of people with skills that haven’t been identified or validated, other than in the company that they left.

PLAR is a crucial part of assisting in the transition of the workforce, especially the more mature workforce. We’ve had great success in the past in special areas like first responders and the military. Over 1,500 military personnel have gone through PLAR and managed to move on to post-secondary and get degrees in very short order. Now we need to look at the general population, especially in the northern areas, remote areas. We’re already starting to get calls from municipalities and other groups in Pemberton, the Squamish area, asking how we transition people due to the loss of, the massive hit to, tourism.

On behalf of B.C. PLAN, we were looking at three recommendations for consideration. One was to reinvest into the prior learning process. In the past, we’ve had great support. Now we need to revisit this. I think this is a very timely reason to look at this.

We need more research into the prior learning opportunities and how we go about doing this. We need to make the system more efficient and more responsive to people so that we can put out a system that allows people to go through this process in a timely manner and get on with transitioning to their careers.

Third is that we need to focus on the impact in the more distant areas that have been hit hardest, especially…. Any small community that has been transitioning from a primary industry to tourism in the last 20 years is now seeing massive unemployment because of the COVID crisis.

I hope I’ve not gone over the five minutes. Thank you.

[11:30 a.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): No, that’s fine, Kevin. Thank you so much.

Interesting that you brought up, obviously, this education, Kevin. I just had a quick…. One of the things that…. Most post-secondary is staying virtual in the fall. And I know that some types of learning are very difficult if they’re not hands-on. You think of some trades and some other types of post-secondary. I’m just wondering if you had any thoughts on how to manage this, given the COVID-19 crisis and moving forward.

K. Wainwright: Right now one of the things we have to look at is, with the social distancing…. We’ve been, especially at BCIT, going through hoops trying to develop proper protocols which include PPEs, barriers.

We’re looking at redesigning the way we deliver those trades in such a way that we can bring in those people that need those skills and put them in a safe setting yet allow the proper training. We can’t not have people come into the shops to learn welding and joinery as other technologies.

One of the other things that we’ve been looking at is whether or not we can achieve this by possibly spreading out and taking some of this hands-on training, say, out to the communities in areas. So rather than having a concentrated group coming to a place like BCIT or Thompson Rivers, maybe we can have smaller groups that are easy to manage under the pandemic, located in communities where there’s demand.

We’re looking at the chefs red seal training and seeing if we can set up in different communities and take advantage of…. You’ve got underutilized resources in all these areas: hotels, conference centres. There’s lots of space in some of these places where we could set up and take the education to them. That might take the pressure off of places like BCIT, Thompson Rivers, Camosun, Kwantlen, which have tried to manage large flows of people through the trades.

That’s one of the things. The other is that we’ve just had a massive investment in restructuring our classrooms in order to meet this problem.

R. Leonard: This is a question for ASPECT. You said that you wanted to see more dollars committed to the three areas that you identified. Do you have a scale of what kind of magnitude of “more” that you’re talking about?

J. Morris-Reade: Thank you for your question.

Yeah, I considered that when I was preparing my presentation. I would loved to have been able to give you more details. We are not a telecom company, and we don’t have the details of how much “more” is. But we do see the shortcomings of not having the connectivity in the rural and remote areas. For us, that is why we were quite general in our request. I think it’s…. When we come to this committee, we try to look at more global issues rather than specific asks for money for specific issues, and that’s the tactic that we’ve taken today.

D. Barnett: Thank you for your presentations.

I’m very pleased, Kevin, at your presentation. I live, of course, in an area that has a secondary university, TRU, that is underutilized. I’ve been asking and asking and asking, and nothing has happened. So this warms the cockles of my heart to see that BCIT is taking the lead in asking for trades and training to be done in a different manner. It’s almost like we’re going back to the ’50s and ’60s, when we did it in the manner which you’re talking. So congratulations. I’ll support you 100 percent.

R. Coleman: Kevin, my question is: when you have a major camp and construction project going on — whether it is Site C or particularly the LNG Canada that’s going to go on for three or four years — are you in those camps doing training yet with those people who can then get their trades while they’re actually working in those locations?

[11:35 a.m.]

K. Wainwright: In a limited way. But we are working towards more of that. We’re developing more of a system so that somebody who comes in and, say, starts in a trade through us in BCIT…. We try to build a network so we can keep their training local, so that they’re not saying just because they started off at BCIT, they can get hired onto a project. We now try to get them connected locally and in a more timely manner.

That’s been one of the challenges with all the trades, going through the steps. They work on the site. They do their applied portion. Then they go off for their schooling. That has been challenging for some of them, especially the ones working on projects where they can’t leave, come to Vancouver for six weeks and then go back up. So that’s something that we are working on.

Clearly, that’s a case where the more funding we get into the development of this, the better, and the faster we can spread this out. So yes.

R. Coleman: A lot of the classroom stuff and that sort of stuff could be done online while they’re there, when they’re not doing their shifts. I’ve always thought that would be a benefit.

Getting their hands-on training…. If you’ve got tradesmen there, notionally they could fill out their logbooks and what have you and then do the classroom time remotely but online. They would have the capacity there to do that. So the company should be stepping up review and actually setting that up.

K. Wainwright: Yeah. That’s where one of the challenges is. It’s to have all of the different parties — so there’s BCIT, and the apprentice, and then the employer — working with ITA to make sure that this all comes together.

I think what’s happened is that we are becoming much more creative in the use of online, simply because we got tossed off the deep end back in March, and everything went online. So we are transitioning in that way. I think we can do more that way, but we will need things like some local infrastructure to allow the students up there to do online, especially from remote areas.

I think we get used to…. Especially in Vancouver, we have such great technology that we assume everyone’s got great Internet all over the province. “Oh, it’s no problem. We can just put you on an online course.”

Yeah. That’s not really true once you get outside the greater Fraser Valley. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you can assume people have access if you want to do that, especially if you want to do a group. The networks — the bandwidth just bogs down. They just don’t have the connectivity, or they don’t have the computers or what they need.

That’s an area where industry could support in terms of setting up something that allows us to give more online. It’d have to be collaborative, especially in the more remote areas.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I have a question for Lisa. Would you mind expanding a little bit more on your first recommendation in terms of funding to help businesses establishing a safety plan? If you could just drill down a little bit so I have a bit more understanding of what you’re asking for.

L. McGuire: Sure. Our association specializes in health and safety, so to be able to help industry effectively identify controls that are put in place to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19.

Looking at our association, together with the 12 other associations that provide health and safety support, to consider a way that we could access funds collectively and, as a collective health and safety association unit of 13, provide more support to businesses to help strengthen their plans, knowing that we’re preparing for a second wave and that there’ll be adaptability and changes along the way. Industry needs a lot of help in putting them in place.

I don’t have a specific dollar figure. What I would do is collectively discuss this with the different executives and come up with a plan that we would submit for your consideration.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Yeah, I think that’s very important work. My concern, of course, is that we’re deliberating on the 2021 budget, obviously, and it seems to me that a lot of the work that would need to be done would be over the next, let’s say, six to eight months, which is prior to the next budget. So I’m not sure what work you’ve already done on trying to deal with this with any of the recovery funds generally.

[11:40 a.m.]

L. McGuire: It is an ongoing level of work that will help support businesses as they continue to adapt and change. Depending on what the second wave looks like, we’ll need to modify the controls.

As we continue to move forward, work doesn’t change with health and safety. There’s a lot of work to continue to do. That’s what we’ve seen from March to now. It just continues to grow as the need continues to build. We are extremely busy in providing health and safety support to industry and do not foresee this reducing throughout this pandemic. We would expect that this will continue to 2021, which is why we’ve put forward the first recommendation.

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

Seeing no further questions, thank you so much, presenters, for your presentations and all the work that you’re doing. Stay well. Stay safe.

We’ll take a short recess, and we’ll be back at 11:45. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 11:41 a.m. to 11:46 a.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are back in session. I just wanted to say that with what we’re doing right now, we obviously wish we could be meeting in person, but we appreciate you coming in and meeting with us through Zoom.

What we’re asking is for the presenters to please limit their presentations to five minutes. I’ll give you a one-minute warning on the Zoom chat function.

Olga Stachova from MOSAIC, if you’d like to go ahead. Thank you.

Budget Consultation Presentations

MOSAIC

O. Stachova: Thank you very much. Good morning.

Thank you for allowing me to join you from the traditional and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people.

As one of the largest federally funded settlement organizations in B.C., MOSAIC is proud of its long-term partnership with the province of British Columbia, whether it’s providing settlement support to newcomers with temporary status, promoting diversity and multiculturalism or delivering employment programs for B.C. residents. We welcome the opportunity to share with you recommendations that, in MOSAIC’s opinion, will lead to the improvement of the well-being and labour outcomes of newcomers in our province.

British Columbia lost close to 400,000 jobs between February and April of this year. According to Statistics Canada, employment among very recent immigrants fell by 23 percent, compared to 14 percent among those born in Canada. This is attributed to immigrants being more likely to work in industries that have been particularly affected by COVID-19, such as retail and hospitality. Study after study shows that even during times of economic growth, recent immigrants and recent newcomers have higher unemployment rates, and newcomers in general are more likely to be in jobs that underutilize their experience, expertise and education.

The evolving COVID-19 pandemic will have a compounding effect on the unemployment rate of newcomers and their ability to enter or re-enter the labour market. Newcomers will face more competition for scarce job opportunities and find it even more difficult to obtain Canadian work experience. In addition, many newcomers are not well represented in the sectors that are currently hiring and will need supported referrals, training and re-skilling in order to join the labour market.

Our first recommendation is to create funding dedicated to newcomer re-skilling programs that newcomer-serving organizations can design and deliver jointly with employers. These should be driven by employer needs and combine technical training with training on Canadian workplace culture and include on-the-job training experience, allowing employers to test-drive talent.

Given the compounding effect of the pandemic on newcomers’ ability to enter or re-enter the workforce, newcomers will need a customized approach to succeed. Targeted support will need to include assessment of qualifications, skills and experience; pre-employment and post-employment support; orientation to Canadian workplaces; occupation-specific training for in-demand positions; and hands-on workplace experience through practicums, temporary job placements and mentoring, as well as financial support to help with necessary skills and language training.

[11:50 a.m.]

As many noted, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the many weaknesses and inequities in our society. As access to timely information, benefits, financial supports and learning have all moved on line in the past few months, we’ve witnessed firsthand that the access to technology and high-speed Internet that many of us take for granted is a major obstacle for newcomer communities.

Despite the importance of high-speed Internet, almost half of Canadians with an income of $30,000 or less do not have any access. Immigrants, refugees, migrant workers, isolated newcomers, seniors, youth and low-income families are the least likely to have the resources and skills to access government programs and benefits they often depend on. We see, through our direct service to vulnerable clients, the challenge that a lack of access to a high-speed Internet connection or a working digital device — coupled with low digital skills and a lack of fluency in English and French — can create in terms of accessing vital social programs and benefits.

In our second recommendation, we ask the government of B.C. to create an inclusive digital strategy to ensure that the existing infrastructure can be leveraged towards the economic and social well-being of vulnerable populations. We recommend the expansion of the connected communities initiative, which currently supports the digital readiness of rural communities, to also include urban areas and vulnerable populations.

We recommend that funding is provided to social service and settlement organizations to partner with the for-profit sector to equip vulnerable communities with the tools, skills and connectivity that they need to succeed and thrive. It is time to close the digital divide in B.C., and it is time to treat digital connectivity as a right and not a privilege.

On behalf of MOSAIC, thank you for giving us the opportunity to be a voice for newcomers and for allowing us to make recommendations that we believe will strengthen our communities.

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

Susan, do we have other presenters at this time? Okay. Why don’t we move to questions, then?

I had a quick question. We have been hearing a great deal from all the many different sectors — whether that’s chambers of commerce or the labour movement or a number of different associations — in regard to access to high-speed Internet. I’m just wondering…. In terms of your second recommendation, could you maybe tell us a little bit more about how you see that actually rolling out? Are we talking about directly funding people’s access to…? How do you see it actually working?

O. Stachova: We are fortunate that in the cities, we do have the infrastructure. It’s available, but the access is limited.

There are a few things we see that could be working well. One is if we could have the capacity in organizations like MOSAIC and other social service organizations to work with for-profit sectors to refurbish…. There’s so much equipment that lies unused and that isn’t used in for-profit organizations. It could be easily refurbished and deployed across vulnerable communities that need them.

We could work with telecommunication providers on providing discounted rates and, again, help with the criteria — how newcomers or vulnerable populations could access.

We need to work on improving digital literacy skills and the comfort with technology. Many of our organizations do it off the sides of our desks. We have workshops for seniors on how to use social media and on how to use technology.

It’s a combination of having the equipment, the skills to use the equipment and having the access, the connectivity.

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

Members, any questions?

Susan, do we have any other presenters at this point?

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant, Committees and Interparliamentary Relations): No. Our last presenter, James Sabraw, has not logged in. We’ve left him a message. We’ve called as well. There has been no answer.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We haven’t had our second presenter either.

S. Sourial (Clerk Assistant): That is our second. There were only two in this….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Oh, there are only two. I apologize. I have three on my list. Maybe that’s an old list or something.

Okay. Well, are there any further questions at all?

N. Simons: Thank you for your presentation.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Nicholas.

Thank you, Olga. We appreciate your thoughts and your presentation. Again, I wish we could be there in person with you. We appreciate you taking the time.

To all the members, thank you for…. Yeah. This is an interesting process, and I appreciate everyone’s patience. It’s a different way of doing this. Thank you for all your participation.

With that, if I could have a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are adjourned. Thank you so much, Members.

The committee adjourned at 11:55 a.m.