The committee met at 2:01 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. 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, which is a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties.

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m joining you, in this meeting, from the traditional territories of the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations and also to recognize that members and presenters are presenting from their traditional territories throughout the province. Thank you for that.

I’d like to welcome everyone listening to and participating in the virtual public hearing for the 2021 consultation. Normally the committee meets in communities around the province. We travel and hear from British Columbians about the priorities for the next provincial budget. Of course, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all public hearings are being held virtually this year.

Our consultation is based on the Ministry of Finance budget consultation paper that was released on June 1. We invite all British Columbians to participate by making a written submission or by filling out the online survey. Details for those are available at our website, which is bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The consultation closes at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 26, 2020.

Of course, the committee will be carefully considering all the input that is made and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be in the budget for 2021. The committee intends to release its report sometime in August.

In terms of the meeting format, presenters have been organized into small panels based on themes this year. This afternoon we’ll be hearing about public safety and justice, including gender-based violence, legal services and restorative justice.

Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation. Then following these panellists’ presentations, there will be time for questions from committee members.

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

Now I’d like to take time to allow the members to introduce themselves. We’ll start today with Nicholas.

N. Simons: I’m Nicholas Simons. I represent the constituency of Powell River–Sunshine Coast.

D. Barnett: I’m Donna Barnett, and I’m the MLA for the beautiful, fabulous Cariboo-Chilcotin.

R. Leonard: All right. What superlative will I use. I’m Ronna-Rae Leonard. I’m the MLA for Courtenay-Comox, the best place on earth.

M. Dean: Hi, I’m Mitzi Dean. I’m the MLA for the amaz­ing Esquimalt-Metchosin, and I’m also the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity.

B. D’Eith (Chair): And Rich Coleman’s office is there. He will be joining us soon; he’s just on a call right now.

Let’s get started. First up we have Tracy Porteous from Ending Violence Association of British Columbia.

Tracy, please go ahead.

[2:05 p.m.]

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 1 – Public Safety and Justice

ENDING VIOLENCE ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

T. Porteous: Good afternoon. I’m joining you from the territory of the Tsleil-Waututh, which is also very close to the Musqueam Nation and Squamish Nation.

In the mid-1970s, somewhat surprisingly under the Socred government, the province of B.C. ensured that there was a response to sexual assault that was more holistic than it is today. Sexual assault centres were funded by the Ministries of Health, Social Services and Justice — a three-ministry commitment to ensure a health, a justice and a social services response. I think that made a lot of sense.

Something happened in the early 1980s, where social services and health left the response to sexual assaults in B.C. solely to justice. That’s what I pretty much want to focus on today.

In 2002 — another historical piece — the previous administration cut the funding to the sexual assault centres. That left community-based, anti-violence agencies to hold bake sales and to conduct telemarketing campaigns and to try to otherwise raise pennies and dollars to ensure that their doors stayed open.

I think we owe a great debt of gratitude to the anti-violence programs that were very innovative in those years, where they were doing everything they could to make sure they had the dollars to support sexual assault survivors.

Less than 5 percent of sexual assault is reported to the police, yet unchecked, offenders go on to seriously harm unnamed hundreds of other victims in their lifetime.

The short- and long-term consequences of being harmed by sexual violence are serious. In the short-term, sexual assault can lead to physical injuries and trauma-related stress injuries, sexually transmitted infections, unwanted pregnancy, panic attacks, social isolation and insomnia.

I’m sorry. This is all really difficult stuff to talk about, but I think it’s important.

In the immediate and long term, sexual assault can impact a young survivor’s development, undermine a survivor’s ability to go to work or to school, to trust others, to trust herself. It can lead to anxiety and depression and heart disease later in life.

In 2020, just a few weeks ago — two weeks ago, in fact — I was thrilled to stand up with the province of B.C. in an announcement where $10 million has been set aside to start, once again, to ensure that sexual assault survivors are supported in this province.

I want to particularly applaud Parliamentary Secretary Mitzi Dean for her tireless efforts towards that and also the Solicitor General, Mike Farnworth.

Unlike domestic violence and child abuse, which are two other similar social policy issues that cross numerous social policy ministries…. These other issues, domestic violence and child abuse, are guided by a B.C. provincial policy, by B.C. best practices, by B.C. standards and ministry policy and mandatory training and significant funding.

Unlike those issues, sexual assault has kind of been left off the social policy agenda. The responders to this complex trauma have been provided with literally no training or direction, which unfortunately is leaving all too many sexual assault survivors without the adequate care and often harmed by well-intentioned responders who don’t mean to do harm. But if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s easy to make mistakes and retraumatize.

It seems fitting that after this 18-year gap, we might work together to reimagine what a response to sexual violence in our province might look like. We can imagine that it’s going to take more than the $10 million that has been set aside. It’s a fantastic start. But we think that in order to meet the demand for services, to take prevention seriously, to make sure anti-violence services and Indigenous services and educators and health services and justice responders know what they need to do to not do harm, we’re going to need to be thinking about further investments.

B.C. invests over $2 billion in keeping children safe. B.C. invests over $4 billion in housing, including for shelters for women fleeing domestic violence. In last year’s budget, there was $147 million set aside for shelters.

[2:10 p.m.]

I would like to ask this committee to take very seriously the multiple and complex needs of sexual assault survivors, because they have literally been left behind for decades. I think we need to think about and make sure that there is an emergency response to sexual assault in communities all across B.C. — in Indigenous communities and all of the townships and municipalities that exist. Unfortunately, this social issue is impacting far too many survivors. We need to be thinking about the contributions from Health. Health has not been a contributor since the 1970s.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Tracy, sorry to interrupt, but you’re out of time. If you could wrap it up, I’d appreciate it.

T. Porteous: Okay. We’ll say a lot more in our written submission. Just suffice it to say that we believe that the Ministry of Health has a huge role to play that they haven’t played since the 1970s. We look forward to joining together Justice and Health in moving forward for providing better and more support to survivors of sexual assault.

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

Any questions from members?

I’ve got a quick question. You talked about the $10 million, which is wonderful and a start. I’m just wondering. Do you have an idea about how much you feel would be appropriate, in terms of investment, moving forward? Would you put that in your written submission? Or have you thought about what that would look like?

T. Porteous: Yeah, we will put that in our written submission. I don’t want to throw out too big of a scary number right now, but if you were thinking about the $147 million investment for domestic violence in last year’s budget, that would be commensurate with the kind of dollar figure we’re thinking about.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Just to follow up, would you break that down as to how that would be best spent so that it’s clear what that would look like?

T. Porteous: Yeah, absolutely. The involvement of the Ministry of Health to ensure that there is a health response, that there is counselling for the depression that often ensues in the aftermath of sexual assault, the Justice response, the accompaniment — all of that stuff we will definitely break down for you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Wonderful.

R. Leonard: Thank you, Tracy. That was very helpful. I have a question around…. You started your presentation by saying that less than 5 percent report. Do you see the sexual response centres as being a first step to opening that up to increase the numbers? Was it more responsive when it was initially initiated by the Socreds so many decades ago?

T. Porteous: Yeah. I think that the preamble to an important Criminal Code change that laid out three levels of sexual assault, which began in 1983, called upon states and governments to ensure that there was a community-based response to help increase the numbers of sexual assault survivors reporting.

I can tell you, from being a front-line worker myself at the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre for many years, that it was often the case that a sexual assault survivor had no interest in disclosing to anyone, with the exception of a counsellor or support person, in order to get the psychological help, the help with insomnia and panic attacks. The reason that survivors often don’t want to tell anybody else is because of the level of humiliation, the fear that they’re going to be blamed and the fear that the police don’t really know how to support them.

I think that if we can work on all of those things at the same time and ensure survivors have an advocate, a navigator through the systems, more do report. I think that while that needs to be an individual decision, especially because we have problems with the system’s response right now…. We don’t want to see more survivors re-victimized. But the more we can put in place to ensure that there’s access to justice, if you will, the more likely we’re going to be able to do something about the prolific aspect of sex offending down the road.

B. D’Eith (Chair): I apologize to members. We were supposed to go through the panellists first. I’m sure Nicholas was going to remind me of that. We’ll come back to members for questions.

Thank you very much, Tracy. There will still be time for questions.

Dr. Grace Lore from Victoria Sexual Assault Centre, please go ahead.

[2:15 p.m.]

VICTORIA SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE

G. Lore: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today from the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people. I’m here on behalf of the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre.

I want to begin today not with my request but with an expression of gratitude. As Tracy said, just a few weeks ago an announcement was made by the B.C. government that represented an important and overdue investment in community-based sexual assault response. The services that that money will help provide are survivor-centred, evidence-based and trauma-informed and are fundamentally good and cost-effective policy. Thank you to this committee for including that recommendation in your report last year, especially to Mitzi Dean for her leadership in her role as Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity.

This year I’m here to offer the committee another recommendation for the 2021 budget that reflects the experience and reality on the ground for VSAC. Last year we did 115 emergency responses to provide support for survivors in the immediate aftermath of sexual assaults. The majority of these took place at our sexual assault integrated clinic, the only one of its kind in Canada. Particularly during COVID, we have seen the importance of providing support to survivors of sexual assault outside of hospital settings. I can speak more to that dynamic if you have particular questions.

We work collaboratively with local and regional police, and our team is integrated with their response. However, of the responses we did last year, fewer than one in five were referred to us by police. Instead, survivors access our clinic and our emergency response team when they try to receive medical care, crisis support or other community resources.

We are grateful to Public Safety, to Mitzi Dean and to Minister Farnworth for the PSSG resources that will support these services. Fundamentally, however, sexual assault is also, and often primarily, a health and mental health issue. More than 72 percent of our emergency responses did not have police present at the time. Instead, survivors received crisis and emotional support, preventative medication, medical care, forensic exams done by nurses. These are health care services.

Beyond our clinic, our wait time for crisis counselling ranges from one week to four weeks, and our wait-list for long-term counselling is between 18 months and two years. With the loss of our crisis line, even a return call can be a couple of weeks. This is a public health and mental health issue. We know that fewer than one in 20 report their assault to police. As we have been reminded over the recent weeks, the folks most likely targeted for sexual assault are often those who feel the least safe reporting, including Indigenous, black, racialized, trans and gender minority folks.

Sexual assault is not just a criminal justice issue. This is not to say a violent crime has not occurred, but from the perspective of survivors, health, mental health and emotional safety are often at the fore. Survivors are looking for community-based options for healing and justice. Now is the time to sustainably fund alternative options for survivors that are rooted in a community health response.

As a way of illustrating the issue, we are looking for a new space for our growing organization. When we do that, we will need to rebuild a health care clinic, a clinic that provides better services for survivors, reduces pressure on hospitals and reduces costs to government. We will need to do so without any support or resources from our health authority or from the Ministry of Health.

From a policy perspective and from a government budget perspective, we need the Ministry of Health to work with PSSG and community organizations who are already fundamentally providing health care. We need a collaborative, cross-governmental, cross-ministry policy to address sexual assault. Such a policy would be feminist and intersectional and developed with the expertise and experiences of organizations at the front line.

As such, we request that this committee recommend to government that the Ministry of Health take a role in funding community-based services, collaborating with the community and with health authorities to provide what we see as critical, seamless and trauma-informed care for survivors across the province. This would include additional resources for the sexual assault response teams and clinics over the long term. It would also include addressing wait-lists and increasing resources to survivors.

We also request that this committee recommend re­sources for the Ministry of Health to lead across government policy, working with PSSG, the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, and other key ministries. VSAC services are essential. They are essential health care services, and we feel they need to be treated as such.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We’ll have a full written submission to follow.

[2:20 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Dr. Lore.

Next up we have Lorie Barton from North Shore Women’s Centre.

Please go ahead, Lorie.

NORTH SHORE WOMEN’S CENTRE

L. Barton: Thank you for having me. I am speaking with you today from the traditional territory of the Squamish Nation.

I am here representing the North Shore Women’s Centre. Our organization has been serving women and girls in our community for almost 50 years. We run programs such as legal clinics, single-parenting support groups, and we are the host agency for our local committee to end violence in relationships.

We also happen to be the only licensed provider of Flip the Script in British Columbia. That’s why I’m here to speak with you today.

The North Shore Women’s Centre has never come before this committee before to request funds. But our MLA, Jane Thornthwaite, believes that Flip the Script is a critically important program that young women throughout our province have a right to access, so she encouraged us to come here and present.

What is Flip the Script? It is a clinically proven sexual assault prevention program for young women ages 16 to 24. It was developed and tested right here in Canada, with results published in the New England Journal of Medicine. It was shown in clinical trials to reduce a young woman’s risk of experiencing rape by more than 50 percent, with the effects lasting for up to two years. It’s recommended by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the United States Center for Disease Control.

For the past year, the North Shore Women’s Centre has been running this program in our community for high school students. We’ve formed partnerships with the local Foundry, the youth mental health organization; our school district; and our local division of Girl Guides.

What does Flip the Script teach? This is a 12-hour program that’s delivered by professionally trained facilitators. It teaches young women to recognize and respond to the warning signs for sexual violence in men they know and teaches them to overcome their emotional barriers to resistance, which allows them to act more quickly under pressure. It also contains a unit on self-defence and another one on healthy relationships and sexuality.

I would just like to say that we desperately need sexual violence prevention programs for teenagers in this province. According to the adolescent health survey that was done by the McCreary Foundation in 2018, one out of six female high school students in British Columbia said that they were either physically or sexually harassed or forced into sexual activity that they did not want.

I just want to pause. I think there are 12 people on this call. That means that, statistically, two of us will have daughters or granddaughters who are sexually violated before graduating from high school. This is true across the province. Being in a “nice” area does not keep young women safe.

As a province, though, I do think that we are beginning to understand the enormous costs, human costs, of sexual assault, as well as the cost for the health care and the justice system. However, I don’t think that we often stop to consider the effects that it has on families.

With that in mind, I’d like to read a letter that was written to this committee from a doctor.

“You always want the best for your children. You warn them of danger. You teach them how to protect themselves and hope like heck they are never in a position where they have to use this information. I have two teenage daughters. We have always had open conversations about being safe. So I really thought I had prepared my girls. Then one of my daughters was violently raped by a friend of her friend. Nothing can prepare you for this.

“The trauma that my daughter and our family live with daily is indescribable. I quickly realized how ill-prepared my daughters were. Our family discussions and the high school sex ed program are woefully inadequate.

“I discovered Flip the Script, and both of my daughters have since taken the course. With its practical information, and the role-playing of different scenarios, it gives young women knowledge that is hands-on and potentially life-saving. Every young woman needs to have access to this course, as it is a key life skill that should be taught in the school system — prevention through education.”

We’re here to ask the province for $310,000 over three years. This will allow us to leverage our existing program delivery infrastructure so we can scale out and deliver Flip the Script throughout Metro Vancouver and the Sea to Sky corridor. This will allow us to reach up to 1,400 high-school-aged women at a cost of $221 per participant.

We also have budgeted to act as a model and an advisory council for other organizations throughout the province who wish to deliver Flip the Script in their region. The $221 per participant for a 12-hour program that cuts a young woman’s risk of being raped in half has long-lasting effects.

[2:25 p.m.]

I believe that this represents an excellent investment in our young people but also an investment in reducing our health care and justice system costs.

Thank you for your time.

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

Questions from members?

D. Barnett: Thank you, all, for your great presentations.

To Lorie Barton, I’m a colleague of Jane’s, and Jane has talked about this program over and over. What you’re doing is absolutely commendable.

My question to you, because it sounds like you’ve had a lot of experience with these high school youth, is: do you think that it would help…? We have to have a conversation with everyone regarding this issue, with all genders. Do you believe that this should be part of the high school curriculum to everyone so people understand the damage that is done when they go out, whoever they are, and they actually sexually assault someone? Do you think it would help?

L. Barton: I thank you so much for this question. Sexual assault prevention programs are also extremely important to stop perpetration. But in order for a program to stop perpetration in high school, it must effect a long-term change in a teenager’s behaviour. There are programs that have a short-term change in attitudes, and that’s insufficient.

There are about three — I referenced it, actually, in my written submission — programs that have been tested in clinical trials that are shown to reduce perpetration in the high school population. However, they must be part of either the curriculum or the entire school programming, like a culture changing, when the teachers and the parents and the students get involved, and it’s this whole-year program. So yes, I agree 100 percent that they should be part of the school. But our strength lies in delivering programs in the community.

I just want to leave you with one thing on programs that try to stop perpetration. If they’re not tested, there is a risk of having a backlash effect, and that has actually been shown. Whether you’re trying to reduce sexual harassment in a corporation or sexual assault on campuses, your program might actually increase the risk of perpetration from high-risk males. We don’t want programs that do that — empathy-based programs, in particular. We don’t want those. We want evidence-based programs.

I know EVA B.C. has tweeted about a Safe Dates program. I follow them on Twitter. That’s one of the ones that I recommended or referenced in my report.

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

M. Dean: I just wanted to say thank you to you all for all your work.

Tracy, it’s been decades. Your work has protected people in British Columbia and impacted their lives in such a meaningful way.

Grace, obviously I’m very aware of the work at the sexual assault clinic.

Lorie, thank you for your presentation. It is really vital and critical work, and it takes a toll as well.

I really appreciate everything that you and all of your teams do, and I look forward to continuing working with you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, I think that might be a good place to end, unless there are any further questions.

Thank you so much. I would like to echo Mitzi’s words that we do appreciate all the work you do in a critical area in our society and, obviously, a very difficult area to deal with. We appreciate everything that you do, and we look forward to receiving your written submissions. Thank you very much.

If we could take a short recess. We will be back with the committee at 2:40 p.m.

The committee recessed from 2:29 p.m. to 2:40 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Next up we have more presenters in public safety and justice.

I did want to mention to the presenters that we’d really appreciate it if you could please stay within the five minutes. Unlike the last one where I started asking questions, we’ll actually have the panellists present in order, and then we’ll have questions at the end of the three presentations.

First up we have Elba Bendo from West Coast LEAF.

Please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 2 – Public Safety and Justice

WEST COAST LEAF

E. Bendo: Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the time to listen to our submissions today.

I’m calling from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

As many of you know, West Coast LEAF is a feminist legal advocacy organization. For the last 35 years, we have been advocating for gender equality in B.C., with a big focus on addressing gender-based violence.

I know that many of you on this committee have also been championing the rights of survivors of sexual assault over the years. We’re incredibly grateful to you for that work [audio interrupted]. That has resulted in increased funding for communities in B.C….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Elba, can I interrupt you for one second. You might want to maybe just turn your video off, because you’re starting to glitch out. You’ll probably find that we’ll be able to hear you better, even though we’d love to see you.

E. Bendo: Okay, great. I’ll do that.

I was just expressing my gratitude to all of you for the work that you’ve been doing — I got a thumbs-up; that’s fantastic — and also over the decades, but particularly recently, as we saw a significant increase and investment in the rights of survivors of sexual assault.

Sexual assault in B.C. is a crisis, and all too often, it’s an invisible crisis. Today I’m going to speak to you about what it means to treat sexual assault as the crisis that it is.

Thirty-seven percent of women, approximately 800,000 women, report having experienced at least one sexual assault since the age of 15. These are statistics for British Columbia. The fact that such a significant proportion of society lives under a constant threat of severe violence is why sexual assault is regarded by many anti-violence advocates as a never-ending war waged across gender lines. As a society, we must view sexual assault for the crisis it is and respond to it with the same vigour and urgency we’re applying to other crises in B.C.

This requires us to take two urgent steps. First, we must dedicate substantive resources to responding to sexual assault. Second, we must think outside the box and imagine a different, better provincial approach to addressing sexual assault. Both COVID-19 and the protest against [audio interrupted] violence have shed a bright light on the fact that what our society needs most is greater investment in community and individual health and well-being. We know this is also the case with sexual assault.

Sexual assault is a justice issue, but it is first and foremost a public health issue. Most survivors of sexual assault need pathways to safety and wellness that are not contingent on reporting the assault. We have heard over the last few weeks that this is particularly true for survivors from communities who, while disproportionally impacted by assault, are also the ones most likely to feel unsafe reporting to police.

Despite knowing for some time now that sexual assault is primarily a health care issue and one that requires a health care–driven response, it is precisely the health care needs of survivors of sexual assault that, until recently, have received little attention and funding.

As an example, recent research we undertook alongside EVA B.C. showed that wait-lists for counselling services for survivors of sexual assault across the province average approximately two years. The shortages in health care services are unsurprising, given that provincial funding is limited, and where it exists, it is heavily directed at the justice sector’s response to sexual assault.

While only 5 percent of sexual assaults are reported to police, 62 percent of provincial funding on responding to sexual assault against victims age 15 years or older is directed to justice. In 2018, we only spent $13 million on health care for survivors of sexual assault and a mere $7 million on crisis and victim support. By contrast, we spent $32 mil­lion on the justice response to sexual assault.

[2:45 p.m.]

Not only does the justice system only respond to a tiny fraction of assaults; it also seldom meets the vast majority of needs that survivors have. Survivors of sexual assault need a system of coordinated care, including trauma-informed and culturally safe emergency crisis response teams; urgent and long-term medical care, including access to counselling; and support in accessing housing and other community services.

We are thankful to this committee for prioritizing the needs of survivors of sexual assault in your report last year and incredibly grateful to those of you who have advocated tirelessly for increased funding for emergency sexual assault services, particularly Parliamentary Secretary Dean, who has been a strong ally in the fight to end gender-based violence in B.C.

We do not take lightly the fact that this is the most significant investment the province has made in meeting the needs of survivors of sexual assaults in decades. However, if we are to respond to sexual assault for the crisis it is, our priority must be to ensure we have sustainable, dedicated and substantive funding in place, with a $10 million grant program being the start of a long-overdue investment in our provincial response to sexual assault.

I’m just reaching my end here. I see the time running out.

Funding will not be enough on its own. Instead, we must reimagine sexual assault as the health care issue it is and respond accordingly. We can do this by engaging the leadership of the Ministry of Health in the development of a cross-ministerial sexual assault policy with significant leadership and consultation of Indigenous women, trans and two-spirit people, and other anti-violence organizations and advocates.

Accordingly, we encourage this committee to recommend that next year’s budget includes substantive funding for a health-centred approach to sexual assault which includes dedicated funding for additional community-based services, including emergency response teams and counselling programs; and funding for the development of a cross-ministerial sexual assault policy led by the Ministry of Health in close collaboration with Indigenous women, trans and two-spirit people, anti-violence organizations and other ministries.

We know this issue matters to you. We now know that as a society, we can take strong collective action to respond to crises. We’re asking you to take a big leap and help us respond to sexual assault as the social crisis it is.

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

Next up we have Michelle Martins from Tamitik Status of Women.

Go ahead.

TAMITIK STATUS OF WOMEN

M. Martins: My name is Michelle Martins. I’m the director of services for Tamitik Status of Women.

Tamitik Status of Women is a non-profit here in Kitimat, B.C., with a focus on gender equality and anti-violence. Our mission statement is that we are committed to promoting a healthy community by offering ongoing support, education and opportunities while prioritizing equality and safety.

In Kitimat, we run 16 programs out of six different locations, and all of our programs are free. The fact that we run out of so many locations is problematic, both for our clientele and for us as an agency. It’s difficult for our clients to navigate, and it can be quite discouraging because of that. It is costly for us because only two out of the six locations we don’t pay rent for, so we are paying rent at four different locations.

Our funding comes from various sectors of the provincial government as well as from partnerships with local Indigenous and municipal governments, industries, academic partnerships and different grants.

We’ve experienced exponential growth, particularly from 2012 to 2013, which coincided with Rio Tinto’s Kitimat modernization project, during which time we experienced the highest demand for service ever paired with the highest worker turnover we have ever experienced. Because of the first wave of industrial boom that we have undergone in Kitimat, we know that we can expect the same demand, if not greater, with LNG Canada’s project as well as the other proposed projects. I think it is fair to assume that once one large project is underway, it will be that much easier for others to follow suit.

It’s hard for us, as an agency, to strategize for recruitment and retention of workers during industrial booms, because our programs have minimal or no core funding, and we can’t compete with industrial wages. To add, most of our programs and positions are part-time.

It’s also imperative for you to understand, because of the sensitive nature of our work, that we have the right staff. When we’re forced to hire out of desperation, it can make any workforce precarious. Our workers, I believe, come into the field because of their passion. It’s unfortunate that we depend on that to keep them in this field — in a lower-paying, heart-heavy job — rather than pursue a higher paying, less emotionally taxing career in industry. Certainly, these large-scale projects are the perfect opportunity for someone to make that degree of change to their career.

[2:50 p.m.]

I’d also like to talk a little bit about the housing crisis that Kitimat has been experiencing for several years now. TSW runs a transition house, which is a safe space for women and children. We have nine beds, with an overflow cot, so we’re only funded for eight. We have experienced that we’ve been running over capacity, consistently, since 2014. In 2019, we were full 206 nights out of the year, which meant that we had to turn away 55 women and 52 children.

With the COVID-19 crisis, we aren’t able to room residents together as we normally would, to make the best use of our space. Our capacity to house women has been cut in half because we can only have one woman or one family per room now. We also run six units of second-stage housing. We’ve never had a vacant unit since we began operating in 2017, and we’ve maintained a wait-list since the beginning of our operations. Some women have been on that wait-list for over two years. The only time we’ve been able to have a tenant move out and move in another tenant is when a tenant has relocated out of the community.

Because of the high rental rates right now with the inflated housing market here in Kitimat, it’s near im­pos­sible to move a tenant into a private market apartment. Nor would I encourage a vulnerable client — man or woman — to live in an apartment where a landlord is constantly looking to flip. A number of service providers, not just TSW but others, can attest that their clienteles have been intimidated to sign agreements that are not in their favour, that they’ve been renovicted or that they have blatantly had illegal things done by their landlord.

Many apartment units and houses sit empty here in Kitimat, because landlords are holding on to them in hopes of renting to industrial workers. This of course is their right, but at the same time, a significant portion of our population continues to be at risk, because adequate housing does not exist for someone with a lower or fixed income or for people on income assistance, disability or seniors.

Also, our units of second-stage are not suitable for families. Where our second-stage is located, at Douglas Place, is a renovated motel. These are motel rooms that people are living in, so they’re quite small. They’re only suitable for single women. Still, it’s not ideal. While we run six units, the other units are operated by B.C. Housing, and men or women could access them. So it is possible that an abuser of one of our tenants could be living in that same building. That’s why it’s paramount for us to have safe housing that is specific to the needs of women, particularly those women who have experienced violence or abuse.

To respond to this housing crisis — and to meet the specific needs of women and children who have experienced abuse — TSW, in partnership with B.C. Housing, is underway with our own housing project, which consists of 30 units of affordable housing — ten will be second-stage, and 20 will be affordable housing — as well as a larger transition house that will have at least 12 beds. This has made it possible….

B. D’Eith (Chair): Michelle, just a reminder. You’re out of time. If you could wrap it up, we’d appreciate it.

M. Martins: Oh, sure, absolutely. Just to note that this project has been made possible by the district of Kitimat donating a significant amount of municipal land.

I’ll also just say that our rental assistance program and the homeless prevention program — funded by B.C. Housing as well — have experienced high demand for service, and we’re not able to meet all of our clients’ needs. We’re merely keeping people’s heads above water, rather than actually bettering their life experience.

I’ll just end with our ask to the provincial government. It is paramount that the social sector services…. Because we alleviate pressures on other sectors — for instance, medical and first responders — we need adequate funding. For what it costs a hospital to keep somebody in a bed for 24 hours, we can house a woman for at least a week in our transition house.

I would also ask that the committee, in your decision-making, bring forward, ensure that there is a gender-equitable lens, an inclusive lens, applied to all stages of your financial decision-making. As well, I hope that in dealing with other levels of government, that you echo the needs of non-profits and amplify our voices. We do believe these to be essential services.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks very much, Michelle.

Next up we have Halena Seiferling from Living in Community.

Please go ahead, Halena.

[2:55 p.m.]

LIVING IN COMMUNITY

H. Seiferling: Good afternoon. I’m also calling in from the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

I’m going to be speaking about the importance of providing increased funding and support for sex worker safety in B.C.

Living in Community, our organization, is a multi-stakeholder initiative that brings together different groups who are impacted by or have an impact on sex work, including current and former sex workers, sex work support and advocacy organizations and stakeholders representing businesses, governments, social services and Indigenous organizations. We work to improve health and safety through education and training, policy change and sharing our model of community development that uses a sex worker rights–based perspective.

From our work over the past 15 years, we know that there are many misunderstandings about sex work, which can have a dangerous impact on policy and funding priorities. As we’ve noted in past presentations to this committee, past budget consultation reports have included the need to address gender-based violence and human trafficking. However, little or no support is available for those who are engaged in sex work and have not been trafficked but do experience violence. Trafficking and sex work are different and need to be recognized as such.

In addition, not all sex workers are in a place to, or want to, exit sex work. Yet they still have a fundamental right to safety and security. Simply focusing on trafficking or on exiting dangerously reduces the programs and interventions that are available. Focusing on trafficking also erases the experiences of male, transgender, non-binary and LGBTQ2SI sex workers whose experiences the common trafficking narrative often fails to capture.

Therefore, our first recommendation for Budget 2021 is to ensure that provincial funding explicitly supports the safety of sex workers, not only victims of human trafficking and those looking to exit sex work. The main way this funding is currently delivered is through the civil forfeiture granting program, of which we’re also a recipient. For years, the program had no granting streams that mentioned sex work or the sex trade, with the closest stream titled “Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.” More recently the title has changed to include the phrase “Vulnerable Women in the Sex Trade.”

This framing erases the need for support services for male, transgender and non-binary sex workers, and by naming women as vulnerable, the title also ignores both the perpetrators of violence and the systemic reasons that violence and exploitation flourish. This government must ensure that it is not inadvertently perpetuating a victim-blaming narrative through problematic framing in the funding streams. Everyone has a right to safety, regardless of the kind of work they’re engaged in. Ensuring sex worker safety will also reduce trafficking, as it reduces vulnerability to the conditions under which trafficking thrives.

Therefore, we recommend that Budget 2021 must include sufficient funding for programs and services that promote the safety and security of all individuals who engage in sex work, regardless of gender, circumstance or type of sex work and without the sole focus being on exiting or on trafficking. Sex work organizations should be funded before organizations that want to eradicate the sex industry.

We further recommend that the name of the existing civil forfeiture granting stream, which is mentioned here, should be updated to reflect an explicit inclusion of sex worker safety in its funding deliverables. To aid in the delivery of increased funding for sex worker safety, the necessary ministries should connect with organizations supporting sex workers across the province and proactively provide them with funding.

We are connected to over 20 organizations across B.C. that serve and support sex workers — including Tamitik Status of Women, whom you just heard from. As members of the group, we coordinate the B.C. Sex Work Support Service Network, which comprises both sex work organizations across the province and their allies — like anti-violence organizations and women’s shelters — which provide services to sex workers when there’s no local sex worker organization in a community.

These organizations know their communities best, and many are already facing funding shortages and barriers in tracking down and applying for new grants every year. We therefore recommend that sex work support organizations across the province receive proactive funding to improve sex worker safety.

Finally, we recommend that Budget 2021 should include funding for a provincial bad date reporting system. The term “bad dates” refers to cases where a sex worker has experienced harassment, assault or other types of violence while working. By having a system to report on bad dates, the information collected about those perpetrators can be distributed to other sex workers to screen their clients and increase their safety. Sex workers who engage with the justice system to report bad dates repeatedly experience stigmatization and vulnerability. So a sex worker–led bad date reporting system is critical.

There’s a local system in Metro Vancouver, but there are few, if any, mechanisms elsewhere in B.C., and they are not connected. A provincewide bad date reporting system is imperative to ensure that predatory violence does not continue with impunity.

The Sex Work Support Service Network, which I mentioned, has reiterated this need. Recently several members of the network were approved for nearly $1 million in funding for the creation of a provincial system, but the delivery of this funding has now been delayed due to COVID-19. The provincial government can provide funding towards this project to ensure that its life-saving work is not further delayed.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I welcome any questions.

[3:00 p.m.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Well, thank you very much to all the panellists. We really appreciate it.

I’m not sure if the members have seen the handout by Living in Community. There’s a really good graph in there that shows the spectrum of choice and exchange. And I think that…. I remember that from last year. It was a very good way of sort of illustrating the difference between trafficking and consensual sex and others. So thank you very much for that. It makes it very clear to see.

From members, any questions at all?

M. Dean: Thank you, everybody, so much for all of your really important work and also all of the emotional labour that goes into everything that you’re doing. I really appreciate it.

I had a couple of questions, Chair, if that’s okay.

Michelle, can you just explain how LNG Canada is kind of engaging with community as the project moves forward? You know, thinking about the potential risks and how you might work together — has there been engagement locally?

M. Martins: Yeah, thank you for that question. I have to give LNG Canada props. They have…. I’ll just speak for our own agency, although I know they have engaged other non-profits in the community. They have been very forthcoming with support for our agency. They’ve actually donated $25,000 for five years towards operational funding. That was actually a response to….

As I mentioned, we operate out of different locations. At one of our locations, where many of the programs there don’t have core funding, we were facing…. We had been evicted out of one location because a store was going to go in there. Then we had found another location, but the rent was extremely high, because with commercial, there are less protections for tenants than there are in residential. As soon as LNG Canada had announced a positive FID, our rent skyrocketed. So they have given us some operational funding — committing to five years of operational funding — to help alleviate that pressure.

They’ve also engaged us about our housing project, which will also house…. We’re hoping to have a 24-hour daycare as well in that building. So they’re very supportive of both the affordable housing as well as the daycare pieces.

With LNG Canada, it’s not so much the project itself, but rather it’s landlords wanting to make a profit during this time where they feel they can increase their rent to a rate that only industrial companies could afford, which is exactly what happened during the Rio Tinto modernization project.

I have to, again, give some props to LNG Canada. They have been very adamant publicly that they will only house their workers in their camps — that they will not be looking at private market for accommodations. But still, even with speculation with other projects, if you go on district of Kitimat’s website, there’s like half a dozen, at least, proposed projects.

Still, landlords have the right to exercise if they want to keep their units vacant. For both apartments and houses, I think if you look on line, the vacancy rate in Kitimat is 40 percent. We are experiencing an increasing homeless population because we just can’t get our lower-income clients or people on fixed income into a reasonably priced home.

M. Dean: Thank you.

Then I had a question for Halena. When the Criminal Code was changed, it was due for review after five years. I’m just wondering whether you’re already involved in the review of the law. Could you update us on that?

H. Seiferling: I can, although I don’t think there’s much to update.

You’re correct. It’s been over five years now since that legislation last came into place. I understand there is to be a federal review of that sometime soon. We were part of a group of sex work organizations — mostly around Vancouver but also broadly — a few weeks ago that met with MP Dr. Hedy Fry, and she spoke a little bit about this. From that understanding, it seems like the review has perhaps been pushed back, I think due to COVID-19 and maybe just other priorities that the government federally has right now.

While we’re hoping that that will occur sometime soon, and we hope that we can be part of that or we can be part of recommending some changes there, I guess, for the purposes here today as well, we want to emphasize that there are, of course, changes that need to be made, in our opinion, federally that would increase the safety of sex workers.

[3:05 p.m.]

Regardless, there are things that can be done in the provincial sphere to make sure that sex workers are safe and have a safe working environment as well, until or unless that happens federally.

M. Dean: Thank you.

D. Barnett: Thank you, all, for your presentation.

In Kitimat, you mentioned you had eight beds for transition housing. Is that all there is in Kitimat, or are there other organizations that also have these beds?

M. Martins: It’s actually nine beds plus one overflow cot. No, there isn’t. We are the only transition house. During the winter months, there is a cold-weather shelter, and right now their operation has been able to be extended because of COVID-19. But typically, they run from November to March. So when they are closed, we are the only option for women in our community.

There is no option for men when the cold-weather shelter is closed. That means that they need to look to neighbouring communities like Terrace, which is about 45 minutes away with very limited public transport. Or they need to try Prince Rupert, which is close to three hours away.

If we don’t have space to accommodate a woman, it is likely that they will either try to live outside during the summer months, which is dangerous, because we do have predatory wildlife, or they will be forced to live in unsafe situations there — less likely to try and leave an abuser because our housing is so precarious here.

D. Barnett: Do you have any numbers on what is actually needed in Kitimat for these types of beds for these transition houses?

M. Martins: Right now we’re still with our kind of budding project that is underway. We’re in the final stages of approval with B.C. Housing. Hopefully construction can start at least towards the later part of this year. At minimum, our new transition house will have 12 beds. But we are quite adamant that…. We’re confident we could fill a 16-bed house — no problem.

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

Elba, before we adjourn, I did want to give you a chance to close if there was anything. Because I know you’re not visible there, I want to make sure. If there’s anything you wanted to add, please go ahead.

E. Bendo: Thank you. I really appreciate that. It’s been a great panel to present with. I very much echo what the other two panelists have said. And I listened to the panel before this. I hope that what’s clearly coming out is that we are underfunded in services. There is amazing work happening, but it’s happening at the grassroots, front-line level, and there are a lot of folks who are being missed. And having an opportunity….

I mean, I’m just going to restate something that I really feel is quite important. Taking a health approach to violence helps us ensure that we are being inclusive in who is accessing these services. A justice approach leaves many people behind, as we heard from Halena from Living in Community. It actually ends up leaving behind the folks who experience violence most: racialized folks, Indigenous folks, folks engaging in sex work and, particularly, folks in rural remote communities.

It was great appearing today with this panel, because I felt like all of our submissions very much supported a resource and health approach to the crisis of sexual assault in B.C. Thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Wonderful. Well, thank you very much to the panel. I did want to say that we’re very lucky to have Mitzi Dean on our committee. It’s great to be able to have that lens. Mitzi helps us make sure that we do look at the lens of gender equity. It’s really helped me to do that, and I think it’s important to everybody to be able to look at these things with that lens. So thank you so much, everybody.

If we could recess now. We’ll come back at 3:15. Thank you so much.

The committee recessed from 3:09 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are hearing from panels on public safety and justice.

If we could please ask all of you to keep your comments to five minutes. Then there’ll be time at the end of the panel for questions. We’ll go from presenter to presenter, and then we’ll have questions.

First up we have Jennifer Brun from the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch.

Please go ahead, Jennifer.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 3 – Public Safety and Justice

CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION,
B.C. BRANCH

J. Brun: Mr. Chair, committee members, thank you for the opportunity to address you this afternoon. My name is Jennifer Brun, and I am the first vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia branch.

CBABC has over 7,000 members who are lawyers, judges and law students working throughout our province. We are small business owners or employees of those businesses. We are provincial government lawyers; federal government lawyers in B.C; and in-house counsel in B.C.’s key corporations, including ICBC, Telus and B.C. Hydro.

Lawyers are designated non-health essential service workers during the COVID-19 state of emergency.

As part of the public safety infrastructure, lawyers have continued to work in the courts on urgent and essential matters during the emergency state, including family matters relating to safety due to risk of violence or immediate harm; the risk of removal of a child from the jurisdiction and the well-being of a child; civil matters relating to public health and safety, including quarantine orders, refusal of treatment and end-of-life matters; detention of individuals under the Mental Health Act; adult guardianship and committeeship matters; housing evictions; restraining orders and urgent injunction and insolvency matters; and criminal matters relating to judicial interim release and bail review hearings, detention review hearings, habeas corpus applications for unlawful detention and applications for search-and-arrest warrants, to name a few.

Additionally, lawyers have worked tirelessly to support business construction and real estate industries during the pandemic to keep those important divisions of the economy functioning as efficiently as possible.

British Columbians continue to seek legal advice and representation from lawyers as they face employment and housing challenges, need to amend parenting arrangements and child support payments, and plan their wills and estate matters.

Being on the front lines, assisting British Columbians through these tumultuous times and the associated legal issues arising, CBABC members know where money needs to be spent to increase access to justice as an essential service for our public.

Today I will speak about a single priority for funding that will help make life better for British Columbians. We ask you to allocate funding and accelerate the work of the court digital transformation strategy to enable British Columbians, no matter where they live in our province, to access the courts and justice services using digital technology. This includes providing British Columbians in smaller and remote communities, including Indigenous communities, with publicly accessible spaces to digitally access the courts and justice services.

The court digital transformation strategy was an­nounced last fall following a year’s worth of development by representatives from the court services branch; all three levels of our courts and users of these services, including Indigenous peoples, lawyers working in the courts and the office of the chief information officer.

In Budget 2020, a small amount was allocated to the implementation of this strategy, which incorporates re­mote appearances via phone and video for pretrial hearings in criminal, civil and family matters; digital information-sharing platforms so that the system is not reliant on paper documents; and a digitally skilled workforce, which requires training of the existing workforce and establishing new jobs for people with digital skills to support the justice system.

The chief justices and chief judge of all three levels of our courts support this strategy. This is important. When the participants in our complex justice system, which includes an independent judiciary, agree on a plan, it shows a readiness to move forward in a coordinated fashion.

So why is CBABC asking you to make this a priority? It’s because the digital transformation strategy is needed to increase public confidence in our justice system to improve access to justice and to make efficient use of our limited resources available.

For the past 15 weeks to maintain health and safety during an unprecedented pandemic, our court system had to significantly limit the number of people accessing and working in our courthouses. To do this, the courts restricted the services provided, because they do not have a sufficient digital infrastructure to conduct all types of court proceedings virtually.

[3:20 p.m.]

The answer to this problem is to fully fund the digital transformation strategy now.

We need it so that parents who cannot agree on a parenting schedule for their children can make a video appearance before a judge, who will decide the matter.

We need it so the young offender charged with mischief in damaging a business storefront can make amends in a restorative justice program offered via video.

We need it so that those charged with a criminal offence do not have to be transported to a courthouse to get legal advice before a court appearance.

We need it so we can efficiently work through the 4,000-​plus matters that have been adjourned in our Supreme Court since March 18.

In conclusion, we acknowledge that the justice system is not something you hear about from your constituents very often. However, when someone needs to use the system or is unexpectedly brought into it, the system needs to be functional and accessible.

Thank you for your time. I am pleased to respond to any questions you may have at the conclusion of the panel.

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

Next we have Craig Ferris, QC, from the Law Society of British Columbia.

Please go ahead, Craig.

LAW SOCIETY OF B.C.

C. Ferris: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee, for letting me join you here today. My name is Craig Ferris. I’m the president of the Law Society of British Columbia.

I’m joining you from the traditional lands of Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

Thank you for the opportunity to support your work in developing the next provincial budget.

For those of you who don’t know, the Law Society of British Columbia regulates lawyers in British Columbia, and there are approximately 13,000 of our members. Beyond that, the Law Society also has a mandate under section 3 of the Legal Profession Act to uphold and protect the public interest in the administration of justice. Our public interest duty encourages us to lend our voice to issues and concerns of others in the justice system who may be unable to speak for themselves, whether it be the judiciary or members of the public who struggle to access legal advice or representation.

The Law Society has provided a written submission in which we make five recommendations to the committee. In the interest of time, I’ll focus on the two that relate to what is needed from the Legislature and the provincial government to ensure access to justice by remedying flaws we found in our justice system that may have been exposed by COVID-19 and to try to fix those permanently so that they’re not further exposed by a future crisis. I encourage all of you to review our written submissions, if you require any more information about all of our recommendations.

As you’ve heard from Ms. Brun, there is an urgent need to expand the use of technology in the justice sector. Justice Rosalie Abella of the Supreme Court of Canada recently wrote an essay in which she said: “If you took surgeons from a century ago and put them in a modern operating room, they would find morphine replaced by anaesthetics, scalpels replaced by lasers. If you put lawyers from the last century in today’s courtroom, they would feel perfectly at home.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the frailties of how we have allowed our courts and our justice system to operate. Even though lawyers and courts were declared essential services, our courts quite simply were just not equipped with technology to ensure access to justice during COVID-19.

At the outset of the public health emergency, the courts all but closed other than for the most urgent matters, because that’s what the public health directives required. Monumental efforts were made by the people in that court system to keep them operating as much as possible, and they’ve slowly inched back open as time has passed. But at the end of the day, this isn’t really enough to provide access to justice to British Columbians.

Public health directives require physical distancing, and that ran up against the legal requirements for signing affidavits and other legal documents which required physical presence in front of a lawyer and actual real pieces of paper documents be filed. Urgent action was taken by the Law Society, the judiciary, the government and government agencies to adopt what are temporary measures that prevented the system from going to a real grinding halt.

The courts looked to the Law Society for guidance on how to provide for remote commissioning of affidavits or sworn evidence. There was a similar process developed for land title documents, and ultimately, the Ministry of Attorney General adopted something similar for signing and witnessing wills.

I just would like to stop here and thank Attorney General Eby and the staff in the AG Ministry for their extraordinary work in helping keep the system running over these last few weeks.

For many weeks now, many in the public have been unable to access our essential services. This has mainly come down to some of the processes we’ve had, some of the procedures relied upon, which mean that people have to have in-person attendance, and they have to have paper documents. We’ve adopted these temporary measures, and they’ve developed and shown to be resilient and useful in combating and providing access.

[3:25 p.m.]

Unfortunately, right now they’re temporary. That means when the state of emergency is over, these directives will be lifted, and these remote commissioning methods will no longer be allowed. That simply should not be.

Post the pandemic, these changes to paperless, virtual and remote systems will significantly benefit clients in the public who we serve. We recommend the continuation of swearing of affidavits and witnessing signatures after the state of emergency is over and public health directives are lifted.

Now, moving on to the second thing I wanted to talk about. I don’t want to repeat what Jennifer has had to say, but the courts are in real need of an infusion of money for the technological innovation they’re proposing. The courts, especially the Supreme Court and the Provincial Court, are the workhorses of our system, and there has seriously been a historic underfunding of those courts — things as simple as phone lines that don’t work. They just do not have the infrastructure to provide virtual services.

Our second thing that we would really say to you today is that the provincial budget allocate funds necessary to enable our courts to expand their use of technology, including the use of online platforms for virtual hearings, to ensure access to justice for all British Columbians.

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

Next up we have Gail Jewsbury from the Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

Please go ahead, Gail.

VANCOUVER ISLAND REGION
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ASSOCIATION

G. Jewsbury: Thank you very much. I am not very familiar with Zoom, so I’m very glad that I was able to join you today.

I’m Gail Jewsbury. I’m the treasurer of VIRRJA. VIRRJA is the Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association. We represent member programs from Vancouver Island, north and south Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast. We currently have around 18 member programs and three individual practitioners. Each program has a significant number of volunteers. We meet quarterly, now by Zoom.

As an association, we provide assistance to each other in terms of support, training and representation as a united voice. We represent a wide range of restorative justice programs — some large and complex, like Comox, Victoria and Nanaimo; and others small, like Ahousat and Gold River. We are all community-based and have become an integral part of our communities.

Restorative justice is a process to allow someone who has accepted responsibility for the harm that they caused to have a facilitated dialogue with the person or persons that they have harmed. We work with restorative principles where we ask what happened, who has been affected, how they have been affected and what can be done to repair the harm. We assist the parties to come to a resolution. It is their resolution. It often involves repair to the community as well.

Restorative justice is confidential. It’s not widely out there. People who have participated tend not to talk about their experience with the program. As the person who created the problem, you’re only too happy to have a resolution. And as the person who was harmed, you just want to move on, move forward. You’ve now had your say. Let’s get on with life.

Restorative justice is a more immediate solution to a problem than waiting for your turn in the judicial process. Traditionally, restorative justice is underutilized. The primary source of referrals is for category 3 and category 4 offences, like theft under $5,000 and mischief.

Most people feel it’s a youth-oriented process. I was totally speechless when I attended the National Restorative Justice Symposium in Halifax in 2016 and listened to the Nova Scotia Minister of Justice state that they were opening their RJ in Nova Scotia to adults and that this was the first province to have adult restorative justice. That was so untrue, because we have been using all age groups since the late 1990s.

We recognize times have changed so much, and so much in such a short time. Restorative justice should be used as an initial response to a lot of issues that we’re seeing around us right now. For example, the Comox program has a program to deal effectively with hate crimes. That should be very useful when we’re experiencing the racism that we’re seeing and the protests against racism. Our programs have restorative circles in schools. We need to educate our younger generations, and the best place to have restorative justice is as part of the school system.

[3:30 p.m.]

One of my first cases in restorative justice was to act in a circle with a grade 1 student who was referred for stealing from her class’s play store cash box. I listened to her explain that the class bully had told her he would not be her friend if she did not get him extra money to spend at the store.

When she was asked where she felt the pain, she rubbed her tummy. That was so very powerful, to see a six-year-old feeling so upset. She knew what she had done was wrong, but she wanted a friend. She was not a very pretty little girl. She was probably teased — or in this day and age, should I say bullied? — about her appearance. She really wanted a friend and did not understand that her actions would have consequences.

The outcome was that the play money was returned. The young student now understood that her actions had consequences, and she now knows that she must trust her instinct for right and wrong.

Currently provincial funding for restorative justice is through the community accountability program, which applies only to previously funded programs that must meet specific criteria and apply for the grant. This is an annual grant of $2,500, which was raised to $4,000 for this year, although we’ve not been told if that’s a one-year increase or a continuing increase.

Prior to 2009, 11 years ago, there was a $5,000 start-up fund for new programs. That ended. There used to be over 100 CAP programs, but I think the number has now shrunk to the low 70s. There’s no opportunity for new programs to apply for CAP funds.

I do want to acknowledge the province for increasing the CAP funding for this year and to thank them for consulting and surveying restorative justice programs in our province. It was very refreshing to feel that the programs and the people that are entrenched in restorative justice actually had a voice so that the province could gain a wider understanding of restorative justice in B.C.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hi, Gail. Sorry to interrupt, but you’re out of time. If you could please wrap it up, we’d appreciate it.

G. Jewsbury: Certainly. What we’re looking for is that the province restructure how it hands out money within its own departments. We would like them to consider looking at ministries like Education and Health so that they can use restorative justice as a preventative measure and help things work in a better manner. Thank you very much.

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

Next up we have Jennifer Metcalfe from Prisoners Legal Services.

Please go ahead, Jennifer.

PRISONERS LEGAL SERVICES

J. Metcalfe: I’m the executive director of Prisoners Legal Services, a legal aid clinic for federal and provincial prisoners in B.C. We help prisoners with issues that affect their liberty rights, human rights and health care. In the last year, our small office of eight has assisted prisoners with more than 3,300 legal issues. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.

The vast majority of B.C. prisoners suffer from trauma and addiction and other mental health disabilities. The best way to help them and to address public safety issues is to fund robust mental health services in the community so that individuals can heal from trauma and receive mental health support before they become involved in the criminal system.

Prisoners already in the system have complex mental health needs that need to be addressed so that they can re-enter the community. I have a client whose case illustrates the great need for investment in community-based mental health services.

He’s a young Métis man who has FASD and PTSD, with a history of substance use, recurring incarcerations, solitary confinement and serious self-harm. He struggles to be successful in the community because of a lack of supports. He would very much like to go to a residential treatment facility, but he can’t get accepted to one because of his complex needs and because many will only accept people who have been out of jail for 30 days.

A psychologist recommended he receive long-term residential care in a setting that has a focus on mental health, but no such facility is accessible to him. This gap in services has led to a revolving door of incarcerations for him and others like him.

More in-patient and supportive housing services and access to social workers and counsellors are needed so that people can receive the support they need to live in the community. For people in custody, prisoners with the highest mental health needs often end up in solitary confinement, sometimes on suicide watch. The Forensic Psychiatric Hospital should be funded to provide a secure therapeutic environment for these prisoners.

[3:35 p.m.]

B.C. Corrections has created some mental health units in provincial jails, but they’re staffed by guards with little training to work with people with mental health needs. Funds should be provided to the PHSA, in partnership with the First Nations Health Authority, to hire mental health professionals, social workers and Indigenous elders to provide these services.

PLS is excited that B.C. has engaged with the B.C. First Nations Justice Council and has developed a justice strategy to address the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in prison based on self-determination. We hope this budget will dedicate significant resources to ensure that the justice strategy’s goals are fully realized.

Indigenous prisoners often tell us that they don’t trust prison staff and are uncomfortable sharing their traumatic experiences with staff. Indigenous prisoners often do not have access to their traditional ways of healing. Prisoners who have been to Indigenous-run healing lodges report that they felt safe, they trusted staff, and they could begin to heal from their trauma.

Funding for Indigenous-run healing lodges in B.C. as an alternative to incarceration in colonial prisons is an essential step toward reconciliation. Within B.C. correctional centres, Indigenous elders and counsellors should have the authority to provide well-resourced, culturally appropriate healing services independent of B.C. Corrections. A prisoner shouldn’t be denied these essential services by B.C. Corrections based on their behaviour. Elders should decide when and how to provide services and ceremonies for people who need support.

PLS continues to have concerns about the lack of external oversight over uses of force against prisoners, especially when force is used against people in medical or emotional distress. We recommend that the investigation and standards office be funded to externally review use of force and that PHSA be resourced to respond to crises involving medical and emotional distress.

Finally, we ask B.C. to invest in an increase in funding for prisoner legal aid. While we haven’t had an increase in our core funding since 2012, the demand for our services has increased by 105 percent since 2015. In his 2019 report Roads to Revival, Jamie Maclaren, QC, citied PLS as a model that should be followed for developing other cost-effective specialty legal clinics and recommended that these clinics be nurtured to serve the needs of marginalized communities. PLS desperately needs an increase to our funding to meet the high demand for our services.

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

I just had a quick question, before I open it up to the rest of the members, for Jennifer Brun and Craig Ferris in regards to the technology that’s required to bring our courts and our legal services up to a standard that you would feel is adequate. I’m wondering if you could please give us an idea of the quantum of that. How much is this going to cost, and what, specifically, is needed?

J. Brun: I’ll jump in there first, Craig, and then, hopefully, you can fill in some of the blanks for me.

We don’t have an exact dollar figure for you at this point, and we would be happy to continue to consult with government and the courts to figure out what that number is. What I can say is that the $2 million that was just announced recently with respect to COVID signage, some plexiglass and additional cleaning services, as well as a small contribution to the digital technology, is really just a drop in the bucket with respect to what’s going to be needed to implement this.

That said, I think the answer to your question is sort of twofold. The second prong of that is that what we need imminently isn’t actually going to cost that much as far as just opening up Wi-Fi in the courthouses, making sure that we can have the video conferencing so that hearings can be done remotely, expanding online scheduling and connectivity and working with education for the staff on the technology.

I think all of those things can be pulled out of that digital transformation strategy and can be sort of the initial stages, which won’t be the vast input which we will require down the road to actually implement the entire four-year strategy.

C. Ferris: Let me jump in. I’ll just take two seconds.

I think that what Jennifer said is right. We don’t have access to the actual request that’s been made by the courts. I think it’s through the Attorney General’s ministry, but it is with government somewhere. We don’t have the exact amount.

[3:40 p.m.]

I’ll reiterate that one of the things that, at least…. The Attorney General advised the Law Society that one of the requirements is just to get proper phone lines into the courthouses. The technology is that deficient.

I think Jennifer is right. Bring up the Wi-Fi, bring up video conferencing, and you can then start working at the harder piece of it, which is trying to rid the courts of paper and digitize everything so that we don’t find ourselves in this situation again.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you.

All right. Members, any questions?

R. Leonard: Thank you, everyone, for your presentations.

I’m going to focus in on the restorative justice piece. I have a couple of questions. One of them is: where do you see the Ministry of Health fitting into restorative justice programs?

Also, on the education side of things, has the association broached the introduction of restorative justice to the school districts level? It’s just in the last couple of years that I’ve been hearing more about the idea of trying to get into the school setting at the ministry level. I’m just curious if there is support from the school districts throughout the region.

G. Jewsbury: Thank you very much for your questions. I’ll address the second question first.

In Langley and Abbotsford, it has been very well accepted by the school districts and is actually part of their program. On Vancouver Island, we seem to have a reluctance of some of the school districts to actually look at how to put restorative justice into the system, although a couple of the programs in Victoria are using restorative circles in some of the schools in Saanich.

I believe all of the programs do get referrals that generally come via the police for instances that do happen at the schools. Some programs get direct referrals from the schools; most do not.

Then you had a second question?

R. Leonard: Around health, where the Ministry of Health fits into the equation.

G. Jewsbury: Well, we currently hear about elder abuse. I think that’s where restorative justice can fit into the Ministry of Health.

We can provide a service to allow the parties to have a facilitated discussion and to come together and have a better understanding of where each person is and come to a resolution that will ultimately help both people and help the Ministry of Health. They have a lot to do, and we could take away some of that burden and just make things run a lot smoother. The same with the other ministries as well — with education and with justice.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thanks, Gail.

Nicholas, please go ahead.

N. Simons: My question is for Jennifer. I used to work a little bit with Claire Culhane when she was the only voice for the prisoner in British Columbia, it seemed, at the time. Anyway, thanks for what you do.

I’m wondering how many people are employed or associated with your organization. That was one question. An unrelated question. Did you notice a change when the health services were provided…? I think it was a few years ago that they switched from a privatized service back to a public health service. Those are my two questions.

Thank you for what you do.

J. Metcalfe: Thank you. I live right near Trout Lake, where Claire Culhane’s bench is, so I visit it regularly.

There are eight people who work at Prisoners Legal Services. We have two support staff; 4½ advocates — one of them is a half-time lawyer; and myself, who is the supervising lawyer.

We provide a huge amount of services with a very small number of staff, and some of those are funded through a human rights program through the Law Foundation. That’s in addition to our core mandate of assisting prisoners with liberty issues.

I’m sorry. What was your second…? Oh, the Ministry of Health.

Yes, we did notice a pretty dramatic improvement in the quality of health services in October 2017 when the PHSA took over provision of health care. They’ve been more communicative with our office when we advocate on behalf of prisoners around health care rights.

[3:45 p.m.]

They’ve done an extraordinary job at making sure that prisoners have access to opioid substitution therapy, done a really great job of making sure that prisoners aren’t at risk of dying from fentanyl overdose in custody.

N. Simons: I was going to just say, and I concur with your observation that the mental health teams…. I had the occasion to visit one institution recently, and I was shocked when I found out the mental health lead had no mental health experience. It just shocked me when you consider the proportion of prisoners who have issues with mental health.

Anyway, thank you.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Jennifer Metcalfe, I just have a question for you, as well, in regards to COVID-19, especially with the Mission federal prison — whether or not you got involved with that at all. Is there anything we can learn, if that’s the case, from your experiences with that crisis?

J. Metcalfe: Yeah, I think the difference between how B.C. Corrections and Correctional Service of Canada dealt with the COVID crisis is really a stark contrast. Provincially I think because we had public health involved from the beginning, they took appropriate measures and were following all of the recommendations. We didn’t see any large-scale outbreaks provincially. Then in contrast, we had calls….

Well, the first week or so of the outbreak at Mission, we didn’t get any calls from prisoners, because everyone was locked in their cells 24 hours a day. Even though the outbreak has been declared over at Mission, everyone in the institution is being held in solitary confinement. I’m not sure how many days that is, but April and…. Like, over two months.

The United Nations says it’s torture or cruel treatment to keep people in solitary confinement who are already mentally healthy for more than 15 days, and for any amount of time for someone with a pre-existing mental disability.

We didn’t see things get cleaned up, literally and figuratively, in Mission until B.C.’s public health agency went in and helped them to get control of the outbreak. I think it’s a really clear sign that it’s so important for health care to be provided independent of Correctional Services — to make sure that it’s on a community standard and that there’s a continuum of care — and that medical professionals are able to act without influence of dual loyalty in the best interests of their patients.

Anything that B.C. could do in partnership with the federal government to provide health services through the Ministry of Health I think would be a great improvement for the human rights and health care of British Colum­bians.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much for that, Jennifer.

Are there any other questions from members at all?

Thank you so much. Thanks to all the panellists for your hard work and dedication, especially during the pandemic and everything that’s happened and everything you do for our community. Being a lawyer, I wanted to thank both the Canadian Bar Association and the Law Society — and, of course, the restorative justice association and prisoner legal association — for doing all the work you do.

Thanks so much, everyone. We’ll take a short recess until four o’clock.

The committee recessed from 3:48 p.m. to 4 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): For our presenters, we’ll go through all presenters. Then at the end, the members will ask questions.

First up we have Aaron Sutherland from Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Aaron, please go ahead.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 4 – Public Safety (Other)

INSURANCE BUREAU OF CANADA

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

At IBC, we are the national association of Canada’s home, business and private auto insurers. As you might imagine, our submission focuses strongly on what the insurance industry believes can be done to improve the affordability of insurance products here in British Columbia.

I’m going to talk today a little bit about how we could do that in auto insurance and in strata insurance, and then also how we can start to reduce the flood, wildfire and earthquake risks facing our province today. I’ll start there.

I’ll talk briefly — you can see it on our third slide — about the impact that the changing climate is having on the insurance industry. We consider this a clear and present danger impacting Canadians today. We often think about our changing climate as some kind of a future threat, but my industry has been tracking insured losses due to severe weather that we attribute to climate change since 1983.

Where we used to pay out just a few hundred million dollars annually, since 2009, the industry has paid out $1.9 billion in insured losses related to climate change every year on average. While that is a very large financial number, it’s a far cry from the human toll these events are having right across the country and particularly here in B.C. We’ve seen recent examples of it across the Boundary region with some of the recent flooding.

My industry would suggest that the province must improve and increase its investment in better understanding the risk we face. That means improved flood maps and hazard models and using that understanding to increase our investment in projects that reduce our risk and reduce the climate risk facing communities. These are shovel-ready infrastructure projects that could also help create jobs at a time that it’s sorely needed and improve our land use planning process. There’s simply no longer any justification for allowing British Columbians to continue to develop and build in areas that we know are going to be impacted by natural disasters year after year after year.

Turning to the fifth slide in our presentation and to auto insurance, we have the most expensive auto insurance system in this country. ICBC’s estimate pegs the average price consumers are facing here at $1,900 — far, far higher than anyone else. As you can see on the next slide, to address that challenge, our government is moving towards a no-fault auto insurance system that will define the benefits consumers get and eliminate their ability to seek legal recourse if they aren’t able to get the benefits they need to recover.

My industry would disagree with that. We would suggest that, particularly for those with catastrophic injuries, it’s very hard to create a box to define in legislation the type of support they’re going to need to recover. We have research that shows that drivers can save nearly the same amount simply by giving them the opportunity to shop around to find those savings.

The improved claims handling, the innovations that other insurers have brought to marketplaces elsewhere and their ability to spread risk around could save consumers up to $325 annually. We believe it’s an option they should be given. If consumers like ICBC, great. They can stick with it. But if they can shop around and find savings, that’s what it’s all about. How do we best improve the affordability of auto insurance? We don’t believe ICBC should have a monopoly on those solutions.

Finally, on slide seven, strata insurance. We know we have a lot of strata insurance challenges here in this province. This is on the strata corporation side, less so on the unit owner or homeowners themselves. I know from talking with many of you separately on this. Those buildings facing the biggest challenges often have particularly challenging claims history and maintenance records. We believe government must move with urgency to improve those.

[4:05 p.m.]

We’ve provided our recommendations to the B.C. government on this. It’s looking at mandatory education for strata councils themselves so they can best manage the risks that they face; enhancing requirements for building maintenance to bring B.C. in line with other provinces in this country; defining exactly what a standard strata unit is so insurers and condos themselves know the risks and who is responsible for damage; improving the building code to reduce risk; and, also, capping loss assessments on individual unit owners themselves.

No one should be made destitute because of an insurance claim. We believe that stratas should have a limit on what they can assess any single unit owner to prevent that.

Again, the government has these recommendations. There’s a legislative session upcoming. We believe that if not introduced then, it should absolutely be introduced with the next provincial budget to begin to improve the affordability of strata insurance going forward.

That’s it for me.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Aaron.

Next up we have Karla Kozakevich from the regional district of Okanagan-Similkameen.

Please go ahead, Karla.

REGIONAL DISTRICT
OF OKANAGAN-SIMILKAMEEN

K. Kozakevich: Thank you very much. I have two issues to get through. I know it’s a tight timeline, so we can also provide my notes to you as well.

My first issue is on climate change — specifically, flood mitigation and storm drainage. We now recognize that climate change results in an ever-increasing amount of property damage with extended periods of emergency response for flooding and wildfires. Emergency response causes a huge financial and human resource impact on local governments.

The current Emergency Program Act does not provide for mitigation, which results in repetitive damage and expense to infrastructure and hardship for our citizens. The current governance and funding model does not allow for a successful response to flood mitigation.

For regional districts to spend money, our citizens in the specified geographical area must provide assent for us to establish a service that we can tax for. Due to the large cost of mitigation work related to streams, lakes and waterways, it is very unlikely that assent would be obtained due to the low number of citizens that would be contributing to that service. An example would be our Twin Lakes park watershed area, which has an approximate fix of $12 million. That would be funded by less than 100 homes.

Orphan dikes are equally expensive. The repair costs are large. Then there is the issue of the regional district taking on ownership of the orphan dikes if we repair them, which would require future management and repairs. The regional district would, then, also take on liability associated with those dikes.

The management of waterways and infrastructure crosses several ministries and would be managed better provincially. With the increasing amount of intense rain events, we are seeing our residents experiencing property damage due to drainage systems that cannot handle the flow or are not complete in bringing water to the lakes.

In unincorporated rural communities, the provincial approving officer approves subdivisions and their related roads and storm drainage, which is maintained by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. Improvements need to be made to current systems to be able to move the increased water flows down the hillsides to the lakes to avoid flooding properties below newly approved subdivisions.

The Emergency Program Act consultation should be brought to a conclusion with mitigation added, and the 2021 budget should include funds for mitigation of repetitive system failures, improvements to culverts and storm drainage systems and more timely response to section 11 applications for work in water bodies related to emergency response.

Our second issue is on infrastructure funding. Our citizens count on us to provide essential services such as drinking water and wastewater systems as well as recreation services and much more. Local governments are constantly doing more with less.

As is all of Canada, we are struggling to recover economically from COVID-19. A successful mechanism to restart an economy has been for federal and provincial governments to provide stimulus programs to local governments to fund infrastructure projects. The Prime Minister has just announced the acceleration of the ’20-21 federal gas tax payments to the provinces. This is not new money, but he also confirmed his readiness to engage in discussions for additional federal support and urged the provinces to do the same.

The community works program is appreciated and stable, and we can use it to plan in advance. The other current programs, such as investing in Canada infrastructure, are competitive, and that makes planning or meeting replacement schedules difficult.

[4:10 p.m.]

The Building Canada program is even more competitive. These applications experience a significant approval process, often extending from one year to the next, and are always oversubscribed.

Regional districts are especially compromised in their ability to replace and expand essential infrastructure due to the segregation of funds to each individual service. For example, our smallest water system has 28 properties, yet the infrastructure required is often as costly as those of much larger systems.

The cost of meeting water system and landfill regulations continues to escalate. We encourage the federal government to initiate new money for additional infrastructure programs and request that the provincial government consider not only prioritizing infrastructure funding but increasing it in the 2021 budget.

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

Next up we have M.J. Whitemarsh from B.C. Common Ground Alliance.

Please go ahead, M.J.

B.C. COMMON GROUND ALLIANCE

M. Whitemarsh: BCCGA has presented to this committee several times before. It’s a non-profit, consensus-driven organization supporting high standards of safety — worker safety, public safety and damage prevention in underground infrastructure. But the issue of homeowner-caused damage is growing and really, really needs our government’s attention.

Hidden from view, spanning our province are complex networks of buried electrical, telecommunication and Internet cables, pipelines, water mains and sewer lines. This infrastructure delivers essential services that we in British Columbia just can’t live without: heat; electricity; water; communication data; Internet; cable TV; something really important lately — Netflix; and emergency services.

There is a perception with the majority of homeowners that they don’t need permission to dig on their own property, but they really couldn’t be further from the truth. In the period March 15 to April 30 of this year, damage by homeowners increased a whopping 39 percent, a huge and avoidable exponential growth. Why?

With thousands of us staying at home, we had time to tackle home improvement projects, projects that included digging. With time at home, planting trees, installing fence posts and building that long-awaited retaining wall turned our weekend warriors into weekday warriors, and consequently, we have more underground infrastructure damage.

These damages are avoidable. There’s a simple process already in place. By simply calling or clicking B.C. One Call — a free call and a free service — homeowners receive all of the locate requests that they need to keep them digging safely. As I said, it’s a simple, free service.

This spring we have collectively experienced an event like no other, an event that’s raised our personal safety and caution to heights never before experienced. We’ve exercised our ability to social distance, continually wash our hands and forgo our meetings in person. Even though it was mandated, these actions came quickly, willingly and easily to us, to homeowners. Why? Because it protected us. So will contacting B.C. One Call.

We believe that to protect British Columbia’s safety and minimize the social impacts of underground damages, all homeowners should call or click B.C. One Call before they dig. Our request of our government is to support BCCGA’s efforts by making this a mandatory requirement through­out all British Columbia.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you very much, M.J. Nice to see you present again.

Next up we have Brian Sauve from National Police Federation.

NATIONAL POLICE FEDERATION

B. Sauve: Good afternoon. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting me and allowing me to appear before you today.

My name is Brian Sauve. I’m the president of the National Police Federation. I’m also a sergeant in the RCMP. The NPF is the union that represents all 20,000 members across Canada and internationally. The RCMP’s E division has been policing in B.C. since the 1950s, and today there are over 7,000 RCMP members policing 99 percent of the geographic area of B.C. By comparison, the RCMP in B.C. are triple the size of any other municipal police service and are twice the size of all other municipal police services combined.

B.C.’s demographic boom throughout the last seven years has resulted in more than one-third of all RCMP members being stationed here. We have over 140 RCMP detachments serving 150 municipalities and 121 First Nations communities.

[4:15 p.m.]

Currently we’re amid a global health pandemic. This pandemic has led to an increase in police demand while residents of British Columbia went into self-isolation. The RCMP is trained to continue offering front-line services even under the most stressful and challenging circumstances.

Today I want to highlight two key issues affecting the B.C. RCMP. The first is a need to increase long-term funding for RCMP services. Inadequate funding for the B.C. RCMP has now become increasingly difficult to manage. Funding has remained flat in previous years despite increasing populations, rising costs of equipment and infrastructure and more complex threats, including gang activity, money laundering and cybercrime.

RCMP member pay has been frozen for the past 3½ years and remains quite low in comparison to municipal policing counterparts, which further exacerbates recruitment and retention challenges.

We’re recommending increasing the contribution for the provincial component of the RCMP to meet current and future service levels within communities who have identified shortfalls in a general duty service assessment; to increase the number of RCMP members to meet current and future projection needs, in consultation with the RCMP and the National Police Federation; and to ensure that all levels of government have planned accordingly with respect to financial impacts of competitive RCMP pay, including the financial impacts of a new collective agreement, which may take a year or so for us to do. Been a little busy on other things as well.

Secondly, I’d like to talk about the RCMP in Surrey. The city of Surrey had begun a transition plan to move away from the RCMP to a municipal police force. This plan will cost the citizens upwards of $129 million in 2021, and the city has reported it could face up to a $42 million shortfall due to COVID-19. In a recent Pollara survey commissioned by us, 90 percent of respondents within Surrey wanted spending priorities re-examined to ensure they are focused on the most urgent priorities.

The Justice Institute of B.C. will be tasked to train and recruit new officers for the SPD and will need to increase services by 30 percent. Presently the JIBC does not have adequate funding to train more officers, and the provincial government will need to provide additional funding. The JIBC has been closed due to the COVID-19 outbreak and has a backlog of in-service and required training, leading to further funding and capacity challenges.

This transition also eliminates the ability of the province to withdraw RCMP police resources from Surrey to respond to emergency management needs, including the current pandemic and other major events, like forest fires and floods. It would also place additional resource and financial pressures on smaller communities with respect to integrated policing teams and the ability of the provincial police service to meet its mandate for emergency management.

We recommend that the current police transition in Surrey be delayed or suspended and that the increasing financial implications be reassessed; that the province assess where improvements can be made to strengthen the RCMP in Surrey, including more resources, officers, programs, training and accountability; ensuring that emergency management within the province can continue to respond to floods, fires and other emergencies throughout the province; and an intensification in provincial levels of emergency management to include an increase in RCMP to meet current and future emergency management demands.

In closing, COVID-19 has fundamentally changed how governments will operate moving forward, and all deci­sions must be financially sound and in the best interests of its citizens. Insufficient financial and human resources continue to be a challenge. We believe it’s imperative that the government address these shortfalls and increase resources.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you, Brian.

Okay. Members, questions for the panellists?

D. Barnett: For the alliance, I appreciate what you do. I support what you do. But it’s interesting…. I’m in the process…. I called before I’m going to dig, but I found out that not all services are under the B.C. alliance. I never knew that before. So now I have to go and chase down one of my services on my own. Why are they not all engaged with you?

[4:20 p.m.]

M. Whitemarsh: Because it’s not mandated, Donna. It’s up to them whether they want to or not. Telus is a member; others aren’t. Fortis is a member, B.C. Hydro is a member, but some are not. It’s mandated in B.C. that all pipelines must be, but all the other services do not have to be.

So you’re correct. If somebody doesn’t already belong to B.C. One Call, then you do, as a homeowner, have to go and chase them down to find out what’s there. But your main services will be covered by B.C. One Call in most instances, but not all.

D. Barnett: Well, I find it…. I agree with you that it should be mandated. Now I’m going to chase somebody who, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to call B.C. One…. I wouldn’t probably have known any of this. I congratulate you on what you’re trying to do.

M. Whitemarsh: When you call B.C. One Call as a homeowner, as anybody calling, you get a map showing where all the locations are, the company contact information, liability statements — I mean, everything that you could possibly need. When you don’t, then you end up calling 911, and you’re disrupting all the emergency services too.

Washington state is mandated, and we have pipelines that cross from B.C. into Washington state. On the B.C. side, there’s all kinds of damages; in Washington, there’s none. It’s different.

D. Barnett: Thank you.

M. Whitemarsh: Thank you for the question.

R. Coleman: Mine is to Brian, on the policing side. I’ve got three quick ones. I know you might not be able to give me all of the details.

Has the union taken a poll of its members to find out how many of them would actually stay in Surrey or stay in the RCMP?

The second one would be that some of the senior management of the RCMP seem to think the Surrey police force might be a good thing, because it would allow them to backfill positions across the country for trained officers who could stay in the RCMP.

The third thing would be: in your conversation with other organized police unions, have you done any assessment on how a new city police force in Surrey would affect other police forces, on the Lower Mainland of British Columbia particularly?

B. Sauve: Thank you for the questions.

The first one is: we haven’t canvassed formally. We have canvassed informally, and we’re talking probably less than 5 percent. Really, the challenge is….

R. Coleman: That 5 percent, Brian. Is that 5 percent that would stay or leave?

B. Sauve: That’s 5 percent that would consider moving over to a Surrey police department. You’re talking, I don’t know, maybe 30 to 40.

R. Coleman: Out of 800.

B. Sauve: That’s the challenge, right?

One of the risks, talking with other police associations, is the concern that one of the Vancouver police board members brought up recently — that 42 percent of the Vancouver police department actually reside in Surrey and that they would most probably love to shorten their commute. You could be looking at 200 to 300 of VPD actually entertaining moving to a Surrey PD. Really, that destabilizes public safety in the entire Lower Mainland region.

It goes back to the JIBC not having the capacity to train, whether it’s Surrey PD or Vancouver police department. Everyone is facing recruiting challenges. If you have New West, Port Moody, West Vancouver or even Delta lose 10 percent of their complement and then a 200- or 300-member patch-over from VPD, it makes a huge difference.

As far as RCMP management goes, I would say the silence has been deafening from their perspective on the public side of the front. The membership in Surrey feel that they have been abandoned by the leadership in the RCMP, because no one has come out and said whether they want to stay or whether they want to go.

I know the membership in Surrey, the ones working, love it. They want to stay. They want to be a part of the Surrey RCMP. They don’t think their work is done there. They’ve done some fantastic work. Crime rates are at an all-time low. They have, in the past five years, increased their clearance rates, decreased violent crime, the crime severity index. It is one of the safest cities to live in, according to Statistics Canada, in all of British Columbia. They’ve done a fantastic job with the resources allocated to them.

They want to stay, and they don’t think their work is done. Whether RCMP management wants to redeploy them elsewhere to fill vacancies is a management decision. I’m the labour side.

R. Coleman: Right. The interesting thing about it, though, is you’re facing the fact that the decision has actually been made by order-in-council to have the police board go look for a chief, set up. It has been approved unanimously at the provincial level through OIC.

[4:25 p.m.]

The parity will be the biggest interesting question with regards to wages, because there is a big disparity between even Delta and Vancouver and an RCMP member in Surrey today. Correct?

B. Sauve: There is. Now, it’s my understanding that a police board has not been appointed yet, as far as I know.

R. Coleman: They’re interviewing, and they’re shortlisting.

B. Sauve: Yes, but the LG has not made their appointments yet. However, that is only…. I’m not into the Twitter quick politics. I like to delve into the details and provide the evidence.

The appointment of a police board is only one step in the process. It was like the mayor and council making a unanimous decision to move away from the RCMP — one step in the process.

They’ll still have to have a competition to hire a police chief. He’ll still have to make a determination as to a bargaining agent. He’ll still have to make a determination of a collective agreement and then come up with a budget, then ultimately pass that budget past mayor and council, and then you can start hiring cops. And they expect to do all of this in ten months.

R. Coleman: My understanding is the executive search is taking place now for a chief.

I was just curious about how you guys felt about where those people would end up deployed. Thank you for that.

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

Other questions from members?

R. Leonard: Thank you to everyone for your presentations.

My question is around the Common Ground Alliance. You have said that there was a 39 percent increase in the number of breaks. I’m wondering what that is in hard and raw numbers.

M. Whitemarsh: I can guess. I don’t have it with me right now, Ronna-Rae, but I certainly can get it to you. It was quite staggering. The list that I got was all over B.C. Initially, of course, you’d think, because of population, that it’s all in the Lower Mainland, but it’s not. It’s evenly distributed, even here on the Island. Victoria was pretty high.

R. Leonard: The reason I’m asking that is if it was mandatory for homeowners to call…. You’ve also said that there are services that aren’t already part of this service. How would you balance that? You want mandatory. Does that mean fines if there is a lack of compliance with calling, penalties for breaking things? I don’t know. What does it look like?

M. Whitemarsh: I don’t know what it would look like, to be honest with you. We’ve talked about fines; we’ve talked about notifications on property tax bills — those kinds of things. But we haven’t gotten any further than that. It’s becoming a real public safety issue, and one that’s increasing, which is really alarming.

R. Leonard: Is there a cost attached to your ask?

M. Whitemarsh: To B.C. One Call?

R. Leonard: For this, if it was to be made mandatory. Is there a sense that it’s…?

M. Whitemarsh: A direct cost. No, there’s no cost to the homeowner. There’s no cost to get anything out of B.C. One Call. It’s just a free call or a free click to find out what you need, and they’ll send it to you.

Whether there would be a cost on government’s side — I’m sure there would be. I’m sure Mr. Coleman could probably answer that. He used to be the person in charge of Public Safety and Solicitor General. That’s the ministry that it would go through. But there’s no direct cost to the homeowner at all.

Does that answer your question? Sorry.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Thank you. Yeah, I think it does.

Donna, please go ahead.

D. Barnett: I have a question for Aaron Sutherland.

Aaron, I find this very interesting about the climate change and the floods, etc. What is it exactly you’re asking government or want to ask government to do? Is it to change the emergency act or provide more infrastructure funding? What actually are you asking for?

A. Sutherland: Yeah. I would strongly suggest increasing our investment in infrastructure that builds resilience to things like floods and wildfires, primarily floods. Seventy-five percent of all disaster assistance paid for nationally, by government, is paid for due to water damage — again, floods. The insurance industry is seeing water damage as the new fire.

[4:30 p.m.]

This is the biggest natural threat facing our communities. We believe that we need to increase our investment in protective infrastructure and, also, really start to think about where we’re allowing development in the first place and if we need to start that conversation around strategically retreating from some areas at highest risk.

Difficult conversations. I think about the Ruckle area in Grand Forks. It almost got hit again this year. We have to have some difficult conversations about where we live, where we build and how we’re protecting our communities going forward.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Aaron, can I have a little follow-up with that one just in regards to the insurance? If a building or a house is built, let’s say on a floodplain or somewhere which is difficult, presumably the insurance would be very difficult to get and, therefore, the mortgage would be impossible to get.

I’m just curious. Does that not partially mitigate it — just the nature of how the insurance industry is going — or are you finding that development is going ahead anyway in those sorts of high-risk areas?

A. Sutherland: A little bit of everything. If you build on a floodplain, you probably can’t get flood insurance for your home. For the insurance industry, if we know it’s going to flood every five or ten years and that’s going to cause $100,000 in damage, you just can’t price an affordable premium for that.

You can still get general home insurance, because flood insurance is a separate portion of the policy. And if you can get that general insurance, which is widely available for every home in this province, you can still get a mortgage.

A little bit on the earthquake side. You can’t if you’re purchasing it through a credit union. They like to see earthquake insurance. But the big banks, unfortunately, don’t pay a lot of attention, I would say, to the level and quality of insurance people are purchasing.

So yes, unfortunately, if you’re building in a high-risk area on a floodplain, you can still get home insurance. But you probably can’t get flood insurance, and you’ll be relying on DFA when disaster strikes. And as I’m sure you all know, that’s a far cry from the protection that insurance provides. DFA is $300,000 max. It’s only for essential items, and it carries a 20 percent deductible.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Thank you very much. Any other questions from members?

Seeing none, thank you very much, panellists, for everything you do. Thank you for presenting again — for those of you presenting again. I appreciate it — coming back.

We will take a short recess, and we’ll come back at 4:40 for the final presentations of the day. Thanks so much.

The committee recessed from 4:32 p.m. to 4:40 p.m.

[B. D’Eith in the chair.]

B. D’Eith (Chair): Hi, we are back in session with the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

Without further ado, Daniel Boisvert from the B.C. Notaries Association.

If you’d like to go ahead, please. Thanks, Daniel.

Budget Consultation Presentations

B.C. NOTARIES ASSOCIATION

D. Boisvert: Good afternoon. I’m going to be reading a little bit. I apologize if it sounds like I’m reading, because I am.

First, I’d just like to begin by thanking the committee for extending us the opportunity to speak with you today, especially over a video conference.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, I can assure you that notaries have been hard at work in their offices serving the people of the province through this difficult time and certainly doing our best to respect the social distancing guidelines set out by Dr. Henry and her team. Notaries public were declared an essential service by the government, and we are pleased and proud to be designated as such.

Also, the Ministry of Attorney General has been in contact with us a great deal over the last few months in assisting with the preparation of ministerial orders that would allow a temporary change in the way in which we complete the important documentation for British Columbians, especially around their real estate transactions and personal planning documents such as wills. Those orders came into force a couple of weeks ago and are working well.

We’re also anticipating the soon-to-be-enacted Land Owner Transparency Act — a worthy goal, of course, helping to reduce money laundering with regards to real estate. This is important to all British Columbians. We wish to remind the committee that B.C. notaries still remain the only legal service provider in British Columbia that are required to follow federal anti-money-laundering guide­lines that are set out by FINTRAC, and have been doing so for many years. B.C. notaries are ready to ensure that once LOTA is enacted, the registry will be properly populated with the necessary data to ensure its integrity.

Moving on, we wish to thank the committee for their recommendation last year. I will quote from the recommendation: “To expand the notary scope of practice to non-contentious areas of law by modernizing the Notaries Act, including ensuring ongoing professional development and education.”

Since that recommendation was made last year, we’ve been hard at work developing a brief for the Attorney General that would propose this expansion and detail the education program, professional development, regulation and public protection pieces necessary for approval.

I’m pleased to say that we are now ready, and we’re just waiting to secure a date with the Attorney General. Once it’s been presented, I will share a copy of it with this committee’s Chair, Mr. Bob D’Eith.

The areas of expansion being proposed…. The ability to prepare testamentary trusts, to advise and process a probate application and to incorporate a company are the three areas that we are going to be asking for within the brief. The reasons — a couple of them, anyways — are quite simple. They are by far the most popular requests we get as notaries from the public and the new areas of practice are congruent with the services we already provide.

One of the largest concerns was education. Education will be provided in the form of post-graduate studies at Simon Fraser University. SFU is currently the university that provides the master’s degree required to be a notary public in B.C. No notary will be able to practise in these areas without taking the additional courses of study. The notaries insurance company has already confirmed that these expanded areas will be covered under the current E and O insurance.

Our ask from the committee this year is not for anything new but just a recommitment to the same recommendation that was made last year and that we will continue to work with the Attorney General to implement this expanded scope.

[4:45 p.m.]

In conclusion, the select standing committee process is setting out the financial framework of the 2021 budget. This is of great importance to all British Columbians. If the changes that B.C. notaries have proposed to their scope of practice are implemented, these new services will help provide cost savings to not only government but also to the public and, in the end, will make finances just a little easier to manage.

That concludes my presentation.

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

Next up we have Dr. Michael Markwick.

Please go ahead.

MICHAEL MARKWICK

M. Markwick: Thank you very much.

I recognize with gratitude the Squamish Nation for welcoming me to raise my family in their territory and to enter into deeper solidarity with them to the honour of their ancestors.

Black lives matter. It mattered greatly to see Premier Horgan, over the weekend, recognize the fact of systemic racism in British Columbia. When I served at the Ontario Human Rights Commission, I was tasked with, among other things, participating in Canada’s first investigation into systemic discrimination in the health care sector. Denial perpetuates oppression.

The leadership the Premier is showing is necessary if we are to see British Columbia be a leader in emancipation. It is imperative that we maintain a human rights analysis as the primary consideration in planning B.C.’s finances, because the human rights code is quasi–constitutional law. The test, I believe, we must keep returning to, as a democratic community, is whether the use of public money advances the twofold purpose set out in the code to foster a society in which there are no impediments to full and free participation and to end discrimination.

I would encourage you to foreground the imperative of human rights in your report. Tackling systemic discrimination requires us to look for the ways that communities are made unequal by the exercise of power. We must be alert to the disparate impact of practices that might on their face seem fair but have the marginalizing, subjugating and colonizing effect in their implementation.

The philosopher Elizabeth Anderson was right. Diversity is natural; inequality is man-made. Correcting this requires us to find ways forward in substantive equality, choosing policies and spending public money in ways that address the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community specifically in order to remove the barriers that have made them vulnerable. In order to get this right, we must take care to avoid ways of thinking and acting that create zero-sum contests between marginalized groups.

There are three specific areas of systemic change I would like to address in my testimony: ending systemic discrimination in post-secondary education, ending systemic discrimination against women seeking exits from prostitution and ending systemic discrimination in the housing market.

First, British Columbia’s universities are needed now more than ever for the advancement of the work of building a free and democratic society. Since I started my teaching practice in 2002, my students have gone on to establish successful careers in every aspect of the economy. But my work with them never displaced their foundational calling to share in the governance of our community.

The first form of innovation we need to see from our universities is the genius for diversity, human rights and democracy. For this to happen, I submit that B.C. should:

One, provide the mandate and resources needed so that all colleges and universities can establish arm’s-length human rights and ombuds offices. A student is a student is a student. It should not be a luxury afforded only in comparatively wealthy post-secondary institutions. Amend the University Act to protect academic freedom and dissolve the distinction between special purpose teaching universities and all other universities. Allow us to determine, with the communities we serve, how best to advance the public interest and the common good.

Second, adopt a whole-of-government approach to provide the long-term social, economic and health care security needed to support women who seek exits from prostitution. Poverty reduction should serve the substantive equality of girls and women. We recognize that sexual predation is profoundly racializing for Indigenous communities in particular. This is a very important distinction to be made between consensual sex and the systemic forces that make free consent impossible for many.

Third, housing insecurity and the absence of income security are epidemiological drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic. These factors have resulted in the higher fatality rates posted by black and brown communities. British Columbia can correct this by developing a significant stock of housing in community land trusts.

[4:50 p.m.]

With funding from senior levels of government, for example, the district of West Vancouver could use land it has purchased from Vancouver Coastal Health to provide rental or for-sale non-market housing to families currently excluded from our community. In this way, CLTs will allow us to target and reverse the ways the real estate market functions as a significant driver of systemic discrimination.

By way of thanking you for this opportunity, let me leave you with the words of my friend and mentor of happy memory, Rosemary Brown: “None of us are free until all of us are free.”

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

Next up we have Ian Bushfield from B.C. Humanist Association.

Please go ahead, Ian.

B.C. HUMANIST ASSOCIATION

I. Bushfield: To begin, I want to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you today from the ancestral and unceded homelands of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm- and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-​speaking peoples.

Thanks to all the committee members for inviting me and for listening to what I have to say.

The B.C. Humanist Association advocates for progressive and secular values on behalf of the atheists, agnostics and non-religious across B.C. Before I get to my main points this afternoon, I want to recognize the many activists and other presenters who have been calling for a hard look at the funds spent on policing and so-called public safety in this province and across North America.

As humanists, we believe every person has inherent dignity, something that is clearly not reflected in a society where black, brown and Indigenous peoples are being brutalized and incarcerated at such astonishing rates. This is not our area of expertise, though, so I urge committee members to listen to those voices from the most marginalized by these current practices.

For Budget 2021, we will be providing a full written submission later, but in my brief time today, I want to talk about two recommendations we have for the government. First, we recommend removing the statutory exemption for places of public worship in the Vancouver and community charters, and second, we recommend the phase-out of public funding to independent schools in B.C.

I’ll speak to both of these changes in turn, but they are supported by a majority of British Columbians, and they would uphold the government’s duty of religious neutrality.

Religious organizations receive a variety of privileges in Canada that are generally not equally afforded to secular and explicitly non-religious organizations like our own. One of the most prominent is statutory exemptions from property taxes. In B.C., cities are required to exempt a place of worship and have the choice of whether to extend that exemption to additional properties owned by the organization — for example, their parking lot, thrift stores or even, in some cases, a vacant lot.

We surveyed B.C. municipalities on their permissive tax policies in 2018. We found five municipalities, including the city of Vancouver, that provide no permissive tax exemptions to religious properties, only the statutory ones. Another one-third of councils apply a public benefits test prior to granting a permissive exemption. This means the council ultimately decides whether granting that exemption is in the interests of the broader community.

What we’re asking for is for municipal councils to have the same authority to make decisions about the places of worship that they are already making about these other properties. This would end the special privilege that religious charities have over other charities and non-profit organizations who do not get this automatic exemption from paying their property taxes. Cities could then grant tax exemptions or not, depending on the will of the local community.

We are currently working on more detailed reports on property tax exemptions for religions in B.C., but this move has already been endorsed by a motion from the council of Radium Hot Springs.

Our polling in 2016 found that 51 percent of British Columbians would remove the property tax exemption for houses of worship, and 63 percent oppose it for other properties held by religious groups.

In terms of public funds, we want them to stay with public education. We have seen a steady expansion of publicly subsidized private schools and the entrenchment of a two-tiered education system in this province. Private schools segregate the province’s children based on socioeconomic class and religion that they’re born into, and they’re doing so with funds that are sorely needed in our public system.

We reviewed the composition of B.C.’s private schools and where the funding goes and found that the majority of the schools are faith-based and that nearly two-thirds of every dollar spent on independent schools goes to a Christian or Catholic school in this province, which is significantly disproportionate with the overall makeup of the province.

We have examples of faith-based schools that openly teach creationism in biology and life sciences classrooms and whose policies bar anyone who is LGBTQ2S+ from attending or working at these schools, even as, say, support staff or janitors.

The religious community may have the right to discriminate in its membership, but we don’t believe it’s the place of the government of British Columbia to subsidize that discrimination with millions of dollars in annual funding. I believe the last year’s budget was about $450 million to independent schools.

Our polling in 2016 found that 63 percent of British Columbians oppose public funding going to private secular schools and 70 percent oppose it going to private religious schools. This is consistent with polls from a number of other organizations. They are fairly constant numbers.

Support for private funding is limited to a small but vocal fringe of B.C. society. I urge members to stand with the overwhelming majority of British Columbians who would rather see these funds redirected to our secular and inclusive public education system. I look forward to hearing your questions.

[4:55 p.m.]

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

Do we have any questions from members?

N. Simons: I was just curious. Thanks, Ian. I’m just wondering what it costs government to have those permissive tax exemptions. Do you happen to know what the figure is?

I. Bushfield: I don’t know offhand. That is actually something we’re actively working on, and we’ll have a report on it, a study on it later this summer. It’s our goal. To be clear, we’re not saying that council should tax the churches and tax exemptions, merely that council should have some say over the houses of worship, for example. I believe it’s over $1 billion, but don’t quote me on that right now.

B. D’Eith (Chair): Great. Any more questions at all?

Seeing none, thank you very much to the presenters and to all of the members for today.

Could I have a motion to adjourn, please?

Motion approved.

B. D’Eith (Chair): We are adjourned.

Thank you very much. We’ll see you at the next session.

The committee adjourned at 4:56 p.m.