The committee met at 8:02 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Janet Routledge. I’m the MLA for Burnaby North and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from the government and opposition parties.

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting this morning in Kelowna, which is located on the traditional territories of the Syilx Okanagan peoples.

I would also like to welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting on Budget 2022, the consultation.

Our committee is currently seeking input on priorities for the next provincial budget. In addition to these meetings, British Columbians can share their views by making written comments or by filling out an online survey. The details are available on our website at bcleg.ca\fgsbudget. The deadline for all input is tomorrow, Thursday, September 30, 2021, at 5 p.m.

We will carefully consider all input and make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2022. The committee intends to release its report in November.

For this morning’s meeting, all presenters will be making individual presentations. Each presenter has five min­utes for their presentation, followed by five minutes for questions from committee members.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website. A complete transcript will also be posted.

I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves. I’ll note that the Deputy Chair, Ben Stewart, will be joining us shortly.

H. Sandhu: Good morning, everyone. I am Harwinder Sandhu, MLA for Vernon-Monashee.

I’m coming to you from the unceded and traditional territory of the Okanagan Indian Nations.

Thank you for joining us. I look forward to your presentations.

[8:05 a.m.]

M. Starchuk: Good morning. I’m Mike Star­chuk, MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.

That is located on the unceded, traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, which includes the Kwantlen, Katzie and Semiahmoo First Nations.

G. Kyllo: Good morning. My name is Greg Kyllo. I’m the MLA for Shuswap, and I’m the B.C. Liberal critic for Labour.

M. Dykeman: Good morning. My name is Megan Dykeman. I am the MLA for Langley East. I’m looking forward to all of your presentations.

J. Brar: Good morning. My name is Jagrup Brar. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Fleetwood.

L. Doerkson: Good morning, everybody. My name is Lorne Doerkson. I’m the MLA for Cariboo-Chilcotin and the Rural Development critic.

J. Routledge (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Stephanie Raymond from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger and Simon DeLaat from Hansard Services. I can’t say enough about the support that they provide us behind the scenes. They get us here on time, get us out of here on time and make us look like we actually know what we’re doing. So thank you.

With that, we’ll go to our first presenter, who is Sonja Gaudet, Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association.

Sonja, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds left so that you know to wrap it up.

Budget Consultation Presentations

THOMPSON OKANAGAN
TOURISM ASSOCIATION

S. Gaudet: Good morning. My name is Sonja Gaudet. I am the access and inclusion liaison here in the Thompson Okanagan region.

I am grateful to be living, learning and working on the unceded territory of the Syilx people of the Okanagan Nation.

I’d like to thank the province for providing opportunities that allow input into these consultations.

My presentation today is in support and addition to my colleague’s presentation yesterday in Prince George — Nancy Harris, who is the access and inclusion regional development liaison and the Access B.C. lead for Spinal Cord Injury B.C. I’m also an Access B.C. team member with Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and the field lead for TOTA sustainable tourism access and inclusion partnership mapping project.

This is the main focus of my presentation today: to share this project with you, with an ask and a future goal of sustaining the access and inclusion liaison positions in the six tourism regions of our province in order to be able to roll out this or similar access and inclusion initiatives and projects in the respective regions, aligning the tourism industry of B.C. with the Accessible B.C. Act and the province’s commitment to increase accessibility and inclusion for all British Columbians.

What do our access and inclusion liaisons do? Our goal is to create a world-class accessible destination for all. To­gether, we represent the six tourism regions across B.C. In each of our regions we have specific, individual responsibilities around access and inclusion, and we collaborate to ensure that we provide consistent and accurate messaging. We meet on a regular basis to share, develop resources, establish best practices and improvements and support one another in educating our tourism community stakeholders about access and inclusion.

Creating accessible spaces and environments allows equal opportunity and full inclusion for everyone, regardless of age, size, ability, culture or gender, and it nurtures a sense of belonging and a well-being for all people. Humans long for integration and full participation — to live, work, play and travel with and alongside family and friends. Forty percent of the population have a person in their immediate family and friends who requires accessible features for daily living tasks and activities.

What is our sustainable tourism access and inclusion mapping project? The Thompson Okanagan Tourism As­sociation, Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and Access Now re­cently launched this project in the most northern community of the province here in our region: Valemount.

The goal is to populate the Access Now app with accessible tourism experiences in the communities throughout the province. This is a consumer-facing application pro­viding users with the accessible features information that is present at different services and experiences. This app is very instrumental and empowering, helping to relieve the anxiety and stress of wondering what the accessibility will be like upon arrival at any destination.

For our tourism stakeholders, this app has the ability to drive customers to their product, giving them more incentive to implement or improve their accessible features and design experiences that are inclusive for everyone.

[8:10 a.m.]

How does this work? We put together a team of expert users, Access B.C. team members, Spinal Cord Injury B.C. peer mentors and, of course, our access and inclusion liaisons, and we spend an extended amount of time in any one community.

With direction from the community destination marketing organizations about their iconic and key tourism experiences, we visit these stakeholders, and with the use of the Access B.C. auditing tool, we gather and input very detailed, accessible features, information and pictures. At a later date, with the support from the AccessNow team, we will analyze this information, identify and integrate the key priority accessible features that we want to include in the app.

Also, while we are out researching and collecting this data, we’re really networking with our stakeholders with in-person interactions that are invaluable, leaving our stakeholders with a realistic and lasting impact, when we can show and explain firsthand why certain accessible features are so critical to a person’s independence, autonomy and ability to participate.

At 55 years young, I’ve had the opportunity of experiencing life from two completely different perspectives: my first 31 years as an ambulatory, able-bodied individual, and then the next 24 years as an active and able wheelchair user, after sustaining a spinal cord injury due to a horse accident. I’m recently retired from a successful and accomplished career as a Paralympic athlete, competing for Can­ada around the world in the sport of wheelchair curling for 14 years.

Although, compared to many places around the world, we have been making great strides, there is still more work to be done with regards to creating accessible and inclusive environments. Along with all of our access inclusion liaisons, we hope to lend our collective knowledge and experience to the tourism industry and support our stakeholders in creating accessible communities and inclusive tourism experiences for local community members and visitors to our regions throughout the province of B.C.

Thank you again for this opportunity and for considering our collective ask.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Sonja.

Now I will invite members of the committee to ask some questions.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Sonja, for your presentation. As I was writing down my questions, you were answering them one after the other after the other.

S. Gaudet: Talking really fast.

M. Starchuk: Yeah. I’m really interested in the app, but I’m just wondering. I know in some areas where they’re talking about inclusion, they’ll build a picnic table, and it will all be for people for access, but the trail to get to the picnic table isn’t what it’s supposed to be.

When you do your locations and you’re doing your…. Are they rated? Does it tell you bumps and humps and hills and other things like that, or if it’s flat and it’s perfect?

S. Gaudet: The app has the opportunity to not only put in lots of pictures but lots of text. We make sure that when we put in the information — it really is in the information — we will identify the slope, the hardpack surface, what the surface is. Definitely, those features that we know as users we need to know beforehand. That way, I can know…. Do I need support? What piece of equipment do I need to bring with me? Can I even do that slope or that gravel surface?

We will definitely have the opportunity to put all that information….

M. Starchuk: Does your app just deal with mobility issues? What about somebody with visual disabilities?

S. Gaudet: Absolutely. We’re going to be making sure that we encompass all of the different abilities: low vision, hard of hearing, mobility, sensory. It’s certainly an opportunity where, if we don’t get all the information in the first time, we can always update it and add in more posts along the way.

J. Brar: Thank you, Sonja. This is great, to make tourism accessible. I haven’t seen…. Have you submitted your submission in writing?

S. Gaudet: Yes. There was quite a bit of material that we sent in.

J. Brar: You have. My apologies. I couldn’t find it here.

I wanted to ask you: for this app, who is funding, and how much money you’re looking for from us, if you are?

S. Gaudet: I believe the ask is over five years at $300,000 per year, for the next five years. That’s to keep our access and inclusion liaisons employed in each of the regions for a five-year period so that they can carry on, maybe, this project, or projects very similar to this.

[8:15 a.m.]

J. Brar: So you have some seed money with which you are working right now?

S. Gaudet: My position is in place with the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association, a shared position. They pay two days a week for me, and Spinal Cord Injury B.C. pays one day. A lot of the access and inclusion liaisons that are in place right now are pieced together with some really small chunks of funding, but it’s definitely not sustainable funding.

J. Brar: Who is funding it right now?

S. Gaudet: My position?

J. Brar: No, the app in question.

S. Gaudet: Oh, the app is an app that was designed by a company in Toronto. We’re just partnering with the people that designed that app. They’re populating this across Can­ada right now. That app has already been designed. We’re just wanting to partner with them, to help them populate it to the best that we can. That’s where the partnership is. They’re going to help us with the analyzing of the data and integrating it into their app. It is already a live app.

J. Routledge (Chair): I see that Greg has a question. We have less than 30 seconds left.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much, Sonja, for your presentation.

I’m just wondering. You indicated that, obviously, there are going to be strong visuals as well as descriptions about the accessibility of different locations. Is there an international standard or something that’s a little bit easier for people to understand — whether it’s a 1 to a 5, or a rating? Is there anything like that? Or will people have to actually look and read all the details of each particular attraction in order to assess their own ability to access it?

S. Gaudet: Good question. No, this app will rate it either green, bronze or red — accessible, partially accessible or not accessible. Of course, the person still needs to look into the details. What might work for me may not work for somebody else, but it will give me a starting point, for sure.

G. Kyllo: Fantastic.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, with that, Sonja, we’ll wrap up your presentation. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for coming to present to us. Thank you for the leadership that you’re taking on this and for not accepting that those who have to deal with disabilities have to lead narrower lives or vulnerable lives. The proactive work that you’re doing will make a huge difference.

S. Gaudet: Thank you, Janet.

Thank you, all, for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Celine Thompson, the Bridge Youth and Family Services Society.

Celine, you have five minutes. We will signal when you have 30 seconds left. Then we’ll move right into questions.

BRIDGE YOUTH AND FAMILY SERVICES

C. Thompson: Good morning. I am the executive director of the Bridge Youth and Family Services. I’ve asked my colleague John Yarschenko, the Bridge’s director of re­covery and addictions, to join me today to help us address any technical questions you may have at the conclusion of this presentation.

It is an honour and a privilege for both of us to join you today on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx Okanagan people of the Westbank First Nation.

As the largest community-based provider of substance use resources in the Central Okanagan, the Bridge is at the forefront of supporting this community’s response to individuals and families impacted by addiction. The vantage point afforded by this role informs our position that the current system of recovery care is inadequately resourced and that, as a result, the Central Okanagan is compara­tively underserved in its effort to meet demand. World and environmental events of the past few years have only served to shine a light on the fissures and cracks in the system.

I know that this committee is only too aware that British Columbia is in the throes of two public health emergencies. In addition to COVID-19, the province continues to reel from the public health emergency declared more than five years ago due to the alarming rise in deaths due to overdose and the toxic drug supply. These health emergencies coalesce and add layers upon layers of vulnerabilities onto our health care systems and our communities.

The pandemic has led to a greater demand for limited services and a heightened acuity of those we do serve. It has highlighted the challenges and deficiencies in the systems of care in this region — namely, limited access to community-based withdrawal management services and the inadequate physical infrastructure available to accommodate people who are pursuing recovery.

I will deal with each of these in turn, starting with community-based withdrawal management and then concluding with our comments about infrastructure.

[8:20 a.m.]

The Bridge’s aim for the Central Okanagan is to have an accessible and responsive, community-based, recovery-oriented system of care. This will allow individuals to ac­cess support before they experience the acute and often catastrophic impacts of substance use and concurrent mental health concerns. Timely access diverts people from engaging with high-cost government services such as the emergency department and the legal system. Individuals who are able to access care also have an increased chance of engaging with their community, which in turn improves our collective economic and social well-being.

Medically supported withdrawal management services are, for many individuals, their first experience in a harm reduction and substance use setting. This initial experience sets the stage for future engagement with the available system. A safe, positive, responsive and culturally appropriate experience will not only increase health; it increases participants’ willingness to engage in subsequent service and further their journey on recovery.

Medically supervised withdrawal management — or, as it’s commonly referred to, detox — facilitates safe withdrawal from alcohol and other drugs. Without this medical intervention, most people would die attempting to cease their drug use independently. It also provides a safe space to provide harm reduction supplies and education. Critically, in the current opioid epidemic, it facilitates the introduction of opiate agonist therapies and, when appropriate, safer supply.

The challenge we have locally, however, is that we do not have the community bed space capacity to meet voluntary demand. The Central Okanagan serves a population in excess of 200,000 and has only our ten-bed service on which to draw. Compare this to the Thompson-Nicola region, which has 20 beds. Our community would require triple the current inventory to achieve parity on a per-capita basis. Individuals in our community languish on wait-lists or pursue services inappropriately in acute care or city cells — or, for those that can, pursue it privately.

Last year the existing ten-bed program in Kelowna was again oversubscribed. Running at over 100 percent occupancy, it supported more than 700 admissions from across this region yet still could not come close to meeting the demand. The significant wait-list generated significant barriers to care and wasted, for many, their often fleeting moments of courage to receive the health services to which they are entitled.

Infrastructure. We’ve known for some time now that our physical sites are not adequate to meet this demand for service. We do not have the square footage to accommodate all those who choose to stay with us, and as you can appreciate, the sheer volume of those that do creates significant wear and tear on the square footage we do have.

With the overlay of COVID and the associated need for greater physical space between participants, proper ventilation and fresh air, this need and desire, ostensibly, for client comfort is now emerging as a risk for their safety. Indeed, where we do our work has almost become as im­portant as the work that we do.

I see, in all levels of government budgets, that they are putting money in for infrastructure, and I can totally ap­preciate that. With heat domes, forest fires and pandemics, I just want to remind all levels of government that we pro­vide this service on your behalf, and we, too, need consideration for infrastructure.

I would ask that the committee acknowledge the need for additional resourcing of adult withdrawal management in this area. Additionally, we propose that service-specific language be used in the 2022 funding letter from the Minister of Health to the Interior Health Authority. Further, we invite the province to invest in the infrastructure of the community social services sector. We’re honoured to provide these services on your behalf, but our ability to do so in a manner that is not only comfortable but safe will allow us to continue to be effective, accessive and responsive.

Thank you for your consideration.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Celine.

Before I open it up to questions…. We have about four minutes for questions, so I would ask the committee…. I think we know that Celine has a lot more she wants to tell us, so if we could keep our questions as succinct as possible to give her that opportunity.

C. Thompson: I’ll keep my answers brief as well.

L. Doerkson: Thank you very much, Celine. You noted a couple of numbers: 700 people that used the program last year and ten beds that are obviously always full. My question is: how many people are going without this service?

[8:25 a.m.]

C. Thompson: It’s really hard to tell, because the people on the wait-list shift so constantly. We keep track of them on a daily basis. But again, they’ll opt out of service after they wait. So the total population, we don’t know. At any given time…. The wait-list currently can be — for people that start with us — usually at least a couple of weeks. We’ve usually got 20 to 30 people wait-listed on any given day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

I hope I didn’t scare people off.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much for your presentation.

Have you actually put any dollars to your budget ask?

C. Thompson: We could provide that in a heartbeat. I’ve got a costed infrastructure — a new building — that would allow us to accommodate…. What we’d like to serve is 20 beds for WMS and give single bedroom occupancy in our treatment facility. I have those numbers. The additional five beds — we’ve been hammering Interior Health relentlessly.

John, what are we asking for per year for the additional five beds?

J. Yarschenko: It’s about $500,000 for operational….

C. Thompson: It’s $500,000. We’ll submit these comments.

G. Kyllo: If you have an opportunity…. If you could include that in maybe an updated submission before the deadline tomorrow, that would be fantastic.

C. Thompson: Yes. We’ll add the budget. Absolutely.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Celine. Great presentation.

You mentioned that at any given time, 20 to 30 people are on the wait-list. I’m curious. By the time they get a bed, are there any that drop out and they change their mind? That’s always the biggest fear and challenge.

C. Thompson: Oh, for sure. Again, because of the na­ture of addiction, that moment of courage comes and goes and flows. What seems like a good idea on Saturday is no longer a good idea on Sunday. To be responsive, we need to catch them in that moment of courage and make it safe and good in that moment. Otherwise, you’re right. We lose them.

H. Sandhu: Absolutely. They may….

C. Thompson: The lifestyle and events and the chronicity and their inability to show up. Right?

H. Sandhu: This highlights the importance and the ur­gency of more resources. They may never change and come back to us again.

J. Routledge (Chair): There’s time for one more.

L. Doerkson: One last question as to success. We heard yesterday, in Prince George or Victoria, from a group that was concerned about the programs that are 30 and 60 days long. I shouldn’t say that they aren’t successful, but I would be interested in hearing what your success….

C. Thompson: I think success is really an interesting measure when you’re in this business. For withdrawal management, really, the success is the safe and effective withdrawal from substances. It’s not abstinence. That is never laid on people. It’s a road to abstinence should they choose to go to recovery.

Even in our treatment centres…. When you characterize success, challenge people. What does that mean? Does it mean that if they ever have a drink again in their entire life, it’s a failure? Or does it mean that they’re sober on graduation day but not the week later? It’s a really nuanced question.

The way we’ve chosen to frame it for our treatment programs, for example, is we look at determinants of health across a spectrum. What we call recovery capital. Known determinants of long-term health. So we don’t ask questions…. We ask questions about abstinence, but we also ask connection with family and community. Connection with culture and spirituality. Do you have a safe house? Do you have access to a physician? How is your physical well-being? That provides us a greater picture. If we see progress of that over time, and sustained progress, that’s success.

When you hear people talk about treatment, really challenge their success quotas. I think that they are narrow and ill-advised, typically.

L. Doerkson: That’s a great answer. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Celine. We are out of time, but we really want to thank you for taking the time to come and present to us and for providing….

C. Thompson: We come every year.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we’re newer to this. It’s very insightful for us.

Speaking for myself, the phrase “that moment of courage” really resonated. It really made sense in terms of the kinds of resources we need to put at the front line so that we can be there at that moment.

C. Thompson: We’re really proud of the work we do. Thank you so much for having us today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Our next presenter is Dan Rogers, Kelowna Chamber of Commerce.

Dan, you have five minutes. We’ll give you a signal — we will wave a card at you — when you have 30 seconds left so you know to start wrapping it up, and then we’ll move into questions.

[8:30 a.m.]

KELOWNA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

D. Rogers: Thanks, Madam Chair. I will try to keep an eye…. I’m aging. The glasses are not as good far, but I’ll keep an eye on the timing. Thanks very much for the opportunity to speak.

As noted, I’m Dan Rogers. I’m the executive director for the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce. It’s a pleasure for me to be here this morning. I’m joined by our senior policy analyst at the Kelowna chamber, Caroline Miller, and we’ve provided a written submission.

Thanks for the opportunity to present to you this morning. I want to bring greetings on behalf of our board chair, Jeffrey Robinson — unfortunately not able to join us this morning. He’s committed to court proceedings with his regular day job.

As we continue to weather the pandemic, our local businesses are, for the most part, continuing to operate — although many on a reduced basis, with reduced staff, reduced income and, of course, reduced customers. We also continue to hear the same theme every time we en­gage our members. If there’s one thing that has been consistent throughout the pandemic, it’s that costs have continued to climb. The current supply line challenges that are being faced by business are going to make things even more challenging come November and December, when retail spending usually climbs.

Given we’ve provided a detailed report — and certainly, I respect your ability to read — I’ll try to be as succinct as possible in the short time that I have with you this morning. A couple of major themes I wanted to touch on: continuing the response to COVID-19 and, secondly, growing the economy as we recover.

On the first point, we would stress the need for policy on four specific areas. Firstly, targeted sector support helping those most in need in the pandemic. That means using a scalpel and not a shovel. Tax relief at all levels of government must be considered to provide relief for SMEs, particularly family-owned businesses that we are seeing are dramatically impacted by COVID-19.

Thirdly, recovery that supports diversity and inclusion. Government needs to place a priority on developing programs to assist women in business, to reignite Indigenous tourism, to accelerate efforts to help and encourage newcomers to come to the Okanagan and to engage in commerce outside the country’s major metropolitan regions.

Innovation, investment and addressing constrained growth is the fourth area of this theme. On this point, we reference B.C.’s aerospace industry specifically.

As one of the top-ten busiest airports in the country prior to the pandemic, it astounds us that YLW is not open to international travel when other airports across the country with less passenger traffic have been given the green light by Transport Canada. We realize this is a federal issue, but we believe the Premier, the province, could use its power of influence to move the needle to help both YLW and, in fact, Victoria International Airport, on the same reasons, to rejoin the global community.

The second theme is growing our economy as we recover. We speak to the issues of housing, transportation and labour. They’re all connected.

On the subject of attainable housing, we realize this is complex, as has been noted by the Canada-B.C. expert panel on housing. But we believe a good step forward would be to cut taxes and fees that all three levels of government are extracting from the housing sector. There needs to be reconsideration of allowing local government to impose community amenity contribution agreements. Equally, we believe there should be a cap on development cost charges that are simply passed on to homeowners and renters through higher mortgages and rental fees that increase on a monthly basis.

We support local government leaders, though, when they call for a rethink on the funding tools available to pay for such infrastructure, but we’d go further and suggest the federal government should play a much larger role in this area. As noted in the final report of the expert panel, rethink by governments around this issue is needed. We appreciate that will take time and political courage.

On the second item, transportation infrastructure, we note that the Central Okanagan is one of the fastest-growing CMAs in the country. While some local government leaders may be quiet on calling for regionwide investments, we are not.

Along with our colleagues in the Okanagan, we appreciate the need for a replacement for the Massey Tunnel, though we do see a need for a similar per-capita investment in transportation systems in our region, across the Okanagan, to grow the economic engine of B.C.’s Interior. We have pushed the city of Kelowna to work with its partners in developing a regional commercial-good study. We believe the province should be footing that bill.

The third issue, very quickly, is addressing labour force challenges. It will take a multi-pronged approach, which includes encouraging technology and innovation among SMEs, supporting training programs for skilled workers, enabling a robust temporary foreign worker program and investments that encourage and support newcomers to our region.

We appreciate that the B.C. chamber has also provided its submission. We’ll fully endorse the principles that they presented during their submission.

Thank you for your time.

[8:35 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Dan.

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask questions.

D. Rogers: Good to see many of you back again in Kelowna. Welcome.

J. Brar: Thank you, Dan, for your very well-prepared submission. You have laid out very clearly a number of actions you want the provincial government to take.

I particularly want to ask you — I understand you mentioned that you want the targeted sector support to continue in the future — if there’s any feedback as to if there’s any change that the chamber is actually proposing to the current program. I would like to hear about that.

Secondly, about the housing. As you mentioned in your presentation, it’s a very complex issue. It’s surprising to me that we have been hit by COVID-19 — now a year and a half — and the housing prices still continue to go up even during this time. So it’s a complex issue, as you said. I would particularly like to know, from your perspective in this area, the specific steps. I know you mentioned some which could help to create more attainable housing.

D. Rogers: If I could, Madam Chair, I’ll try to answer both parts of that question and try to be as succinct as possible.

On the first question, with respect to targeted support, we are working with our partners at the B.C. chamber to engage businesses. What we’ve seen, and I suspect you are aware of…. The pandemic hasn’t treated everyone equally. That is the same in some sectors — particularly, as an example, in the hospitality sector. Some large chains and restaurants have done fairly well because they have the economies of scale. That’s not been the case for some of the small businesses.

We’re in the midst of gathering more data. Once we gather that data locally and through our partners at the B.C. chamber and some of their activities, we’ll certainly provide that, through the B.C. chamber, direct to government. We’re trying to do that.

We also know — the other thing that I’ll leave with you — that throughout the pandemic, when we’ve continually engaged businesses, we are among the most optimistic in the province, through the surveys that we’ve done in business. We’re not sure that’s the case anymore, but we will…. This last go-round, as everyone is aware, has been extremely challenging. That has been something that we’ve been concerned with.

The item around housing. We know this is complex. The city of Kelowna has significant demands — growing, increases. We believe in a much more regional approach in housing. We focus on the market-based housing. We appreciate there is a great deal of effort on the non-marketing side of things and the work that B.C. Housing is doing and the investments they are making.

This would be an opportunity — in my preamble, I didn’t have a chance — to mention the spec tax. We don’t believe that that’s actually making housing more affordable. It’s certainly extracting money from this city and from West Kelowna, but it’s not addressing the core issue of making housing more affordable.

We see it’s complex. We think the senior levels of government must do more to help for infrastructure. In the absence of that, local government has no other choice. As a former local government leader…. You need to raise money to pay for that critical infrastructure. The only way you can do that is through increased development cost charges or, as in the case of Vancouver, the community amenity agreements. The challenge is that that money is just passed on to the consumer, and then house prices increase.

That model has to change. I think it was identified by Chair Joy MacPhail in the work of the expert panel.

J. Routledge (Chair): Did you have a question?

M. Starchuk: A short one.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Yes, a short one is good.

M. Starchuk: When you refer to surveys you send out to your membership, how many members do you have, and what is the percentage of the surveys that are returned?

D. Rogers: We work both locally…. We have about 1,000 members that represent 25,000 employees in our catchment area. We’re the largest chamber outside Metro Vancouver. We work very closely with our colleagues in many of the small communities, from Lumby to Oliver and Osoyoos.

[8:40 a.m.]

We work with them to gather data. We gather from our members, usually, 1,000. It gives us a good sense. We’ll have, usually, 30 percent to 50 percent that respond, de­pending on the issue. We certainly had a good response on the vaccine card and then on the verification system.

We particularly work very closely with the B.C. chamber and its MindReader program, which many may be familiar with. It’s an opportunity for us, as part of the B.C. network, to engage businesses right across the province on any specific issue. The data that they gather they regularly share with government, and we are a contributor to that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, with that, Dan, we’ll wrap up this part of our agenda. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to come and present to us. You said an awful lot in a very short period of time. I want to assure you that I think we’ve all heard your message about the complexity of making change and that we have to find a balance between being seen to fix crises and also understanding the complexities of it.

D. Rogers: Madam Chair, as a former broadcaster and a fully recovered politician, it’s not easy for me to be succinct, but I tried this morning.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Larry Widmer, Community Futures British Columbia.

COMMUNITY FUTURES B.C.

L. Widmer: Good morning, everyone. My name is Lar­ry Widmer. I’m general manager of Community Futures here in the Central Okanagan. On behalf of our Community Futures British Columbia office and also our network of 34 Community Futures organizations, I want to thank you for the opportunity to submit the following recommendations. I believe a report has been sent to you in advance.

A little bit about Community Futures. This is an organization that is nationally funded, created in 1985 by the federal government. It’s the longest-running community economic development program in Canada. In British Columbia, we have 34 offices. They are all serving small, rural and remote and Indigenous communities outside the Lower Mainland and Victoria. Each of us is an independent, not-for-profit organization. We’re guided by a volunteer board of directors and staffed by a team of professionals.

We’ve played an instrumental role in delivering a range of economic development adjustments and disaster initiatives throughout the years. During challenging times, we’ve worked through fisheries and forestry adjustments in the ’90s, natural disasters like the 2017 wildfire and the 2018 Boundary flooding, and now the pandemic.

On that, in 2020, we delivered a federal government regional relief recovery loan program to small and medium-sized businesses in the rural communities, and we’ve helped over 1,400 businesses access $57 million plus in emergency funding. This has allowed these businesses to save over 4,800 jobs.

The recommendations that are being made are that we’d like to see the provincial government create a small business emergency assistance and recovery fund. This fund can be activated quickly to provide immediate access to financing, with easy terms, to businesses that have been impacted by a disaster. The second recommendation is that the fund would also allow for the deployment of local business support teams to provide targeted outreach and assistance to small businesses that are directly impacted by a disaster or emergency.

We all know that the effects of a disaster on small business are big — huge, in a lot of cases. We’re certainly in the middle of that now, as we can hear Dan’s presentation from the chamber’s perspective. Also, we know that small businesses are the lifeblood of our communities and the backbone of our economy.

We know that micro and small business operators usually have the biggest hurdles and are impacted the most, and they have the hardest time to recover from some of the problems that they encounter during an emergency. The difficulty not only impacts that business, but it impacts other businesses and the livelihood of the employees and the employees’ families. Ultimately, it jeopardizes the stability of the whole community.

[8:45 a.m.]

What we feel we’ve learned from a number of disaster responses we’ve worked on is there are two things that really need to happen. We have to have access to emergency financing, and there has to be information. The people and the businesses that are most vulnerable when hit by disaster are these smaller businesses. They don’t often have paid staff. They’re often from Indigenous communities.

We find that timing matters. I think that’s one of our important lessons that we have learned. Valuable time is often lost trying to assemble, get everybody organized, get money arranged and have the various agencies and governments working together and scrambling to put something together to help these small businesses. It often takes months.

We think a successful recovery management strategy will depend on this rapid and efficient setup of key infrastructure, with mechanisms in place for allowing small businesses to access emergency financing. A community recovery task force that’s associated with it would certainly help that deployment.

We feel Community Futures is well suited to administering something like this and having it on hand. We feel that with all the other resources that we might be able to assemble, we can lever whatever resources the province can help us assemble in advance. In closing, I feel that with a fund being established and in place prior to any emergency that’s going to happen — we know they’re going to happen — we’d be in a position to recover and respond more quickly.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Larry.

I’ll now ask members of the committee to ask some questions. Maybe Ben.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): I do know Larry. He does great work.

J. Brar: Larry, thank you very much for your presentation and for your work for the small businesses of the province of British Columbia. In my previous life before I became an MLA, I was actually heading a very similar organization in the Lower Mainland, but not Community Futures. I have a good knowledge of what you do, and you’re doing a great job in that respect.

I am curious to know more about your recommendation 1, on a small business emergency assistance and re­covery fund. The budget cycle is three years, and it goes that way. It seems to be a good idea, but I would like to know if you know of any other province doing something like this, or if it’s a completely new idea.

L. Widmer: I think there is. We’ve probably had exam­ples of it, even within the province. We found during the forestry recovery work that was done, and the small fisheries, that these similar funds were established at that time, with FRBC and with Fisheries. We’ve had precedents, I think, in B.C. already.

What I find interesting about establishing these funds is what we’ve seen on a federal level. The funds that have been granted to Community Futures are, for the most part, all intact and have grown. They’re capital funds. They’re not expenditures. Certainly we’ve asked for operational that might go along with it, depending on the need. But this capital remains intact, so for the most part, it’s protected, and in the case it’s a loan, it’s often repaid with flexible terms.

I’m not totally aware of any province other than B.C., because my experience has been largely in B.C., but we’ve already dealt on some level with this, for specific emergencies. The challenge we’re seeing, when we see the wildfires that are happening up north right now, is that the response is a little bit slower than it could have been if the loan funds were already in place and we could act very quickly. That’s the challenge. It takes, like I said, months to respond. Again, we have our loan funds. They’re just often limited by size.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Larry. I loved your presentation, and the recommendations stand out so clearly in the report that you gave to us.

[8:50 a.m.]

In the most recent iteration of the government funds, with the small business recovery grants that went out, I know, in my riding there were 31 small businesses that were able to access those funds. In a four- to eight-week period, they were seeing the funds come back to them.

Can you just tell me how…? I love how you want to do it quicker, but in a four- to eight-week period…. Are you talking about doing it quicker than that to get it back to those businesses?

L. Widmer: A lot of the challenge is that often the fund announcements are made, and then it takes a couple of months for the funds to actually arrive and be available.

We found in this emergency with COVID here — I think this is universally around the province — that our loans…. We’ll have an application put in, and we’ll have a decision within a week, and another week, probably, to deliver that loan to the business. So it is possible to respond, once the funds are in place, within a couple of weeks. It’s certainly a triage style of lending in emergency that’s done very quickly, but we have the mechanism once the money is in our hands.

Like, the feds — it was the announcement. It took a couple of months before we saw the money in our bank accounts to actually start delivering it — and the layers it goes through. If the funds were in place at the beginning in a provincial association, like we have, with an emergency, we could respond immediately — probably, realistically, within two weeks, have money and boots on the ground. It quickens it, and I think it’s probably the most critical time to have that support.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, with that, Larry, we’ll wrap up your presentation. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to come and sharing this perspective.

I think the elephant in the room is perhaps that we are moving into an age of emergency. These are not one-offs. These are not surprises. We are going to be facing more emergencies. What you’ve presented to us is a really practical approach, a way of rethinking so that we don’t scramble every time small businesses face what they face. Thank you for that.

L. Widmer: Thank you for the comments. We were all in this together. This has been a big…. We’ve been overwhelmed with the work we have done, and I think every agency and every level of government can attest to that. We’ve done quite well, given the current circumstances. If there are additional resources and help, we’ll lever it with what we already have.

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Anna Warwick Sears, Okanagan Basin Water Board.

Anna, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds left so you know to wrap up, and then we’ll move into questions.

OKANAGAN BASIN WATER BOARD

A. Warwick Sears: Good morning, everybody.

The Okanagan Basin Water Board is a local government agency. We’re based out of here in Kelowna, but we represent communities from Armstrong down to Osoyoos. My board is primarily made up of municipal elected officials — lots of mayors on the board right now — as well as a representative from the Okanagan Nation Alliance. That’s Chief Chris Derickson.

We were established in 1970. We’ve been around a long time, working on water problems that cross jurisdictional boundaries. That’s the context that I’m presenting to you in making these recommendations today.

The first thing I wanted to talk about is this issue with the lake levels. Okanagan Lake is a natural lake, but it is operated, to a certain extent, like a reservoir. There’s a dam in Penticton that is run by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. The operating plan for the dam was established in 1974. That was before the era of climate change, before the era when we had these wild fluctuations in weather conditions.

In 2017, you remember we had a really significant flooding event around the lakeshore. This year we came close to the historic low level in our historical record since we started measuring. The operator of the dam can do a certain amount of things to control what the lake is. He can draw it down in the winter. He can hold back water. But it all has to be done according to this operating plan, and the operating plan is not working for us anymore.

[8:55 a.m.]

We’ve had many discussions with the province since that time. We’ve worked with them on a plan of study for all the activities and research that need to be done to get the information in place before we can change that operating plan.

The other issue is that the dam is getting old. Dams normally have a lifespan of 70 to 80 years. This one is about 60 years old, and the dam itself is not adequately sized to deal with the kind of water that we can expect over the next several decades from climate change.

What we are recommending is that the committee pro­vide funding to do the work. It’s actually provincial jurisdiction to do these studies, but we’re happy to work with them. Okanagan Nation Alliance is happy to work with them, but the province has almost no funding for this kind of work at all — the ministry and ministry staff at this level and in this region. That really needs to be funded and is reflected in a memo I provided.

The second one is the prevention of invasive zebra and quagga mussels. We have some people here from the Oka­nagan-Shuswap, and they know what a significant issue this would be if these invasive mussels got into our lakes. We’re particularly vulnerable, on one hand, because of our lake chemistry, and temperature would cause explosive growth of these invasive mussels. It will clog waterpipes, encrust infrastructure, damage the tourist industry, harm boats. They are just a terrible menace that is throughout eastern Canada.

The other reason we’re vulnerable is because there are so many boaters coming here. The Okanagan is the top location for boats to be brought here from eastern Canada and parts of the United States that are already infested with mussels. The only way that we can prevent them coming here is through boat inspection and decontamination.

Our recommendation is that there be much more funding given to the Ministry of Environment and the conservation service so we can adequately staff the inspection stations and make sure that none of these boats are coming through. Incredibly important for our environment as well as for our communities. The costs that we would accrue, should the mussels come in, would be far, far greater than the cost of prevention.

The final thing — with my last 30 seconds — is that the Okanagan Basin Water Board supports the proposal of a watershed security fund to provide funding for local communities to protect their drinking water sources in the upper watersheds. Our local water utilities are required to provide clean drinking water, but they have no ability to regulate the kinds of activities that are happening around our reservoirs and creeks, so they end up having all kinds of pollutants coming in from logging and recreation and no ability to regulate and manage. These funds would go toward protecting the water sources, providing buffers and restoring areas that have been damaged.

That’s my presentation. Thank you very much. I’m hap­py to answer any questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Anna.

I’ll ask the committee now to ask some questions.

L. Doerkson: We have had a number of presentations about water. Thank you for yours.

Can you give me an idea of cost of upgrading or changing the dam? The second part of my question would be: who actually is responsible for monitoring that water level now? Is it FLNRORD? Who actually looks after that?

A. Warwick Sears: With respect to the monitoring, it is…. Primarily, the official level is the Environment Can­ada monitoring station that’s just off Kelowna here, and that’s the one that’s used by all the agencies. It’s FLNRORD that is actually operating the dam, but the information they use comes from Environment Canada.

As to the cost of replacing the dam, I’m sure it’s quite expensive. One of the studies that’s in the plan of study that we’ve worked out with the ministry is to evaluate what size of dam would be needed and what the cost would be. So there would have to be a formal engineering study to determine that, but it’s this type of work that absolutely needs to be done.

[9:00 a.m.]

G. Kyllo: Hi, Anna. Thank you very much for the work that you do on behalf of the region.

With respect to the study that’s required, has there been a budget established on what the cost of determining the size, the scope, cost of the dam replacement would be?

A. Warwick Sears: What we’ve done so far is to work with the ministry to create a plan of study. Some of the studies in there would be to look at the cost of replacing infrastructure. It also looks at the implications of lowering the lake level maybe in late fall, what kind of a risk would there be of having water shortages the next spring.

I think there are 18 studies that are recommended, and the ballpark estimate would be it would cost about $5 million to do all the studies that need to be done prior to doing the infrastructure works and changing the operating plan.

G. Kyllo: Is the $5 million figure…. Has that been pro­vided as part of your written submission?

A. Warwick Sears: No. This was a ballpark estimate that was provided to the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations. The OBWB was involved in doing the study, and that’s why I know what those figures were. However, they have not yet released the report publicly, so I couldn’t provide that, but the ministry has that.

G. Kyllo: Obviously, this committee’s requirement is to provide recommendations. I can see where FLNRORD would say: “We don’t have the budget for even moving forward with that necessary first step of the scope.” If there’s an opportunity of providing that number to the committee, that’s something that we would have the ability of potentially supporting.

Then, with those necessary dollars, FLNRORD could go about getting that work done, appreciating that it would be a number of years before they could even get to the point of constructing it. The earlier we get started on the planning, the better.

A. Warwick Sears: Exactly. In the memo I provided, I did mention that it would take about $1 million a year over five years to do the studies, engineering studies and the hydrological analyses. I can’t provide the costing that we did in the past, because it belongs to the ministry.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have a question from Mike and from Ben. We’ve got about 30 seconds left.

M. Starchuk: With regards to what I’m hearing, I just want to make sure I’ve got it clear. The $5 million over five years, essentially, is to look at the policy of how we manage the water in and out before you determine what the needs of a dam are?

I always hear…. We’re talking about the pooling and the numbers that are used, and they’re ancient numbers and we need to have new numbers to talk about what happens in the future. Is that more to capture the policy as to what the levels are today and how we’re going to manage them tomorrow before you get to the dam?

A. Warwick Sears: There are a lot of different options for how the dam could be managed — changes in operation. There are going to be winners and losers, depending on how that is done. Some of the things that would be impacted, for example, would be the salmon, which is a big issue with the Okanagan Nation Alliance.

We have to go through and look at all the options, discuss them with the stakeholders, understand what the risks of water shortages are versus the risks of flood damage, what the costs of the respective kind of damage is and also those studies about not just Okanagan Lake dam but the dam on Kalamalka Lake and the other drop structures that are involved in the whole regulation system. Those are the things that would go into the plan of study.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Anna.

For the committee’s point of view, the overlying importance of this to all the government jurisdictions, like all the municipalities, etc., the regulation of the water level and the flood risk, which Anna mentioned in 2017…. What I’m trying to maybe suggest is….

What’s the population that is affected by the Okanagan Water Basin Board, and what’s the projected growth may­be over the next ten or 25 years, or something like that? How many users are there?

[9:05 a.m.]

I say that meaning that the competing interests are staggering when you look at it. After 2017, we had to go back with FLNRO and deal with all the dock rebuilding and all the different areas, etc. It is such a complex web of all these different uses. I’m just trying to….

What’s the order of magnitude today for the population, and what do you see it in another 25 years? Do you have a number?

A. Warwick Sears: Well, the population of the Oka­nagan watershed right now is about 350,000. It’s projected to grow close to 400,000 in the next ten years. However, there are many more people who are impacted by issues with the lake because we have such a large tourism in­dustry. Issues with the lake also affect the agricultural economy. A lot of agricultural irrigation comes from the lake, particularly in the South Okanagan.

It is difficult to say as to the number of individuals that will be impacted. The cost, the potential damage — economic damage, infrastructure damage, damage to tourism, damage to agriculture — is very high. Really, we’re trying to catch up to what climate change is doing.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Anna, we’re out of time. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you so much for taking the time to come, making your presentation and enlightening us.

As you were speaking, I was thinking…. There are others who have come and spoken to us about water. In a way, it challenges our self-image of Canada. Many of us grew up with this notion that what was in Canada in great abundance was water. We’ve conducted our lives accordingly and, maybe, in a way that has contributed to the crisis that we’re about to be in.

Thank you for alerting us to that. It is a theme and something we will be thinking about and talking about when we make our report.

A. Warwick Sears: Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Moyra Baxter, school district 23, Central Okanagan.

Moyra, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have about 30 seconds to go so you know it’s time to wrap up. Then we will move into five minutes of questions and answers.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 23,
CENTRAL OKANAGAN

M. Baxter: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning, everyone. I’m here today to talk about public education in general but the Central Okanagan schools in particular.

The reason I continue to be involved in public education is because I think there’s nothing more important than the support, the nurturing and the education of our young people. I’m not naive enough to know that there aren’t other public institutions that need support, such as health care for an aging population like me, but for me, my focus is public education.

Our school district, Central Okanagan public schools, is at 106 capacity and much more in some areas. We’re growing by the population of an elementary or a small middle school every single year — 250 to 500 students.

We have some very acute issues. To name a few, Rutland Middle is 70 years old. It’s inaccessible to students with challenges. There are 11 portables which house 46 percent of the students of that school. Glenmore Elementary school. Our Kelowna secondary schools will be at full capacity and over within several years. And the Westside secondary school…. West Kelowna only has one secondary school, and Mount Boucherie currently has 13 portables on site, with the chance that we’re going to have to put several more in the next couple of years. These are just three examples in our school district.

We are currently undergoing a facility review. Parents are incredibly concerned that their students will no longer be able to go to their neighbourhood school. Whenever you talk about catchment areas, parents get very upset.

[9:10 a.m.]

Those are our capital issues. We also have operating funding issues. I think it’s important to note that portable classrooms do not come out of the capital budget from the Ministry of Education. They come out of operating funds. Each one costs $300,000 to purchase and put on site. We have 118 portables in this school district. That’s a huge amount of our students who are not inside their schools with the facilities that that offers.

It has to come out of our operating budget. That means that we are having to take those funds every year from the money that would normally support our students in the classroom.

We currently spend more than $7 million over the funds that we are provided for inclusive education for our special needs students. We know the ministry is thinking of going to a prevalence model, which is just taking the average of an area. Kelowna, as you know, has a teaching hospital here now. There are specialists here, so people are moving here to get those supports for their students. Our numbers are very high, and $7 million extra is a lot every year.

The other thing that we’re worried about is the ministry moving to a head count as opposed to a course count. That means that those students who have been taking extra courses — maybe after school, the ones that are doing BCIT courses — won’t be covered anymore. We’re really worried that this will take away a lot of the opportunities that we’ve been able to offer our students, and we’re very proud of the programs that we’re able to offer.

Transportation. The Ministry of Education reminds us all the time that we do not have to provide transportation for our students. However, parents who live quite a way from schools expect that we will have the yellow school buses going.

At the moment, we are spending $3.1 million a year extra on our transportation. That’s after we’ve charged our riders to ride on our yellow school buses. We take in $1 million, so we are spending much more on transportation. We don’t think it’s fair, with climate change and everything that’s happening, that we are expecting more and more parents to drive their children to school.

That is why we really do believe transportation should be fully funded, especially with…. It’s not climate change; it’s a climate crisis. You only have to be outside one of our schools, when it’s the end of the school day, to see the lineup of cars.

I think my time is almost up. I wanted to come and just tell you about that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Moyra. We do have some questions for you.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much for your presentation.

With respect to the portables, you indicated that there are 118 portables. Has that increased over the last number of years?

M. Baxter: Yes. We’ve added quite a few portables. I’ve been a school trustee for a long time. I’m not actually a teacher or anything, in case you think that. I’m actually a nurse. I’ve been a school trustee for a long time, and we’ve been adding portables.

Twenty years ago, because the government was pushing us to consolidate schools, we actually closed schools. We sold off property. It comes back to haunt me in my nightmares. That’s one of the reasons why we’re so overcrowded now.

Yeah, 118. Every year it’s two or three more.

G. Kyllo: As you mentioned, that’s coming straight out of your operating budget. So it actually takes away from funds that otherwise would be providing education for students.

M. Baxter: That’s absolutely true. Although it’s a capital expenditure, it’s not covered in the capital budget from the ministry.

M. Dykeman: It’s wonderful to see you.

M. Baxter: It’s wonderful to see you too.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for coming here today and laying out those challenges, which I know in all the years I was a school trustee have been things that boards have continuously fought to fund more equitably.

I’m wondering. On your recommendation No. 1, in your report — thank you for your written submission — you talk about the K-to-12 sector considering additional mental health and addiction resources which could be used for personnel over a multi-year time frame. You talk a little bit about Pathway to Hope and mental health in schools.

[9:15 a.m.]

I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on what that would look like implemented in a district and what you recommend.

M. Baxter: Well, actually, I don’t know which report that is. Did that come from our school district?

Interjection.

M. Baxter: No, I don’t think it did. We all have similar concerns and similar hopes for our students. We know that we have children in care that need support. We all know that schools do so much more now than just have the kids come in and learn how to read and write.

M. Dykeman: Yes, exactly. Thank you for that.

The transportation one is a challenge — and all the others that you mentioned. I’d like to thank you for your submission.

J. Brar: The issues you’ve raised, whether building new schools and additions, and the operating costs you’ve mentioned are very well-known issues provincewide, very well established. So thanks for reinforcing those issues to us.

Not long ago we were hearing repeatedly that the student population, particularly in the rural areas, is declining. So it was a completely different policy framework at that time that we were dealing with. So I would like to know how many schools you have in your areas and when the last time was that you built a new school, whether it was an elementary school or a secondary school or new additions.

M. Baxter: Well, that’s easy. We have 24,000 students, and we have 46 schools.

We’ve just opened a brand-new school in Lake Country. I see an MLA sitting at this table who knows very much about that because he’s in our school district. Our school district covers four municipalities and one regional district as well. The school that has just been opened a couple of weeks ago is the H S Grenda Middle School in Lake Country, which is one of our municipalities.

J. Brar: When was the time you built a new school before this one?

M. Baxter: Before that, I believe it was Mar Jok elementary in West Kelowna.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): No, there’s one in the Mission.

M. Baxter: You’re right. Yes, it’s in Okanagan Mission. As I said, we cover a lot of municipalities. I live in Peachland. Yes, we had one in the Okanagan Mission, Canyon Falls elementary school.

L. Doerkson: Thank you, Moyra, for your presentation.

We heard a similar situation yesterday in Kamloops. I guess I wanted some clarity around capacity. It sounds to me like you’re probably…. Are you buying five of these portables a year?

M. Baxter: We are purchasing at least a couple. We sometimes move them. If we open a new school, like we did recently, that maybe alleviates some of the portables. So we can move them onto another site, which, of course, costs money too. How many we’re actually purchasing every year, I don’t know. I could find that out.

L. Doerkson: It’s all right. You mentioned 118 and re­ferred to….

M. Baxter: Yeah. That’s the total we have on site right now, yes.

L. Doerkson: Right. I guess, back to capacity…. I think we heard a number of 159 percent in a few schools yesterday. What is the situation with the schools here now?

M. Baxter: Well, we have some that are really at 120 percent. We have a couple of schools in our school district that actually have space. One is Peachland Elementary.

We have certain areas of the school district that are just bursting. It’s very difficult to say to parents: “You should have your child go from Lake Country into Kelowna to go to school” or “From West Kelowna, you should go down to Peachland.” Parents don’t like having their children have to leave their community.

Our average is whatever I said it was: 108. We do have some that are 120 percent over capacity. If you have 46 percent of your students in portables, like we have at Rutland Middle…. You can tell that school is really over capacity. Those portables don’t have washrooms. We get winters here where they have to go from the portable into the school.

[9:20 a.m.]

We understand the pressures that the province is under, but we just wanted to, once again, use this select committee to help get our message across. I know the committee has, in the past, said very much that public education did need to get more support. So I guess we’re hoping that you’re going to say that again.

J. Routledge (Chair): We will wrap it up, Moyra. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to come and present to us and provide a perspective on what has become a pattern in presentations about the challenges at the level of school districts.

I’m an urban MLA. When you were talking about transportation and all the cars at the schools, I was one of them. There’s got to be a better way. Thank you.

We will take a five-minute break and then proceed.

The committee recessed from 9:21 a.m. to 9:28 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Taryn Skalbania, B.C. Coalition for Forestry Reform.

You can come to the table when you’re ready, Taryn. You have five minutes to make your presentation. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds left so that you can wrap it up, and then we’ll move right into five minutes of questions and answers. So whenever you’re ready.

B.C. COALITION FOR FORESTRY REFORM

T. Skalbania: Good morning, everyone. Good morning, MLAs, Chair. Thank you for coming to the Okanagan. In the nsyilxcən language of our Syilx territory, it’s way̓.

This is the unceded Syilx territory. We call it Lake Okanagan.

It’s a beautiful day, and no smoke.

I am Taryn Skalbania. I’m here to represent the British Columbia Coalition for Forestry Reform. I’m from Peachland, so you’re having a double-header Peachlander presentation. I believe Moyra also lives in Peachland. We are known as the navel of the Okanagan for famous German food, beaches and, recently, floods and fires.

[9:30 a.m.]

I’m presenting as part of a watershed coalition. I know you’ve seen some of my colleagues already. There are about 18 of us presenting for a watershed security fund. That’s unique to our group, the B.C. Coalition for Forestry Re­form, because our watersheds are under some threats, and there are externalities that are affecting our community groups.

I was born in Vancouver, the Musqueam and Squamish territory, I lived in Victoria, lived for a long time in Whistler and Vancouver, and I had a very privileged upbringing. With that privilege came lots of recreation in parks, lakes, swimming. We had wonderful forests, abundant fish, great wildlife viewing, and the coast was idyllic.

When I moved to the Okanagan in 1992, I became a farmer. It was sort of the craze then. You leave the city, and you buy acreage. I became a farmer to avoid high property taxes, and now, it’s probably much easier to just pay those taxes. I became really aware of water and watersheds and flow and flooding, and I suffered some drought years. We had flooding on our property. It took out our fences and our pastures.

I’m a five-time wildfire evacuee alert and a three-time wildfire evacuee order. I don’t know if you know what it’s like to get 300 animals off your property when the RCMP knocks and gives you ten minutes. It was challenging.

I know some of you are rural MLAs, and some of you urban, and some of you know our Okanagan situation. I decided to investigate, and we formed a little group: the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance. We found there are about another hundreds of watershed groups just like us, affected by floods, fire, dirty drinking water, cattle ranging. We then co-founded the B.C. Coalition for Forestry Reform.

I could read that to you, or you could read it yourself, but we are numerous organizations, mostly rural, from British Columbia. Unlike that idyllic, privileged upbringing I had on the coast, we don’t have protected watersheds. We have a multi-use system in the Interior. Fifty-two percent of our watersheds in B.C. are protected. If you live in North Van, Seymour, Capilano, Bowker Creek, Vancouver, Victoria, you will probably not be presenting here for a watershed security fund, because your watersheds are secure, but the 48 percent of the population of B.C. suffer from multi-use.

That would be one of my main asks. If we do not get more say, locally, in our watersheds, we will continue to need a watershed security fund. If we can establish more community say with our watershed activities, I believe there will be less damages, and so do the rest of our members of our group.

I’m going to read you, quickly, who represents our B.C. Coalition for Forestry Reform. The Comox water users have had to build a water treatment plant. The Box Mountain water protectors are fighting wildfire mitigation causing flooding in their watershed. The Glade Watershed protectors only have 300 people, and they need to build a water treatment plant. Merville water users — their groundwater’s in jeopardy because of water bottling. Naramata water users have just spent $40,000 to buy off a rancher so he doesn’t range his cattle in their watershed and they can save money on chlorine.

You know very well the Swansea and Mara Lake water users. They’ve had mudslides. You’ve actually lost a constituent a few years ago. They’re struggling from clearcut logging and mudslides. Lois Schurek is a friend of our alliance. We also have the Juan de Fuca Forest Watch, Vernon Help Our Watersheds community.

Friends of Seven Sisters on Haida Gwaii are worried about visual qualities in their watershed. They would like to put money towards restoring some parkland. Friends of Lardeau River — again, visual qualities in their watershed. They want to save a mountain face. Friends of Clinton natural forest — severe mudslides in their watershed due to fires. Bridge River recreation — loss of trails due to, also, mudslides and clearcut logging.

[9:35 a.m.]

I’m just going to wrap it up by asking for all communities to be able to possibly have a watershed security fund in the upcoming 2022 budget and hope that we could reduce the need for those funds if we had more say in our watershed.

Finally, to close, we propose the following changes in the conduct of B.C. forestry. Repeal all forest legislation and replace it with (1) a superordinate act based on the principles of conservation of biodiversity first — soil, water and air, under which all other resource extraction and legislation for oil, gas, mining, forests are subordinate; and (2) a forest legislation that provides legally enforceable standards of practice and a meaningful regulatory role for forest ministries.

The rest of our asks are in your paper backup, and the inclusive list of all our coalition members.

I can take some questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Thank you, Taryn. Your presentation did go over. So I’m going to suggest that we have, maybe, three minutes for questions.

T. Skalbania: I was either very thorough and no need for questions or confusing.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Taryn.

What would this watershed security fund…? What type of investment are you thinking of, and how do you see it being used by all of the diverse groups that you mentioned?

T. Skalbania: I would suggest, as in the request, if it could be used like a Habitat Conservation Trust Fund grant or the Real Estate Foundation grant — that each individual group applies to whatever the terms of reference are that you set up. If it could be for restoration work, could it be for research work? Can it be for restoring fish habitat? Can it be to buy back land for parks? What about reforestation?

Each individual group in B.C. on our list has a unique threat issue — collateral damage, whatever you want to call it — in their watershed. Some have more than one. So it would be up to, I think, the group. I would hope it would be open to municipalities, because our mayor has been asking for a pause in clearcut logging, a moratorium, just until she gets a cumulative effects assessment done. She’s not alone, the mayor of Peachland, in that request.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Taryn, for your presentation. It was thorough. A very good presentation.

When you meant to ask for a watershed security fund, you mentioned that if locals had more say, then we would require a lesser amount. Can you elaborate on that? How would that be possible?

T. Skalbania: I would suggest that if we had more say — which means like the watersheds of Vancouver and Victoria, which have eliminated industrial activities in the watershed and, actually, don’t even allow some recreation activities…. They certainly don’t allow cattle ranging. We would not have to clean up after the cattle. We would not have to clean up after sedimentation in ditches from flooding from clearcuts. We would not have extra recreation trails ruining hillsides and having habitat loss for animals. There were be less damage, I believe, in watersheds.

Or if we can have more say, if we did need a clearcut or an open-pit mine — if that was a necessary initiative brought into our watersheds — when it’s in the planning stages. Right now the district of Peachland, our taxpayers, have zero say. The forestry companies and the hydrologists planning have the say. There’s no community input.

H. Sandhu: It makes much more sense — again, being proactive rather than having to fix the damage that’s caused.

T. Skalbania: It does. A watershed security fund is a great idea, but let’s first stop some of the damage, I’m hoping.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Taryn. We’re out of time, but thank you very much for your presentation and painting a picture of what you experience, what it’s like and what needs to be done. For someone like myself, this is really, really insightful information.

Our next presenter is Alex Morrison, Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance.

[9:40 a.m.]

Alex, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds to wrap up, and then we’ll ask you questions.

PEACHLAND WATERSHED
PROTECTION ALLIANCE

A. Morrison: Good morning, everybody. I’m Alex Morrison.

I live on the traditional territory of the Syilx people in what we know as Peachland.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I am here on behalf of the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance. I am a photographer and an artist, but I also have a master’s degree in landscape ecology from the University of Manitoba. I came to Peachland two years ago from Winnipeg for the super, natural B.C. experience and the beautiful environment here in the Okanagan.

Just a little bit of background. If you don’t know anything about Winnipeg’s water story, it’s a little highlight of what forward thinking and leadership can do that maybe this watershed security fund can emulate for British Columbia. Most people think Winnipeg’s water comes from the Red River or from Lake Winnipeg, but the water’s too polluted, it’s too turbid, and there’s not enough fresh groundwater to support a city.

Over 100 years ago, the new city of Winnipeg decided that it needed to secure a source for their water. So get this. Winnipeg gets its water from 100 kilometres away, from a different province. They knew, 100 years ago, the critical importance of securing a water supply, which Peachland does not have, and many other communities, as we’ve heard, don’t have this right to secure water.

Yes, unfortunately, they also destroyed a thriving Indigenous community 100 years ago, when they did this. We’ve learned our lessons and repaired the wrongs done to that community, and we’ve learned much more about the plight of Aboriginal people because of colonization. Winnipeg still managed to repair that wrong with the Indigenous people, and they’ve guaranteed that First Nation fresh water, as well as the city of Winnipeg. This is just something to keep in mind about being a leader and thinking ahead.

When I heard about Peachland’s water crisis, I was ex­cited to volunteer for PWPA. We are a volunteer registered society, and our mission is to protect the ecosystem of the watershed and the water that it provides, including the quality, quantity and timing of flow. Those are the three critical things that we’re looking to protect.

Unlike Vancouver and Victoria, as we just heard, Peachland’s water source is not protected, and it’s not really managed in any specific way. We’re already experiencing damage to our water cycle. We’ve had flooding, soil erosion, brown water.

You’ve seen the bathtub picture, I hope, in our submission. That’s a regular occurrence in Peachland. I don’t know how many of you would want to bathe your babies or yourself in water that looked like that, let alone drink it.

As a tourist town, as you guys know, all of these impacts have a huge ripple effect on the economy. Fires keep tourists away. Floods keep tourists away. Lack of drinking water keeps tourists away, and it’s damaging to businesses. You can’t run a restaurant or a hospitality organization if you don’t have water.

We support a fully funded watershed security fund for all B.C. community drinking watersheds. Peachland has already invested $24 million in a high-tech water treatment plant just to keep up with the damage caused by industrial players in our watershed. This water treatment plant is taking care of water quality. So there’s quality, quantity and timing of flow. For now, our water is fine, but given climate change and additional threats, additional industrial activity in our watershed, we are not certain that this is a plan that will work, ongoing, in the future.

We need additional funding to repair and secure the quantity and the timing of flow in our watershed. In lack of true protection, this can be best accomplished by the restoration, regeneration of the watersheds and the source of our water. We believe that until our watershed has full protection, like that enjoyed by Vancouver and Victoria, we need to immediately prepare our riparian areas, restore the wetlands. We need to plant deciduous areas for firebreaks and work closely with the Indigenous knowledge-keepers and fire-keepers and encourage the implementation and adoption of their traditional, ecological knowledge in managing and restoring our watersheds.

[9:45 a.m.]

We’re seeking the commitment of a dedicated watershed security fund with an annual investment of $75 million until community watersheds in B.C. are fully protected and the “unduly” clause is removed from the Forest and Range Practices regulations.

It’s not 1912 anymore, and we’re not Winnipeg. We cannot just go and find more water. We can’t uproot Indigenous people and take their resources because we’ve messed up our own. If we fail to do this, then our communities will fail. So I’m asking the government to please make another prescient decision now and add water security dollars to a water security fund for the watersheds of Peachland. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Alex.

I will now ask members of the committee to ask their questions.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much, Alex, for your presentation. We’ve had several other presentations on the same, and I’m glad for the work you’re doing.

A quick clarification. The $75 million ask — is this in conjunction with all the organizations around the prov­ince, or is it just pertaining to Peachland or the Okanagan?

A. Morrison: Good question. This would be for the province. I think Taryn kind of mentioned one scenario where each watershed that had projects for restoration and regeneration could apply for individual projects of an amount that the government would kind of prescribe. Like, every district can have, per population, $1,000, or whatever it is. The $75 million is for the whole province.

H. Sandhu: Okay, thank you for the clarification.

L. Doerkson: Just with specifics to your area, is there a specific project that you would be trying to get started?

A. Morrison: We have a few, actually. I guess one of the big priorities is to restore some of the clearcut areas. Because of the dryness, because of the droughts, because of the past few years of weather, the commercial tree planting has not worked. I don’t know how many thousands of tree seedlings that have been planted in some of these huge clearcuts are not growing.

That’s a real issue, not only for the effects of runoff and water flowing over those big bare fields, but also for wildfires, because it’s dry tinder and dry logs that are in there right now. Should lightning strike in one of those areas, it just goes up, right? It’s like throwing a match on paper. So that would be one of our first projects, as well as planting deciduous in those areas as well, because as you know, poplar trees don’t tend to burn.

Given the fire season and the increase in predictive fires, because of climate change as well as clearcut logging, we would like to get something planted there to protect our community in case of wildfires.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have time for one or two more questions.

A. Morrison: I don’t bite. Ask me anything.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): I think it’s Trepanier Creek. You know the water supply that feeds Peachland there? I know that the construction of the Coquihalla exposed some toxic area. Do you have any idea how much Ministry of Transportation and other ministries have invested in that protection of watershed already in that area?

A. Morrison: I don’t think that issue has been addres­sed, really, other than the mining company has beefed up the tailing pond dams there.

I could ask Taryn, my colleague.

T. Skalbania: There’s $14 million already to prevent acid rain. It’s a natural runoff. When limestone gets exposed, the Coquihalla….

A. Morrison: There’s also the other creek, right? Peachland Creek is also part of the watershed, which is kind of not really close to Trepanier.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Water’s important all throughout the Okanagan.

A. Morrison: In the world.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): No, no. I meant that exposure was just shocking.

A. Morrison: Yes.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, it now looks like we’re closing in on having to wrap this presentation up. On behalf of the committee, Alex, I’d like to thank you for making a presentation.

[9:50 a.m.]

I note that you started out by identifying yourself as an artist. I want to tell you that you painted a picture for us of what the situation is here. I think your Winnipeg example was very powerful. Thank you so much for the picture you painted for us.

A. Morrison: Thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Brooke McLardy, B.C. Network of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres.

Brooke, you have five minutes. We will give you a signal when you have 30 seconds left so that you can wrap it up, and then we will move into questions.

B.C. NETWORK OF CHILD AND YOUTH
ADVOCACY CENTRES

B. McLardy: Thanks for having me this morning.

I’m very pleased to be presenting on Syilx territory this morning.

I’m Brooke McLardy. I’m the coordinator for the B.C. Network of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres. I want to thank you and this committee for the recommendations to the B.C. budget for the past two years. We’ve really appreciated that. The reason we’re here today is to talk about moving forward. How do we move from recommendations to operational funding for our centres?

Behind me, I also have Leah Zille from the Vancouver centre and Sandra Bryce from the Victoria centre. I’m from the centre in Vernon.

I know that several of you are new to the committee. We’ve been here several times. We are going to provide a written submission so that you do have some information for review. But in short, a child and youth advocacy centre responds to children and youth that have allegations of abuse or sexual assault. We bring policing, child protection, health, First Nations, school districts and victim services all together to respond collaboratively to those allegations and ensure that the child gets that wraparound support that they require.

We’re here again because we really need your expertise. We have been the very grateful recipients of civil forfeiture office funding for the past several years. However, we haven’t had any movement towards committed operational funding, and it’s starting to hold us back. We’re quite concerned about the future.

We know that the B.C. government is investing in policing, in social services, in victim services, in health. What our centres do is that we bring all those players together to provide this response in a collaborative and coordinated manner. What that does is really increase the efficiency of the services as well as the reliability. We know that each child that comes through our doors is receiving top-notch service, that they are not going to fall through the gaps and that they’re going to have much better long-term outcomes because they’ve come to us.

Again, we’re here to ask how we move forward. What our funding structure has been is that the federal government, through the Department of Justice, has provided seed funding for the centres. Most of our funding ended in March of this year.

Because of the state of the world, they did extend our contracts for two further years, but in conversations with the feds, they are not interested in continuing to fund us operationally. They want to continue with the start-up. They want to continue to develop centres across the country. But they want to move to project funding for the operational centres. So what we’re looking for, really, is for the province to help us with that operational cost.

We’ve spoken to several of the B.C. ministers. We know that there is really good support for our service. We know that they see it as we do: as a best practice for children in our communities. That’s why we’ve continued to get the CFO funding, which has been great.

We’re in this place where our model is at risk. We know that that federal funding is going to come to an end. We don’t have that commitment from the province in funding our operations. Without that foundation, it’s really difficult for us to continue to develop our service and ensure that we are providing that best practice for the kids that come to us with allegations of abuse and sexual assault.

More than answering questions, I’m really hoping, today, that you can give us some sense of how we can move forward. We feel that we’re really at a critical phase. We have one more year where we know we have funding from the feds. After that, we have zero assurances. That’s why we’re here today. And it’s only a small question for early in the morning, I know.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Well, Brooke, you’ve turned the tables on us. Let’s hope that we can live up to the challenge.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much, Brooke, for your presentation.

How many centres like yours exist across the province currently?

[9:55 a.m.]

B. McLardy: We have eight operational centres serving 16 communities. One of the centres is in the West Koot­enay–Boundary area, and they serve eight communities themselves. Then we have them spread across the province in other areas as well.

G. Kyllo: What is the current expenditure to actually maintain these existing offices? You’ve indicated that they feds are looking at, potentially, additional funding or on­going funding for creating additional services. What would be the financial cost to actually continue the operations that already exist?

B. McLardy: Right now with our existing centres, our estimate is about $2 million a year. That is solely to co­ordinate the service and for our facilities. That’s across the province for what we have right now. Because policing, victim services and everything already exist in communities, we’re bringing those services in. There’s no additional cost to provide those. They’re already funded. What we’re looking to do is to coordinate those services so that kids are getting this nice, collaborative response.

G. Kyllo: Right. You’d also indicated that you are accessing some funding from the civil forfeiture, but that’s not guaranteed. Are you receiving that $2 million a year annually?

B. McLardy: No. We’re not at that point yet, no.

G. Kyllo: Okay. So the shortfall is currently being cov­ered by the feds, but that funding is….

B. McLardy: The feds and fundraising, yeah.

G. Kyllo: And fundraising. What percentage of your operating budget would be covered through fundraising?

B. McLardy: It’ll be really different depending on the centre. We have a few different models, but I’d say anywhere from 20 to 40 percent, depending on the centre.

J. Brar: Thank you, Brooke, for your services to our children and youth.

I would like to know how long you have been in operation. Also, I would like to know if there are any requests for proposals, by the ministry, to a program like yours, or if there is nothing at this point in time.

B. McLardy: Some of our centres have been in operation as long as ten years. Others are developing as we go. Most are in the five to six years of operations at this point in time.

When you mean a proposal to the provincial government…. Yes, we’ve been working with the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. We’re also working on a social return on investment study that we’ll be submitting to them. But yeah, they do have our proposal in their hands.

J. Brar: Have you spoken to the Minister of Children and Families?

B. McLardy: Yes.

J. Brar: You have. To the best of my understanding, your program lies within that ministry in the long run, in my view. My suggestion to you would be that you have a kind of letter of intent which defines what you’re saying and what you provide, with a clear dollar figure as to how much it is, and that you approach both the ministries. We as a committee, of course, can recommend this thing to the Minister of Finance, but that would be another route to follow.

B. McLardy: I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation.

I was wondering: have you put in, or will you be putting in, a written submission for this?

B. McLardy: Yes, we will.

M. Dykeman: Okay, great. Thank you so much. I think that’s always helpful when you’re looking for the Finance Committee to provide guidance. Absolutely, a written submission would be wonderful.

B. McLardy: We’ll have that in today.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll ask a question. I’m sorry if it sounds like a loaded question.

This whole issue of operational funding for the work that you do — I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about what that means. What kind of message is the government giving when there are things that are funded on an ongoing basis and the core funding is predictable? What kind of message does it give when there are services that must keep going back and asking for more funding?

B. McLardy: I’m not sure I’m clear on the question.

J. Routledge (Chair): I know, it’s kind of…. Does it tell you anything about the message we’re giving you about how important your work is?

B. McLardy: Yes, of course it does. Thank you for the question. It’s a really difficult thing to come here year after year and ask for this. We feel this is a critical service that should be available to every child in B.C.

[10:00 a.m.]

At this point in time, they’re community-led initiatives. We really want to be able to expand to ensure that we’re across every region of our province, but we’re unable to do that without funding the centres that we have. Our network is unable to support that work until we know that everybody is going to be able to come along equally with us.

Yes. Thank you for the question.

J. Routledge (Chair): Anything else? Maybe on that note, then, I will wrap up this part of the presentation.

Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you so much for the very novel approach that you took. You got me thinking about times in my life when I’ve been involved in non-profits that did not have core funding. Of course, we thought these were vital services. They were vital services. Then it got me thinking about all of the staff time and board time that went into, year after year, making our case, over and over again. I think, in some cases, it was 40 percent of our time to justify our existence.

You talk about the work that you do for children and youth. You don’t really have 40 percent of your time to…. They don’t have 40 percent of your time.

B. McLardy: We could do much better. So thank you very much.

Thank you to you all.

J. Routledge (Chair): We get a recess now. We will re­cess until 10:25.

The committee recessed from 10:01 a.m. to 10:24 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Staci Coo­per, Speech and Hearing B.C.

Staci, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We will keep track of the time. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds left so you can start moving towards wrapping it up, followed immediately by five minutes of questions that you can answer. So over to you.

SPEECH AND HEARING B.C.

S. Cooper: Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. My name is Staci Cooper. I’m the president of Speech and Hearing B.C., and I’m a registered speech-language pathologist working here in Kelowna.

[10:25 a.m.]

Speech and Hearing B.C. is a not-for-profit professional association of over 1,200 speech-language pathologists and audiologists in B.C. Our association works to represent all British Columbians and ensure that they have timely access to adequate care for their communication health.

The key to effective support and treatment is access to care for everyone. There’s an ongoing lack of adequate support in four key areas that’s contributing to lower communication health outcomes. I’d like to outline how our current provincial health funding is not meeting the needs of British Columbians and what actions this committee could recommend to address them.

The first area is early childhood intervention. A conservative estimate indicates that at least one in ten preschoolers needs to see a speech-language pathologist for support in developing age-appropriate communication skills. The development of speech and language is linked to cognitive development, social skills, academic learning and self-regulation, which really are truly the building blocks of overall development.

The recommended caseload for one full-time-equiva­lent SLP is 25 to 40 children. However, our B.C. SLPs have, consistently, caseloads of 80 or more children, which creates long wait-lists, which are growing with COVID since many programs have been reduced or closed altogether. Some children are going to miss the critical early intervention years and not begin to receive services until they enter kindergarten.

To reach the recommended caseload sizes, B.C. would require over 550 full-time SLPs to address the estimated need, which is significantly more than the current 165 that are funded. The government should take steps to address the lack of adequate communication health services for children in our province by immediately adding an additional 175 FTE SLPs to early intervention.

Next to address is our school-age population. Research indicates that about two students in every classroom will experience a language disorder that’s severe enough to negatively impact their academic success. Currently there are not enough SLPs in B.C. schools to meet the needs of the many students. Additionally, there’s an extremely large discrepancy in the ratio of SLPs and student population, with rural and remote and vulnerable communities being some of the most under-resourced communities, with one SLP to up to 3,000 students.

Undertreated or untreated speech-language disorders have negative outcomes for children, such as academic failure, reading difficulties, mental health problems and behavioural challenges. Without adequate funding, many cases go undetected, which is detrimental for many vulnerable populations.

The government is being asked to urgently revisit and revise how school-based speech-language pathologists are funded in our province and to consider implementing an adequate ratio of one FTE per 600 students.

Next we have hearing aid funding. We know that more than 10 percent of British Columbians experience some form of hearing loss and less than 25 percent seek assistance, largely due to the prohibitive barriers such as cost. The prevalence of hearing loss increases for those aged 65, which really aligns with when most people are going onto a fixed-pension income. Left untreated, hearing loss can lead to feelings of social isolation and depression and can place persons at risk for greater mental, cognitive and physical health issues.

Currently British Columbia is one of the few provinces in Canada with no comprehensive hearing aid funding. Hearing aids are not covered under MSP, and a recent CBC News investigation found that B.C. residents pay more out of pocket for hearing aids than the residents of nearly every other province. The government should ease the financial burden for individuals by developing a framework for funding support for hearing aids and assistive listening devices, with a particular focus on those in a lower-income bracket.

Finally, long-term-care services for SLPs. According to recent statistics from Speech-Language and Audiology Canada, British Columbians suffer from the second-lowest number of speech-language pathologists per capita of all the provinces in Canada. The lack of adequate SLP services in the province is contributing to a significant gap in services for those in long-term care.

SLPs in this province are vital to evaluating and treating individuals for speech-language and swallowing disorders. These disorders are often a result of strokes, degenerative disease like Parkinson’s, dementia, ALS and multiple sclerosis, as well as traumatic brain injury, just to name a few. Those with significant impairments often reside in long-term-care facilities, which rarely have access to SLP services in B.C. Unfortunately, the current MSP does not cover rehabilitation services, and this leads to many individuals who have communication or swallowing disorders having few options or treatments for care.

The government should aim to bring British Columbia up to the national average of practising speech-language pathologists per capita to ensure that people with communication or swallowing difficulties have access to critically needed services. In order to do this, 200 new publicly funded speech-language pathology positions must be added to the health care system. This would include serving adults in the community and long-term-care facilities. As well, review the MSP framework to include rehabilitation services.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to share about what the government can do to improve communication health outcomes for all British Columbians.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Staci.

I’ll now invite the committee to ask questions.

[10:30 a.m.]

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Staci. That was a whirlwind of numbers, to say the least.

I kind of concentrated, at the beginning, on the early childhood interventions that you had that was there and the large caseloads that you talked about. I think the numbers were that you need 550 but you have 165, and you wanted to add a certain number that was there. If you could just reconfirm what the number was. More importantly, are there actual bodies in the system today to be able to recruit and serve?

S. Cooper: That is part of the challenge we face. You’re right. If we were to look at the prevalence of early intervention needs, we would need 550 SLPs doing early intervention to have the recommended caseload size of 40. We currently have 165. We recommend 175. Granted, that’s not going to total up to 550, but it is based on recognizing that there are not enough speech pathologists to actually bring us up to the 550 at this time.

I think that if we, magically, tomorrow were able to put 175 SLP positions into the system, it would take time to recruit and fill. But what I…. Actually, I just had a student mentorship last night with a brand-new grad, and she was saying all of her classmates have gone into private practice because there are no publicly funded positions available for them. So I do believe that we have bodies, but I think it would be something where we’d also have to work in coordination with the programs that exist in Canada to create more spaces.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions for Staci?

G. Kyllo: I guess I might ask: with the unfunded positions, what do parents do? What is happening? Are these kids just not getting diagnosed at all and then having other learning disabilities or behavioral challenges that carry on? What do parents do? Are parents actually taking their children and paying for it privately?

S. Cooper: Those that can afford to do so do seek out private practice. There’s quite a large, growing private practice of speech pathologists in B.C. Most extended health benefits cover about $500 a year, with the average price in the Lower Mainland being about $170 an hour to see a speech pathologist. So you can see that extended health is not going very far.

Then those who are accessing private practice are those who can afford to do so. And those who really need the services are those who are the most vulnerable and can’t afford those private services. So I think most parents are either relying on the public systems — waiting for a very long time — or going without altogether.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Staci, I think you covered a lot in your presentation, hence why there are not a lot of questions. We need to just absorb the numbers and the details and the consequences of what you’ve presented so that we can get a handle on it and figure out how best to incorporate it into our report.

As you were speaking, I was thinking about families I know and children I know, some who are at an age where they still are at a point where they could get the help if it was there, and others I know who I think: “Okay. They didn’t get the help when they needed it, and it’s now led to other problems for them.” So thank you so much for your presentation and for the work that you do.

S. Cooper: Again, thank you for the opportunity to present.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Miles Pro­dan, Wine Growers B.C.

WINE GROWERS B.C.

M. Prodan: Good morning, everyone. I am Miles Pro­dan. I’m president and CEO of Wine Growers British Columbia, formerly known as the B.C. Wine Institute. It’s my pleasure to present today to the committee. So thank you for the opportunity.

Those who are familiar with our industry — and, hopefully, our product — will know that it is the highest value-added ag product that’s produced in this province. Consequently, it’s about $1.7 billion of economic impact. It employs over 8,600 people throughout the entire system. That’s not just winemakers. They’re the people that grow the grapes, process the grapes and support the industry.

[10:35 a.m.]

We’re here today to let you know that our industry has been impacted by COVID, like so many others. Fortunately, the support we got from B.C. residents remained. We were able to maintain the level of sales. Unfortunately, the profit that came from those sales wasn’t the same.

What we switched to, with the closure of restaurants, was winery-direct. Many wineries have got the direct relationship with the public and, as a consequence, were able to fulfil orders that came from the public. However, in order to encourage that, we underwrote a lot of the shipping costs for that. You’d notice a lot of free shipping, and that shipping cost is not insignificant. In fact, it’s probably the basis of profit. So while the volume of litres sold looks like it remained the same, the profit to the wineries is not.

We’ve been affected, of course, by tourism and the re­duction in restrictions in that. An interesting consequence of that, with the restriction of people that could come into the winery, and the limits of that, was sort of a quantity-quality thing. We noticed that the quantity of people was down, but those that were coming were spending more time. Wineries shifted over to a reservation system, where, instead of having people come up to the tasting room and get a glass or a sample and wander away, the invitation exercise allowed people to spend more time. Those people were purchasing more wine.

I guess what that is telling us is a number of things — the importance of tourism, No. 1. I’m here today to let you know that two years ago our association, in conjunction with a number of related industry groups — Wine Growers British Columbia and the Wine Grape Council — developed Wine B.C. 2030, a long-term strategic plan that looked to identify the way to put another 4,500 jobs into our system and generate another $120 million in revenue to government.

Today, specifically for this group, I am here to talk about how to not ask for money but how you can access more money. That particularly is two things. One is an increase in the minimum price. It’s been over 20 years since this province has looked at the minimum price of alcohol. It lags behind every other province across this country.

The impact of that is cheap import wines. That’s who we compete against here. B.C. wine is arguably the best wine, value-wise, but it is not the most inexpensive, and that’s for a number of input reasons and the reasons of just what we have to deal with. Notwithstanding some of the support that other countries get.

To that level, another aspect we see of an opportunity is imposing a carbon tax on wines from those countries that don’t have that sort of regime. Our growers pay the carbon tax here in the province. They are happy to do so, and they do that. But not all import wines come from countries where that’s done. So we think there’s a legitimate opportunity within trade agreements to allow that to happen.

From that, not asking for specific money, what we are looking for is just an allocation of funds that currently exist, specifically with Destination B.C. They are huge supporters of tourism in this province. They are supporters of the wine industry, but we’re not seen at the same level as, say, the ski or golf industries. We don’t get that same kind of funding. That’s an aspect of where we think there’s an opportunity for us to have increased those valuable visitations to the winery that really make the profit and the margins for the wineries.

That’s what I have to say. Questions?

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much for your presentation.

Has the industry actually undertaken any studies to determine what the average spend is for tourists that are coming up the area to visit wineries and go on wine tours?

M. Prodan: That’s a good question.

Tourism is notoriously difficult to measure. Traditionally it’s done with hotel stays and visits, because you know you can count on people having stayed there. We’ve done some quantitative research on that, but really it’s what’s happening through people at the winery. Are they over­night? Are they coming from out of town? Are they coming from out of province? Are they staying with friends and family? Where do they appear? The best way that we can measure that is with receipts at the winery and where they’re coming from.

[10:40 a.m.]

G. Kyllo: I’ve found that data helps to drive decisions. I know that even though….

My wife and I have gone on a few wine tours. The hotel accommodation and meals part was the smaller part of the expenditure. The bigger part was the amount of wine that we actually took home with us. It would probably be a really interesting statistic to try and get a handle on, to help make that case with TOTA and the different tourism associations around B.C.

J. Brar: Thank you, Miles, for your very clear, brief and easy-to-understand written submission to us. There’s one small typo on that one, to the best of my knowledge. You wrote, at the very beginning of the summary: “832 British Columbians work….” I think it’s 8,320.

M. Prodan: Yeah. Thank you.

J. Brar: Okay. You’re probably the first presenter I’ve seen that was thinking about more revenue to us. That’s a good thing as well — to create a program that can generate more revenue.

You’re recommending an increase in minimum price. Is there any dollar figure you’re going to attach to that?

M. Prodan: I should be clear. There is a minimum price. But it has not been adjusted for inflation, nor has it been adjusted…. It hasn’t been touched in 20 years, and 2000 was the last time it was taken a look at. We’re suggesting that it be done on an alcohol….

There are two ways of doing it. One is a standard drink size. The spirits people will suggest that a glass of beer and a glass of wine and a glass of whiskey are all the same. We argue that’s not the case, because it should be done on the amount of alcohol. So based on that, for a 750-millilitre bottle, which is your classic bottle of wine, we think it should be at a retail price of about $7.50.

We are making a submission. The LCRB is looking at that now. Our only concern is they’re looking at a retail price increase, and very important to the manufacturers and wineries is that a wholesale price also be looked at. Otherwise, if there was a minimum price increase in the retail price, that will only affect retailers. By the way, BCLDB and B.C. Liquor Stores are big retailers.

We’re cautious that when government looks at that as a way of raising revenue, they don’t forget that we, on the manufacturing side, need to have the equivalent adjustment to the wholesale price.

J. Brar: My second question will be about the wine grape replant program. Is there any dollar figure attached to that one?

M. Prodan: There’s not. We put that there because our growers asked us to do that. We are aware that there is a number of programs in place already in soft fruit and apple and understand that the Agriculture Ministry is taking a look at that, so we ask that that be considered.

I think, more importantly overall, in addition to or as opposed to a replant program, there’d be some sort of support for sustainability. We’ve got a very advanced program for sustainable wine-growing here in the province. We know consumers are looking for that, so some help in having growers switch over or become more sustainable or sustainably certified would be important as well.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Miles, as well.

Can you just tell me: what is it that you feel Destination B.C. can actually do? You’ve pointed it out, but I’m wondering what the actual ask is.

M. Prodan: It’s to consider wine and culinary tourism. We’ve developed a program and worked with Destination B.C. over the prior three years. It’s been on hold since COVID. Really, it’s that we be funded as a key or a core leg of Tourism B.C. Tourism B.C. divides up their activities into their main cores: golf; ski, of course; and then all other sectors are lumped together into a sort of sector bucket, if you will, in which we reside.

We believe that we’ve got the resources to help support and co-fund and do the matching dollars if we were taken a look at, at the same level as, say, ski, in this province.

J. Routledge (Chair): Lorne. And that will be the last question.

[10:45 a.m.]

L. Doerkson: My question is about, potentially, the carbon tax and such that you suggested imposing on import wines. Now, I understand that there are minimum fees, etc., or minimum prices, but what does it look like? I mean, it doesn’t seem like the playing field is exactly level there. What does it look like for an import wine coming into this province? Are there any fees or charges levied against them?

M. Prodan: Currently? Certainly there are, for sure. The LDB, Liquor Distribution Branch, is the first receipt of im­port wines, so there are markups and the rest of it that they get.

The problem is on the cost side of things. There are other countries and regions and areas around the world that are heavily subsidized by government and that produce tremendous amounts of wine. They look for opportunities to unload it, quite frankly.

Canada is seen as one of the rising markets around the world. Our wine consumption is steadily increasing. It’s not that there’s more wine being…. There’s more wine being consumed, but there’s less…. It varies all the time between what alcohol is available, but Canada’s growth in wine is huge. So these export markets target Canada and B.C., in particular. They come in heavily subsidized.

One of the things that our industry contributes to is the carbon tax. We think it would only be fair that those import wines that don’t have that already at home have that applied to them, just making that playing field that much more equal.

Similarly, with the minimum price, just to be clear…. You can dump a lot of cheap wine into the market. Other provinces around this country have been really careful to make sure that that not only is increased regularly but is actually tied to the inflation index. So it goes up every year.

I should quickly point out, as well, that the input costs for our industry have not stopped by any stretch. I mean, the cost of land, as you well know, just being residents in this province…. The price of land, let alone agricultural land, input costs, labour costs…. The minimum wage has increased and hit our industry as well.

That increase in minimum price would be a benefit for everyone, not including social responsibility and health advocates who think similarly to us.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Miles, we are over time. I know that this is a topic that we all like to engage in.

I want to thank you for your time. Thank you for your very clear, concise recommendations. As you were speaking, I was reflecting on wine tours that I’d been on. They’re memorable, and they’re great adventures. I look forward to more wine tours right here in British Columbia.

M. Prodan: Excellent. Well, you’re welcome any time.

I would be remiss not to point out and remind everybody that it’s not just the Okanagan that has got wineries. They’re literally throughout this province. Each of them has got a fabulous product. Hopefully, you’ll continue, if you’re not already, enjoying them.

Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Richard Lamoureux.

RICHARD LAMOUREUX

R. Lamoureux: I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to come and speak. My name is Richard Lamoureux, and I’ve been associated with Kelowna Gospel Mission for about 15 years as a volunteer barber and also as a board member, although I’m not currently a board member.

I do have an interest in the homeless population. I my­self used to travel throughout the province, so I’ve spent a bit of time in Victoria and Vancouver and certainly here in Kelowna. During that time, I kind of came to the conclusion that the only people that can really afford to live in those locations either tend to be the wealthy or the very poor.

The cost of homelessness, I’m sure the committee is aware, is quite huge. I was reading a story on CTV where they were saying that the average cost for housing for a homeless person utilizing shelters and services is about $56,000 per year. That’s a significant amount.

[10:50 a.m.]

They also talked about one individual. Her name was Sue. She’d spent about 63 days in the hospital, another 196 days in a shelter. There were about 340 interactions with the police department. The result of that, in her particular case, was about $170,000.

I like the previous presenter’s talk about saving money for the province. Certainly, doing something about the homeless situation pays huge dividends in the bottom line, especially when you’re looking at housing, the strain on the health care system, the cost of vandalism, boredom, insurance costs, violence, suicides and overdoses.

The concept I came up with was to have a community developed, a gated community where you would have a community centre surrounded by 400-square-foot houses. I have a contact who’s with Lake Country Modular Homes, and we talked about the possibility of doing a prefab home that could be developed and be put on the site, basically utilizing slab construction, which would be the most cost-effective way of building small homes. The reason I went with small homes is a smaller greenhouse footprint, so that it’s environmentally friendly, and building it around a community centre of 2,500 to 3,000 square feet, where you encourage community interaction.

The other thing is — I’m a pickleball player; I don’t know if anybody else here is — having pickleball courts next to that community centre, where you encourage interaction with members of the community. Another thing I was thinking about is that the community centre would have a commercial kitchen where you could have joint meals for those people who maybe lack the resources to be able to afford the groceries in the same way. It would also have facilities available where they could have classes and community support.

Another thing that I think is important is to have that interaction with members where they can actually guide, to a certain extent, what their community looks like. If you have a supportive environment, your chance of success is going to be much greater.

I met with Carmen Rempel, who’s the executive director of Kelowna Gospel Mission, and I talked about who would be the potential residents for such a development. One of the things she talked about is that there are a large number of seniors now who are being put in the situation of being homeless. Those people are particularly vulnerable on the streets because they don’t have the same ability to defend themselves. Also, they tend to be a much more stable population, so your chance of having a successful cooperative housing environment would be much greater.

Later, if you ask me some questions, I can talk a little bit about some of the people in the community who are available to provide support and who would help encourage and make such a development successful. I think there’s a huge opportunity. I believe the province and the country as a whole are starting to look more closely at the homeless problem. It’s huge. There’s certainly an opportunity where the province, through budgets, could make a huge difference. The tiny town community, I’d like to hope, becomes a big helper in solving some of the issues.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Richard. I’m sure committee members have lots of questions to dig in deeper about your proposal.

J. Brar: Thank you, Richard, for your presentation and also your written submission, which is very simple and easy to understand. You did it, probably, single-handedly. There’s nobody else involved in this, so I really appreciate your commitment to deal with this issue.

The issue of homelessness is very close to my heart. To be very frank, irrespective of which party is in power, it’s hard for me to believe that we actually have homelessness in this province or in this country, one of the richest countries in the universe.

[10:55 a.m.]

Having said that, we did make a very ambitious promise to build 114,000 of affordable housing when we came to power. You are talking specifically about the homeless population, and you’re giving a very unique kind of proposal to us. We did build some modular homes, but this is a different concept you’re proposing here.

I would just say one thing, and if you know, that would actually be a good start. We have a program called HousingHub, where a non-profit, or even a church, can come forward with a concept like this. That project can be funded or negotiated with the province, with the Ministry of Housing. Are you aware of that program? If you are, that would be great. If you’re not, we can certainly provide you information about that.

R. Lamoureux: I’m not aware of that specific program.

A couple of things. There are a number of people here in the community that would support such a program. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Lovegrove, who is at UBC in the engineering department. They’ve been doing a lot of research on co-housing, and they have basically expressed that if there were some interest on behalf of the province, they would dedicate resources to helping determine costs, certainly in a lot more detail than what I can present here today.

Another person is Henry Bereznicki, who helped develop McKinley Beach. He would be a good resource person. Kelowna Gospel Mission would be a great resource in terms of knowing which people would have the greatest success of being able to move into that arena.

One of the others they suggested is people who are ag­ing out of the foster care system. About 65 percent of those people are going to end up in a shelter at some point. With the seniors population I was taking about and that population that’s aging out of the foster care system, it would be very good synergy to have them come together, because they would be able to support each other. There’s lots of opportunity.

Certainly, another thing is land. Mark Miller, a fellow here in Kelowna, has about nine acres of land on Gordon. It’s in the ALR at the moment, but potentially, that location could be a good source of land. They have nine acres. This proposal wouldn’t require nine acres, but five to six acres could work very effectively. That’s a very good area, close to services.

J. Brar: I would suggest to you that you should look at the program HousingHub, under the Ministry of Housing. You seem to have all the ingredients in place, and that may work for you, particularly your needs here. I don’t know whether you will be successful — to accept the funding — but that is one program that’s already available right now and that could be approached for the proposal you’re making to us.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we are quickly running out of time. On behalf of the committee, Richard, I’d really like to thank you for taking the time to come and present to us and to propose a novel solution to what is a problem that continues to plague and undermine our society.

In saying “novel,” as you were describing what the community could look like, I was thinking about…. Well, my parents lived in a tiny home — in a community of tiny homes that was gated — after retirement, as did my aunt and uncle in a different part of the country. We seem to have gotten away from that kind of transitioning. I think it’s something we should be exploring.

R. Lamoureux: I think that if we’re looking at a for-profit solution, it’s probably not going to happen, because there’s not enough money in it.

Certainly, from the government standpoint, if the government got excited about it, the cost that it would save you…. I think I read somewhere that it was about $17,000 per year if somebody is in a community environment, versus the $56,000 that a person on the street is costing the government. So I would hope that there would be a strong will to come up with some form of a solution.

Thank you very much for your time.

[11:00 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Ian Graham, Okanagan Similkameen Parks Society.

Ian, you have five minutes. We will be timing it. When you’ve got 30 seconds left, we’ll signal so you know it’s time to wrap up. Then we’ll ask you questions.

OKANAGAN SIMILKAMEEN PARKS SOCIETY

I. Graham: Sounds good. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Ian Graham. I am currently the chair of a 53-year-old registered B.C. society known as the Okanagan Similkameen Parks Society.

This society began with the intent of saving the Vaseux Lake sheep herd and in the years since has been involved with park and trail acquisition all throughout the Oka­nagan. We have been involved in such enterprises as the Okanagan Lake Park, Cathedral Lake park, Hudson’s Bay Brigade Trail, etc.

Why I’m coming before you today is basically for a re­quest and, I guess, I would call it a warning. It’s multi-pronged in that we are asking that the British Columbia government wisely allocate resources towards the points that I’m going to make underneath this.

The warning is quite simple. If these areas are not acted upon very shortly, possibly along with the rest of our prov­ince, we will be falling into basically even more dire and extreme climate changes in this area. I’m talking about fires, floods, water shortages, heat waves, etc., that accompany the coming changes.

This past spring and summer I was fortunate enough to read three books authored by experienced female scientists. The three scientists — Suzanne Simard, Alexandra Morton and Robin Wall Kimmerer — all had something besides being scientists and being mothers in common. It is not their nationality, because two of them are American and one was Canadian — British Columbian, in fact. Two of them live in B.C. now. One lives in the eastern United States. No. It was their occupation or area of study. Two work as tenured academics in forestry and ecology, while one works as part of an NGO.

Basically, what it was, was the idea that they valued na­ture for nature’s value. It was not monetary. It wasn’t some sort of a social construct. There are things about nature in our world that we need to survive as people.

So here’s the crux. What does that mean to the OSPS? In a general sense, it means taking care of protected natural areas that we have, adding more when we can and registering what is allowable in such areas that are still undesignated.

For instance, parks. Adequately resource them. That could mean the maintenance of trees and fire protection; resources for wildlife protection; clear, well-maintained camps and picnic sites. That would include washrooms. Currently, here in the Okanagan, all through about seven months of the year, washrooms in our little parks are closed, whereas when people are asked to go out and take part in them, suddenly those facilities are not there.

Mitigation of changes due to the oncoming climate. That’s another place resources need to be planned for and put into.

Education programs. There was a time in this province when, if you went to a park or went to a protected area, the chances were you were going to also take in some sort of special presentation that evening at little clearings they had for that. That’s something that doesn’t occur, at least not up in this area, anymore.

Conservation. That needs to be job one. We need to take care of these places and add to them where we can. Possibly that fits in, again, with this idea of education — letting children and young people know what their job is going to be.

Additional resources for trails, sites and a variety of facilities. Signage is another big one. Those resources have to be made available.

Another area, of course, is the idea of security and en­forcement. Resources have to be there. We have to have our wardens out in the field.

[11:05 a.m.]

We have to have conversations about parks. We have to have these people that know something about it coming out and getting together with the rest of us.

Now, there’s a whole other area, of course, and that’s the Crown land, and that Crown land has to be looked at. There’s a whole other area in terms of what we have locally here, and if you ask questions about our local area, I can give you some input into what we currently, in the South Okanagan, are looking at.

We are one of the few groups that has not had our land resource management plan brought into focus. We’re still waiting for a number of promises that were made back in the nineties to be fulfilled. In most other areas in the province, that’s happened, and I can get into a bit more detail with you around that. I suspect it’s got something to do with the national park that they’re talking about building. We know there were certain people that were very opposed to that park. That may be, because they were ministers of cabinet — that it never got the attention for these other things in the LRMP that should have come about.

I’ll leave it at that. Thank you very much for letting me come in this morning.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Ian.

I’ll now ask members of the committee to ask questions.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Ian. You make some good points which we have heard in a number of other presentations about, I guess, the lack of support for resources in the park structure and stuff like that.

You touch on some of the things that…. I remember going out with my kids to different parks around the prov­ince, the interpretation guides, etc., and I think about the importance of that information. You touched on the land resource management plan. You said it’s incomplete in this area, in the southern part of…?

I. Graham: Yes. It’s basically the Okanagan Thompson land resource management plan. We have had some of it started to be moved towards protected areas and so forth. Just recently, our society sent a letter both to the minister and to the Premier reminding them. It was about a year ago now that I was in Osoyoos meeting with the minister, and at that time we brought it up again.

There are a number of pieces, Brent Mountain being one of them. If it isn’t protected before long, it’s going to be totally logged out from the other side. There are a couple of other areas that were promised. I’ve got a list of them here, actually. Shuttleworth Larch. Similkameen Cottonwood. Oliver Mountain, which some of you have probably heard about. They were looking at what they were going to be doing up there. Naramata Creek was another area. All of those need to be brought into, if not a protected area, if not a full park, at least some sort of protection.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): I just think that probably it would be a good idea if you could do a written submission. The deadline is tomorrow at 5 p.m. Include the names of those just so we’ve got some scope of the size of what you’re talking about. That would be helpful.

I. Graham: Okay.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much for your presentation.

As we see the continual harvest of logs around the prov­ince, it’s putting more pressure…. As, I guess, the logging continues to take over large swaths of British Columbia, we’re seeing more and more pressure coming closer to communities.

One of the challenges that I’ve seen just locally in the Shuswap riding is that when a lot of the logging plans are put together, they do take into consideration existing trail networks, and they have a requirement to stay back from existing trails. Unfortunately, those are only the registered trails, and we’ve seen different areas where there are trail networks that are extensively used but have never been actually mapped out and registered. Clearcuts have actually gone right across areas, and that’s where we’re seeing a lot of push-back from communities.

I think there’s a lack of understanding. Just because there’s a trail there doesn’t necessarily mean it’s registered, and the forest companies aren’t even necessarily aware that they’re there.

I. Graham: No. But on the other side of that, the other one that’s probably even more important than human-made trails are the migration corridors for wildlife. There used to be migration all up and down this valley. Now it’s being cut off by cutblocks and so forth. One of the things around Penticton — I’m from Summerland — is that they are now finding there are deer everywhere. They’re like a domestic animal in Penticton.

[11:10 a.m.]

Well, guess what happens when you have deer. Now suddenly the predators are starting to follow them down, and they’re starting to see predators right in around Penticton as well now. The reason for that is it’s all being pushed by the logging from up on the 202.

Those are some areas that we need to look at. But groups can’t do it themselves. They’ve got to have resources. The resources have got to come through, whether you call it the Ministry of Environment…. Right now it all seems to stem from forestry, and that seems to be running the show. We need to get back to understanding that nature has a value in and of itself, not how much per board foot, etc.

If you look at forestry and what it actually brings in, in jobs and so forth, I think you would be shocked to see how small a percentage it actually brings in.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Ian, we are out of time. I want to thank you for your very powerful presentation.

As you were listing your asks, it was occurring to me that a lot of what you were talking about did exist at one time. It’s not insignificant that in a lot of what you were describing, you used the words: “We need to be reminded.” You are certainly activating my memories of what it was like to hike and camp in parks and outside of urban areas. Thank you for that.

I. Graham: Well, I would admonish you for one last thing, and that is, if you get a chance, read those books I talked about. Okay? Suzanne Simard writes wonderfully on forestry. Robin Wall Kimmerer does a great job just on the general outdoors. Of course, Alexandra Morton I probably don’t need to tell you about. We wouldn’t have some of the wild fish today if it wasn’t for her and her colleagues. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Ian.

Our next presenter is Donegal Wilson, B.C. Snowmo­bile Federation.

B.C. SNOWMOBILE FEDERATION

D. Wilson: I feel like that kind of almost led into my presentation very well. He did a great job. I’m from Keremeos and use Cathedral Park very regularly.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Donegal Wilson. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Snowmobile Federation.

I’m going to start with, today…. This is my first presentation to the Finance Committee, and I have a very strong view on some of the things brought forward by Mr. Kyllo around recreation trails and their protection. I’m not here today to speak of that. I’m just focused on finance today, but I would love to talk more about that.

I’ve circulated a written submission already about our asks. The first is to increase the operational budget of Re­creation Sites and Trails to $20 million each year. The second is to establish a recreation infrastructure fund with an annual investment of $5 million.

A little bit about our sector. We’re not a small, unorganized sector. The B.C. Snowmobile Federation itself is a 56-year-old organization. Many of our clubs are older than us. We currently represent 61 snowmobile clubs, 8,500 members and 43,000 snowmobilers in B.C.

According to our economic impact currently, in 2018, it was $299 million to the economy of B.C. That’s in rural communities in the winter months. We employ 4,272 peo­ple each year, and we also represent almost $22 million in tax revenue to the various levels of government. We have entire towns in the winter that depend on our clubs opening for business.

The reality is what’s unique about our business is that our clubs are all non-profit associations run by community volunteers in local communities across B.C. I would hazard a guess that we are one of the first and still one of the few organizations that have implemented a user-pay fee structure, so our snowmobile people that use the trails are paying to use the trails. That allows us to be financially secure, our trails sustainable, and we’re able to continually invest in growing our sport across B.C.

[11:15 a.m.]

We look forward to continuing to partner with Destination B.C. in opportunities to make snowmobiling in B.C. the number one in the world. It already is. We just need to let people know.

The infrastructure that we build is built on Crown land through our partnership with Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. So I’m not here today asking for money for my clubs. We’re pretty much sustainable. Obviously, we could use more. But I’m here looking for our partner, Recreation Sites and Trails, to be able to grow with us. Currently we need a partner within government that wants to help us to grow the snowmobile sector in a way that aligns with our values as an organization.

While I believe that RSTBC was designed to be that partner, the reality today is they do not have the capacity to lead, and therefore, continually manage down. I don’t know if that is a term used within government, but it is used within our sector. What that means is the government is not…. Due to low staffing levels and stagnant budgets, they’re constantly looking for ways to reduce workload, download responsibility on organizations and create roadblocks to growth, because they can’t manage their portfolio.

RSTBC is currently managing 2,588 sites or established trails and over 900 unestablished trails, which is what Mr. Kyllo referred to — those trails that are there but not necessarily registered. They have 51 permanent staff to do that across B.C.

We talked a little bit earlier about B.C. Parks. Recreation Sites and Trails is managing all those forestry campgrounds, all those snowmobile trails, all those mountain-bike parks, all of the ATV, dirt-bike tracks — all of that. Anything that isn’t happening within a park is being managed by Recreation Sites and Trails. That’s 80 percent of the province on Crown land being managed by Recreation Sites and Trails. Currently their budget is one-third of the operational budget of B.C. Parks. So they’re responsible for 80 percent of the land with basically a third of the budget.

Sorry, I got off my topics.

Basically, we’re asking you to bring our partner up to a level that is ready to grow with us. Our idea of the infrastructure fund is to create a 33-cent dollar from the province of British Columbia that we can use to leverage with the federal government through programs like the National Trails Coalition that used to exist, as a 33-cent dollar, and then the recreation groups to bring in the other 33 cents. That would effectively make a $15 million investment each year in recreation infrastructure outside of Parks, with only one-third being by our government.

The other big piece of infrastructure that the province is responsible for is the rail trails in B.C. It’s a national asset that’s been provided to the province of B.C. for the communities along it to benefit and the people that recreate on it. Right now the trail is deteriorating at a rapid rate. We’re seeing that a lack of policy and decision-making on the trail is resulting in a broken-up user experience.

Our clubs are in a position where we don’t know whether to spend $200,000 replacing a trestle when we don’t know whether we will have access to it next year or how many other trestles in that line need to be replaced. There needs to be a master plan for rail trails, and that infrastructure fund could help fund that. Our clubs would fundraise $200,000 for a new trestle if we knew that we needed to do another one in five years, not next year.

We’re asking you to make Rec Sites and Trails ready to grow with us. Right now, we’ve had to basically hold back to stay with our partner. We want to move forward and grow snowmobiling in B.C.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much.

I’ll now ask members of the committee to ask you some questions.

G. Kyllo: Donegal, it’s good to see you. Thank you very much for your presentation.

I can certainly attest, being a snowmobiler myself, the impact that it’s had on communities — like Sicamous, for example. It certainly brings a lot of dollars to a community that otherwise is pretty stagnant over the winter months.

It was interesting. You mentioned the amount of taxation revenue that goes back to government. I know that some of the new snowmobiles are in the $16,000 range, and there’s provincial sales tax that’s charged on all of those. So it’s a significant amount of money, let alone the amount of dollars it brings in.

I know in the Sicamous, or the Shuswap, region specifically, the number of tourists that are coming from out of province…. So this is not just people within British Columbia necessarily even recreating. It’s basically similar to an export. We’re bringing outside dollars into the community that’s having a significant impact.

Thank you for the work you’re doing. I would agree that RSTBC certainly could use a funding lift.

D. Wilson: Yes, for sure. They need some — a lot more in the policy development side of their jobs and being able to do the capacity on the ground.

[11:20 a.m.]

The ORV Act came in, I think, in 2018. Since that time, every time a snowmobile is re-registered, provincial sales tax is paid again, similar to when you do a car. So every time a snowmobile changes hands, there is provincial sales tax that changes hands as well.

I can tell you that most snowmobilers upgrade every two years, and most sleds are in the $22,000 to $24,000 range now. They’re rapidly increasing in value.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Donegal.

I do want to ask you about the rail trails that you mentioned. I know that that was a significant accomplishment when it was set up and struck. But we do see infrastructure…. I know that there was recently a bridge that was shut down near Tulameen that was one of the bridges that was designated as not being safe.

I guess, really, have you got any idea as to what type of capital is needed to keep up with what’s there? Is there a number? I know that the partnerships are really important. But from a government point of view, I think that it’s done, and they’re not coming back to look at the infrastructure.

When we lost the Kettle Valley trestles here, they were rebuilt, and it’s become a huge economic driver in tourism here, way more than it was prior to the fires. But anyways, I know how much this means — the Trans Canada Trail and things like that.

D. Wilson: I think…. I don’t know the number. I would challenge that Rec Sites and Trails doesn’t know the number either. That is one of the problems — that they don’t have the capacity to make a master plan for the rail trail. That is resulting in land use decisions made locally, in communities like Princeton and Grand Forks, that are changing the designation and who can use the trails, whe­ther it’s non-motorized or motorized.

It is motorized through the section through Tula­meen. We’ve been working closely with Rec Sites and Trails on replacing that one bridge. But as a recreation group, it was a complete surprise when that trestle came out. There was no heads-up that this was coming.

There is some rumbling that the main trestle from Tulameen township, right across the lake — there’s one trestle at the end of the lake there — is coming due. That’s the $200,000 I’m referring to. That bridge is going to be a $200,000 replacement. As an organization, I’m not going to send my clubs out fundraising for $200,000 when there’s no master plan to allow snowmobiling on that trail long term.

There needs to be a master plan created for the trail in order to make a tourism product. The reality is that nobody has a tourism product right now, because the trail between…. Five kilometres in Princeton has been taken out as non-motorized. Grand Forks has a section that’s non-motorized. Nelson has made a section in their area that’s non-motorized as well.

It creates user conflicts, because people go out expecting not to run into other motorized users. Motorized users are going out expecting to be allowed, and get to a certain place and are expected to just stop. There needs to be a master plan, whether the whole trail is designated one way or the other, or sections of the trail are marketed based on what they have.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Donegal, we’re out of time. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for your presentation. I, for one, really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. You gave us some insight into snowmobiling and what the challenges are.

I guess I also want to say…. I wrote down “managing down.” It is not a term I’ve heard before, but as soon as you said it, I knew exactly what you meant. I’m going to incorporate that into my vocabulary, because it really matters.

D. Wilson: Yeah. We have a sector that’s managing up, and a partner that’s managing down. Right now we’re at odds with them, when we are long-standing partners that have been investing strategically across the province. We have 189 sites in the province that we manage as effective partners, so we need them to manage up.

J. Routledge (Chair): Right. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Ahmed, who is representing the students union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan.

Ahmed, you have five minutes. We will signal you when you have 30 seconds left so you know it’s time to wrap up, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

STUDENTS UNION OF UBC OKANAGAN

A. Ahmed: Okay, perfect.

Hello. My name is Ahmed Ahmed. I’m the VP external for the students union at UBCO. I would like to thank you. This is our third time talking here, and we know how effective this can be. So I would like to thank you for inviting us.

The students union of UBC is a non-profit organization. We represent 11,000 students — undergrad and graduate students. We serve as a medium of communication be­tween students and the provincial and federal governments.

[11:25 a.m.]

The SUO would like to thank the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for its recommendation in the report of the Budget 2021 consultation. We recognize that the committee has made a significant effort to help the students — recommendations that are reflective of solutions that we stand for, specifically, on investment and housing. We’ve seen two new buildings in our housing campus and, also, investments in open education resources. Those are discussions we brought forward in previous years, and we’ve seen a great achievement in the last year.

We have three recommendations today. The first one will be student financial assistance. The second one I will talk about will be institution fees and funding. The third one will be about international students.

When we are talking about student financial assistance, we recommend that we boost the funding of the B.C. access grant to increase the non-repayable student financial assistance for those who could not save for school due to work shortages in spring or summer.

We’re very thankful, first of all, for the B.C. grant. It made a lot of students’ lives easier. But we also recommend that the B.C. access grant provide $100 million in financial aid annually in order to increase access to post-secondary education skills training. Despite the investments that have already been made, we have seen, in cities like Kelowna, that housing has increased 30 percent over the last summer. In a way, we have the grant, but in another way, the cost of living is also getting higher and higher due to COVID.

We’ve seen, earlier in this summer, a housing crisis in Kelowna, where a lot of students weren’t affording to pay for housing. I’ve seen that personally. A lot of students reach out to us. It makes students just accept worse student housing, which affects our mental health. If a student was living alone, he now has to live with three other people. If you were living with three other people…. For me, for example, I didn’t find any place for the amount of rent I was paying. I got a place without a kitchen. This affects my everyday life.

The second thing we’ll talk about is institution fees and funding. We recommend that we do a full review of funding in the advanced education skills training sector, to be conducted to determine gaps in government funding, in particular, for regional colleges and universities. We also recommend that the government freeze tuition fees and develop a plan to reduce tuition fees at public institutions to lessen the financial burden on students and their families, and that the government establishes a tuition fee limit policy to ensure that institutions are not increasing fees beyond the limit in the form of new and packaged programs.

This will benefit a lot more students. As we see, between 2000 and 2016, the proportion of provincial funding to post-secondary institutions has decreased by 24 percent. This has made the universities make up the difference by increasing international student fees. If the government decreases funding, as we’ve seen over the years, to institutions, the institutions take those funds automatically from international students. They increase another burden on another sector of students. Tuition fee revenues are now estimated to be 51 percent of B.C. post-secondary operational budgets, and 60 percent of those fees are from international students.

This will take me to my third point today, which is a cap on the tuition fees for international students. If we have a cap on the fees for international students, international students will have predictions on how much the fees will be over the years, so we will have more international students applying for universities. International students don’t just contribute to institution finances but also to the B.C. economy. Our recommendation is that the tuition fee limit policies amend the cap on fee increases for international students to create fairness and consistency and predictability to international student fees.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Ahmed.

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask you questions.

J. Brar: Thank you, Ahmed, for your presentation and also your written submission to us, which is pretty simple to understand.

[11:30 a.m.]

I just would like to clarify one issue. You are recommending…. On one hand, you are saying we should freeze tuition fees for international students. Then you are saying the tuition fee limit policy be amended to add a cap on the fee increase. Are you asking to put a cap on the fee increase or to freeze the fee increase for international students?

A. Ahmed: No. We’re asking to add the cap so increases are one-third or to have…. Right now I know there isn’t a cap on increases to international students. So whenever a university feels like they’re in a shortage financially, they go to increase the tuition for international students to make that difference, to fill in the gaps.

Tuition fees have been increasing exponentially over the past ten years. I’m an international student. In just my five years, we’ve seen…. UBC has its own limit cap. The board of governors of UBC have their own limit cap, to 5 percent, but we want that to be something from the government to other universities. We want that cap to be, also, less than 5 percent.

J. Brar: Right now the fee is frozen for the local students but not for the international students. That’s what you’re recommending, basically.

A. Ahmed: Yeah. There is a cap for domestic students but not for international students. There’s a governmental cap for domestic students but not for international students right now.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Ahmed. I like your presentation. It’s really nicely explained.

When you talk about…. We heard a lot of presentations and even international student fee gouging — the institutions — over the period of our presentations. You talk about a limit, a policy to put a cap on international student fees in hopes of more international students applying to our institutions.

A question came to my mind. What would be the seating capacity, then? Would we have available seats to offer to more students who will apply? I understand that given the funding and how the formula works, institutions are trying to fill in the gaps or generate revenue from international students, which is unfair. Fee gouging is also happening across the province. Are there empty seats right now — that students are not applying because of the unpredictability in the fee structure?

A. Ahmed: I will answer to my knowledge. I know that, at least for our university, all seats are being filled.

We’re taking right now the richest students in the world and not the most deserving students in the world. Even if we have limited seats, the world is big. We have a lot of countries, and we will find people who are willing to pay the international fees, even if we increase them.

From my point of view, it’s not a good way to…. I guess you understand what I mean. We’re just getting students who have more money.

H. Sandhu: Yeah. It does highlight the inequality and unfairness and discrimination among the most deserving, but they don’t have the funds. Thank you for highlighting that.

G. Kyllo: Thank you very much for your presentation.

A question comes to mind with international students. How does the post-secondary cost of education in British Columbia…? How does that compare to the United States, for example, or other countries around the world? Obviously, if it’s international students…. I’m just wondering how B.C. stacks up with respect to other university programs that might be competing for those international students.

A. Ahmed: I applied to universities back in the U.S.A., Europe and Canada, so I have a bit of knowledge. It depends on the university. UBC is a world-class university. Its tuition fees are average — I would say high average — for world-class universities.

The cost of living in B.C. is one of the highest in the world for students. The cost of living — the rent, the groceries, the normal life cost of living — is very high, which makes it…. I sit on the affordability task force at UBC in the board of governors. It makes it very…. All the discussions we have that life is not affordable, and we’re increasing tuition fees. When we increase, also, tuition fees, this is another burden which makes life more unaffordable.

[11:35 a.m.]

G. Kyllo: Okay. I’m assuming that universities that are competing for international students must be keeping fairly close tabs on how cost competitive their nature is with other jurisdictions. Is there anything that the student union body has done to actually do a comparison of other jurisdictions to help make the argument that it’s becoming increasingly unaffordable here in B.C.?

A. Ahmed: Sorry, I don’t understand the question.

G. Kyllo: You had referenced that UBC, as an exam­ple…. It’s a world-class university. You mentioned that the fee structure is comparable, maybe at the upper end of other comparable universities. You referenced the fact that the cost of living here is much higher. I’m just wondering if there’s been any detailed information as far as what that cost structure is to help further your argument to government saying that….

Although I don’t think we want to be the most affordable university for international students, we also don’t want to be the absolute highest. I’m just wondering if there has been any work done to actually do that comparison, which might help further the argument.

A. Ahmed: For the task force I’m sitting on, this is what we’re doing. We’re just comparing…. We’re working on the reports, which I would be very happy to send to you. We also have survey reports right now comparing our university with others and the cost of living. I would be more than happy to send you all the documents we have that further support our argument.

G. Kyllo: Okay. Well, thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): One more question.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Ahmed. I ap­preciate the challenges that university students have making ends meet.

What you said, though — I think you said — was the international students…. The education system, using UBC Okanagan as an example, is catering to the richest international students versus people that have the academic achievement being able to apply here.

Is there evidence that you have that shows that?

A. Ahmed: Yeah. In order to apply for university…. Students services will accept which university students will go to university. They assess, also, your financial stability. This is proven from…. I know this information from the university itself. They have to make sure that you’re able to pay and that you have enough funds to pay for the five years.

Even this fails. I am one of the students who made it into UBCO. With the increase in tuition, we come to the point where even this model fails. Even after they assessed that I would be able to pay five years of tuition fees, or four years of tuition fees, and the cost of living, it increases and increases to the point that it’s not realistic anymore that the assumptions they made will meet the real-life situation.

To answer your question, they do assess the financial state of a family before they accept them into university.

B. Stewart (Deputy Chair): The academic achievement is still important. I know this because I’ve been on the board there. They don’t accept academic achievement be­low a certain threshold. That’s an important part. We were trying to make university accessible to all British Columbians.

What you’re saying is that academic achievement is somewhat weighted down by their financial ability?

A. Ahmed: No, I’m not saying that at all. There are enough students in the world that meet the requirements of UBCO. Then after a student meets the academic re­quirements, we differentiate them by financial state.

Even if a student is having maybe high…. If you meet the basic requirements, then we differentiate them. But there are enough students that meet the basic requirements in the world. The basic requirements aren’t something very outstanding. You might find students with higher academic achievement not getting into the university because their financial state is lower than another student who maybe has a lower academic achievement.

[11:40 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we are somewhat over time, but it was a very, very interesting discussion, Ahmed. Thank you for engaging with us.

I guess I would just wrap it up by…. We talked a lot about international students. I want you to know that I, for one, have read the recent Narwhal article that takes the lid off what is going on, on that front. I was deeply moved by what I read, and I would hope that other members of the committee could make access to that article.

I guess, finally…. We take pride in having a vision of building a society that is more equitable, fairer and capable of dealing with climate change, and that means we have to make post-secondary education accessible. So thank you.

A. Ahmed: Thank you so much. I have the documents and the background information. I’m happy to give them to you or send them a soft copy.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you for coming to talk to us.

With that, I will accept a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:41 a.m.