The committee met at 8:33 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 the land on which we are gathered today is the territory of the Lək̓ʷəŋ­in̓əŋ-speaking peoples, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Welcome to everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting on Budget 2023 consultation. Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. British Columbians can share their views by making written comments or by filling out the online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is 3 p.m. on Friday, June 24, 2022.

[8:35 a.m.]

We will carefully consider all input to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2023. The committee intends to release its report in August.

The public hearings today are being held virtually, with presenters organized into small panels based on themes. We’ll be starting things off with presentations related to the environment, including water, conservation, parks and recreation. We will also be hearing about social services, justice, transportation and gender-based violence.

Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation. To assist presenters, there is a timer available when in gallery view. Following presentations from the panel, there will be time for questions from committee members. I also ask that everyone please put themselves on mute and wait until you’re recognized before speaking.

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

I’d now ask members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with the Deputy Chair.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I am Karin Kirkpatrick. I’m the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

B. Stewart: Good morning. My name is Ben Stewart. I represent the riding of Kelowna West.

M. Dykeman: Good morning. My name is Megan Dykeman. I represent Langley East.

M. Starchuk: Good morning. Mike Starchuk, Surrey-Cloverdale.

J. Routledge (Chair): Now I’d invite the members who are joining us virtually this morning to introduce themselves.

H. Yao: Henry Yao, MLA for Richmond South Centre.

B. Bailey: Brenda Bailey, MLA for Vancouver–False Creek and Parliamentary Secretary for Technology and Innovation. Good morning.

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

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Emma Curtis from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services.

Now we will turn to our first panel, which is a panel on water. Our first presenter is Kat Hartwig, representing Living Lakes Canada.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 1 – Water

LIVING LAKES CANADA

K. Hartwig: My name is Kat Hartwig. I’m the executive director of Living Lakes Canada, and our home base is in land of the Sinixt, the Syilx and Ktunaxa people. Today this region is referred to as the Columbia Basin, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to speak to you today.

Living Lakes Canada is an award-winning NGO that has facilitated collaboration for the long-term protection of our watershed since 2005. In addition to our national programming, we deliver a range of science-based water-monitoring programs in the Columbia Basin and throughout B.C. These range from groundwater and high-elevation lake and stream monitoring to lake foreshore management and biomonitoring.

Our organization is responding to an urgent need for water monitoring in the Columbia Basin, where critical issues such as climate change and land use are impacting both ecosystem health as well as sound water management applications.

The Columbia Basin’s water systems are heavily influenced by glaciers and snow melt. A 30-year study released by UBC in 2020 indicates that we are well past peak flow in the basin, with rapidly diminishing glacier conditions.

Reports by the Pacific climate change consortium back in 2006 and 2013 identified water data gaps as an issue that would challenge sound water management decisions and community adaptation options in the Columbia Basin. These reports indicated that the Okanagan Basin would become arid, while the Columbia Basin would transition to semi-arid. These reports have proven accurate.

As communities transition to groundwater for water supply, we are working to support their monitoring needs by installing groundwater observation wells. We started this program in consultation with the province four years ago with three wells, and this year we now have 28 active volunteer observation wells. By comparison, though, the Okanagan Basin, which is a third of the size of the Columbia Basin, has 60 observation wells.

[8:40 a.m.]

We have collaborations with the Ktunaxa bands, including Tobacco Plains, ?Akisq’nuk, ʔaq̓am and yaqan nuʔkiy. Both the Tobacco Plains and yaqan nuʔkiy bands are concerned about aquifer oversubscription and reduced groundwater recharge rates, causing lake and well level drops in their territories. Groundwater observation wells provide preliminary information regarding pending droughts. Last year the province recorded some of the most extreme drought conditions on record for the West Kootenays, with level 5 drought conditions persisting into September.

We are also currently working with the regional districts to assess water flows in streams for community wildfire suppression purposes. We created the Columbia Basin water monitoring framework in tandem with senior provincial hydrologists in order to address water data deficits in the Columbia Basin. Our applied reconciliation coordinator works with Indigenous groups to incorporate Indigenous water priorities into the framework. The data collected will facilitate future water budgets for eventual evidence-based water allocation required during water shortages.

However, the scale of the collaborative water stewardship work that needs to be done is considerable, requiring a wide range of expertise and equipment, and is fundamental to the economic viability of rural communities within the basin. We have formed over 80 local, cross-sector partner groups with all levels of government who have participated in the framework to address their water needs.

The framework one-year pilot is underway, after securing the required $2 million budget. To expand the pilot across the entire basin, as is necessary, requires a total budget of $60 million over the next ten years. This could’ve been considerably less had we paid attention to the Pacific climate change report in 2006. Now we’re playing catch-up to collect water data that should have been collected 20 years ago.

The Columbia Basin water monitoring framework presents a turnkey opportunity to the government of British Columbia to support watershed security by investing and leveraging already active, on-the-ground work with established multisector Indigenous and non-Indigenous partnerships and is a necessary paradigm shift if we are to collectively address water challenges at a local scale to ensure that young people have adaptation options now and into the future.

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

Next on my list of speakers is Lina Azeez of Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

WATERSHED WATCH SALMON SOCIETY

L. Azeez: Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Lina Azeez, and I’m the habitat programs director at Watershed Watch Salmon Society. We are a B.C.-based salmon conservation and advocacy organization. Our goal is to see thriving wild salmon runs across B.C. forever.

Today I’m calling in from Kwikwetlem territory in Port Coquitlam, a community built in the floodplain between three rivers — the Fraser, the Pitt and the Coquitlam rivers.

The devastating floods of November 2021 proved to us that the existing approaches to preparing for and managing floods are inadequate. We are now at a crossroads. We get to decide if we want to ignore the clear message of the November floods or if we want to move forward with recovery in a way that supports public safety, healthy communities and resilient ecosystems.

There are many concerns when it comes to fish and floods. One such concern is the over 1,500 kilometres of vital salmon overwintering and rearing habitats impacted by aging fish-unfriendly flood structures in the lower Fraser region. In addition, the November floods showed us a system in need of collaborative regional planning. Therefore, in the long term, what we are asking for is a shift towards integrated, multi-beneficial floodplain management. In the short term, this means clear commitments from provincial leadership, support for strategic actions and immediately attending to funding criteria and funding programs.

We do not do this work alone. We are partnered with the First Nations Emergency Planning Secretariat and other B.C.-based organizations and experts, with the shared goal of helping B.C.’s flood recovery and management efforts achieve the best possible outcomes. Our partners, including my co-panellists, provide a diverse range of interests, experience and networks and include conservationists, farmers, environmental legal specialists, researchers, natural resource professionals and local governments. So here are our asks.

We request normalizing the installation of fish-friendly flood controls, such as pumps and gates, by funding such upgrades through a dedicated $100-million fund over ten years to address the aging infrastructure in the lower Fraser. Our mapping identified over 156 high-priority structures. A direct, long-term, stable fund will ensure that work can be accomplished in a systematic and organized manner by local governments, First Nations and partners.

[8:45 a.m.]

Initial investments through the B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund have allowed our partner project, Resilient Waters, to begin the work of studying 25 of those sites in the region. Now, in phase 2 of the project, they are focused on bringing three sites in the region to a level of fish friendliness. But there is so much more work to do, and we need the funds to do it.

We also request that all funds that support flood planning — mitigation, adaptation and recovery — include fish-friendly and natural defence criteria that align with your own objectives around species at risk, green infrastructure, climate adaptation and mitigation, reconciliation, emergency preparedness and building back better. We also strongly recommend withholding regulatory approvals and funds for projects that harm salmon and block access to habitat.

Investing in the B.C. watershed security fund is another one of our asks. Our province needs the sustained annual investment of $75 million to catalyze the actions required to rebuild our watersheds from the floodplain up. My colleague Tim will speak to the details more, but I wanted to illustrate how we can see firsthand the positive impact that investments in our watersheds can have through our involvement with the healthy watersheds initiative.

This fund would support fish-friendly flood control and natural defences. An example of this is the installation of a fish-friendly floodgate on the Lower Agassiz Slough in the district of Kent. This project was identified by our partners at Resilient Waters and subsequently funded by the healthy watersheds initiative in 2020. The floodgate opened one week prior to the November floods and was the only flood structure in the district to withstand the waters without overtopping and flooding the town upstream. The project was funded at $700,000 and provided at least 14 direct jobs.

This installation inspired students in the local school, who decided they wanted to help the salmon and, with our support, planned a riparian planting along the waterway. This is an excellent example of government funding supporting a collaborative process that provides multiple benefits, including protecting communities and engaging citizens. The watershed security fund would also be an excellent source of seed funding for much-needed long-term floodplain planning for the region.

I’ll stop there. I’m happy to answer any questions afterwards.

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

Now we’ll hear from Tim Morris, representing B.C. freshwater legacy initiative.

B.C. FRESHWATER LEGACY INITIATIVE

T. Morris: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My name is Tim Morris. I’m project director of the B.C. freshwater legacy initiative.

I’m speaking to you today from sunny Victoria and the traditional territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ peoples and the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. I’d just like to start by expressing my gratitude to Indigenous peoples of British Columbia, especially Indigenous women, for teaching us that fresh water in B.C. is sacred and that if we take care of water, it will take care of us.

I’ve worked on water stewardship as a funder and non-profit leader for more than 15 years, and I’ve been the director of the B.C. freshwater legacy initiative for the past five years. This initiative is a funding partnership of three philanthropic foundations, and we’re funding five watershed pilot projects across British Columbia, in the Cowichan and Koksilah River watersheds on the Island and in the Nicola, Nechako and Skeena watersheds in the North.

These regions, through First Nations leadership and collaboration between nations in the province as well as with local governments, are demonstrating new ways to govern and manage water together. These regions are showing the way forward. A good example is the work of the Cowichan Watershed Board, not too far from Victoria, a unique partnership between Cowichan Tribes and the Cowichan Valley regional district that’s now working with the province to develop B.C.’s first water sustainability plan.

Just to be clear, I’m here today not to advocate for more funding for our initiative but, like my colleagues, to recommend that the provincial government make good on its promise to create a B.C. watershed security fund in this year’s budget.

You’ve heard from my colleagues about the need to invest in natural defences and fish-friendly flood control to build resilience against the increasing floods, fires and droughts. You’ve also heard about the importance of water monitoring and collecting data to make better decisions. The third leg of this stool is support for better watershed governance and planning and a dedicated investment in these kinds of regional watershed models I was just mentioning.

[8:50 a.m.]

In 2021-22, the province invested $27 million in watershed security as part of its economic recovery plan called the healthy watersheds initiative. This funding was an undoubted success. It generated 800 jobs in just a single year. It restored hundreds of wetlands, stream banks and fish habitats throughout the province, and it built bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

Another year of funding was recently announced for this kind of work, which is really good news. However, there are important challenges with these one-year funding commitments that actually hold back the potential impact of this work. For example, people that have been hired and given hours of training to do this work have had to move on to other kinds of positions because there’s no certainty of funding for the following year.

Watershed work can also be a really important avenue for Indigenous community development, yet the lack of ongoing funding means that rather than being able to hire and train community members, Indigenous nations are forced to bring in outside consultants that provide no long-term benefits to their communities.

Now, just to put a finer point on this, in a recent survey conducted by the First Nations Fisheries Council, out of 65 First Nations communities that responded, all of them indicated they’d like to create a full-time position focused on watershed management, yet only six of these communities currently have such a position, and more than two-thirds have annual budgets for water less than $100,000.

All of this work that needs to happen — the restoration, monitoring and the governance — requires years of consistent capacity to be truly effective. This is why so many people across the province are asking the B.C. government to now deliver on their promise to create a B.C. watershed security fund and make a long-term sustainable investment in the health of B.C.’s watersheds.

The recommendations of the B.C. freshwater legacy initiative are (1) the provincial government invest $75 million on an annual basis, with the majority of this amount coming through sustainable funding mechanisms; (2) that this fund, the watershed security fund, be an independent entity and co-led in partnership with First Nations as a tangible demonstration of reconciliation in action; and (3) that the province engage with the federal government and other funders to ensure that this funding can be leveraged to have the scale of impact that we need on the ground.

Thank you for your time. I am looking forward to your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tim. We’ve now heard from all of our panellists on water. We’ve allotted ourselves an equivalent amount of time to ask you questions — so 15 minutes.

We’ve got some already indicating that they have questions. The questions may be directed to a specific panellist. It doesn’t preclude others of you from jumping in and adding and elaborating. You can make it a discussion. Some of the questions may be directed to the panel as a whole. We’ll see how that goes.

Our first question is from Henry, followed by Karin.

H. Yao: Good morning, everyone. First of all, thank you so much for your great work. I think one of the things that, to me, is the biggest priority when it comes to climate change is water security that will sustain our future. Tim mentioned earlier how the Indigenous community taught us the sacredness of the fresh water.

My question is for anybody, probably Kat or Tim, because I heard a lot of really great, observant water usage. We are protecting the watershed. We’re protecting fish habitat, which is great. But so far, I haven’t heard any kind of strategy, maybe due to my limited understanding. I haven’t heard any strategy about how we can ensure that we can rejuvenate freshwater supply as we’re running out of snow. I think we all are worried about it. As much as the flood on the Sumas plain was devastating, I think the drought in B.C. would be even worse to handle when it comes to sacrificing our food security, when it comes to damaging our water security.

I would love to hear your expert opinion. What can we do as a province to not just protect what we have so far, but also find a strategy to maybe rejuvenate the current water supply to ensure that we can have our sustainable future that can protect British Columbians?

[8:55 a.m.]

K. Hartwig: Tim, I can start if you like.

That’s exactly our concern — thank you for the question — in the Columbia Basin, because we’re so snow-dependent and glacier-dependent. We’ve seen now, through studies, that glaciers have less water than previously understood. I don’t think there’s a way, necessarily, to preserve those glaciers. They’re going to go — that’s the forecast — and they’re underway.

I think what’s important is that we look at a water balance model, which is what the scientists and hydrologists have said: if we get the water balance, we know what’s coming into a basin, we know what’s being used, and we know what’s going out. These water balances then inform water budgets.

Then we need governance mechanisms by which society, writ large, can decide: “Are we going to allow making snow for the ski hill? Or are we going to water a golf course? Or are we going to provide the water to agriculture?” These are the decisions that we’re going to be faced with in the not-too-distant future and that we’re already faced with in many areas in B.C. It’s a complicated answer to challenges that we’re all going to be facing.

T. Morris: Maybe just to build on what Kat said, that’s exactly the challenge facing the Cowichan watershed, too, which I mentioned. It’s the different kinds of uses. They’ve had very dry conditions in their rivers, in the Cowichan and the Koksilah. This water sustainability plan, the first one in the province which is a legislated tool, is a way that the community can come together and identify how to balance these uses, particularly in times of drought — whether it’s through agriculture, municipal needs or the needs of forestry and so forth.

I think that through collaboration and working together, we’ll be able to make better decisions for our watersheds. I’d also mention that part of the challenge is the extremes that we’re facing now. We have extremes in the winter months, with lots of rain and these massive flood events, and then we have drought in the summers.

One of the things we should be doing is restoring things like our forest cover and our wetlands, because they slow down the flow of water and then allow it to be released more slowly, so that it’s available in the summer when the times are dry, as opposed to these big flash flood events. That’s something, I think, that’s really important: the restoration of the natural defences that our watersheds can provide.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next question is from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Kat, I don’t know if you remember me. I used to be at the Real Estate Foundation. I know we met a couple of times before, and you’ve been doing this great work for a long time.

A couple of questions. First, I’m wondering — unless I’ve missed it, Lina and Tim — if you’re going to be providing a written submission. I have gone through Kat’s written submission; it would be really helpful, and you probably are doing it anyway. I was madly making notes. It’s just so complicated and important, the work that you’re doing, but I didn’t get everything.

I’d like to ask Kat: can you give an example of a project that would be funded by the watershed security fund?

The second — I don’t know if it’s for Lina or Tim. There’s the reference to the $100 million for the watershed security fund. I heard you mention $75 million. This was for something different; I believe you both mentioned it. I apologize, but I didn’t have clarity on the difference and what that was directed to.

That was a lot of questions, but if I can…. I’ll stop now.

K. Hartwig: Well, Tim, do you want to start to clarify the position of the $75 million? Then I can talk about our work.

T. Morris: I might defer to Lina on the $100 million, which is specific to the needs around fish and the flood control investments in the Fraser Valley.

The watershed security fund, the ask coming forward from many groups, is for a kind of ongoing annual investment of $75 million that would support restoring natural defences, the kind of monitoring work that Kat has been describing, and these new approaches to watershed management and governance.

Lina, did you want to just mention the specific needs on the Fraser Valley flooding?

L. Azeez: Yes, exactly. Just to confirm, I will be submitting written comments as well. Time got away on me, and I couldn’t submit it ahead of time.

Yes, that $100 million is focused quite specifically on the 1,500 kilometres of waterway in the lower Fraser that are impacted by 156 flood control structures, be those pump stations or gates, and we have estimated that it’ll cost about $100 million to fix those structures alone. It’s not addressing the entire management of the flood plain in the lower Fraser but specifically the structures themselves.

K. Hartwig: I’ll quickly answer that question, since it was directed at me as well.

[9:00 a.m.]

As I mentioned on the Columbia Basin water monitoring collaborative and framework and data hub, the estimates that hydrologists have given us to collect the data, because we’re in such significant data arrears, are requiring costs of $60 million over ten years. But that’s with an iterative process of community engagement so we understand what the hot spots are with local government and Indigenous governments. That’s the estimate there.

We’re also trying to leverage some of that ask with the Canadian water agency, because we feel that this work would be also a good, decentralized opportunity for a pending Canadian water agency. I don’t know if that answers your question, Karin, but….

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Yeah, that’s good. Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk: Thank you to all of you for your presentations. I feel like I have, for lack of a better term, a data hangover with all of the numbers that have come our way in only one presentation. I think, Kat, you talked about a $2 million pilot project that turns into $60 million over ten years. We’ve heard $100 million for the lower end, and then another watershed security fund, so there are an awful lot of numbers that are there.

I’ll make my question just a little bit more broad. With regards to the watershed security fund that’s independent, what kind of oversight will there be for how that fund, should it appear, be allocated?

T. Morris: Clearly, if there are public dollars invested in such a fund, it would be important to have accountability back to the public through reporting to the provincial government. There are good examples of models like this. For example, the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund, which was established in legislation, reports to the province on an annual basis.

The reason for independence is really that it would greatly advance reconciliation if this work is done in partnership with First Nations. To do that appropriately would be very difficult — to set up something within the provincial government system and still have it be co-governed by First Nations. The idea is that you would have accountability both back to the provincial government and to Indigenous nations in British Columbia through an independent model.

There are lots more examples of how this has been done, too.

B. Bailey: Very interesting presentation. I wish we had a couple of hours with you guys so I could really dig into this. First, I want to thank you for your work, because it’s incredibly important.

I wanted to go back to Kat’s proposal that we have in front of us, and the recommendations, one of them being the $100 million watershed security fund. I think that that’s a fund that you would see continuing year over year. I wondered if you could help me understand that component to it. Is it suggested — $100 million — to do a number of things that you’ve outlined here, including restoring some of the watershed so it has natural protections and so on?

Do you expect that that level of funding will be required for a long period of time? Do you think it’s three years, and then it would drop, or five years, or ten years, or…? What do you think would happen over time in terms of the funding requirements to do all the things that you were hoping would happen within that $100 million fund?

K. Hartwig: Tim, I think there’s a little bit of confusion about what we require for the Columbia Basin — what was required regionally over time, versus what the ask is on an annual basis. Tim, do you think you can clarify that?

T. Morris: I’m happy to try and clarify. I think the example that Kat gave is a great regional example of the kind of things that a watershed security fund could support, as well as the example that Lina and myself mentioned as other regional projects.

It would certainly be provincewide in scale. Ideally, it would be sustainable over the long term, and some of the mechanisms that we might recommend would be the creation of an endowment, for example, that could produce ongoing support for this kind of work, almost in perpetuity. Again, there are some good examples of endowment models in British Columbia, such as the Coast Funds that support the work in the Great Bear Rainforest.

[9:05 a.m.]

There is also a recommendation that some of the water rental fees that are collected by the province where indus­try, cities and others pay an annual amount to have access to water — that some of those fees be directed towards a fund so that that would provide an ongoing supply of support for this kind of work and would be an appropriate use of the money collected on the basis of water being invested back into watersheds.

Those are the kinds of mechanisms we talk about when we’re thinking of sustainable, ongoing funding supports. Two- to three-year programs are great, but this is long-term work, and this kind of funding from the province would for sure create partnerships with other funders. On average, every dollar invested by the province in this kind of watershed world we’ve seen leverages $4 from other funders — from the federal government, from philanthropic sources, from industry. It’s a good investment back into the communities of British Columbia.

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

When I look at the clock, I see that probably our next question is our last question, and that’s from Ben.

B. Stewart: I guess the question I see is that…. You’ve all kind of approached this with different kinds of asks, whether it’s fish protection, the Columbia Basin or the Fraser. I understand it’s all important.

I guess the question that comes to mind is…. I don’t think managing this size of fund outside of government is something that…. You mentioned the nature conservancy act or something of that nature.

I guess my question is: have you had dialogue with the ministry on this and how this might look, going forward, and how outside groups like yourselves would dovetail in with the ministry in making this managed and overseen to serve the needs of British Columbians in all parts of the province?

T. Morris: I can jump in there. The province is involved in consultations on both what they call the B.C. watershed security and this watershed security fund so that, yes, we have had opportunity to engage with the responsible ministries and make recommendations around how the fund should look. I’m not sure they’re at the point yet to put forward their suggestions to Treasury Board, but we’re hoping that certainly fits into this budget cycle.

In terms of the ways that this could look, a good example, actually, was the investment the province made in the economic recovery of $27 million for watersheds, which actually went to the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia and was called the healthy watersheds initiative. That was extremely successful because of the knowledge and ability of that foundation to roll out the funding efficiently and in partnership with many other people. We see the benefits of expert foundations and organizations to help support the delivery of this kind of funding.

I’m not sure if that addresses your question.

B. Stewart: Well, you mentioned about no certainty, the fact that people that are working on this only have one year of funding, and without that certainty, it’s very difficult to keep a group of talented experts in the field working together. So I don’t think that that’s going to be the long-term answer. I think it’s going to have to be a much bolder and bigger vision, and you’re going to take other groups that aren’t here today that are going to have to work with you.

I certainly understand the need, but I do think that that’s what it’s going to take to really get the traction.

T. Morris: Thank you. We agree.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, on that very positive note, I’d like, on behalf of the committee, to thank our panel on water. Thank you for your leadership and for taking the time to explain to us what is something that I think many of us have taken for granted — water. Those of us that have grown up around water have taken it for granted, and you’ve made it very clear that we can no longer do that, that it is an existential issue.

You’ve laid out a really good, very detailed plan, and we’re happy to be able to incorporate that into our deliberations. Thank you so much.

We’ll now take a brief recess.

The committee recessed from 9:09 a.m. to 9:19 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll reconvene the meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. The next panel that we’re going to hear from…. The theme is conservation.

[9:20 a.m.]

We have four panellists. You each have five minutes to make your presentation. We’d ask that you look at the timer — watch the timer on your screen — and wrap up as close to the five minutes as possible. Then we’ll have an equivalent amount of time as a committee to ask you questions, so that will be 20 minutes.

Questions may be directed to a specific panellist, or they might be general questions. Feel free to jump in and turn it into a discussion. We have 20 minutes at that point.

Our first panellist is Brynna Kagawa-Visentin, representing Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, B.C.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 2 – Conservation

CANADIAN PARKS AND WILDERNESS
SOCIETY, B.C. CHAPTER

B. Kagawa-Visentin: Good afternoon, everyone. Happy World Oceans Day. My name is Brynna Kagawa-Visentin, and I’m speaking to you on behalf of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, British Columbia chapter, also known as CPAWS B.C.

I want to start by acknowledging that I am speaking to you from the unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ, Esquimalt and Songhees Nations, who have lived and cared for these lands and waters since time immemorial.

I would want to also identify my privilege that allows me to participate in a process like this consultation, and I also recognize our collective responsibility to help undo the injustices that Indigenous peoples continue to face as a result of settler colonialism.

CPAWS B.C. is a non-profit, grassroots-based conservation organization. We are one of 13 chapters across Canada that have helped protect over 400,000 square kilometres of threatened areas in the country. In B.C., we’ve played a significant role in the creation of our provincial and national protected areas, which now account for more than 15 percent of the land base in the province. Just over 20 percent of our waters are protected, although a large portion of that is through interim protection.

I’m a young person who is deeply concerned about my generation’s future and the generations after me. I’ve grown up with a generation who have crippling eco-anxieties, solastalgia and climate grief. I’ve witnessed heat domes, windstorms, wildfires and flooding, which are only a few examples of the increasingly volatile climate changes that many communities are experiencing. All too fre­quently I continue to witness the loss of biodiversity and ecosystems, here in my home province of B.C. and across the world.

Young people are on the front lines of climate work, especially Black, Brown and Indigenous people, because they are disproportionately impacted by events like pandemics, climate change and economic crises. We’re trying to create a path forward not only for our generation but for yours and for generations to come.

A few weeks ago I brought 20 youth from across the province to Victoria to speak with many government officials about the importance of protecting B.C.’s lands and waters for a more sustainable future for all. These young leaders discussed their experiences with the ongoing climate crisis and the loss of biodiversity. We need everyone to work together in a coordinated effort, because these threats are interconnected and can no longer be ignored.

There is ongoing provincial work with CleanBC, wild salmon strategy and water security strategy to address some of these complex issues with a commitment to uphold reconciliation. I feel really hopeful when I see the provincial government working with Indigenous nations, such as this past week when Kitasoo/Xai’xais and Nuxalk First Nations signed an MOU with B.C. Parks to ensure the land and all of its natural and cultural values are protected by Indigenous guardians — and the ongoing work to co-develop the coastal marine strategy with Indigenous nations.

Governments across Canada are working together to protect 30 percent of land and ocean by 2030. The federal government has made an historic investment to support this initiative, establishing a fund that provinces, territories and Indigenous governments can access to create new protected areas.

From the over 100 proposals that were submitted to the federal government seeking funding, more than 60 of those came from B.C. Many of them were led by Indigenous nations, who play a critical role in the stewardship of the lands, waters and wildlife. We strongly believe that the conservation vision being put forward by these nations is a key component of the strategy to combat climate change and address global biodiversity declines.

For the 2023-2024 budget, CPAWS B.C. has three core recommendations that we hope you consider.

Firstly, to support the co-development and implementation of the coastal marine strategy. We recommend that there is funding specifically to build capacity for Indigenous nations for the implementation of the B.C. coastal marine strategy, including support for the co-management of the strategy.

Secondly, to support Indigenous-led conservation to increase capacity and advance conservation proposals. We recommend there is funding allocated to support IPCAs across B.C. to uphold the commitment for reconciliation, and that the land and water that we depend on continue to provide for generations to come.

[9:25 a.m.]

Lastly, investment for conservation and monitoring in B.C. parks. Although the 2021 budget increase was welcome news, our parks continue to face tremendous pressure as more and more people visit them. We recommend there be further investments to keep our B.C. parks healthy.

An investment in parks is an investment in B.C., as they support local economies with tourism and diversification and support job creation, particularly in rural and remote communities. This is an incredible opportunity for B.C. to address the biodiversity crisis while supporting reconciliation with Indigenous nations.

We look forward to the B.C. budget report and remain committed to working with all members of government to make B.C. a leader in conservation.

Once again, on behalf of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society and as a resident of the city of Victoria, I thank you, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, for your time and consideration of our recommendations for the 2023 B.C. budget.

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

Next we’d like to hear from Nikki Skuce, Northern Confluence Initiative.

NORTHERN CONFLUENCE INITIATIVE

N. Skuce: Great. Thank you so much. Thanks for this opportunity. I’m glad it wasn’t yesterday. We had a regional cell and Internet outage from Prince George, Prince Rupert, from Telus and CityWest. So we couldn’t even make a phone call.

Northern Confluence Initiative is based out of Smithers on Wet’suwet’en territory. It focuses on land use decisions in northern British Columbia. We strive for the greater conservation and protection of wild salmon watersheds.

We’re interested in taking this opportunity to further advocate for funding support for land use planning, conservation initiatives and mineral tenure reform. As the province moves forward with modernizing land use planning, it has acknowledged that its new approach is driven by reconciliation with Indigenous peoples as well as implementing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, ensuring that communities and stakeholders are engaged in land and resource planning and, as well, addressing the increasing complexities as a result of climate change and the need to address cumulative effects.

I have four budget needs as a result of modernizing land use planning as well as just a general demand for an increase, given the high demand versus B.C.’s capacity.

I think there’s an opportunity for B.C. to accept Indigenous-led land use plans. In the absence of provincial capacity, many Indigenous governments have moved forward with their own plans. As seen from past successes, such as with the Gitanyow and Taku River Tlingit, these have led to negotiations with the province for more co-management and certainty on the land. So targeted staff and resources are needed to negotiate and implement these plans.

At the same time, some government-to-government negotiations are often failing to adequately engage the public. While acknowledging that the pandemic certainly made efforts more difficult, there are a few high-level information-out sessions that I’m a part of, such as with the Wet’suwet’en regional engagement group and the Tahltan reconciliation interest group. However, funds are needed for regional offices to ensure that the engagement is meaningful and, ultimately, leads to the success of these land use planning processes and that we don’t see things like what happened in the northeast with the caribou.

Another potential outcome from land use planning, as was brought up, are Indigenous protected and conservation areas. There’s been little support from the province to date for IPCAs or new conservancies. The federal government has committed to those global biodiversity targets and allocated funding.

The provincial government’s commitment to modernize land use plans as well as implement DRIPA will, and has, result in proposed new conservation areas. We’ve seen a number of Indigenous-declared IPCAs in the absence of provincial support, including Meziadin in Gitanyow territory; Dasiqox in Tŝilhqot’in territory; Ingenika in Tsay Keh Dene; Ashnola, recently announced in the Lower Similkameen; and others.

There’s a need for provincial policy support, in line with the Minister of Environment’s mandate, to create new protected areas and wildlife connectivity. While there are a lot of federal funds, there are also some budget implications, including providing provincial support for Indigenous guardian programs.

Lastly, the province has been reluctant to support new conservation areas, primarily because of forest and mineral tenures. There’s a real need to modernize the Mineral Tenure Act to respect consent and today’s values and to put timelines on tenures. This also fits in line with the province’s commitment to being a jurisdiction for ESG investment. The Mineral Tenure Act is currently the most inconsistent with DRIPA and still grants the same free-entry certificate that was issued when British Columbia was colonizing the province in the 1860s.

There’s also a need to update the Mines Act so that retiring tenures for conservation requires compensation commensurate with expenses incurred, as happens in Quebec. For the province to support Indigenous and new protected areas, it will need to compensate some mineral tenures and retire areas from further exploration.

[9:30 a.m.]

There’s a need for some budget and an engagement process for reform. The DRIPA action plan released in March does include a commitment to reform the Mineral Tenure Act, and we do hope to see action start this year.

All of these things are connected to improving stewardship and implementing the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, and given the impacts of climate change and the increasing devastation from wildfires and floods and cumulative effects, I think the time to move forward on these is now.

Just to wrap up, I also strongly support the call for a permanent watershed security fund that plays an important role in rural job creation, salmon conservation and reconciliation in communities working together on common issues.

Thank you, again, for this opportunity. I appreciate it.

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

Next we’d like to hear from Nadine Raynolds, representing the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative.

YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON
CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

N. Raynolds: Hello. Thank you so much for making this time and for listening. My name is Nadine Raynolds, and I work with the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, Y2Y.

I’m calling in today from the homelands of the Sinixt in the southern Interior.

Y2Y is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting and connecting habitats so both people and nature can thrive. As our province recovers from multiple climate-related crises and makes these investments to fight climate change and really ensure that people are protected from future disasters, I would like to highlight some opportunities to build resilience into the natural infrastructure that both protects society and preserves biodiversity.

Our first recommendation is green infrastructure investments for B.C.’s transportation corridors. We recommend that B.C. supports infrastructure that makes transportation corridors safer for people and for wildlife. That is by fully funding the Reconnecting the Rockies project and earmarking dedicated annual funding of $10 million for infrastructure to reduce wildlife vehicle collisions and support wildlife connectivity.

Hundreds of large animals are killed every year along Highway 3 between Sparwood and the Alberta border. This is a part of the province where we have four of the eight vehicle collision hot spots. Highway 3 is also a barrier for wildlife connectivity at a continental scale, which is the scale that we work at, at Y2Y. Direct social cost includes human injury and vehicle insurance claims. This is estimated to be about $2.8 million every year.

Right now, we do have some solutions being implemented, and this is a collaboration between MOTI and the Ministry of Forests. It’s supported by Y2Y and by the Ktunaxa Nation, as well as the local communities. A number of scientists are involved, and others. This is called Reconnecting the Rockies. It’s a five-year project that includes both wildlife underpasses and overpasses. It’s linked together with wildlife-exclusion fencing. It includes a major overpass at the highest priority area, which is in the Alexander-Michel linkage corridor, if any of you have been there.

There is some funding in place for the early phases. The total project costs are estimated at up to $25 million. This is not a large sum for infrastructure projects, and Reconnecting the Rockies has a return on investment of approximately 15 years, while saving the lives of hundreds of animals and reducing human injury and death. After 15 years, the project will have paid for itself, but those positive impacts of the infrastructure will keep on giving for decades.

Our second recommendation, echoing a little of what both Nikki and Brynna have talked about, is Indigenous-led conservation. We recommend that this budget provide funding to significantly expand engagement on Indigenous-led conservation initiatives, including new protected and conserved areas, conservation-based businesses and economies and the development of stewardship plans.

We’ve seen an overwhelming interest to advance Indigenous-led conservation of wildlife and habitat in B.C. We know that Indigenous governments with territories in B.C. have submitted more than 60 proposals to the Canada nature fund for establishing new protected areas. There have been recent declarations, as mentioned, such as Ingenika, Ashnola and others.

B.C.’s modernized land use planning program intends to start with a baseline of 24 First Nations participating in land use planning processes, expanding over subsequent fiscal years. We would like to see that number doubled. We would also like to see that dedicated funding for nations to develop their own land stewardship plans to bring into these planning processes.

[9:35 a.m.]

In line with our commitment to implementing DRIPA, now is the time to dedicate this kind of funding for Indigenous communities to develop and implement conservation plans in areas which really have shown to make significant contributions to fighting climate change, to protecting B.C.’s world-class biodiversity and supporting sustainable Indigenous economies, such as the cultural, ecotourism, clean energy businesses envisioned by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.

During the pandemic, I think British Columbians really found solace in nature. Extensive polling shows, time and time again, that our communities support protecting nature. By investing in an environmentally healthier future, we really think B.C. would set a course for a stronger and more resilient economy and stronger and more resilient communities.

We look forward to seeing expanding funding for green infrastructure solutions and for Indigenous-led conservation.

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

To wrap up, we’ll turn it over to Chuck Zuckerman, representing B.C. Wildlife Federation.

B.C. WILDLIFE FEDERATION

C. Zuckerman: Thank you. Good morning. I’m Chuck Zuckerman, president of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, speaking on behalf of more 43,000 conservationists.

We are concerned that understaffing and underfunding of B.C.’s managed natural resources have resulted in mountain caribou becoming an endangered species, Chilcotin and Thompson River steelhead facing imminent extinction, and all wildlife populations declining dramatically. At the same time, more British Columbians want to experience our biodiversity through recreational and sustenance food-gathering activities, but their only experience will be through stories, photographs or memories.

What needs to be done? Recommendation 1, establish wildlife governance and funding models that follow the Premier’s mandate to improve wildlife management and habitat conservation by collaborating with stakeholders, including First Nations. Dedicate all hunting licence fees and a portion of all profits from natural resource extraction to leverage on-the-ground fish and wildlife management activities. Set integrated objective settings for habitat harvesting, retention and recruitment of species in legislation and ensure that those who purchase licences are meaningfully consulted concerning the funding of integrated objective settings.

Recommendation 2, establish a $200 million permanent border security fund, which would develop appropriate watershed collaborative partnerships, which modernize land use plans and implement community-driven restoration initiatives. These innovations should support prov­incewide watershed protection.

Recommendation 3, have resource extraction industries pay their fair share. The revenue from the natural gas royalties and taxes levied on forestry are projected to be $3.3 billion this coming year. However, from 2016 to 2020, natural gas royalties were a paltry $702 million. From 2016 to 2020, B.C. residents paid $2.8 billion in tobacco taxes. In 2021, B.C. residents paid $3.3 billion in property transfer taxes, and in 2022, they’re expected to pay $2.5 billion in property transfer taxes. This is $8.6 million over the last four years, compared to $702 million brought in by resource extraction companies. Meanwhile, between 2020 and 2024, FLNRORD’s budget was reduced by over 8 percent.

Why are these recommendations important? We recognize that humanity is the steward of this planet. Our job is to put more animals on the landscape, more fish in the waters, more birds in the sky and to protect the habitat for all those things that have no voice and to create a future for everything yet unborn. We enjoy sitting around the campfire, staring quietly at the starry canopy above us, connecting our families simultaneously to the past and creating hope for our aspirations of the future.

The planet belongs to no one. We only borrow it for a short period of time. Of paramount importance is that we leave it in a better condition than we found it. We have no right to mortgage our children’s heritage for our selfish, short-sighted personal use.

[9:40 a.m.]

Your children and their children are depending on you, the committee, to make the right decisions. They are depending on you, the committee, to be their voices, to restore and sustain their mountains, their waters and their forests. We can change the ill-advised trajectory toward the future by providing adequate, stable and appropriate managerial funding today. Success or failure is in your hands.

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

That concludes the panel presentations, so now I will invite members of the committee to ask their questions.

H. Yao: I actually don’t have a question. I just want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude for everyone’s great work.

I think all of us have a collective future. As Chuck mentioned earlier, we are borrowing this planet from our future generations, and we do want to leave it behind. Of course, we had a watershed, water security conversation just before yours. You continue to remind us of the important work that we have ahead of us.

We thank you for your efficacy and continuous championing of the importance of combatting climate change. Please, as one of the MLAs throughout B.C., we encourage everybody continuously to have a conversation with your local MLA to continue having really good discussions about how we can further protect the future for our future generations. Thank you, everyone.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation.

A question for Nadine. The green infrastructure…. I’ve always had a concern about wildlife corridors and how they work with pipelines and how they work with highways. I actually don’t know what that green infrastructure looks like. Are we talking about wildlife corridors? This just might be a silly question, but what is green infrastructure with respect to highways? What does that look like? What kind of project is that?

N. Raynolds: I think one of the best ways and, maybe, most familiar ways for people to imagine it is if you’ve ever been through the national parks on the border of B.C. and Alberta, driving from Golden, east into Banff and Canmore. Those are some of the largest, most significant wildlife overpass crossings that we have. That’s the kind of thing we’re talking about when we talk about this really important stretch between Sparwood and the Alberta border — a very busy place in terms of traffic and people moving and a very busy place in terms of wildlife moving north to south.

Yellowstone to Yukon is imagining connectivity, which is very important throughout this entire region and especially ever more important with climate change, to allow those kinds of corridors. These kinds of highways fragment the habitat and become major sources of mortality, particularly for animals like grizzly bears and wolverines as well as a number of ungulates.

There is a lot of research on this, and the field is actually called road ecology. There are people who study this and make these recommendations. These are the folks that we work with. These are the kinds of scientists who can identify these hot spots. They’re hot spots for wildlife, and they’re hot spots for people, when you think about the injury and death and the costs associated. As was mentioned, it’s $2.8 million every year just on this stretch of highway in B.C.

But really, the overpasses and underpasses, these elements, are designed based on that science — the study of what particular animals are moving in that region, how much traffic there is — and so it’s designed accordingly.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I would just like to say that I’d encourage those presenters who haven’t submitted something in writing to do so. There’s a lot of information here, and I want to make sure that we truly understand it.

So thank you, Nadine. We’ve got something from you, and I don’t know if we do from the others. But I really, really appreciate all of the great information, the great work that you do.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next question is from Mike, followed by Brenda.

M. Starchuk: Nadine, thank you as well. In my little town of Surrey, British Columbia, we have green infrastructure networks all over the place to deal with some of the areas that are there. While they’re not overpasses, a lot of them are corrals, and they go under the roads that are there in networks. Neighbourhoods are actually built with that in mind.

[9:45 a.m.]

My question is to Nikki. You had spoken to Indigenous land use plans and Indigenous protected conservation areas. I’d like a little bit more information as to what that involves.

N. Skuce: Yeah, sure. Thank you for the question. The government has committed to modernizing land use plans. In fact, they did about five years ago, and progress has been quite slow, understandably. A lot of the planning capacity was lost with the province, so there was a need to step up and build that.

However, the demand from Indigenous governments has been a lot higher than the province’s capacity, so some have gone off and done it on their own, concerned about forestry and mining and other impacts. For example, Gitwangak here has done it, and the forestry companies are actually complying with their Indigenous-led land use plan. But the province isn’t negotiating with them in order to make it official, let’s say, and co-manage that. There’s hope that there could be more resourcing towards this, and I think it provides a lot more certainty on the land.

At the same time, there are the resources needed, as I said, for the public engagement piece. That needs to be adequate so that these land use plans are successful. I think also that as land use planning happens, there’s determining of no-go zones or of what are some key watershed areas or key areas of cultural importance as well. Out of those sometimes come these proposals for conservation. There’s that flow, if that makes sense.

M. Starchuk: Just to follow up, where does local, municipal government fit into that land use planning?

N. Skuce: Well, I think that that’s the key part, in terms of the public engagement. What we’re just seeing here is a bit of correction, if you will — setting of some of these larger engagement groups. Municipalities and regional districts are definitely key members of that in terms of planning.

I know there are also, in certain areas, some specific round tables that already exist. I think utilizing some of those is helpful, where there are municipalities and ranchers and conservations or whatever there are. The mix is different depending on where you’re at in the province.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next question will be asked by Brenda.

B. Bailey: Thank you to the four of you for those terrific presentations. Lots of what you’re asking for and what you’re describing aligns very strongly with the work that we’re doing, particularly in regards to the partnership with First Nations. I think that that’s rolling out more and more. I’m awfully excited to see that.

I actually want to come back to Y2Y and the wildlife connectivity piece. I’m going to personally share that I, through the power of VR, had an experience that I’ll remember forever, which is Bear 71. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this. I share it with you because it’s a National Film Board creation that is — it sounds a bit hokey; I swear it’s not — from the perspective of a bear. You are travelling between Alberta and B.C.

It’s just so profound, the experience, actually. You wouldn’t think that pretending to be a bear could be profound, but it’s deeply profound. I share that with you because I think it’s a powerful tool. It certainly was for everyone that I knew who has tried it, and the NFB still has it available.

A question arises from that experience, which is the impact of rail lines as well. I wonder, in the work that’s going on in regards to Reconnecting the Rockies, whether it also includes the impact of all of the transportation that comes here through rail, which is so important to supply chains but also really has this incredibly disruptive outcome. That’s question 1.

Chair, if you’ll indulge me, I might just tag in a second question on the same topic. I’m really curious about how Reconnecting the Rockies has been funded partially but not completely. I just wondered — not to get into it in too much detail — if you could just help me understand how that…. It sounds like it ended up partially funded and then abandoned.

[9:50 a.m.]

I think, in your proposal, you said that it’s a $10 million ask per year to move that forward. If you could just flesh that out a little bit for me, I’d appreciate it.

N. Raynolds: Okay, great questions. The first one, around the railway…. I will say that Reconnecting the Rockies is not the project that I’m most intimately involved in. My colleague, Candace Batycki, is the person who is responsible for that. It’s her 60th birthday, so she’s taking the week off. I certainly can follow up with a more detailed response. But my understanding is that it would include any of…. The Reconnecting the Rockies would be designed to allow for the crossing and connectivity that is needed.

Again, we have scientists at Y2Y. Mostly, we partner with scientists. We raise money to do research and to commission research on these. I think it’s not fully designed. There has been some early funding to start designing, and there certainly has been a really strong commitment, I know, from the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure on this project and some really great staff people that have been working with our organization, the Ktunaxa Nation and the scientists as well as other conservation organizations.

In terms of that funding, my understanding is that there had been about $1 million that was secured for some of the initial phases. That was a combination of provincial money and federal money. Then what we do, as a non-profit, is raise funding through grants. The challenge is that there is basically never to rarely funding for these kinds of projects. Making the investment, as a province, I think is really important because of that challenge of trying to raise money to do that. I think it’s often seen as, honestly, a responsibility of the province, because we’re building highways. We’re maintaining highways.

I think the future that we envision is that any new infrastructure has this in mind. If we’re building new roads and we’re reshaping roads, let’s make them so they’re safe for people and they’re safe for wildlife and they allow for this connectivity that’s so incredibly important. That, again, creates that resilience for both wildlife and human communities.

I think that’s where this request is coming from. The project is estimated to be up to $25 million for Reconnecting the Rockies. The second part of our recommendation was to also create a dedicated $10 million fund to allow for green infrastructures built into other highways, road and railway projects.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our final question — I’m pretty sure it’ll be our final question — is Ben.

B. Stewart: I really appreciate what you’ve presented. It’s interesting. During estimates, Nadine, it came up, and that project was discussed. I would like to know where the other four hot spots are, just as the critic, only if you can supply that, at any point. It’s not in your presentation.

I think that the first two presenters, Brynna and Nikki…. I would like to know what some budgetary…. This is the Finance Committee, and I think that some sort of number or estimate in how these funds would be used would be helpful in your presentations that you said that you would be submitting.

I want to touch on one last thing with Chuck. I can’t help but think about one of the first things…. When I was Minister of Agriculture, I discovered that the B.C. freshwater fishing licence…. The conservation fees go into the Freshwater Fisheries Society. I thought: “What an unbelievable way of managing and conserving.” It’s a completely different organization.

I do think that the idea of the fees on licensing do go to a fund…. But I wonder. Talking about wildlife versus fisheries, how do you see that those funds would be utilized, and who would manage it?

C. Zuckerman: Thank you for the question, sir.

[9:55 a.m.]

You can’t separate the fish from the wildlife. It’s all part of the same environment and the habitat. What affects the landscape is going to also affect the waters, whether it’s going to be spawning channels or the rivers and streams and creeks that then lead out to the ocean, and the fish return from the ocean.

You need to have a watershed-by-watershed approach to a totality of looking at the environment and landscape. Therefore, specific funding is going to have to be measured and then divided up among…. There are a number of ministries that we have.

The freshwater society you’re talking about also funds the lakes, and they restock the lakes as well. Throughout the province, there’s a program called Fishing Forever. The Fishing Forever program takes young people and challenged people, handicapped people throughout the province and gives them a free day out on the lakes. Even in your own ridings, there’ll be a Fishing Forever program. You could contact our organization, and we’d tell you when and where.

Just this past weekend in Abbotsford, there was one where we bused in people — students and parents. We had 125 people on Saturday and 125 people on Sunday at the hatchery. Therefore, there’s an integration between the funding that we’re getting as well as…. Mostly we’re non-profit, so everything has to be volunteers or through funding.

The approach had been, in the past, to divide up your province’s eight regions and then different management units in each. However, that’s too large. It may be the case that we need to go watershed by watershed in a collaborative process to identify what’s there, what’s being extracted and what we need to mitigate the damage that has been done over the last, maybe, a century to what’s going on there.

The decision about managerial and who’s going to be in charge…. Go through the genealogy of the government, and you’ll see many different ministries, subministries, assistant DAs. In that respect, I would be leaving that to government, because at the end of the day, they have the purse strings. We just give the money; you divvy it up.

I would suggest there be a collaborative process. You’d also include scientists, community representatives and ask the people: “What activities do you do out on the landscape? What, to you, is going to be important?” Then divide up your funding in that way.

The thing is that it has to be done in legislation. It can’t be that one government is in power for a period of time, and they set up an entire…. Well, the first time they’re in power, they have to just get their feet wet and figure out what’s going on. Then they get re-elected, and at that time, they come up with often quite excellent plans, except if they’re not elected for a third term, those plans don’t come to fruition. So we need to have critical thinking that extends on beyond the realm of government, party by party, election by election.

Somehow both parties — it’s asking too much, I know — have to get together and appreciate that the environment lasts forever. Therefore, the decisions we make today might be completely deleterious even ten years from now, even two or three governments from now. So it needs to be: step up to a 20,000-foot level, look down and see what we want to create for the future.

The agricultural land reserve, sir, is one of those things that has lasted almost half a century and now is slowly being chipped away. Therefore, there needs to be an overall vision as to where we want to be 100 years from now when the population might be significantly larger than it is today and the demands on the resources will be significantly larger. That would be government — to stay in contact with the people that are funding, to ask what their needs are, what their wants are, and then to act appropriately, dispensing the funding to achieve those ends.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, I see no further questions. I would like to thank this panel on conservation for taking the time to present your perspective and recommendations to us.

I’m struck by Chuck’s comment: “Humanity is the steward of the planet.” I think what follows from that is: only if humanity knows that it’s the steward of the planet.

I really appreciate your consistent emphasis that weaves its way through your presentations on the importance of public engagement. We have gotten used to saying, in the last couple of years, that we’re all in this together. So it’s important that we make sure that as many people as possible know what this is that they’re engaged in. Thank you very much for your leadership on this.

We will now recess until 10:30.

The committee recessed from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next panel is on parks and recreation. There are three panellists. We’ll hear from each panellist in turn. Each panellist has five minutes, and then we’ll open it up to questions from the committee for about 15 minutes.

Questions may be directed at a specific panellist. They may be directed generally to the panel. It doesn’t preclude you from building on each other’s answers.

With that, our first presenter is Ciel Sander, Trails Society of British Columbia.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 3 – Parks and Recreation

TRAILS SOCIETY OF B.C.

C. Sander: Hi, everyone. Thank you very much for being allowed to present today. My name is Ciel Sander. I’ve been the volunteer president for Trails B.C. since 2019.

I live and work in Greenwood, B.C., on autonomous Sinixt territory that is also claimed by the Ktunaxa and Syilx First Nations through the colonial land claims process.

Trails B.C. represents people who support a quality, non-motorized experience on trails for the people who like to walk, bike and be active outdoors. Our organization was established as a volunteer society in 1994 to work with the provincial government in establishing the Trans Canada Trail across British Columbia.

The November 2021 atmospheric river destroyed almost 150 kilometres of the Trans Canada Trail between Hope and Princeton. We would like to encourage multiple ministries to work together to build back the TCT in a way that is considerate of Indigenous peoples, conservation, and active travel and transportation.

It would be exceptional if, along with the ongoing rebuild of the highway with the flood recovery projects, the TCT could be accommodated for. There’s no safe way now to travel this section of the province actively without this routing. There are only dangerous highways and roadways as an alternative.

We’d like to see investment in the Trans Canada Trail as a linear park or conservation corridor — and not only for investing in the trail. The province will also invest in the health and happiness for future recreational enthusiasts.

Our parks and back-country areas are already over capacity. We see this with the COVID pandemic. We believe now is the time for the TCT to be valued with some sort of linear park designation. In many jurisdictions around the world, rails to trails projects, greenway pathways and cycle pathways are highly valued as non-motorized designated parks or conservation lands for plant and wildlife habitat connectivity.

Both B.C. Parks and Rec Sites and Trails B.C. do require a significant increase of funding and resources to upgrade and maintain all their trails and facilities. Investment in hike-and-bike camping infrastructure will encourage people to travel actively and reduce their consumption of fossil fuels.

Hike-and-bike camping is extremely popular, particularly with young users, and it mitigates the environmental impact of dispersed camping since facilities are provided. Tent pads, toilet facilities, food caches could be offered for a small fee in all campgrounds and along trails, such as the TCT, to not only improve the active travel experience but to encourage more of it. Throughout British Columbia, it’s time to accelerate the maintenance and construction of active travel routes connecting rural communities.

[10:35 a.m.]

There are many other trails throughout the province that are competing with one another for funding. The province invests, right now, very little into active transportation compared to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure’s service plan projections. Our understanding is that it’s less than 1 percent, with only $12 million a year over the next three years. By reallocating and increasing the budget towards active transportation, the province will provide safe, efficient and comfortable trails and greenway pathways between our communities and reduce vehicle trips.

Could there also be an active transportation branch embedded within the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, with AT planners and engineers that could work in each road district? To meet the goals of the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030, we recommend a generous allocation of hundreds of millions of dollars to provide, to British Columbians, trails and pathways out of their costly motor vehicles. Let’s invest now with employing people to work on building active transportation infrastructure to fight climate change and make a more livable planet of our earth.

Can we plan for a future that allows people the choice to travel between our communities — long distance, with their own power, separated from highways and dangerous roadways — to experience our beautiful countryside with wind in their hair, getting exercise and experiencing nature, to make us generally healthy and happier people?

On behalf of Trails Society of B.C., I thank you for your time and consideration.

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

I’ll now invite Monika Bittel, representing the Federation of Mountain Clubs of British Columbia, to make her presentation.

FEDERATION OF MOUNTAIN CLUBS OF B.C.

M. Bittel: Good morning, Madam Chair and committee members. My name is Monika Bittel. I’m a director with the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C., and I’m making this presentation on their behalf. The federation is a provincewide organization of 41 outdoor clubs engaged in non-motorized back-country recreation, such as hiking, rock climbing, back-country skiing and snowshoeing. Many of our members also build and maintain trails throughout B.C. for public use.

Our written submission, submitted on June 3, outlines three recommendations: increasing operational funding for B.C. Parks, increasing operational funding for Recreation Sites and Trails B.C., and funding to maintain roads which are critical to access recreation sites and trails. The overall objective of these three recommendations is to provide access to quality outdoor recreation opportunities for all British Columbians, regardless of age, ability or means. I will highlight some of the rationale for the recommendations made.

With respect to our first recommendation, despite the recent increases to the B.C. Parks budget, there’s still a long list of neglected trails and facilities which require repairs and upgrades and which have barely been touched. There’s also a need for more parks staff to plan and provide more recreational opportunities, to proactively address climate change and to engage Indigenous peoples, volunteers and visitors. Many parks are still without management plans to guide trail and campsite development, and most are outdated and do not reflect Indigenous history or interests.

In southwest B.C., for example, three provincial parks which still do not have management plans are Pinecone Burke, Mount Seymour and Callaghan Lake. Well-designed trails and campsites in these three parks would expand the recreation opportunities for residents in the populated Lower Mainland and would reduce the pressures on Golden Ears, Garibaldi and Joffre Lakes — all of which are subject to the day pass restrictions.

There are also many parks that could provide winter recreation opportunities but which are closed in winter because of the lack of operating funds and staff. Finally, more parks staff would allow greater engagement with volunteers.

Turning to our second recommendation, Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. does not have sufficient staff and operational funds to proactively plan, develop and maintain trails, day use sites and campsites and to support volunteers. In the Squamish district, for example, there’s one recreation officer, supported by a recreation technician, to manage several hundred active sites and trails in the region and its volunteers. This is typical for most districts.

[10:40 a.m.]

The Squamish district includes the Squamish River Valley, which is inundated each summer with thousands of campers camping along the river and forest service road. Despite its popularity, there are no outhouses, no garbage facilities, no food caches and no organized or managed campgrounds.

More staff would also allow a more timely response to the hundreds of applications by volunteers for trail and site development and maintenance. Applications can consume hours of volunteer time and may require costly engineering and environmental or archaeological assessments. Once submitted, applicants can wait months, if not years, for approval or rejection of their applications.

This process and the lengthy delays lead to rogue trail maintenance and construction. More staff and operational funding would allow Recreation Sites and Trails to expand outdoor recreation opportunities on Crown land outside of parks and to work more effectively with their volunteers.

Lastly, with respect to our third recommendation, Recreation Sites and Trails is unable to maintain the roads used to access trailheads, recreation areas and several provincial parks. In all regions of the province, access to trails and recreation sites have been lost due to road washouts or lack of road maintenance. Without funding to maintain the roads for recreation, access to valuable sites and trails will continue to be lost, putting pressure on those that remain accessible.

Those are my submissions, and after Colin completes his, I’m happy to answer any questions which you may have.

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

Now we’ll turn to Colin Campbell, Elders Council for Parks in B.C.

ELDERS COUNCIL FOR PARKS IN B.C.

C. Campbell: We’re a small group of retirees from B.C.’s national, provincial and regional parks organizations and park-related NGOs. We believe in parks and protected areas and in the contributions they make to our well-being.

Climate change now demands that we radically expand our protected areas system in B.C. and manage it better to provide stewardship. The public, however, is pressing governments to invest in more doctors, to invest more today in social services that will provide immediate relief to those they love. But there are times when the future pleads for more long-range investments now to anticipate and address future human well-being. This is one of those times.

We have three specific investment recommendations. One will attract millions of dollars in federal funding. The second will reach out to capture private sector contributions, and the third would pilot a fresh approach to plan the management of our enlarged, redesigned protected areas network in British Columbia.

Recommendation 1, encourage B.C. to enter into a multi-year financial agreement with Canada to expand protected areas. B.C. now has 18 percent in protected-areas status. All three federal political parties are committed to expand Canada’s protected areas system to 25 percent by 2025 and to 30 percent by 2030. They and their scientists believe that such nature-based solutions can dramatically abate climate change and can help bring our system back to normal functioning, reducing some of the disastrous and costly impacts we will otherwise experience.

In 2021, Canada — as part of their nature-based climate change solutions program — designated more than $870 million for provincial cost-sharing. B.C. should negotiate an agreement soon to access a significant portion of these funds.

What will they buy? New protected habitats for key species. Wildlife corridor linkages between existing areas. New protected areas could be managed by First Nations, expanding their stewardship and governance of lands and waters. New funds for guardian programs to provide new tourism and economic opportunities consistent with quality stewardship. New sustainable stewardship to help stabilize our disrupted natural systems.

[10:45 a.m.]

Recommendation 2, double the Parks Foundation endowment to $20 million. The relatively new B.C. Parks Foundation has demonstrated a great ability to attract private sector funding for protected areas land acquisitions and to administer programs to develop a new cadre of youth and adult park volunteers. We believe, based on its performance, that you should double its endowment to $20 million. This will help engage more youth and acquire key parcels of land to knit together a comprehensive protected areas system.

Recommendation 3, fund a co-managed protected areas centre of excellence to foster world-class protected area stewardship and use. Our future parks system and protected areas system will be much different from the past. It can be much better, but only if we plan to make it better.

What can we expect? Indigenous peoples will re-assert their control through reconciliation initiatives over large parts of our province, and bring with that their deep understanding and connection to lands and waters. These Indigenous-protected and -conserved areas will form the core of the expanded system.

A new perspective that protected areas need to be used consistently with long-term, quality stewardship will be embraced. A much-expanded system of protection designed to foster biodiversity and facilitate effective ecosystem management will emerge, with improved monitoring and stewardship. There is little right now.

Ecosystem management will be dominant and will link with adjacent Crown lands. Gradually, a greater proportion of taxes will be invested in land and water stewardship by all governments. More species will flourish. A recreational access program with universal zones that meet burgeoning recreation demands but control destructive human behaviours will be funded and developed, with greater integration.

It has been said that it will not be our lack of technological innovation that will lead us to lose control, but a lack of institutional and social innovation. Therefore, we recommend investment in the creation of a co-managed protected areas centre of excellence to grow a world-class protected areas stewardship and management system in B.C. We think that would position B.C. in Canada as a world leader in protected areas management.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Colin. That wraps up the panel presentations.

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

M. Dykeman: Thank you, everyone, for your presentations today. I learned quite a bit from you and appreciate the time that you put into putting your presentations together.

My question is related to the mountaineering clubs of British Columbia. In recommendation 1, you talked about increasing operational funding resources for B.C. Parks to allow staff to plan, develop and maintain trails. Later on in your presentation, you talked about how there are many parks without management plans to guide trail and campsite developments, or that have outdated plans. You gave a few examples of those plans and the fact that they don’t have management plans.

I was wondering: are these plans prepared by B.C. Parks, and do they allow groups like yours to work with them? If you could expand a little bit on that relationship, related to the management plans.

M. Bittel: When B.C. Parks went through the huge parks increase in the 1990s, there were many, many new parks created. Typically, until a management plan is developed for a park, development in the park — whether it’s recreation sites, trails or campsites — usually doesn’t proceed. The management plans are a public process, where B.C. Parks initiates dialogue. Particularly now, with the First Nations in the areas, they typically engage First Nations to develop a partnership arrangement for the park.

[10:50 a.m.]

They then collect a lot of background information, including what the First Nations’ interests are in the area. Then they usually open the process up to the public to provide input into what they would like to see in the park, how it may be developed to actually maximize not only people’s use of the park but actually to maintain its biodiversity, what its features are that are why the area became a park in the first place.

Parks planners, with the First Nations partners, then go back, and then they actually develop a draft management plan, which then is typically again made available to the public to provide further input. Once it’s finalized, it gets approved by government, and then it really becomes almost like the roadmap for how the park will be managed in the future. So usually until that process is done, we can’t do a lot of planning or work in a park unless there is already a trail there.

I suspect Colin will probably correct me on some of this, but that is the scheme of where we’ve been involved with the park management planning process. Certainly, from our experience, until that happens, there is very little development that goes ahead in a park.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next question is from Karin, followed by Mike.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I did not have my hand up, but that’s okay. I’m happy to…. I think the expectation is that I usually do, so thank you very much.

I’m just looking for clarification on something that I just simply don’t understand, in terms of how the trails are managed, Ciel. This was also something Monika had spoken about.

With the Trans Canada Trail, I’m not understanding who has actually responsibility for the maintenance of that trail. Is that…? Monika had spoken about the RSTBC, if I’m understanding that that organization actually grants or allows different non-profits or groups to actually maintain the sites.

I don’t know if there was clarity there. Basically, I want to understand who approves and who’s responsible for the maintenance of the Trans Canada Trail and other trails in B.C.

C. Sander: Thank you very much for that question. Primarily it is Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. that manages for the province. They recently got moved under the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, which is now aligned perhaps a little bit better with B.C. Parks. They used to be under the Ministry of Forests.

What’s happening with the Trans Canada Trail is…. For instance, where I live, near Greenwood B.C., the Trans Canada Trail goes through B.C. Parks as well. So it needs to be multi-jurisdictional to manage the actual route throughout the province, because the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is also involved because the routing is along those types of corridors. For instance, coming out at Hope, it goes through B.C. Parks, and then it’s on MOTI land, then it goes back into Forests land, then it goes back…. I mean, it’s multi-jurisdictional.

Primarily for the rail trails of the Trans Canada Trail, those are all managed by Rec Sites Trails B.C. However, there’s only three people that really make some of those calls, because most everything is in partnership agreements with local volunteer groups.

So for instance, Trails B.C. has a section of trail that goes all the way up to the Coquihalla Lakes, and it comes out at the Chilliwack Valley, and they’re working really hard, as volunteers right now, to try to make those sections of trails open for the public. They were, yesterday, in a place where, apparently, a bridge was being pulled, and there were logging operations going on. So it’s very complicated.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk: I guess a quick question. There are two questions.

[10:55 a.m.]

A quick question to Colin, where you’re talking about the multi-year agreement with the federal government for protected areas. You had said that we were at 18 percent now and moving it on to 25, then possibly 30. Can you tell us where we are aligned, in retrospect, to other provinces in Canada?

Then the second question would be to Ciel and Monika. You both used the term “food caches,” and I’d like to know a little bit more about what a food cache actually is.

C. Campbell: The answer to your first question is that we’re really better off than most other provinces, but we also have more biodiversity than most other provinces, too. So it’s one of these situations where every province is going to have to aim for those numbers.

We’re a little bit ahead — I’d say maybe 20 percent ahead — because of the work done in the ’90s on expanding the system. But we have so much of it here — and it’s so rich — that, actually, the challenges aren’t just the numbers. They’re actually in getting those areas which are prime from a biodiversity standpoint. Often these aren’t the traditional areas where we’ve had protected areas, like mountains and beaches. They’re actually around municipal areas sometimes.

So it’s as much what the quality of the percentage is, frankly, as the amount, but these are the targets. We’re a little bit ahead of others, I think.

M. Bittel: Just if I could answer the question about the food caches. In many of the parks — provincial or even rec sites, although more in provincial parks — there are these rather large containers, metal boxes, that can be closed. That’s where the campers store their food to try to minimize animals accessing the food. So it’s really to protect the wildlife and, hopefully, not interfere with their normal use of the area.

C. Sander: There are also bear poles that can be constructed as well.

B. Stewart: It’s a topic, I’m sure, we could talk all day about.

Ciel, I wanted to ask you more about the Trans Canada Trail. Has there ever been…? When the creation of the Trans Canada Trail took place, I’m assuming — and I remember the start of it — it was railways that were essentially abandoned or unused. They were taken over, and there was this goal in mind of having a trail that connected across Canada.

Obviously, at that point, the railbed or whatever that the Trans Canada Trail rests on was under federal jurisdiction. Has there been any effort to try to work and get it more aligned with federal jurisdiction that already probably had jurisdiction over those lands? I mean, the description you used of B.C. Parks, MOTI, Forests…. This thing has been going on as long as I’ve been elected. I still think…. Has there been any effort to try to circle the wagons on this and try to get jurisdiction handled differently on that?

C. Sander: Thank you for the question. Trans Canada Trail national does have some funding coming now through the federal budget, through Parks Canada. But really, what the issue is, is that the land is provincially held. The trail was routed through a lot of neighbouring ranches and different landowners and through municipalities. So there are different partnership agreements with some of the municipalities. I’m not using the word correctly, unfortunately. There are agreements between the municipalities.

It’s really, I think, more of a provincial responsibility to make it a valued asset for future recreationalists. Essentially, what we’re concerned about is that with that atmospheric river, we no longer have a connection between Hope and Princeton. A lot of people would argue that there aren’t connections in other places, because the Trans Canada Trail is currently used in most of the places now by motorized vehicles. That was never the intention. It was always supposed to be for active users — hikers, cyclists, equestrians, that sort of thing. It’s been in limbo for a long time.

[11:00 a.m.]

It has been difficult to advocate for more funding because, with the use of motorized vehicles on it, it’s not really sustainable to maintain. So it’s needing a lot of help. This atmospheric river, of course, didn’t help anyone.

Yeah, it would be great if this federal government wants to work with the province to take it over and make it a Canada park. That would be fabulous, yeah, whatever can happen. But we’re going to lose it if we don’t take care of it, just like the rest of the B.C. parks and our natural areas that recreation sites and Trails B.C. take care of.

B. Stewart: You’re right. I mean, there are a lot of cross-jurisdictional issues, especially where they’ve crossed municipal or private lands. You may have heard of Trail of the Okanagans Society that’s working on…. It’s partially a rail trail to Kelowna, but then after that it’s all…. Some of it’s old Kettle Valley railway. It’s a mixture of jurisdiction. But it is a valued asset, and I appreciate that.

Is there any estimate from anybody as to what it would take to get the trail between Hope and Princeton repaired? Do we know that number?

C. Sander: I have not heard it directly from Rec Sites and Trails B.C. Last year I think we asked for $25 million for the Trans Canada Trail, just in general. That was before the atmospheric river. I would say that we’d probably need $100 million to bring up to speed all of it.

We could work with the Trans Mountain pipeline and MOTI, along that section between Hope to Brodie up Highway 5. I mean, there’s certainly a lot of opportunity there for a route. B.C. Parks has, of course, the Othello Tunnels closed this year, because of all the debris and the problems there. Also, I think, there were insurance problems involved.

I don’t know. I’m just…. Pie in the sky, $100 million.

B. Stewart: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, I’m not seeing any more questions, no indication that there are others who want to ask questions.

With that, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank this panel on parks and recreation. You’ve made a very compelling case about moving forward on ecosystem management and the importance of planning. I think we’ve experienced, with the atmospheric storm, the repercussions of having to react to a disaster and how disruptive and expensive that can be and that nature-based solutions may be the answer.

I guess, finally, I’d also like to say that while I am an urban MLA — I represent Burnaby North — the Trans Canada Trail goes right through my neighbourhood, and it is valuable to our community. Us urban-dwellers use that trail all the time, and we’re very proud that it’s part of our community.

Thank you for your advocacy. With that, we’ll bid you goodbye.

B. Stewart: I guess, with that comment, you’ll be advocating for expansion or support for the rest of the trail?

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll recess now.

The committee recessed from 11:04 a.m. to 11:13 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Welcome back, everybody. We have one more panel before we break for lunch. We’re now transitioning into panels on social services. Our first panel is focusing on youth. There are two panellists: Corina Carroll, Big Brothers Big Sisters; and Joy Hayden, Hollyburn Community Services Society.

Each panellist has five minutes. We’d ask you to watch the timer on your screen. Then we’ll have ten minutes for questions from the committee. On my list, it says that our first panellist to make a presentation is Corina Carroll.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 4 – Social Services (Youth)

BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS

C. Carroll: Good morning, and thank you so much. I appreciate being invited back again this year.

I am speaking on behalf of the Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies in British Columbia. We are currently present in 32 school districts, so just over 50 percent of the school districts in the province. We serve over 7,0000 children and youth in the province every year through our mentoring programs.

I think one of the most important ones around the schools is that in our in-school mentoring program, 38 percent of our mentors are actually teens, developing leadership skills.

[11:15 a.m.]

The feedback we’ve received, especially over the last couple of years, has been that their role as mentors has actually been a positive aspect for them, dealing with the pandemic and some of the issues that they’ve faced. Of course, we all know that the mental health issues being faced by children and youth today are substantial.

What I’d like to focus on today is a recommendation that there be consideration for a coordinated response for child and youth mental health within government ministries. That would be an intraministerial work.

When we look at what ministries are actually managing child and youth mental health in some capacity, we have Children and Family Development, Education and Child Care, Health, Mental Health and Addictions, Public Safety, and Social Development and Poverty Reduction. I think the B.C. government could be very innovative in creating opportunities for collaboration at the regional and community levels for like-minded agencies to work together through multi-year, multi-ministry funding. I think that it’s time for this formal collaboration to occur.

Having a background in working with government contracts through various ministries, I know that organizations are already trying their best to collaborate, whether it’s within their own organization using funds from multiple ministries to achieve the results that they need to achieve or whether it’s organizations reaching out to one another to try and work together. At the end of the day, many of us are very focused on child and youth mental health.

We recently had a study done across Canada, through a partnership with York University and UVic, that found that children and youth, in particular, who are mentored actually were faring better through the pandemic than those that were not mentored. So I think that’s an important piece, but I’m not saying mentoring is the only tool in the toolbox. That’s why formal collaboration is necessary.

I have a strong and long background working with youth in this province. I would love to see collaboration that really addresses child and youth mental health, or I think I will be doing these presentations for the next ten years.

I appreciate your time. I made it under the time limit. I’m open to any questions.

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

Before we ask you questions, we’d like to hear from Joy Hayden, Hollyburn Community Services Society.

HOLLYBURN COMMUNITY SERVICES SOCIETY

J. Hayden: Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you our recommendations for your consideration.

My name is Joy Hayden, and I am speaking on behalf of the Hollyburn Community Services Society. Hollyburn is a small community-based not-for-profit that provides a continuum of support to youth, seniors, individuals and families with social vulnerabilities across the North Shore.

We’re a $3 million organization with about 65 percent of our funding coming from provincial or federal contracts. Our services address many social issues — homelessness, housing instability, violence, mental health and addiction, unemployment, poverty, isolation, gender inequality and trauma. Last year we supported over 800 individuals and families. Over 300 were youth.

I believe every one of you is well versed on these social issues and how they impact British Columbians across this province. As such, I will take my time today to touch on two other issues we bring for your consideration.

Our first item focuses on the lack of investment in non-profit organizations. As stated on the province of B.C. website: “Non-profits are an important social and economic force. B.C. is home to over 29,000 non-profits. The sector employs over 86,000 people throughout the province and contributes $6.7 billion to B.C.’s economy.” However, the truth is that due to a consistent lack of investment in non-profits’ operating funding, the sector is at risk.

The one area where the province can influence the health of the non-profit sector, which directly improves the health of our most vulnerable, is by increasing provincial contracting grant administration contributions. Currently the provincial government provides approximately 10 percent administrative funding within government contracts. The reality is that most non-profits, while operating very lean, are in excess of 20 percent admin costs, not including rent.

Unlike a business, which can raise its prices to accommodate the increase in its costs, non-profits need to absorb those costs, and this takes away from the important work we do. We recommend that the provincial government increase its administrative contributions in grants and contracts to no less than 15 percent.

[11:20 a.m.]

Our second recommendation. To address the issues our staff face in finding safe and affordable housing, in particular for youth and young people, we have moved into the affordable housing realm, and we are so appreciative [audio interrupted].

J. Routledge (Chair): Can you just pause for a second? We’ve lost you. It looks like you’re muted.

J. Hayden: Okay. I think I just…. I’m not sure how that happened. I’m going to back up a minute then.

To address the issues our staff faced in finding safe and affordable housing, in particular for youth, we have moved into the affordable housing realm, and we are so appreciative of the provincial government’s investment in the community housing fund. We’re at various stages in three developments, two using this funding, and the third will only move into fruition if there is another funding call for affordable housing. Our fingers are crossed.

As a relatively new affordable housing provider, we are astounded at the number of below-market units being offered to us by private developers and likely to meet municipal community amenity contributions. For five units per building, some are offering as much at 30 or 40 units per development, which is very, very generous. The issue is that these units are being offered at 10 to 20 percent below market value, which in today’s rental market is, quite frankly, still unaffordable for low-income individuals and families.

Hollyburn has begun and will continue speaking with municipalities on what we call a “less is more” approach, which easily translates into asking the municipality to work with private developers to offer less below-market units and instead more deeper-subsidy units. Our dilemma is that we do not have the capital nor the equity to work with these developers to make the units more affordable for our clients. While B.C. Housing currently provides long-term financing for non-profits to create affordability, for smaller non-profits, this is a barrier to meeting our affordability.

We are recommending that the province create an innovative funding pool to allow non-profit housing providers to work with B.C. Housing and private developers to increase the affordable housing inventory through the developers’ contributions.

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

That concludes the panel presentations. I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask questions. First question is from Henry, followed by Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Chair, for the opportunity to ask questions. First of all, I want to thank the panellists for coming to present to our committee. Previously, as a youth worker in my past life before I became an MLA, I cannot say how much I echo and thank you for your presentation.

My first question I would like to ask of Corina. Obviously, one of the challenges we often face is that when we talk about mental health, the first thing people think about are therapists, counsellors. They’re thinking about various kinds of mental health services. Yet I’m pretty sure it’s more like…. You work with youth leadership especially.

We also understand recreation, social network, sports, arts, culture, music — they tend to play even a better role when it comes to prevention, when it comes to reducing the cost and maximizing youths’ mental health and well-being and also how long the youth thrive as well.

I want to hear from you. How can we actually work with the provincial government to really re-establish the connection so that when we’re talking about an individual’s mental health, especially youth, that we don’t go straight into counselling, that we’re actually looking for different ways in the path in between?

Especially when it comes to youth leadership, can we actually funnel funding to support youth leadership to come up with their program, project to support their peers so that we can spread and strengthen everybody’s mental health and, of course, their sense of inclusivity and diversity together?

C. Carroll: If I had a wish that I could make today, it would be that there is the development of a coordinated task force around child and youth mental health in this province, that it involve various leaders from organizations as well as ministries and that we start to look at more innovative ways that we can help prevent further escalation of mental health issues.

Right now 64 percent of the youth we serve in the Fraser Valley are experiencing formal mental health illness or emerging mental health concerns. Mentors actually do make a difference, but they’re not the only people in that child’s life, and I do think a coordinated task force would be something that we need to look at.

H. Yao: Chair, may I have a follow-up question?

J. Routledge (Chair): Go for it.

H. Yao: Thank you. This question is for Joy.

Obviously, for someone coming from the non-profit sector, I completely agree with you that, unfortunately, administrative costs are painful. Unlike government, I think the private sector often does not wish to pay for administrative costs connected with their programs that can show results, something they can promote in an advertisement. So I’m surprised you only asked for 15 percent. I would encourage you to do 20 percent, actually.

[11:25 a.m.]

I’m pretty sure what you and I both understood, too, is that the social equity from the non-profit sector actually generates a greater, in-depth preventative value to society than the typical money value we add into a sector.

If you don’t mind me asking, since you provided so many numbers right now, maybe you can share with the committee itself what kind of social equitable return when we, the provincial government, invest money into the non-profit sector.

J. Hayden: I think there are some interesting statistics around the non-profit sector that has the funding in the administrative and the infrastructure. That can increase its ability to come up with its outcomes, its impact statements. It can increase its reach and the breadth of its services within the community. So 64 percent, Corina is stating, of mental health issues in the Fraser Valley with youth. We certainly see that, if not more, in our community.

I think what I call a return on investment is really allowing us — I hate to use this cliché, but it still makes its statement — to get upstream and start to deal with these issues before these kids or these adults end up coming into our services. What are those main factors that we can get in there and address?

By having flexible funding, by ensuring that we have an infrastructure that has the technology, that has the supports required…. Clinical supervision, access to mental health services and a very quick response can really make a difference in addressing these issues before they become critical and cost so much more to address.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, both, very much.

Joy, nice to see you again. I’ve got a question and a comment. Joy, I’m really, really happy to see that recommendation No. 1. You may remember me complaining about this in the past. I do think 10 percent is very low. If you look at Alberta and Ontario, you can see 15 or 20 percent on these same types of contracts.

Another issue I’d love all social services agencies to ask for is…. As well as the administrative piece, there’s the funding of direct service hours and not really understanding that you actually need managers in programs. So often manager salaries won’t be covered. Admin costs — they’re not going to count pencils. So it actually ends up being even less than 10 percent. I’m really glad that you’re asking that question. As you can tell, you’ve got a supporter on this side, in terms of that. So thank you very much.

I also do have a question for Corina. I completely support the idea that these ministries and groups need to work together, absolutely. It’ll be complex and difficult, but I think it’s something that should be aspired to.

Your mentoring program sounds really interesting. That’s the one thing you mentioned specifically, so I’ll ask specifically about that. How does a teen get involved in this? How long are these programs? How are they selected? I’m just really curious about how the program operates.

I don’t know if Joy had something to say to my comment.

C. Carroll: I can tell you that our teen mentors actually come through most of the leadership programs that are in schools. We’ve had well-established relationships with school districts and individual schools where we have children and youth identified as being in need or being able to benefit from having a mentor.

Teens are then encouraged by either their teachers or counsellors or child and youth care workers in their schools to sign up to be a mentor. These teens actually go through the same rigorous screening and training that any of our mentors do, which requires child safety training as well as how to develop rapport. There are some basic counselling skills that they learn.

Then they’re engaged, typically, from mid-September right through to June. It’s one hour a week for that entire school year. I will say that there’s a good majority of our teen mentors that return the next year, if they haven’t graduated, and mentor that young person again, if they’re still involved with them. If we do have a mentor that moves on and the child still could benefit, we would try and match them again.

It’s a significant commitment, I think. I think we underestimate the value it has on these teens and the skills that they’re developing. Their civic responsibility increases with every hour they spend with that young person.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. That’s great.

I did want to ask if Joy had any further comment to my monologue there.

J. Hayden: Thank you for your support and for acknowledging the difference in other provinces.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Joy.

[11:30 a.m.]

B. Bailey: Hi, Joy and Corina. Nice to meet you.

Corina, my question is for you. I’m a huge believer in mentorship. I was previously involved in Big Sisters and have wonderful memories of the power of long-term matching, in particular.

When I was involved, it was very interesting and, I think, somewhat tragic, even, to see the implications of lack of affordability in regards to recruiting folks for matches. I was involved in greater Vancouver. I think every kid could benefit from a mentor, but the kids that were coming forward often didn’t live right in downtown Vancouver or close to UBC. That’s where the mentors came from, and the kids were further out. It was always very challenging.

We also found that social workers and the case managers couldn’t afford to live in the city, so it was a real crisis of how to put those pieces together. Housing has only continued to increase since that time, which was ten years ago. I wonder if we can just hear from you how those challenges are shaking out.

What does it look like to try and hire caseworkers or social workers — paying, I’m guessing, somewhere around $50,000, $55,000 — into places which are so challenging for people to live in?

C. Carroll: Yeah, it is very challenging. I mean, we’re fortunate, in the Fraser Valley, that the costs aren’t quite as high. But certainly, in our urban centres, hiring skilled mentoring coordinators to help facilitate these relationships with children and their mentors is very, very challenging.

Often revenue is not going up, but our expenses are going up. That is in wages, benefits, gas — lately, just having the budget for mileage. It is very challenging. We are always in need of mentors, so we are always on the recruitment side of things. It is a challenge.

In the Fraser Valley, 47 percent of our mentors are actually under the age of 29. They’re university students, so they have these additional costs to consider. Most mentors use their own money — in the community program — for the outings. We don’t have a budget that allows us to give these mentors…. We do our best. We try and share activities with them that are no cost, but it will get more and more challenging. We are going to run into a massive mentoring shortage. It’s very unfortunate, because the needs are going up.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to reach out to Joy.

In your presentation, you mentioned about the portable rent supplement program needing to be increased. I’m just looking at it. What is it currently? I can see the threshold. You’ve got to be under $40,000 a year. What’s the top-up that they’re currently paying? How is that tracking with the cost of rent that you’ve listed in your presentation? How much below is it? You mentioned it needs to be increased.

J. Hayden: Consistently, developers are offering the units 10 to 20 percent below market value. The rental market in North Vancouver for a one-bedroom is between $2,000 and $2,200. That 10 to 20 percent drops it down to about $1,800.

When we’re looking at a youth who’s making minimum wage, maybe only part-time, and is in school, their affordability is probably around that $400 or $500 mark. If we’re looking at a senior who’s on a fixed pension, they can qualify for the subsidy through B.C. Housing, the SAFER program. But that still leaves their rent at approximately $1,000. It’s not unusual for us to have a senior who’s net monthly income is $1,500 or $1,400. That’s the discrepancy.

How do we take that 20 percent below market that gets us at $1,800 for a one-bedroom….? How do we get that down to $600, $700 a month so that a young person, so that a senior, so that a single parent or a small family can still find that affordability if they are on the lower side of income earners?

B. Stewart: Just to follow up, I guess, would indexing of that with SAFER and RAP…? Would that have made a difference?

J. Hayden: It has made a significant difference. The problem is there is more demand than there is the funding available and the fact that there really isn’t anything available for young people.

[11:35 a.m.]

There are some subsidies available for families. There’s certainly the subsidy, as we talked about, for the senior. But if you’ve got a 17-year-old who is on his own or her own or their own that requires affordable housing, a 19-year-old, a 20- or 21-year-old….

The youth that we’re working with probably don’t have family support and probably have been on their own for a long period of time. Our services take them from that homeless status, and we have a full wraparound service that provides them with shelter, moves them into transitional housing so that they can understand what it takes to be a good tenant.

We move them into an employment program, with 85 percent of those youth finding permanent employment. We also have a youth education navigator program that works with that individual and says: “Okay. What are you passionate about? What do you want to make a difference in your life? What does that look like in a job? What education do you require to do that job? What requirements do you need to enrol in that educational program?”

That’s that full service that we offer. By the time we can get these kids in and out of post-secondary programs, the subsidy isn’t required. They’re now making a living wage. It is getting them to that point where they require stable and safe housing that they can afford. That’s the gap, and we are talking, in our case, probably hundreds of youth who require some level of subsidy to be able to live independently and move forward in their lives.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions. With that, I would like to thank both of you for taking the time to meet with us, to craft your presentations and to give us some insight into the struggles of front-line non-profits. Those of us on this committee who have been active in non-profits can relate to your challenges. Thank you for being very specific about that, in terms of the kind of support that you need.

I guess, just finally, I’d like to commend you on the approach to mentoring. As you’ve pointed out, mentoring isn’t just a benefit to the young person being mentored, but it benefits the person who is the mentor, in terms of the skills. It’s probably good for their mental health as well. So thank you for providing that opportunity.

With that, we’ll say goodbye. We will now recess for lunch.

The committee recessed from 11:37 a.m. to 12:59 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll call the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services back to order. Good afternoon, everybody. We are proceeding with our public consultation on Budget 2023.

[1:00 p.m.]

Our next panel is a social services panel, and the theme is children and youth with support needs. We have four panellists. Each panellist has five minutes to make a presentation. We’d ask that you watch the timer on your screen for the countdown.

After we’ve heard from the four panellists, then the committee will have an opportunity to ask you questions. The questions may be directed to individual panellists. They may be directed to the entire panel. If you want to chip in on an answer that someone else has given, you’re welcome to do that.

With that, we’ll turn to our first panellist, who is Karla Verschoor, representing Inclusion B.C.

Over to you, Karla.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 5 – Social Services
(Children and Youth with Support Needs)

INCLUSION B.C.

K. Verschoor: Heads-up that I might go a little off the theme of this panel, but I’ll do my best.

I’m Karla Verschoor with Inclusion B.C. I would like to acknowledge that our head office is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the Qayqayt First Nation and that our staff and board members live and work on unceded lands of Indigenous nations across the province.

Inclusion B.C. is a federation working with partners to build community and enhance the lives of children, youth and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We are supported by a membership of individual people with disabilities, their families and 63 organizations who work together to build inclusive communities across the province. We are a federation that supports people across their lifespan and intersect with many different funding ministries.

I did find this year’s process a bit confining. We’ve tried to develop layered recommendations that speak to the important investments we feel are needed to improve the lives of the people we serve.

Our first recommendation, which is on theme. The percentage of children entering kindergarten with developmental vulnerabilities grew to 33.4 percent in B.C. this year. There are long wait-lists across our province for supported child development services to support access to child care. The answer “we’re doing our best” is no longer an acceptable response.

Nursing supports for children with complex health needs are often overlooked because the number of people receiving these very, very vital services is relatively small. There has been no improvement in a family’s ability to receive ongoing, reliable essential nursing supports for their children. The importance of respite to prevent crisis for families raising children with disabilities is constantly emphasized. However, access is still entirely crisis-driven. All eligible families that have access to respite…. We can’t leave them waiting for another year.

For these reasons, our first recommendation is to eliminate wait-lists for supported child development programs and create a reporting mechanism, target investment to create an advanced education strategy to grow the workforce for nursing support services for children and target $12 million for families supported by MCFD to eliminate wait-lists for respite and to increase the base funding.

On to our second recommendation. Education continues to be the main topic that families contact our advocacy line for, representing 41 percent of our calls. We continue to be concerned by the number of students with disabilities who are excluded from full participation in their neighbourhood schools. We need to stop othering our children and labelling them as the problem and commit to evolving our education system to educate all students.

Related to this, Inclusion B.C. receives ongoing complaints from families from across the province that CLBC has denied them support when their youth are transitioning into their services, citing insufficient budget. Proactive, early support is more effective and fiscally responsible than funding crisis-based solutions. We strongly believe that supporting people from a place of abundance and growth at times of transition is fiscally responsible and can change the trajectory of people’s lives.

For those reasons, our second recommendation is in direct response to the calls we receive from families. We know our call volume would go down if there was a targeted investment of $6 million for professional development to equip all levels of a school’s staff with the tools for safe, disability-inclusive learning to support quality education for all students as well as a $10 million targeted investment to support youth transitioning into CLBC to receive employment supports, skill development, access to post-secondary learning and community connections.

[1:05 p.m.]

Our final recommendation. The average income for working-aged people with intellectual disabilities is less than half of Canadians without disabilities. Despite the incremental increases over the past few years, we have not kept pace with the cost of living and inflation in our province. People need a livable income, now, to ensure that their basic human needs are being met.

Like other vulnerable populations, people with intellectual disabilities have been hit hard by the affordable housing crisis. Our final recommendation is to raise the rate for persons with disabilities benefit to $2,200 a month and add $3.4 million into an annualized funding for 400 additional portable rental supplements to ensure that people with intellectual disabilities who rely on PWD benefits can access safe, accessible and inclusive market housing everywhere in British Columbia.

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

Our next presenter is Brenda Lenahan, representing B.C. Complex Kids Society.

B.C. COMPLEX KIDS SOCIETY

B. Lenahan: Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me here today.

I’m joining you from the territory of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, in the village of Tahsis, on Vancouver Island.

B.C. Complex Kids is a grassroots, family-led organization that is focused on the demographic of families who have children with health complexities and who access the provincial At Home program. This is the MCFD program that is meant to provide our access to respite, medical equipment and supplies, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy.

We’re asking you to invest deeply in this program. We’re asking you to invest $75 million in the current children and youth with support needs system of support by adding to the At Home program and striving to meet the unmet needs for those with moderate to significant functional needs.

The At Home program is not often talked about. It is needs-based, with no diagnosis required. However, it is very difficult to access, as your child needs to be completely dependent in at least three areas of daily living — such as feeding, dressing, bathing and toileting — in order to qualify. Once you qualify, you have access to a suite of services that are 30 years old and eroded.

We were happy to see this government’s investment in medical equipment, but that is truly just the tip of the iceberg. Policy changes and investment are needed to open the door to therapy for more kids.

Before the age of five, our children only have access to therapy through their local early intervention program, which frequently has wait-lists and provides sporadic access to medically necessary therapy. Beyond the age of five, MCFD’s At Home program has maximum hourly billing rates of $80 per hour for each therapy modality, while the actual costs are in the range of $120 to $150 per hour. We are given significant yearly funds, but many of these funds go unused for families who can’t afford to pay the difference in cost.

Policy shifts in the eligibility criteria could also open the door wider to kids who are left out of the current system. Strengthening the current system and supporting more families in better ways today can only be beneficial and, in fact, essential to the success of any future models.

With this investment, we also ask you to create robust funding opportunities within the At Home program to support our families in making their homes and vehicles accessible for the health and safety of their children and for themselves as caregivers. This housing crisis is worsening the situation for our families, as most of us have very specific housing needs due to our children’s physical disabilities.

We’re also asking you to invest a total of $50 million in the supported child development program, Aboriginal supported child development program, nursing support services and in CYSN respite. In addition to that, we ask you to create a caregiver benefit of $2,200 per month that empowers our families to hire support workers so we can join the workforce or provide ourselves with income support when the best or only option is for us to provide that care for our kids.

The pandemic and inflated economy are hurting everyone, but families with children with health complexities are deeply affected. Many are in financial crisis. Child care continues to be inaccessible due to the scarcity of funding for one-to-one support. The base amount of respite funding is $256 a month, which only funds about ten hours of support and is so scarce that many families are on wait-lists. Policy also states that this funding is not to be used to support us in our employment pursuits but rather to take a break from our care responsibilities.

[1:10 p.m.]

Nursing support services is also underfunded and is systematically reducing support to match their budget instead of expanding service to meet the needs of the most medically fragile kids in this province. By adding a flexible child care benefit, this would empower families to hire support workers so we can join the workforce or, alternatively, use the funding ourselves as income support when the best or only option is for us to provide that care.

Our families were completely left out of B.C.’s poverty reduction strategy, so I ask you to consider these strategies to end the legacy of disability poverty for children with disabilities in B.C. Income support for our families was also a recommendation of Dr. Charlesworth in the Left Out report from December 2020. We ask you to support us to support our kids.

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

Now we’ll hear from Chelsey Chichak, Mainland Speech Language Pathology Inc.

MAINLAND SPEECH LANGUAGE PATHOLOGY

C. Chichak: Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to present this afternoon.

I acknowledge I’m on the traditional lands of the Katzie, Kwantlen, Matsqui and Semiahmoo First Nations.

I am Chelsey Chichak, and I am a registered speech language pathologist. Typically, I support individuals to communicate clearly, and hopefully I can use some of my own tips and strategies with you here today. I have been a speech language pathologist for 12 years, and I currently own a private practice with 16 therapists that provide therapy in Vancouver and the greater Vancouver area. I’m also the director of early intervention with Speech and Hearing B.C. I’m here today to discuss some of the concerns I have about access to speech and language and audiology services in British Columbia.

My first ask is: I’m asking for increased funding for more full-time positions within our public health SLP sectors. Currently in our province, there are some communities that average between 18 months and almost three years in order for their children to receive speech and language services, and parents have concerns. In some cases, by the time they reach the top of their wait-list, they are only able to receive a few sessions before they age out, prior to kindergarten. Some adults needing speech and language therapy are not able to access government services at all.

The province would need 175 more full-time positions in order to begin to start to support speech and language in our province. The problem then becomes my second ask: where are we going to find 175 more speech and language pathologists to fill those 175 positions?

The shortage of speech and language pathologists in B.C. — and across Canada, for that matter — is apparent. There are vacant positions in health care, early intervention, schools and private practice, positions that have remained vacant for long periods of time.

Currently UBC graduates 36 speech and language pathologists a year — 36 a year. In order to continue to support the growing need for speech and language therapy, as well as decrease the current wait times in the province, we need to be able to support the education of more than 36 individuals. Increased funding for seats in advanced education to improve staffing issues would lead to better access to services. For example, the physical therapy program at UBC has 120 spots over three different campuses, in Vancouver, the North and the Fraser Valley.

For myself, I continuously have an ad on Indeed to be able to hire more speech and language pathologists. It’s rare than I even receive a résumé. Although I currently support 12 speech and language pathologists in my practice, I consistently have upwards of 90 children on my wait-list — 90 children and their families, waiting to access services. Some of those families have been on my wait-list since 2020 in some communities, because I am unable to hire more or support someone to provide services, and there are no other options for them.

My other colleagues that also own private practices have wait-lists. Our caseloads are high, and we are all being stretched to the limit and burnt out, because we do not want to see those who are not able to communicate struggling at home and in their communities. We are already in dire need of support in speech-language pathology and audiology.

I’m concerned about what this is going to mean for our province in the next few years, especially with the ongoing changes to the system and the access to funding. The last two years have exacerbated problems, and we’re seeing increased concerns for children and adults having difficulty socializing and accessing services.

[1:15 p.m.]

Increased funding for more full-time positions to decrease wait-lists in publicly accessed centres, increased seats in advanced education to support the education of more speech-language pathologists, and lastly, awareness of the access and wait times that families in our province currently face. Up to three years to be able to access speech and language therapy is not acceptable.

Thank you very much for your time.

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

Finally, we’ll hear from Wayne Leslie, representing the Down Syndrome Resource Foundation.

DOWN SYNDROME RESOURCE FOUNDATION

W. Leslie: Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

The Down Syndrome Resource Foundation is located on the shared unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, specifically Kwikwetlem, Tsleil-Waututh, Skwxwú7mesh and Musqueam peoples.

The Down Syndrome Resource Foundation is based in Burnaby. We were created in 1995. Today we’re British Columbia’s largest and leading Down syndrome service provider. We support people living with Down syndrome, and their families, with specialized health and education services, including speech, occupational therapy and mental health services that are unmatched in Canada. This is all to say that we know the community we are advocating on behalf of today incredibly well.

Classified as a developmental disability, Down syndrome is a genetic condition. It results in a third, extra copy of the 21st chromosome, leading to health conditions, developmental delays and learning disabilities.

While there are no exact population numbers, because Down syndrome is not systematically tracked in British Columbia, based on the accepted birth rate and general population statistics, DSRF estimates B.C.’s Down syndrome population is approximately 4,000. It’s a small, highly vulnerable group that, because of their limited numbers, is often overlooked and marginalized, including in annual budgets. In the upcoming 2023 budget, you and the government have an opportunity to change this.

Today DSRF is making just one, but a very broad and critical, recommendation: increase funding for children and youth with support needs. I’m not going to present specific figures. Because the needs are multifaceted, I can’t cover them in five minutes. The proposed changes to B.C.’s service delivery system for children and youth with support needs are not finalized, and they are best informed by those who are closest to the provincial system, like the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

What I will provide are guideposts that DSRF believes should be followed to create the correct foundation the new system will need in order to realistically improve services, which is our shared goal. Our guidance is based on the expected increase in children and youth who will be entering the new system and the resulting financial and human resource needs to support them and, most importantly, to meet the service levels that DSRF, in its experience — and other respected service providers — considers to be optimal.

Currently there are a great number of families who are not receiving any kind of support, despite clearly needing it. A key problem is the way that children are qualified for support. Down syndrome is a good example. Despite an accurate diagnosis and a generally high level of need in all cases, many children with Down syndrome are still denied access. Other disabilities, especially those that can wait years for a diagnosis, share similar stories.

While we are optimistic that the changes being contemplated by MCFD will correct this, when these children enter the system, it will put more strain on a system that is already underfunded and struggling to meet the needs of those it is currently supporting. By its own estimates, MCFD estimates an increase on the order of 28 percent. That’s approximately 8,000 kids. Despite this increase, there are no plans to increase system funding. This can only mean that individual support will be reduced for some in order to spread services to a much larger group. Inevitably, we believe, this will result in less or lower-quality services for all.

In a population where early and robust intervention is critical to development that can make or break a long-term prognosis, a lack of services, or lower-quality services, can be devastating. As an example, DSRF’s clinical recommendations for minimal speech or occupational therapy levels for children with Down syndrome are 30 to 60 minutes once per week — minimums.

Support should be greater during transition periods, medical procedure recoveries and other points in life. DSRF does not believe that current funding, when redistributed to support a much larger group, will meet the minimum standards of care that we recommend, much less meet optimal levels of care — which should be the goal for such a vulnerable population.

This paints a very bleak picture for a long-term development and quality-of-life issue for children and youth with support needs. For individuals with disabilities like Down syndrome, the effects of limited or lower-quality early intervention are well documented, with lifelong repercussions on everything from health and mental health outcomes to IQ, independence and employment expectations.

[1:20 p.m.]

The solution is not to require MCFD — and by extension, B.C.’s families — to make do with current funding levels, but instead, to increase funding so that all children and youth are supported as they need to be.

To conclude, the DSRF’s single recommendation is that MCFD’s annual base funding is increased to provide more services for children and youth with support needs and that funding be needs-based to ensure that as the need grows, so does the capacity of the system.

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

We’ve now heard from all members of the panel, so I will now invite members of the committee to ask your questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentations. A lot of information. A lot of questions.

I’m just going to start with one, and Wayne, you were the most recent. You said that 4,000 people — was it? — in British Columbia have Down syndrome. Or was that 4,000 kiddos that had it?

W. Leslie: It’s 4,000 individuals with Down syndrome. We estimate the 18-and-under population to be somewhere in the order of half to a little bit less than that.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Okay. That does make us question the 8,600 additional children that are going to be served under the CYSN, if there may be 2,000 additional kiddos with Down syndrome going through that system.

Just so I understand. In order to provide the best services and supports for a young person with Down syndrome, you say you need a needs-based system. Do you need a diagnosis, or will a needs-based system be enough to figure out the specific supports that a young person would actually need?

You know what I’m asking. Okay.

W. Leslie: Yes. Sorry — I’d like to clarify. Our recommendation about a needs-based system is to flex the funding for MCFD and the service system as the need grows.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Okay.

W. Leslie: There are issues around the assessment of needs, and we are currently a partner with MCFD to develop that. We’re confident that those changes are going to result in better access, but it also leads to the problem we’re talking about, which is that they’re talking with us about getting more kids in. That’s the problem.

So we’re talking about needing to increase in 2023. But then you can’t fix the funding at a 2023 level and still have that level in 2040. You have to keep up.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Can I just ask a clarifying question? I understand what you’re saying now with needs-based, in terms of expanding the system. But for a young person with Down syndrome, to know what…. SLP, physiotherapy — different options in terms of treatment and supports. Do you need a diagnosis to be able to know what those things are? Or can that needs-based assessment that is going to be done…? Will that be specific enough to give kids the right services?

W. Leslie: This is where Down syndrome is a bit unique, because there is no question about diagnosis. You have it at birth. I mean, it’s there.

The resulting challenges are across….

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I’m asking that wrong.

W. Leslie: Sorry. Do you want to rephrase?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Yeah — sorry — not diagnosis, but something that is more specific, like the uniqueness of a young person. I’m talking about the needs-based system that is being proposed to be used. Will that system provide you with enough information, or does it need to be more detailed? But enough information for a young person to get the right services?

So I was misusing the word diagnosis.

W. Leslie: That’s okay. At the moment, it’s unclear. We are in conversations with Ministry of Children and Family Development staff, because that part of the process is still being developed.

We are optimistic and hopeful that working with us and other service provider partners, we will come to a needs assessment that will result in the way we determine when families come to DSRF, whether they need SLP, whether they need OT, whether they need mental health services. To be clear, with Down syndrome — and, I think, a lot of other disabilities — they need all of those. It’s at varying levels, at varying times in their life.

It’s a question of fitting in. But we’re hopeful that the needs assessment, as it continues to be developed, will meet those needs.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

W. Leslie: You’re welcome.

J. Routledge (Chair): I believe, Chelsey, you want to add to this?

[1:25 p.m.]

C. Chichak: I was just going to state that there are those concerns, as Wayne has said, about the needs-based assessment and ensuring that…. It depends on who is going to be providing that assessment for those intakes — for the children — as well as what assessments are going to be used to determine that.

Based on the initial paperwork that was provided by the government, as speech pathologists and Speech and Hearing B.C., we do have concerns on what those assessments currently are and the information that they might be able to provide in order to determine the needs of the children, because it depends on who’s providing those needs-based assessments.

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes. Thank you for that.

Our next question will be asked by Brenda.

B. Bailey: I actually just wanted to follow up with some of the things that you shared with us, Chelsey. I have a mother-in-law who’s a speech pathologist, and I’ve seen her at work. It’s almost magic, what can happen, I think, with a really good speech pathologist and the changes that it can make in a child and, therefore, a family. First of all, I just really thank you for your work. I know how important it is. I’ve seen it firsthand.

You shared with us some numbers that were pretty surprising, the number of people that are needed versus the number of people that are trained. You mentioned UBC. So a couple of questions around that, if I may.

First, is UBC the only place that trains? That’s one question. The other one is…. We’re in this funny time right now where every single sector that we speak to is short on talent. It’s across the board. It’s just such a…. It’s demographics, pandemic, many other things. I’m wondering about…. Do we know…?

Perhaps we don’t. I get that. I’m wondering if we do know. Were there more positions available if, say, UBC went to 80 positions a year? Do we know if there, in fact, are folks that are ready to go and take those positions? Do we have any numbers about applicants versus those who attend?

If you could tackle that for me, Chelsey. Thank you.

C. Chichak: Absolutely. To answer your first question, for how many programs and that…. UBC is the only program in all of British Columbia that graduates speech-language pathologists. Across Canada, there are eight universities, graduate programs, that graduate speech-language pathologists. That’s only a total of 287 positions throughout all of Canada for speech-language pathologists, for graduation, which is astronomical in and of itself. But in B.C., there are only 36.

To be able to expand that, to perhaps be able to have a program that would be up north or on different campuses, would be important. It would just increase overall access.

To skip to your next one, for the applicants that we know apply…. From the last application process that I’m aware of, it’s upwards of 500 applicants for 36 spots. So we have individuals who want to become, and are passionate about becoming, speech-language pathologists. That’s across the board in Canada.

For example, one of my speech-language therapy assistants has applied for the past four years for graduate school, to become an SLP, and has been denied each and every single one of those four years, although they are passionate about the career. She is now going to Australia, because she was denied again in Canada.

It is an ongoing issue. We do have the people that are there and ready to get into that program if the seats were to become available.

To speak to the shortage of professionals — absolutely, across the board, we need more professionals. But I think the concern, and why we’re talking about it now, is because of the fact that we do have so many changes coming down the road in the next two to three years.

When we’re already sitting with public health positions within our public health and child development centres, with open, vacant spots and not being able to provide services in our community — and that’s even before these changes are implemented — our concern starts to just be: where are the individuals who are going to support these different facilitated centres and hubs going to come from? We certainly would love to know.

W. Leslie: As a charity that hires, as well, speech-language pathologists, I agree with everything Chelsey is saying. We have immense problems.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next question is from Henry.

[1:30 p.m.]

H. Yao: Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity to speak.

I have a question for Wayne, in regard to, obviously…. I don’t know. Unfortunately, this diagnosis and needs assessment continues to bounce back and forth in some kind of argument we’re dealing with right now. I just want to ask…. Obviously, Down syndrome is something we diagnose automatically, through birth or sometimes, I believe, with DNA testing during pregnancy to identify an individual with the chromosomal throb — pardon me if I use the term wrong — that leads to Down syndrome.

I guess, right now if a diagnosis is established, and you’re still talking about a needs assessment, it’s because the needs assessment further complements the need for what the diagnosis is providing, so that way we can further specialize to understand what actually needs to be addressed. That’s why there’s a still a need for a needs assessment, even with a diagnosis.

W. Leslie: That is correct.

H. Yao: My question right now is: how often, I guess…? You’re talking about when what we saw becomes a needs assessment, the number of kids could grow exponentially regarding a service that requires your support and requires various numbers of support.

Does that mean there’s actually a population out there, based on your professional estimate, that has been going undiagnosed or unidentified, due to the lack of observation, lack of parental or maybe education system knowledge of how to actually identify an individual with their needs?

W. Leslie: No. In the case of Down syndrome, the issues are how those individuals are assessed and qualified to fit into the system. We have argued for years that Down syndrome, because of its high level of need across the board throughout life, should be an automatic. You are supported, especially through childhood and through youth.

The current system, which is what we’re hoping will change, often disqualifies. Many parents…. It’s only when they get a dual diagnosis of autism, which is basically a switch in terms of funding, that they’re able to access funding that they could also then use for Down syndrome services because they have a dual diagnosis.

The issue is the qualification system. I didn’t speak to that today, because for the points I was making in terms of the budget and the Finance Committee, it’s not relevant. In our case, what is relevant are those 2,000 or so, we’ll say, children that should be in the system with Down syndrome. They should all be in. As another member mentioned, that’s an automatic. Those kids should just automatically go in. So that’s your start point. There are 2,000 more right there.

H. Yao: Perfect. That explains so much. Thank you so much for your time.

C. Chichak: I can add to that too. It does kind of blend into what Brenda and that were sharing, too, about the fact that when you have that dual diagnosis, and you become one of the complex kids with needs and diverse needs and that, you’re not able to access all of the funding that is provided unless you hit those three criteria areas that Brenda mentioned. The wait-lists and the ability to even meet those different criteria is very, very challenging. Then families, once they do meet that criteria, have the barrier of having to pay that extra fee on top.

For example, in my private practice, the fees can range anywhere from between $140 to $170 per hour, but MCFD only covers $80 of that. Then that difference has to be either supplemented by additional funding, like autism funding, charities such as Variety and CKNW, or out of the parents’ pockets themselves.

It is a challenging issue when you have those kids with complex needs. Regardless of that needs-based assessment, they should be able to access whatever services in this province that they need immediately. It should not be a qualification — that you make it, but you don’t. Every child with complex and diverse needs…. They need to be able to have the services that they need, and they need to have it within early intervention.

K. Verschoor: Could I just add something on here as well?

We focused a lot on children with Down syndrome. The point that I was making…. The systems of supports that catch them…. When they turn 19, there’s no guarantee that that is there either. So there’s a bit of a cliff for many young adults with Down syndrome and dual diagnosis when they turn 19.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we have another question from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): If I had time, I’d ask you all five questions, but I’m going to just contain this.

Brenda, I just wanted to ask you…. You had talked about….

[1:35 p.m.]

Who determines what is medically necessary treatment or medically necessary equipment? Then another piece of that is that when we’re talking about something that’s medically necessary, does the whole CYSN framework — everything — belong in Health instead of in MCFD? Karla’s smiling at that question.

So the two questions, Brenda. Medically necessary treatment: who determines that? And do you think that this would be better positioned in Health?

B. Lenahan: Yeah, that’s a very good question. Our therapist…. Children like mine all have a team around them, although we can’t always access all of the teams we need. But those therapists are very specialized at determining the needs of children. In terms of medical equipment and medical supplies — these are everything from pediatricians, specialists from Children’s Hospital and our OT speech and SLPs — they do determine needs.

For medical equipment and that kind of stuff, they do apply for what the child needs. But they don’t always get what the child needs, because it isn’t in the box of services that are available. The box has been very small. It just broadened a little bit, which was great. But there are still unmet needs in that area.

Then when it comes to therapy, we run into the problem of (1) that funding cap and (2) the kids that have some level of dependence, where they can bring a spoon to their mouth, then don’t qualify, so they get nothing in that suite of services. Then just the availability of therapists and therapy assistants is so minimal that depending on where you live and how you access, even if you have funding, you may not have access.

Back to your question, yeah, those teams of professionals are able to make those decisions, but it doesn’t mean that those needs are being met. There are a lot of health services within MCFD. I don’t know what is best. I don’t know if I want to go down that road. But I do know that they’re medically necessary, so it’s definitely a point of discussion.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much.

I don’t know who to put this question to, but I’m thinking about what the burden is on the families and parents and the children with all of this. Is there enough work going on in the research field? Are we doing enough to try to do something preventative on any of this? Can we do more?

C. Chichak: Preventative in which way — like, for any of the…?

B. Stewart: Well, the problem really is that everything from Down syndrome to complex needs and autism and that whole spectrum…. I guess the question is…. We spend most of the time talking about services and trying to make certain that there are enough there. But what are we doing on the side to deal with the issue of chromosome 21, I think, which was mentioned by Wayne? I’m just wondering: are we doing enough?

You know what? I had an experience with CF years ago when I was at the Toronto sick children’s hospital. I was on the national board, and Dr. Lap-Chee Tsui was doing the work to identify where the issue was in the chromosome. I realize…. Anyways, we just recently had a presentation from CF about some of the groundbreaking work that’s made life for CF patients so much different than what it was when I was working on the board.

Anyways, that’s my question: are we doing enough on the other side? We’re talking about the treatment. You’re kind of in the field. I thought you might have an answer. But anyways, if you don’t, that’s fine.

C. Chichak: I think all of us will want to speak on this. But I think, just because of the limitation of time, I would just like to state that I don’t really feel like I would want to prevent any of the aspects that are happening.

Each and every child that we work with is so special and unique in the abilities that they have and that they can share with us, too. It wouldn’t become, for me, a part of preventative. It’s more of supporting everybody in their unique needs with what they have so that they can be the best that they can be.

Then I’ll pass it on.

J. Routledge (Chair): Other members of the panel should feel free to jump in.

[1:40 p.m.]

W. Leslie: I’ll mention, from a Down syndrome perspective, that it’s not a question of curing Down syndrome. Down syndrome is Down syndrome. It’s a genetic condition.

What we are talking about preventing is really what Chelsey’s talking about: our lifelong shortfalls that could really be supplemented by early intervention, especially when children are not forced to wait for services or lower-quality services throughout most of their early life.

What we have seen, especially in our experience since we started doing this in 1995, is that earlier you intervene, the more consistent you are with optimal service levels, and the better outcomes you have. The life expectancy increases. It used to be that with Down syndrome, an average life expectancy was anywhere between 30 and 35 years of age. Now it’s 50 to 60 years old. They are contributing to communities at a much higher rate.

It’s not about: can we do something to prevent Down syndrome? It’s about: how can we prevent otherwise unacceptable outcomes that could be avoided if this very vulnerable population were supported as they deserve to be?

J. Routledge (Chair): I think there were others on the panel that also wanted to say a few words about this and answer this question.

B. Lenahan: I just would say the same. It’s about the difference between the medical model of disability versus the social model of disability. I would encourage everyone to take a moment to read a little bit about that.

I just wanted to quickly talk to what Karin was saying about the ministry. It’s really essential that we be supported. Our services…. I mentioned three or four different ministries in my discussion, and it’s really essential to break down those silos and work across ministries. I don’t know that it’s about moving from one to another; it’s about working together.

K. Verschoor: I know we’re out of time, but I just want to add this. People’s lives don’t unfold in the silos of services as we define them and as we fund them. I think the number one thing that a government could do to support people with disabilities and their families is to take a cohesive, collaborative approach to fulfilling disability-related needs within your realm of influence, be it child care, education, MCFD, health or employment.

The reason I was smiling to that earlier question about Health versus MCFD was for that very reason. We get stuck in that very limited thinking of how we support one another when the truth is that we have a collective responsibility to support the characteristics that make a person whole, be it around their medical needs, their disability-related needs, their educational needs — the list goes on — or all social determinants of health and wellness.

I just challenge people to take a collective lens on how we deliver disability-related supports for the people in our province.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, that is a powerful final comment to end this panel on. We are out of time. We could pursue this conversation, and I hope we will, in many ways.

We want to thank you for taking the time to meet with us, to engage with us. I think we’ve heard your core message: that early intervention matters and that that is the goal. We would agree that that’s the goal, but what you have conveyed to us, with some powerful examples, is that early intervention is not happening now, or not happening enough now.

What you’ve shared with us is the impact that that’s having on families, on individuals with particular needs and on the professionals who are there to help. Perhaps we need to question whether or not people with special needs need to fit into the system or whether the system needs to fit into them. That’s what we will be charged with looking at. Thank you for providing us with that concrete context for that work.

Our next panel is also on social services. The theme is disability. We have three panellists. Each will have five minutes, in turn, to make a presentation and recommendations. Then we’ll open it up to questions from the committee. Our first panellist is Rowan Burdge, representing B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition.

[1:45 p.m.]

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 6 – Social Services (Disability)

B.C. POVERTY REDUCTION COALITION

R. Burdge: Hi there. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Rowan Burdge, and I’m the provincial director of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition, which is an alliance of organizations working together to improve the health and well-being of all British Columbians through a call for comprehensive policy solutions that address the systemic causes of poverty and inequality.

I’m calling in today from the ancestral and unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

I’m also a person with living experience of having a chronic illness, and so the issues I’m speaking to today mean a lot to me, personally as well as professionally. Disabled folks account for 40 percent of those living in deep poverty and are now experiencing a severe deprivation of basic human rights. Addressing disability poverty and deep poverty in B.C. needs to be a priority for Budget 2023.

The current rates for both income assistance and disability assistance are well below the poverty line, which forces people into inadequate living situations, insecure food access and even into bad relationships, due to the current spousal cap, as a lot of people can’t afford to live independently on such low levels of financial support and are forced to rely on partners and food banks for survival.

It’s a critical time to make investments that support the individuals and families across B.C. struggling with the consequences of these low rates. There are currently over 557,000 British Columbians living below the poverty line. According to the Child Poverty Report Card, one in five B.C. children still do not have enough to eat.

The current shelter rate is set at $375 a month right now. Who amongst us could find a place that’s affordable, let alone if we have any mobility support requirements? Disabled folks in B.C. also have higher costs of living, because they might need specific meals, nutritional support, home care, mobility supports, etc.

Investing now saves us money in health care and other costs in the future, and generates investments in local economies, including supporting small businesses. There are fiscal, population health and moral benefits to increasing the rates immediately, and we need to meet the basic needs of disabled and poor people in British Columbia.

Secondly, we’re calling on you to provide urgent and substantive investments into mitigating and preventing the harms of climate change on low-income and marginalized groups, with meaningful input from these groups. With the increase of extreme heat events, flooding, forest fires and acute climate-related emergencies, we strongly recommend investing in peer-reviewed, community-based and -led interventions, including education, prevention and the responses at the community and neighbourhood levels.

This includes investments into community food systems, low- or no-fare transportation infrastructure, and such emergency measures as mobile cooling stations and mechanical cooling access for people experiencing poverty and/or disability. This needs to include access to digital justice and literacy for these groups, making life-saving information accessible for folks without phones or Internet access, and providing free air-conditioning units to people and families who live below the poverty line. This should automatically include people on income and disability assistance, who are disproportionately impacted by these extreme weather events, as well as fire, smoke, flooding and other disasters.

We encourage you to invest generously and strategically into cooling and heating systems and subsidizing energy costs into B.C. Housing, shelters, SROs and multi-unit rental buildings, to begin preparing for climates changes and future extreme heat events. These are life-saving measures to prevent mass deaths and deep suffering in the future, which low-income and disabled people, families and their communities are currently unable to afford or access. Since 619 people died because of the extreme heat events of last year, we need to invest now in prevention and education strategies to prevent this from happening again in B.C.

We also finally ask you to implement and fund the recommendations of the Expert Panel on Basic Income report by reforming disability assistance into a targeted basic income, reforming temporary assistance and, critically, funding extended health benefits for all low-income individuals and families — which needs to include dental, vision, counselling, PharmaCare and access to free contraception, without patient co-pays, caps or clawbacks.

We know there’s a housing shortage in B.C., and the current lack of affordable housing for folks is really impacting people’s ability to survive. The costs of gas, food and housing are going up, and folks are having a really hard time making their ends meet. People below the poverty line are often pressed into dangerous survival work in grey economies, and low-income families and individuals are struggling to make ends meet and access and afford the health care, food, housing, transportation and medication that they urgently need.

Lastly, we want to emphasize the importance of preventative, sustainable and justice-based approaches, rather than charitable, responsive emergency supports. We know that takes courageous investment choices and proactive, intrepid leadership. We believe you can do this, and we’re counting on you to support these urgent and vital matters.

[1:50 p.m.]

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

Now we’ll turn to Kate Fish, representing Disability Without Poverty.

DISABILITY WITHOUT POVERTY

K. Fish: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much. My name is Kate Fish.

I am joining you today from the K’ómoks First Nation’s territory, otherwise known as Courtenay, B.C.

I’m making this submission as a community organizer on behalf of the B.C. chapter of Disability Without Poverty, a national, disability-led movement advocating for the Canada disability benefit and the end of disability poverty.

Twenty-four percent of British Columbians are disabled, including me, and are disproportionately living in poverty. As of June 2021, around 110,000 people receive persons-with-disability benefits from the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. The benefit assistance is well below provincial and regional poverty lines.

The actions we recommend reduce financial inequities and positively impact people with disabilities. Please also keep in mind the intersections of identities alongside disability and poverty that are overrepresented, including women, LGBTQ2S people, Indigenous people, single-parent families and recent immigrants.

Our first recommendation is to provide disability assistance to the individual, independent of living arrangements with a partner or spouse, roommates or family caregivers.

Household or unit rates create situations that leave people vulnerable and dependent on their partner or hiding part of their life for fear of being found out. It means choosing whether to tell a government ministry details about your personal life and relationship that could potentially backfire on you and your benefits. It means not taking the next step in a relationship, to cohabiting or getting married, for fear of changes in or loss of your benefits.

Or if someone is in an abusive situation but financially dependent on the other person in their household, it makes it harder to leave. Being disabled means not being able to simply get a job or work extra hours to make up the difference. An individualized benefit would mean eligibility determination and funds are connected and provided to the person who applied for them and would be attached solely to them and their dependents.

Our second recommendation is to index the benefit rate to inflation, using the consumer price index, to prevent people with disabilities from experiencing even deeper levels of poverty and suffering.

Statistics Canada reports that in April inflation rose to 6.8 percent. The basic necessities, food and shelter, have increased most substantially, at 8.8 and 7.4 percent respectively. For people with fixed incomes, an already unfeasible monthly budget becomes even more dire. People report having their housing at risk or not being able to pay their bills. Others are not eating for many days just to ensure that their children are fed instead. Others forego medication or medical equipment that is critical to their well-being.

The unexpected, unaddressed increased costs are debilitating. The index link would mean that the benefit would automatically be adjusted on an annual basis, which means that you could compensate and make sure that there are no delays in adjustments, because they cause extended periods of time where people experience additional financial struggles.

Our third recommendation is to end clawbacks. Allow people to receive and earn funds that will move them at least to or above the poverty line without any impact to their benefits. The current disability assistance is subject to a number of fund recoveries, or clawbacks, from the ministry that come into effect once the combined earned and unearned income reaches the annual earnings exemption.

Earned income comes from working, and unearned income includes federal benefits, like employment insurance, Canada Pension Plan; grants, gifts and so on. Hopefully, that will include a Canada disability benefit sometime soon. Each dollar of income over the exemption is deducted from a person’s benefit. This leads to monthly funds being reduced or, if monthly income consistently exceeds disability rates, being cut off entirely.

It’s important to remember that the persons-with-disabilities program also includes critical, non-financial benefits, like health care and dental coverage, bus passes and medical transportation. Being cut off has life-altering negative effects to people’s health and well-being. End the clawbacks so that people can receive the benefits and supports they’re entitled to and so they have the ability to work without fear of impacting their benefits.

[1:55 p.m.]

People have paid for the benefits broadly, with taxes, and individually, through employment deductions. Not being able to stack benefits keeps people in legislated poverty.

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

Next we’ll hear from Helaine Boyd with the Disability Alliance B.C.

DISABILITY ALLIANCE B.C.

H. Boyd: Hi, everyone. My name is Helaine Boyd, and I am the executive director of Disability Alliance B.C. My pronouns are she/her. I am zooming in today from Austria; however, I primarily live and work in Vancouver.

It is the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today. Disability Alliance B.C. is a provincial cross-disability non-profit advocating for the rights of people with disabilities. Our mission is to support people with all disabilities to live with dignity, independence and as equal and full participants in the community.

The focus of DABC’s submission will be on ensuring that the B.C. government invests in programs which will improve the financial security of low-income people with disabilities across our province, particularly focusing on the following three recommendations: (1) increase the monthly disability assistance rate, known as PWD; (2) establish a comprehensive system of coverage for medical equipment and assistive devices; and (3) invest in affordable, accessible housing.

One, DABC requests that this committee recommend that the disability assistance rate be increased to above the current provincial poverty line and indexed to inflation.

In March 2021, the B.C. government announced a permanent increase of $175 to the PWD and income assistance rates. For context, a single individual on PWD now receives $1,358 per month with this increase. This monthly rate continues to be largely inadequate to meet the daily living, housing and additional health care costs for low-income people with disabilities in B.C.

This $175 increase was for the support portion of the PWD rate, not the shelter rate. The shelter rate, which comprises $375 of that $1,358 amount, has not been increased since 2007. That was 15 years ago. I think we can all appreciate what Rowan has previously said — that this amount…. It is virtually impossible to afford housing on that rate, unless you are going through B.C. Housing’s subsidized housing program. This isn’t an option for everyone, as the subsidized housing wait-list is several years along.

Two, create a comprehensive program for personal supports for people with disabilities. DABC requests that this committee recommend an investment in a comprehensive program for assistive devices and medical equipment. I am thankful to this committee for making this recommendation in their B.C. budget 2021 consultation report. We are repeating this same request, as no allocation was made within Budget 2021 or 2022.

In B.C., most financial coverage available for adults for these devices is available for people on disability assistance only. Those that do not qualify for this opportunity to apply for certain types of assistive devices can only apply if they establish that the equipment is needed to meet “a direct and imminent life-threatening need.” Many applicants fail to meet this strict criteria.

Other provinces and territories in Canada have programs for this. For instance, the Alberta Aids to Daily Living program provides a broad range of assistive devices. It is a cost-share program unless you are low income. Then it’s free.

I know this personally, as my grandma, who is blind, moved from B.C. to Alberta last year and was able to receive, for free, a hospital bed, wheelchair and lifting system through this program. She was not eligible for any of these assistive devices in B.C. because she was not on disability assistance prior to turning 65.

Three, I ask that the committee recommend major new investments in affordable, accessible housing through issuing rent subsidies.

As mentioned earlier, low-income British Columbians who need affordable, wheelchair-accessible housing often wait years on the housing registry to find a suitable home. For instance, the demand for wheelchair-accessible units in Metro Vancouver increased by 52 percent from 2010 to 2017, and the B.C. housing registry had a waiting list of 450 applicants for wheelchair-accessible housing in 2017.

DABC recognizes that the B.C. government addresses accessibility and housing already by ensuring that a percentage of new buildings built are accessible. However, we recommend that the B.C. government address the supply gap by supporting accessibility retrofits for existing social housing as well as providing more rent subsidies for those who need accessible housing but cannot afford it.

[2:00 p.m.]

To clarify, there may be accessible units available in new buildings, but they are at market rates. Even below market rates by non-profit housing providers are still too much of a barrier for low-income people with disabilities, such as people on disability assistance who receive only $375 for their shelter rate.

Those are my three recommendations. Thank you for your time.

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

That concludes the presentations from the three panellists. Now I will invite members of the committee to ask your questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I don’t have a question. I just want to let you know that I’ve learned a lot in what I’ve just heard from you all. I mean, there are things in terms of extended benefits to me that…. It just should be a given — you know, the housing, accessibility, the funding of equipment and, certainly, the housing portion of PWD and PWD in general.

This has been really eye-opening for me and has given me a bit more clarity on some of the things I was aware of. So just wanted to say thank you very much, and I just wanted you to know that I heard you.

B. Bailey: I’ll share my colleague’s comments that I learned a lot as well. I thank you for that. Your presentations were succinct and your asks clear, so I appreciate that.

I can’t remember who it was who mentioned that there’s also a need in terms of the digital divide and that some of the tools that people would have access to that we kind of take for granted and think folks might be able to use…. That’s not, in fact, the case. I know that that’s not the entire focus of this panel, so I don’t want to distract us too far, but I would like to ask a little bit more about that.

As Parliamentary Secretary for Technology and Innovation, I’m asking, really, because I’m wondering how we can help. If you could spend just a short amount of time [audio interrupted] perhaps I could follow up with you later.

Madam Chair, I don’t want to distract the committee in a wrong direction.

K. Fish: Rowan, I believe that was you who spoke to that.

R. Burdge: Sure. Yeah. Thank you for that feedback. We really appreciate it.

The digital justice piece is a really big one for us. We work with a lot of folks experiencing homelessness or experiencing deep poverty who don’t have access to cell phones and other technology.

Also, I think when we’re working with elders and seniors, a lot of them aren’t able to be tapping into a lot of the online resources. I know some folks are even struggling to apply for income assistance and disability when so much of the process is online. So I think there is a growing digital gap between the ways that we’re accessing services and the ability of folks to have the literacy in order to do that. I do think that that’s a big area.

We have a previous campaign that we worked on. I’m happy to send over some further information after the call, if that’s useful.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentations.

I have to ask the burning question to Helaine. What time is it where you are right now?

H. Boyd: It is, I believe, just past 11 p.m.

M. Starchuk: Oh, okay. Thank you.

I guess my question goes to Rowan. I guess I could get it from Hansard, with when you were speaking, but my pencil was just going crazy when you were making reference to the climate change relationship to heating and cooling in the most recent report. Could you just talk about that just a little bit more and how it would apply to finance in the perspective that we’re looking at it?

R. Burdge: For sure, for sure. Actually, that’s been on my mind this week. The coroner’s report came out on the heatwave deaths, and I actually was a panellist on the report, so I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot. One of the things that the report identified is that disabled people, people from low-income neighbourhoods are more likely to experience the impacts of heat and extreme heat suffering and death, so it’s been a big part of our work to think about strategies to mitigate that.

In terms of costs, one of the recommendations that the Poverty Reduction Coalition puts forward is that we need to have cooling devices available to people who are on income assistance and disability assistance. A lot of those folks aren’t able to access cooling.

[2:05 p.m.]

The other thing is that it’s great to have cooling centres, and it’s great to have heat alerts, but like I said, if folks don’t have a phone, that’s a real barrier for people. For people with disabilities and for elders, often it’s just not possible or appropriate to move people from their homes into a cooling centre, so we need to figure out ways to make sure that folks have access — things like, perhaps, free transportation or shuttle buses during extreme heat events, mobile cooling stations.

I think there needs to be more done in terms of consulting people with lived experience of the kind of suffering that we saw and having those inform the things, moving forward. I think we need to be investing in a lot of air-conditioning support for people.

K. Fish: May I add on a piece with that as well?

J. Routledge (Chair): Absolutely.

K. Fish: There has been some talk or consideration of thinking of heating and cooling devices, particularly when we think about the extremes that are happening with climate change, as a medical device. For me, even, I have medications and chronic illnesses that make me extra heat sensitive, so during the heat wave, it really was kind of like a medical requirement that I stay cool.

Certainly, the investment, even for funding things like air conditioning, curtains or fans and taking that preventative funding approach will lead to reduced costs on the other end.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to ask the question.

Helaine, you mentioned the rate of PWD right now as $1,358 a month. I just wondered: have you got a target number in mind as to what that should be at, just in terms of the base?

H. Boyd: Thank you, Ben. I know that there will be a lot of work being done on this through Disability Without Poverty’s involvement in the Canada disability benefit, understanding how much the rate of pay should be for people with disabilities.

I think a couple of principles to consider are that it should be…. Whatever the current poverty rate is now — it’s hard to say exactly, because it was $1,600 a month back in 2018, but inflation has increased so much, so it’s well beyond that — it should be considerate of the fact that people with disabilities have higher costs of living due to their health care needs.

Another principle is that there has already been a business case made by this on the federal level, through CERB, the Canada emergency response benefit, that offered $2,000 per month. So I think that it’s probably at least that amount, but DABC and BCPRC and DWP are all here to support any sort of feasibility amounts in order to find that appropriate amount.

B. Stewart: Okay. I have another question for you. You mentioned the equipment fund and your grandmother moving to Alberta. You mentioned a few pieces of equipment. I’m sure it varies based on disability. Do you have any idea what that amount, the total cost, is in Alberta for that fund? What would it cost, globally, in British Columbia? Just a ballpark number.

H. Boyd: I unfortunately do not have an amount for that. I do know that their program does give limits for each type of support. So it’s like $500 a year for clothing, for example. Wheelchairs can be $5,000 to $20,000, depending on the sophistication of the wheelchair and the type of disability required for that wheelchair.

Those are just some examples, but I cannot give you a ballpark figure, unfortunately.

B. Stewart: Okay. One more. This is to Kate.

I was just thinking about…. You talked about the clawbacks and the exclusivity of PWD dollars to an individual applicant. I didn’t realize that we were looking at the family situation, which I guess, in some cases, is important. If we weren’t able to eliminate that relationship, if you want to call it that, is there a way of tempering that to find a medium-term solution?

[2:10 p.m.]

K. Fish: I guess a medium-term solution would be to make sure that both parties in a unit receive the full disability benefit amount. Right now, as it stands, if I was on disability benefits, and so was my partner, and we lived together, we would each receive $926.75. We would both, individually, receive less than we would as a single applicant, through the benefit.

If that unit approach or family approach to the benefit needs to stand, then at least make sure that both parties are receiving the full amount of the benefit and that the amounts aren’t reduced so much.

B. Stewart: I can see that. I know, with inflationary pressures, you’re looking for solutions, and the government is not necessarily helping you get there.

K. Fish: I think, for many people, there are social and financial benefits, especially if you’re disabled, to living with people. You want to reduce isolation, but you can also reduce your costs. But if there are two people who are receiving $1,853 for the two of them, who are both disabled, it doesn’t really provide a lot of extra wiggle room at all, really.

That’s what we hear from people with disabilities across the province, that it means people not getting married. It means people living separately. It’s a huge issue for folks.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll move on to Megan to ask her question.

M. Dykeman: I just have one question. Thank you, everyone, for your presentations today. I really appreciated all of the information that you provided us.

The question I have is for Rowan. It’s related to recommendation 1 in your written submission. You discuss food security in that and the challenges that somebody living with a disability experiences in acquiring meals, that there might be higher specific costs related to meals due to various needs, and then just the overall barriers in accessing food.

Reading the information that you provided in that context, the question I have is…. There have been investments made to food security — for instance, a recent $12 million invested into the B.C. farmers market nutrition coupon program. What I’m wondering is: when you talk about insecure food access and the financial barriers, does that also include physical barriers to accessing food? Does that include special meal preparation?

Is it possible for you to briefly talk about the spectrum of challenges related to food insecurity when you’re a person living with a disability? I’d be interested in that, because I’m sure it’s a multifaceted challenge. Thank you in advance for the information.

R. Burdge: Absolutely happy to speak about that. Food is definitely…. For one thing, the cost of food has risen a lot. So for a lot of folks who are receiving the same amount, as we talked about, they have the same amount to spend on food, but the costs are higher.

I, myself, have type 1 diabetes. So I know that I need to have extra protein, extra vegetables — things that cost more money.

But then there are also the physical barriers to accessing food. With a lot of food banks, the current situation is that you have to wait in line. A lot of folks are taking transit from their job to go wait in line to collect food. Then, if you have any mobility barriers, carrying food back home is quite challenging for folks.

We have also heard from a lot of people that the paratransit that’s available for them right now…. It might take the paratransit three hours to pick them up, and then they have to go wait in line at the food bank, which has specific hours. Then they have to wait for paratransit to pick them up again. That could take them all day just to go to the food bank to pick up food.

[2:15 p.m.]

I think there are physical barriers, financial barriers, and also, we have seen a huge increase in folks accessing the food bank over the pandemic. A lot of folks who previously had never accessed before have been using those services. I think that leads to less overall food for a lot of folks and just more scarcity for people to try to navigate.

I wonder if Kate or Helaine have other things to add about that. I know we’re running short on time. But it’s a big issue for the disabled community.

K. Fish: Just a few notes, thinking about the physical side as well. The specialized diet piece, I think, is really important, like you were talking about, Rowan.

Then finally, physically…. Oh no, I’m losing it. No, it’s gone. Sorry. Oh my goodness.

M. Dykeman: Madam Chair, thank you for your latitude on this. Just in follow-up, I should have included my original question.

Are the challenges that you’re speaking of merely a matter of financial insecurity in accessing it? Do programs themselves to specifically address these issues also need to be created, or is it just a financial barrier?

R. Burdge: I would say both. I think that there are some specific programs for HIV-positive people in Vancouver. For example, there’s A Loving Spoonful that delivers healthy meals to people. But the delivery piece is something we hear all the time. If there were programs that delivered, regularly, nutritious food to folks with disabilities and mobility issues, that would be a game-changer for people.

I think the program design needs to be looked at in terms of these kinds of resources, because the delivery piece is, I think, the missing link. A lot of disabled people have to order their groceries online, order DoorDash or whatever, and those come with extra fees and costs that make it a lot more difficult for people to access what they need from home.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Thank you.

And thank you, Madam Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, that brings this panel to a close. Thank you very much for your presentations and for the leadership that you provide.

Today you have worked together to draw a direct and sharp line between having disabilities and poverty, deep poverty. Thank you for sharing with us, giving us some insight into the intolerable choices that people have to make on a day-to-day basis. You’ve identified that some of the barriers are social barriers and that we as a society can remove those barriers if we work together on it. So thank you very, very much for joining us today. With that, we’ll bid you goodbye.

We’ll go right to our next panel. They’re joining us online right now.

I’d like to welcome our next panel, which is also on the theme of social services, and it’s not-for-profit. We have three panellists. We’ll hear your five-minute presentations in order. There should be a timer on your screen that gives you an opportunity to pace yourselves in terms of your five minutes.

Then at the end of all three presentations, we’ll open it up to questions from the committee. Some questions may be directed to specific panellists, or they may be general. Either way, it does not preclude you as a panel from jumping in and clarifying or building on each other’s contributions.

By my list, the first panellist is Jody Paterson, representing Board Voice Society of B.C.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 7 – Social Services/Not for Profit

BOARD VOICE SOCIETY OF B.C.

J. Paterson: Thank you for the opportunity to present to the select standing committee.

I’m calling in today from the unceded and traditional territories of the Songhees people.

Board Voice is a non-profit that provides advocacy and peer-to-peer support and connection to volunteer boards and senior staff of non-profit community social service organizations around the province. We appreciate this annual chance to speak directly to the committee about the vital work of these organizations and the constant challenges they face, not so much because of the work they do but because of the structural stresses of providing life-changing long-term social support in a short-term piecemeal funding regime.

[2:20 p.m.]

This year we were asked to bring no more than three topics to the committee, and we’re choosing to bring just one: recruitment and retention. We’re a diverse sector with many challenges and complexities, but recruitment and retention is a longstanding and worsening issue for virtually every one of our members.

Non-profit community social service agencies are the backbone of social care in B.C., from child care and seniors services to food security services, social housing, mental health and addiction, youth services, foster care, immigrant settlement services and so many more. The work that our sector does on behalf of government supports British Columbians across truly diverse social needs.

Our services are not just nice to have; they’re the foundation for ensuring an engaged and available workforce now and into the future to sustain British Columbians’ social and economic health. Our sector employs tens of thousands of people, almost 80 percent of whom are women.

We recognize that the pandemic has delivered us into a new kind of normal, and hiring challenges are affecting all sectors. But recruitment and retention issues for community social services didn’t just become a problem in the pandemic. They’ve been a major concern for our sector for years and are now at crisis levels due to the additional pressures of the pandemic.

We appreciate the government’s support for the work of the labour market partnership that’s happening right now in our sector. But there are obvious reasons for many of the problems that work is identifying, and we urge this committee to support new approaches to address the crisis.

Wage inequity has multiple faces in our sector. There are wage inequities between union and non-union employees, and even within unionized workplaces, where the impact of long-ago political decisions linger on. There are wage inequities due to common assumptions that a non-profit workforce ought to be prepared to work for less and due to demands from funders. The constant churn of short-term contracts and hiring and rehiring creates other inequities by wiping out the gradual wage increases over time that employees can generally expect the longer they remain in other positions.

Adding to these pressures, the skills of an experienced social services worker or a non-profit leader are highly valued by government and other, more financially robust sectors also working in this sphere. The non-profit sector can’t compete.

We know that 80 to 90 percent of the determinants of this thing we call “good health” have nothing to do with medical care. Much of the social determinants of health are about social care and the cradle-to-grave community services that virtually every British Columbian will turn to in their lifetime, even if they never think to call them social services.

Caring for someone’s social health is not like treating a broken arm or removing a gallbladder, over and done with in a few hours. It’s a slow and highly individual type of care that, in many cases, plays out over a lifetime: quality child care when you need it, developmental supports to catch up your little one, housing and work for adults with developmental disabilities, counselling when your relationship falls apart, and employment training that tunes your skills to fit a changing workforce.

The network of community non-profits that do the majority of this work are skilled, efficient and innovative. But in the absence of a social policy to prioritize social goals and establish outcomes, and in a funding regime that’s deeply uncertain, politicized, uncoordinated and, in many areas, very obviously inadequate, the work and workforce is unsustainable.

If B.C. has always been your home, you’ve witnessed firsthand the increase in social problems over the decades, the polarizing of our population into haves and have-nots. It doesn’t have to be that way, but it will continue to be that way in the absence of a plan, policies and processes to address it.

I’m speaking to you today about the crisis of recruitment and retention, but it’s not actually the problem; it’s the symptom of a historical absence of planning at the provincial level, the use of short-term contracts for long-term issues, political reluctance to address problems at the root, wage inequities in social services, and an undervaluing of the incredible work of the non-profit sector.

We urge this committee to help us take this fragmented, piecemeal array of vital supports known as social services and turn them into a planned, well-resourced, well-staffed and stable system of social care for the millions of British Columbians who count on these essential services.

Thank you for your time today.

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

Our next presenter is Karyn Santiago, B.C. CEO Network.

B.C. CEO NETWORK

K. Santiago: Thank you for this opportunity to provide input for the B.C. social service sector. I am Karyn Santiago, board president for the B.C. CEO Network. We represent over 120 social service providers, serving communities across the province in diverse ways. The common element of our membership is found in the CLBC-funded services we provide.

Today I dedicate our presentation to Christopher, who passed away a few weeks ago.

We are at a critical juncture in our sector, as Jody has said. The need for community-based services has never been greater, yet our province is facing critical infrastructure challenges and a labour crisis that impacts every B.C. community.

[2:25 p.m.]

Solutions require the collaborative efforts of government and service providers to ensure the well-being of people and communities. Solutions must be action-oriented and expedient.

In the ’50s and ’60s, social service agencies formed out of the concerns of parents asking this question: “Who will look after our children?” Society advised parents that institutional care was the best option for children with developmental disabilities and mental health diagnoses. We, as a province, placed people in institutions like Glendale and Woodlands and Tranquille, and we separated them from the very life of their family and community. Today we know that this was the wrong approach.

Christopher was one such child. For the first 30 years of his life, Christopher lived at Woodlands. In viewing the Inclusion B.C. documentaries on deinstitutionalization, you will see Christopher as a young lad tied to a banister with a cattle rope.

Parents and families advocated for a different approach, and in the ’80s and ’90s, B.C. journeyed through deinstitutionalization, becoming leaders in the disability movement and restoring people to the communities where they belonged. Christopher was one of those people, and for 33 more years, Christopher lived in his own home, in his community, with family close by. This is the legacy work built upon by CLBC and our members. Today parents and families continue to advocate for the services and supports that they need.

Story No. 2. Recently I met with Anne, who supports three siblings with developmental disabilities. She’s taken that responsibility on from her parents and has provided support for her brothers for 30 years. Now they are all in their 70s and aging, and their support needs have changed dramatically. Anne knows she cannot manage this care much longer.

Yet we currently lack the infrastructure or the funding to explore new options, and we struggle with a critical labour shortage. Provincial funding must match the increasing needs in our community. As people struggle to find support, we must ask how we will address the needs. In a province that is “looking out for you and your family,” to quote our Premier, the sector is approaching a crisis point, and we are seeing the erosion of the hard work that has made this province disability leaders over the last five decades. Families are concerned, and they deserve better.

As members of this committee, there are three ways that you can provide change for the future of social services. We can invest in social service infrastructure and opportunities for innovation and the creation of new services. Simply using a maintenance approach to funding will not meet the needs for today’s communities.

Secondly, we can provide funding for wages that are competitive to other public sectors so we can encourage people to serve in our sector, rather than leaving for more lucrative jobs in both health and education.

Thirdly, we can commit to wages that are fair and equitable for all employees, not just those under a collective agreement. Equal work deserves equal pay. It is unacceptable, as Jody mentioned, that the lowest-paid workers in the public sector, the majority of them women, are working in small, community-based agencies that continue to fall further and further behind.

If we are going to work together and keep making progress on things that matter to people, then we need to invest in these critical needs. These actions will ensure that we truly are investing in a stronger British Columbia.

Our hon. Minister of Finance declared: “Instead of leaving people without support when times are tough, our government steps up when and where needed.” For people like Anne and her three brothers, I would argue that that time is now, and it is much needed. May it be shown that these are not simply words, but they are actions and investments our government is willing to make when and where needed.

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

Next we’ll hear from Kevin McCort, representing Vancouver Foundation.

VANCOUVER FOUNDATION

K. McCort: It’s a pleasure to be with you this afternoon. I would like to thank you for taking the time to hear from British Columbians about our priorities for the 2023 provincial budget. I’ll quickly outline a few main themes and encourage you to review our written brief.

First, a bit of background. Last year, Vancouver Foundation supported local charities in every corner of our province with more than $80 million in funding, making us the most significant funder of the non-profit sector in British Columbia outside of government.

I mention that here today because sometimes I think the scale and sophistication of our sector can be overlooked. Local non-profits are an essential driver of economic prosperity, healthy living and quality of life for all British Columbians. You’ve heard examples of that from both Jody and Karyn.

[2:30 p.m.]

Both the government and the private sector couldn’t do what you do without us. That’s why I’m proud of the work that we’ve been able to do, in partnership, over the past year — supporting communities through pandemic recovery, responding to extreme weather emergencies and building the conditions for long-term resiliency.

I believe there’s much more that we can do together to solve the social, environmental and economic challenges of our time. To truly unleash the potential of the non-profit sector, the Vancouver Foundation is asking you to ensure three key priorities are reflected in the upcoming budget: (1) mobilize more resources for community service; (2) reduce red tape; and (3) build sector capacity. I’ll address each of these in turn.

First, I do want to thank the province for the incredible contribution of $30 million for sector recovery that was included in last year’s budget. It’s the first new money for the non-profit sector in recent memory, and we’re grateful for the timely support and for the opportunity to bring innovation to how non-profit funding is allocated and managed. While the government’s support will make a meaningful difference, there’s simply not enough to meet real needs. We propose that this year’s budget should go even further by adding an additional $30 million to the recovery and resilience fund.

I also want to propose action the government could take to mobilize sources of funding that don’t come from government coffers. A significant source of potential funding for non-profits is unclaimed financial property that individual British Columbians have forgotten about — in pension funds, credit unions, investment accounts, wages from past employers, etc.

British Columbia has legislation to reunite people with their forgotten money; $6 million was remitted under this program in 2021, of which $1.7 million was returned to its owners. But when owners can’t be found, a portion of that money is allocated to the Vancouver Foundation, and we use that funding for community and social programs across the province. It’s averaging $5 million or $6 million a year, and this is all at no cost to government.

By improving enforcement of the current legislation — or even better, by expanding the program to cover more types of unclaimed property — we could mobilize more funding, at no expense to taxpayers. As a real-world example, I point to the U.K., where their government expects to release an additional £800 million for social investment by expanding their existing dormant assets program. At a time when taxpayers are reluctant to support tax increases, tapping the pool of dormant assets can shore up charities and non-profits without any additional burden to businesses or individuals.

A second thing is reducing red tape to the non-profit sector. As you heard, thousands of organizations are working to meet urgent needs and address the root causes of community challenges every day in our province, and we should reduce any legislative or regulatory burdens that might limit this work.

The first priority here is addressing the unintended consequences of the Lobbyists Transparency Act. This legislation rightly seeks to make clear who is influencing whom in the province, but it creates a significant administrative burden for non-profits, and many have stopped engaging on local issues with MLAs like yourselves.

We should also use the next budget as an opportunity to advocate, to the federal government, for changes in the Income Tax Act so that it’s easier for donors like us to fund non-profit and non-qualified donees in B.C. It would be great to see strong support from the B.C. government and MLAs for the recommendations of the federal Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector.

My third and final point really builds on the comments from Jody and Karyn in that the non-profit sector plays a unique role in delivering services that others do not. Like other sectors, we need investments to take our operations, systems and programs to the next level. The budget should reflect a move towards more trust-based funding principles between the province and its non-profits — like fewer barriers to applications, more democratic adjudications, streamlined reporting, multi-year funding and unrestricted dollars — to enable non-profits to be more nimble and responsive to community needs.

The next budget should also modernize the relationship between government and the organization it contracts to provide important services, by raising the administrative ceiling so that non-profits can more easily invest in staffing and capacity-building. Most importantly, the budget is an opportunity for government to signal — through legislation, policy and priorities — that it fully embraces the non-profit sector as a balancing middle ground between private interests and public good.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Kevin. That concludes the panel presentations.

I will now invite committee members to ask some questions. Our first question is from Brenda.

B. Bailey: Thank you, everyone, for your presentations.

Kevin, this question is for you. I just want to preface it with the fact that I’ve had some exposure to the Vancouver Foundation, and I recognize that you do incredibly good work. I do, though, want to prompt you to share your thinking with me about an issue that I find tricky — and lots of room to correct me if I’m wrong here.

[2:35 p.m.]

When I think about a foundation, I think about many friends that I have who are quite wealthy and who give to a foundation because they want to have a positive outcome in their communities. I’ve wondered about the question of how that money is disbursed. Is it guided by individuals, or is it funnelled in a particular way?

The reason I ask this is because I’ve lived in the States. What I saw there was a very weak social system — I lived in Wisconsin — a very, very weak government involvement. All or 95 percent of the support of the non-profit sector came from churches and came from individual donors.

As a result, certain types of organizations were flush with funding and other types of organizations weren’t. So helping kids and folks with cancer, things we can all see ourselves in…. But organizations that were struggling with — I don’t like this term, but — less sexy causes, if you will, really struggled to get that kind of attention.

I suspect you’ve tackled this. I know that you’re a leader and know the Vancouver Foundation is very ethical. I wondered if you might share your thoughts on that route. Does that exist here, or am I worried about something that has been solved?

K. McCort: Those are great questions. The general feature of the charitable sector in Canada is that all charities can only use their resources for charitable purposes. That’s regulated by the Canada Revenue Agency. Those purposes are quite well articulated, but there’s a wide range — everything from relieving poverty to advancing education to advancement of religion to environmental causes. There’s a wide range of activities, and Canadians support a very broad range of priorities.

There is a minority of funding, in the grand scheme of things, that is directed by what we call donor-advised funds. Most money is given to charities to help them deliver their programs through individual donations by people directly to charities. That is the largest source of funding for charities from individual donations.

There are donor-advised funds that exist in Vancouver Foundation and other places. For us, that’s about a third of our funds. Donors can choose the organization they seek to fund, but it has to be something that’s delivering a charitable purpose as defined by the Canada Revenue Agency.

We find that what is shifting in the landscape in the last couple of years — really, drawn out by the pandemic, by racial justice reckoning and by reconciliation — is that organizations that historically did receive a minority of funding are slowly ramping up. People are recognizing that it’s time, in some ways, to rebalance the funding, and organizations that historically were receiving relatively small proportions are seeing an increase. But there’s still a long way to go.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi. You’re the first panel where I know every single person on it, so nice to see all of you. I support everything you’ve been talking about. You know that I’ve been in there, and I understand it. One of the questions I do have….

Maybe, Jody, I’ll ask you. Karyn might know better. Are you still receiving those one-year annual contracts, or have they moved back to the multi-year contracts? I think it was you, Jody, who had made reference to that issue of always having to hire everybody back and not knowing if you’ve got an ongoing program running.

Has that got better in the last couple of years? I know it paused while they were doing that Ernst and Young review and some things.

J. Paterson: I’m going to keep it brief so that Karyn can answer as well. She’s probably got a much clearer idea. Those one-year contracts continue. There’s movement away from them. There’s much conversation about multiple-year funding. But there certainly are many, many one-year contracts still.

K. Santiago: Yeah, I think that’s true. Many agencies are even experiencing three- and six-month contracts that just keep renewing, renewing, renewing. We’re not seeing any extended contracts at this time, so we haven’t really seen any changes in the last few years across the sector.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. That’s a real issue, in terms of if you’re looking at retention, when you’ve got staff and you’re not being able to give them longer-term commitments to things. It’s very, very challenging.

[2:40 p.m.]

I wanted to say, Kevin…. You said something was trust-based. I don’t know if it was trust-based operations. It was trust-based something. I think, for the entire social services sector, the ability to actually engage with an agency and say: “We want you to…. This is the mandate. This is what the program needs to do. You’re experts in it, and we’re now going to trust you to be able to spend those funds the way that that service is going to be delivered the best.” I would love to see some kind of movement towards that. That would also help reduce those administrative costs. I know that everyone has been asking for that.

Karyn, please keep banging the drum on the fair and equitable wages. You guys are doing good work on that. I will leave this to my colleagues here to ask questions. Thank you very much for all your work. Nice to see all of you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions from the committee?

H. Yao: I just got back, so I missed the presentation. I do apologize for that. I’m pretty sure the presentation, based upon some of the questions being asked, sounds fabulous. I’m especially a strong proponent of multi-year funding. That way we can remove less money for unscheduled work and focus more money on front-line working programming to support community members.

However, I do have personal experience where I have bumped into non-profits or charitable organizations that have been misusing their funding in ways that I’ve been trying my best to report. Obviously, we want to make sure that there’s proper credibility and proper trust, when we give multi-year money for the non-profit sector or the charitable sector, so that it’s really well utilized and fulfilled according to practice.

I would love to hear your recommendation. How can we ensure, through proper communication and proper programming in the application process, that we support dependable societies? The Vancouver Foundation, I’m pretty sure, is a phenomenal organization, as is the B.C. CEO Network Association.

In the non-profit sector, there are a lot of good charities out there that do great work. We don’t want some organizations that unfortunately have an ugly track record distracting us from the opportunity to provide multi-year funding. I would love to hear if there’s any kind of discussion — any kind of idea — that could be explored around that area.

J. Paterson: I’ll just quickly jump in and say that of course there are going to be incidents where non-profits are not doing what they should do. We don’t support that.

As part of multi-year agreements, we think that there needs to be strong oversight, as is the government’s way. There certainly is strong reporting. Where there are problems, those need to be brought out and discussed, but the constant churn of one-year or even shorter contracts — with non-profits that you know, where government is very happy with the performance — those two things aren’t tied together.

You can have a repeating contract forever, or one that has to be renewed constantly, and be an excellent organization. The problem is not: “We’re not sure whether we should give this organization funding again.” It’s a system problem. I don’t really understand, but it’s within the system and not within the reporting and the quality of services. That would be my point. Thank you for asking.

K. McCort: I would perhaps add, if I may, one…. I’ve been the CEO of Vancouver Foundation now for over eight years. During that period, we have dispersed over $500 million to charities in B.C. I’m only aware of one instance where one of our grantees misused the funds. In fact, they used it for another charitable program. They didn’t use it for the one we’d intended; they used it for another one that they deemed was a higher priority. So the money was not misused, because it was used for charitable purposes. It just wasn’t used for the original intent.

That indicates to me that this actually happens, but it’s a very rare occasion. We base our trust on organizations that, we can see, have boards of directors, have staff and have the features that so many charities exhibit. It’s rare. It does happen, but it’s very rare.

H. Yao: Absolutely, and I do want to echo that I do agree with you, as a person who comes from the non-profit sector. I used to be a youth worker, and I hated the fact that I had to copy and paste the same information over and over again, over various different grants upstream, and had to do that on an annual basis.

[2:45 p.m.]

I’m a big proponent of moving towards multi-year funding, where we can actually have organizations allocate the investments that government puts in there on programming and front-line services and so that people can take care of it. I just really would love to alleviate some of the potential concern and really see what we can do to continue moving in the right direction.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Kevin, I know about these unclaimed assets, and I just want to verify. At Vancouver Foundation, there’s already a program in place where you’re the recipient of these funds? That’s a question.

Then the second…. You’re looking at an expansion of this program, if I understand. Currently, I think, it’s forgotten bank amounts that people have left in for seven years. Can you just explain that? What is it that you want to see? Are you currently the recipient of that $5 million to $6 million per year that is currently there?

K. McCort: Yes. It’s unclaimed property legislation, passed by the province in 2000, which created an entity called the Unclaimed Property Society in 2003. The legislation has two key features. There are mandatory remitters and voluntary remitters.

A mandatory remitter is someone like the courts. There might have been a court settlement, and either someone paid in the bail or is the recipient of a settlement. They’re owed that money, and the courts are obligated to send it to the Unclaimed Property Society, who then, as a provincially regulated entity but managed by the foundation, seeks to find the owner. They find the owner of those resources. We often get unpaid wages. We get dormant credit union accounts. There are all sorts of types of financial instruments that come to us.

We find the owner in about 20 percent of the cases. We retain a reserve to satisfy claims. The claims never extinguish. You can come back to us…. We have some claims in our registry that go back to the 1850s. People can always claim their money, but on an actuarial basis, we know that a certain amount will never be claimed. That amount is given to Vancouver Foundation, and we use it in our charitable programs.

For the existing legislation, where we’re seeking changes is to greater compliance, because not all mandatory holders actually remit. The property they’re holding is not theirs. So we’d like to see greater compliance with existing legislation, but we’d also like to see the voluntary category replaced and have everybody who holds these funds become mandatory remitters.

It’s important, because it’s not the institution’s money. If you have unpaid wages, it’s not yours, and you should give it to the society, who can then find the owner of that money. When that owner can’t be found — perhaps they’re deceased and their estate can’t find any heir — that money is then used for charitable purposes. We’ve been doing that since 2003, and it’s a very successful program.

J. Routledge (Chair): Maybe we have time for one quick question and one quick answer.

B. Stewart: I really do appreciate what the non-profit sector provides to the province. The disturbing part is…. We talk about the shortness or the duration of the contracts. I wonder if there is a way of enhancing the relationship. You’ve got the government handing out money — and the suspicious nature of government. I wonder if KPIs or something like that would help.

I like what, Karyn, you wrote about innovation and the creation of things. Government is not an early adopter. That’s one of the reasons why getting the money out to somebody like yourself and your network, etc., makes such a difference.

I know that we heard from Karyn. The other two, Jody and Kevin, you can submit a written submission, I think, if you have any advice for us. We’re trying to contextualize this into recommendations to the government. If it’s broad and unspecified, I think that it falls on deaf ears, or it’s easy to just kind of disappear. I’d be happy to work on that to try to see that there’s a more trusting relationship, if you want to call it.

Kevin, your story about the one in eight years is probably pretty good.

I don’t think we have to ask a question, Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll leave that as a closing observation.

With that, we will draw this panel presentation to a close. Thank you very much for taking the time to meet with us and work in a coordinated way to build on each other’s ideas.

[2:50 p.m.]

I guess, in closing…. I think what became very apparent in this panel and our interaction is that the non-profit sector is the backbone of the social safety net. The work that you do, you are doing on behalf of government.

What you’ve brought to our attention are some of the ways that the government may be getting in the way of you doing what you’re doing on our behalf. That’s a bit of a vicious circle that we need to take a look at and come up with a better way to support you in supporting the people of British Columbia. So thank you very much for joining us.

We will now recess for ten minutes.

The committee recessed from 2:51 p.m. to 3:03 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Hello, everybody. This is the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. We’re in the process of receiving public input on Budget 2023.

Our next panel is on gender-based violence. There are five presenters. Each presenter has five minutes to make a presentation. We’d ask that you keep an eye on the timer on your screen. After we’ve heard from each presenter, the committee will ask questions for an equivalent amount of time.

You may find that a committee member asks a specific question to a specific presenter, or they may ask questions to the entire panel. Either way, it is a panel, so feel free to chime in, build on each other’s ideas, clarify, add anything. It’s a discussion.

[3:05 p.m.]

The first presenter is Alisha Peters with the Stó:lō Service Agency and Elijah Zimmerman with the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre.

Sorry. I misunderstood. We’re going to go with Elijah first, Elijah Zimmerman with the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 8 – Gender-Based Violence

VICTORIA SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE

E. Zimmerman: Thank you very much for having me this afternoon. I’m grateful to be here on this panel with everyone. Thank you for your time and consideration.

The Victoria Sexual Assault Centre. We’re a feminist organization committed to ending sexualized violence through healing, education and prevention, and we’ve been in the greater Victoria region for 40 years this year, which we’re very excited about.

I just wanted to offer three recommendations today from our vantage, the first one being core, multi-year funding in amounts that meet the actual needs of survivors of sexualized violence. I just want to express how grateful I am for last year’s budget announcement, with the restoration, after about a 20-year lag of funding. I’m super grateful of how the committee listened to what we shared last year and responded.

I just want to also reflect that we still have greater needs than what that projected money can meet. I would say right now that meets maybe 80 percent of our current operations, and the 20 percent we fill in with grants and primarily donations.

I would have to say that that’s with our current operations. We absolutely could hire more counsellors, more people on the front lines, more auxiliary workers to take in the actual need. Now that we’ve moved from an in-person to a hybrid environment, more youth are coming to us in greater numbers and wanting more services. So we’re seeing that wait-list for youth rise in needs.

The other thing I’d like to bring forward is core, multi-year funding for consent workshops in high schools and universities so that youth have an opportunity to learn about the importance of consent and how to recognize and talk about sexualized violence.

We have a prevention team here. This year we’ve met with 500 students. We’ve gone to dozens of schools, and all of that programming is for free. We offer it for free, with grant money. We’ve had a multi-year project grant fund from the federal government that is going to be ending in a year, and we’re wondering what we are going to do next. What sources can we find to maintain the level of need that we’re seeing that people want?

We often also get lots of requests from community members, businesses, schools we haven’t worked with, but they really want prevention education, and we have to turn them down because we don’t have the staffing. We don’t have the staffing because we don’t have the funding. So it would be fantastic to have some kind of core funding under a realm of public health, because we know that sexualized violence is a public health issue. Prevention is really a great place to start. It’s amazing to be there to help people heal and walk through their journey, but if we can prevent violence from happening, that would be fantastic.

The last thing I’d like to bring forward is funding for established services in sexualized violence to partner with Indigenous organizations and communities for information-sharing, collaboration and meeting truth and reconciliation priorities and the “Calls for Justice” of the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.

We have a project currently — it’s called kʷəné ŋətəl iʔ iʔsaət — that is working with local Indigenous members and networks and partners in social services in the greater Victoria region. That is being funded, again, by a federal grant for about another year and a half.

What we’re finding is that the partnerships, the learning, being able to connect with other providers regionally, in B.C…. They’re also working on an Indigenous program. It’s been pretty remarkable, and we’re starting to make good steps towards that information-sharing and knowing our role as a settler organization to work with Indigenous partners. That work needs to continue. Again, how are we going to fund that work to enable all of us here, at least in our region, to work together to address gender-based violence in culturally safe and relevant ways?

Those are the three recommendations I bring forward for consideration in terms of funding. Again, thank you for that core funding announcement last year, and we still have greater needs than that funding is meeting.

[3:10 p.m.]

We would love to have some type of core funding for prevention, particularly around youth. We know that youth ages 18 to 24, those age ranges — even 15 to 24 — are most highly impacted by sexualized violence. So if we can support them with education and tools, that would be amazing.

I know that this government is dedicated towards reconciliation and truth and addressing those calls to justice. So please fund those of us who are doing that work on the ground and working on those partnerships to continue doing that so we can make a difference and move forward. Thank you very much.

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

Now we will hear from Alisha Peters, Stó:lō Service Agency.

STÓ:LŌ SERVICE AGENCY AND
QWI:QWELSTOM WELLNESS

A. Peters: Éy swayel. My name is Alisha Peters. I work for Qwi:qwelstom Wellness, the project coordinator for the Restoring Our Voices project. That’s under Stó:lō Service Agency.

We provide training for people who work with vulnerable populations — including Indigenous people, obviously — on how best to respond to those who are harmed by sexual violence. We also support people who have harmed and who have been harmed by sexual violence, through Elder support and our wellness workers, as well as myself.

Our recommendations. We had the three recommendations. The first one is to continue supporting Indigenous programs, including Qwi:qwelstom Wellness, to build capacity through training, along with strengthening relationships with Indigenous communities, the justice system and service providers.

Our second recommendation. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples, Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and many other commissions and reports should be considered when determining funding allocations so Indigenous people can reclaim their voice, decolonize and address the intergenerational trauma stemming from residential schools, systemic racism and colonization.

The third recommendation is to provide funding for Elder support and mental health counsellors to support those who are survivors of sexual violence. One of the challenges we’re seeing is…. For example, when we do the training, as of this fiscal year, 62.5 percent of the trainees have disclosed during the training. That’s an astounding number when you compare it to the 5 percent that actually report to police, as of the 2017 Statistics Canada…. We’re offering a place where people can safely disclose and begin their healing journey or continue their healing journey.

What we have noticed is…. We just introduced a mental health counsellor this fiscal year. Although it is costly, it is extremely helpful during the training, having her available for people who come forward to disclose that they’ve been harmed by sexual violence and are seeking support through counselling. We also have an Elders panel, with 15 Elders available. Some of them, their strengths are with helping people who have been harmed by sexual violence.

Our overall recommendation is just to provide core funding to Indigenous programs like ours so that we can address sexual violence through our traditions and our culture and honouring the truth and reconciliation in UNDRIP and DRIPA.

I guess I have more time.

Interjection.

A Peters: I guess that’s it for me.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Thank you, Alisha. If you have other things you want to add, you can do it during the question period.

Our next presenter is Emily Oswald, representing WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre.

[3:15 p.m.]

WAVAW RAPE CRISIS CENTRE

E. Oswald: Hello. Thank you so much for having us here today. I’m Emily and, like you said, I’m representing WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre.

I just want to acknowledge that today I’m coming from the Algonquin Anishinaabe territory here in Ottawa, where I’ve been convening for a gender equality summit.

WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre is the largest rape crisis centre in the province. For close to 40 years, we have been providing, free of charge, wraparound support services to survivors of sexualized violence with shared experiences of gender marginalization; women — cis and trans women; trans, non-binary and two-spirit survivors. We also aim to shift social norms and eradicate violence through education, outreach and activism. We take close to 4,000 calls on our nationwide crisis line a year.

I’m very grateful to be here with our three recommendations today. The first is to invest in community-based integrated sexual assault and gender clinics.

In alignment with the national inquiry, as well as the In Plain Sight report, WAVAW recommends that the province invest in community-based integrated sexual assault and gender clinics in a way that will recentre survivors’ health and care, moving away from viewing sexualized violence and post–sexual assault care within the scope of forensic evidence, making it exclusively a law-and-order issue.

The reality is that 90 percent of survivors will never seek support through conventional systems such as the medical system and the criminal legal system. Sexual assault clinics — like our colleagues at VSAC, who we are so grateful to be here with — not only increase access for the most marginalized and vulnerable survivors who will never be able to seek attention within the conventional system, but also, it’s estimated, reduce the cost of a sexual assault response by close to $1,400 per report. So the financial impacts for the province are significant as well. WAVAW recently completed a feasibility study that we would be very pleased to share with the committee.

The second is to increase the investment in the Stopping the Violence counselling program. We’re really grateful for the emergency SART funding from the province, as well as the core funding that has been announced, but we want to draw the attention of the committee to the need for an investment in sexual assault counselling.

Since 2017 and the Me Too movement, there is just a drastic need for folks who are coming to heal from sexualized violence at stages outside of the immediate crisis response. We have folks who are seniors who are reporting and seeking healing for the first time, decades after their assaults, and they need support.

Currently, WAVAW is funded through STV for 2.5 positions. The reality is that we still have 180 survivors on our wait-list facing a devasting two years to access that program. With an additional five to eight counselling intakes coming in weekly, this year alone we’ve had to supplement our counselling budget by close to $100,000 of our unrestricted revenue, and we’re still not able to keep up with the need for counselling services for all survivors of sexualized violence that come to us.

The third is to invest in transformative justice programming for sexual assault survivors. There has been a 20-year embargo for restorative justice being used to attend to gender-based violence and sexualized violence in B.C., both due to safety concerns for the survivors and also capacity to attend to these things.

Again, in alignment with the national inquiry and the In Plain Sight report, as well as what we’re hearing from the survivors who access our services…. Regardless of the outcome, engaging with the criminal legal system at all levels, from police to Crown, does not always bring survivors to feelings of healing and justice. In addition, B.C. does not have the infrastructure to support those who have caused harm to be accountable and to address the root causes of violence, preventing it happening in the first place.

[3:20 p.m.]

Survivors are not a homogenous group. Not all want to report. Offering beyond the single option of reporting through the criminal legal system — to attend to those alienated 95 percent of survivors and to bring healing, accountability and community change — is our third recommendation.

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

Our next presenter is Kendra Kurisu from the Prince George Sexual Assault Centre.

PRINCE GEORGE SEXUAL ASSAULT CENTRE

K. Kurisu: Good afternoon. My name is Kendra Kurisu, and I come from the Prince George Sexual Assault Centre.

That is on the traditional and unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh people.

I come from this centre which has 38 years of experience and is the only dedicated sexual assault centre north of Kamloops, B.C. We see a variety of clients. We say from the age of three years old to the age of 93, but we would see older folks if they did show up at our door.

In the work that we do here at the centre, we provide almost zero-barrier services to folks who have survived sexual violence. We provide services and support for minors, youth, teens, women and women-identifying people in the middle ages of their lives as well as seniors. We also have group settings for male or male-presenting survivors of sexual violence as well as specific group education and healing circles for folks that identify as part of the LGBTQ2IA+ community.

I am thrilled to be here today to represent northern B.C. and all the work that we are trying to do up here with the limited funding that is provided to us in a core capacity. Our three recommendations that we came up with as part of the work that we do here are as follows.

Currently we’d like to see funding dedicated to coordinated and dedicated sexual assault centres. That core funding simply does not or has not existed up until now. With the funding that was announced last year in the budget, we’re really appreciative that that is coming forward. However, we understand — it was announced recently in some of our groups — that that funding would be divvied up via procurement, which is frightening for a lot of small centres that did receive that grant. This could possibly mean that folks that were working through that grant money of the sexual assault response teams — the ESAS grants from EVA B.C. — might not now get core funding because they simply may not qualify. This is problematic.

The second recommendation that our centre would like to see is a provincial sexual assault policy made for the province. We’re one of the only provinces that is lacking a larger policy to guide and assist and support all levels of sexual assault response. We see this being especially problematic in our judicial system, primarily with reporting to police, as we have the strong presence of RCMP in northern B.C. But also in the Lower Mainland and the Island, we recognize that there are various municipal agencies that do things a lot differently.

So a dedicated sexual assault response policy would give some major guidance to those coming in to do the work, whether it’s through law enforcement, the judicial system — like Crown and judges — or from those of us who are doing the non-profit work of supporting survivors through their journey as well as supporting people who have done harm.

The third we would like to see is funding that specifically is available for administration and for keeping the doors open. One of the core things that we’ve found in our work here and over the years at Prince George Sexual Assault Centre is that we simply do not have dedicated funding or dedicated moneys that we can set aside specifically to support our administrative staff, who essentially keep our doors open. They are answering our phones. They are manning the doors. They are doing all of the admin work so our counsellors can focus on our clients.

This is problematic in that those positions are often the first to get cut but are some of the most needed to keep our counsellors and clinicians focused on the much-needed work that we’ve seen increase over the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Me Too movement. It’s really challenging to know that we may have funding to do projects, but we may not have funding to keep the lights on and the doors open, so that leaves us at a deficit.

[3:25 p.m.]

It is my pleasure to be able to sit here and talk to you from our territory up in the North and advocate for the work that we’re doing and how dedicated we are to seeing sexual violence be supported in a way that we can be proud of in the province of B.C. on all fronts.

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

Finally, we’ll have a presentation from Shahnaz Rahman, representing the Surrey Women’s Centre.

SURREY WOMEN’S CENTRE

S. Rahman: I join today from the unceded lands belonging to the Musqueam, Tsawwassen and Kwantlen families. I have deep gratitude for being able to be an uninvited guest on these lands.

For the past three decades, the Surrey Women’s Centre has provided crisis, court and counselling support services to survivors of sexual violence and other forms of power-based crimes. We run the largest community-based victim services program in the province.

I’d like to share some facts about the city of Surrey. Surrey is one of the largest and the fastest-growing cities in Canada. Between 2016 and 2021, our population growth rate was 9.7 percent, almost twice as fast as Vancouver, at 4.9 percent. This is Stats Canada.

Surrey is home to diverse, visible minority, Indigenous and immigrant communities, including a large percentage of newcomers. We have the largest Indigenous population in B.C. next to Vancouver. We also have the largest Black population in B.C. Twenty-two percent of the entire Black population in B.C. lives in Surrey. Our visible minority population is 57.8 percent. In the context of this, I’d like to share three key recommendations to the standing committee for their consideration.

We’d like you to provide adequate and sustainable funding increases to our centres’ operations in order to meet the growing massive demand to respond to emergency cases of gender-based violence in the fastest-growing city in B.C. That would mean…. We are seeking $3 million, which would sustain the 2023-2024 core operating budget for approximately 40 staff.

Our recommendation No. 2 is ongoing core funding for the Surrey Mobile Assault Response Team and the Special Victims Unit in Surrey. We are asking for $2.5 million to address this specialized service, which would fund approximately 30 staff and would be running a 24-7 response.

Our recommendation No. 3 is to provide core funding for a sexual and domestic violence medical forensic clinic at Surrey Women’s Centre that would serve the entire region. We need $400,000 to be able to hire a nurse practitioner and three registered clinical counsellors to provide a wraparound service model.

I’d also recommend to the committee to please pay attention to the PowerPoint that was submitted with our written presentation. It speaks and provides a very clear story with the numbers.

I really want to acknowledge, with all sincerity, the complex job you have of hearing about the immense needs for greater funding in all sectors and communities of our province. That said, I also wish to ask that when you think about the crisis with gang violence, please note that gang members are also sexually assaulting their girlfriends in other violent ways, including targeting the women of opposing gang members. In many of these cases, the violence has left women dead.

I also wish for you to understand that within the opioid and toxic drug crisis, women and trans women are preyed upon, abused and exploited, leaving them vulnerable to increased sexual assault and even murder.

In resource extraction areas of B.C., where many Indigenous women live, we know that sexual assault and intimate-partner violence is higher than in non–resource extraction areas.

In every sector and culture in our province, gender-based violence is an epidemic that is hiding in plain sight. What we are facing now is close to 30 years of being missed in funding our core services at the level that the needs are.

[3:30 p.m.]

We have seen an exponential and very extreme growth in awareness of gender-based violence committed following the Me Too movement, and we’ve seen a demand for the service. COVID realities have added further complexities to this need for our survivors.

I do acknowledge the efforts of this government last year, which began to make important investments. I especially want to address a thank-you to parliamentary secretary Grace Lore and ministers Mitzi Dean and Mike Farnworth for understanding the importance of our services and for acquiring $20 million in the one-time funding that went to 49 agencies. This was a huge step forward. Grace Lore is also working hard on B.C.’s first and only gender-based violence action plan, and it is our hope that you will support her recommendations and provide a strong level of investment.

I have not much time, but I just want to ask you to make some bold investments in the primary emergency response to gender-based violence. I would like to end with…. We can just imagine if policing and firefighting were asked to apply to Vancouver Foundation and other funders for one-time grants to keep enough responders on the road.

I’m happy to speak to any specific recommendations or any questions. Thanks for allowing me a few extra minutes.

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

We have two people already from the committee who’ve indicated that they’d like to ask some questions.

M. Dykeman: I have two questions. I’ll ask my first one, and then if I could please be put back on the list. After my colleagues have had a chance to ask a question, if there’s time, I’d appreciate a follow-up.

My question is for Kendra. I’m wondering if you can possibly expand a bit on the view to have a single policy provincewide? I heard what you were saying about the confusion that that causes, but I don’t have a lot of background on it, and I was wondering if you could just provide a little bit of context of that reporting policy and the obstacles that you’re facing right now without that.

K. Kurisu: I can address it to the best of my knowledge and ability. My background is actually in policing. I was an RCMP officer for 12 years and took part in the Integrated Case Assessment Teams, or the ICAT teams, and the provincial policy that was developed to support those.

When we are looking at policies in supporting sexual assault policy, it would be much of the same way, or we’re hoping to see something that’s similar to that — so looking at integrated measures throughout the legal system, as well as the community, as well as our justice partners — to be able to support every effort with a consistent and measured approach.

What, typically, these provincial policies would do is give us a leg to stand on as community partners or agencies outside of our sectored partners to say that things aren’t right, and we have the ability to refer back to something that is kind of the guidebook that we should be following. We understand that policy is policy. Policy is not law. But at least it gives us a space that we can start approaching consistency from.

The lack of consistency in different jurisdictions, different districts and different police agencies is really harming our survivors. They aren’t able to take an instance of violence which they’ve been subjected to and then, say, compare it to a friend, a family member or something they’ve experienced in the past, and they’re left wondering why. That lends disenfranchisement to their case. As well, they might not be willing to report in future because they don’t see any sort of consistency, and they don’t see any way that their justice can be manifested or served if that’s the choice that they make.

H. Yao: I do want to take a moment to thank you all for the great work you do in our community. I have a challenging question, maybe. I would love to hear, actually, from Shahnaz.

Through case work and working with my constituents, we actually have learned that many Asian-cultured individuals who come into Canada will be experiencing things that aren’t technically violence. But they have things thrown at them. They have their passport taken away. They’ve been locked away in a room. To them, that’s not gender-based violence. To them, that’s just more relational complications.

[3:35 p.m.]

I brought this question up with some of my colleagues in the past. I would love to hear your feedback too. I’m a bit concerned about the term “gender-based violence.” Sometimes some of my constituents don’t see the need to report to police because they don’t feel like they fulfil the violence criteria.

I think a lot of us Canadians can appreciate that obviously the term “violence” is a bit broader than the typical expectations. But a lot of individuals who are immigrants, as you mentioned earlier, who take the term just a bit on its face value, are finding it hard to justify their willingness to reach out for help. I would love to hear your feedback about what we can do to maybe address the issue and what we can do to actually take that challenge head-on.

S. Rahman: Thank you so much for the question, Henry. You raise a really good point around language. What we have seen is that language has evolved, over the years, around describing violence — whether it’s domestic violence, gender-based violence, violence against women in relationships — and that language continues to be evolving. We call it “gender-based violence” because where there is a power-based crime, it kind of helps us distinguish that there is power involved in it.

However, when it comes to service delivery in responding to those supports, we do understand that “violence” has a very broad definition and explanation, and what falls under that — even something such as taking someone’s passport away. If it’s happening between a couple, there are power imbalances that could also constitute violence. Yes, you’ve raised a really good point. As I said, language is evolving, and we’re really open to this feedback. I’m just going to reflect further on that — as to what, as a centre, we can do to make those perceptions even more clear for others.

K. Kurisu: Shahnaz, if I could add to that — I don’t know if this is allowed — but Henry, that also comes under the umbrella of a new Criminal Code charge that isn’t quite admitted yet under coercive control. Some of those measures that your constituents may be feeling are actually becoming — or being read into and being put into — the Criminal Code. So you’ll see some language change around that gender-based violence or intimate-partner violence, and it’s broadening the umbrella.

Like Shahnaz mentioned, there is some language change coming and still evolving. I think when we look at the moneys being spent or being given out to different centres, a lot of it is going to be education-based. That education, for your constituents — to paint a clear picture as to what is correct and what is incorrect and as to what is Canadian law and what is not — is a primary focus of how we can start to stem some of the violence, and some of what we are seeing as going on, before it gets to our door, so that they can learn prior to it.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I’ll keep it brief. I would like to ask Emily…. I’ve got Dalya’s name here; I’ve got Emily.

I’m curious about restorative justice. I wasn’t 100 percent clear on whether restorative justice was something that is being used and is embraced by victims and survivors or if it’s something that is not working. I apologize. I’m a big fan of restorative justice, but I wasn’t quite sure where it fit in.

E. Oswald: Thank you for that question. Yes, Dalya had a flight, so I’m in her stead today. Thank you for welcoming me.

That’s a great question, about restorative justice. I’ll just dive into the context a little bit more. As I mentioned, there has been a 20-year embargo on restorative justice being used to attend to gender-based violence and sexualized violence in B.C., due to safety concerns from survivors but also concerns that offering a restorative justice approach could be used as a diversion from the criminal legal system that would, therefore, perpetuate the notion that sexualized violence and gender-based violence are not serious enough crimes to warrant state action.

That said, as we continue to learn from Indigenous folks and grassroots organizations, especially those who are racialized, restorative justice and transformative justice are happening in these communities, and survivors from these communities are calling on us to provide these services.

[3:40 p.m.]

WAVAW is currently in the first year of a transformative justice pilot project, where we work with a survivor, the person who has caused harm and their community to foster accountability outside the criminal legal system and to look at actually asking a survivor, “What does justice look like to you?” instead of that being prescribed by Crown. It’s looking at creating accountability for the person who has caused harm, supporting them to understand the systems of oppression and their intersecting identities that may have fostered harm in the first place.

It is definitely something that survivors are calling on us to provide. It’s something that we are excited to be dipping our toes in. It’s something that would…. We call on the province to be courageous, to invest. This is decolonizing. This is vulnerable, and this is really exciting. I think that as we look at the focus on the province and its goals, restorative justice and transformative justice practices offer these things for survivors.

M. Starchuk: Thank you to the presenters. My question is to Shahnaz.

The second ask for the 24-7 SMART team that you have…. There were 30 staff that were attached to it. The one comment that’s in your report said that sometimes the only thing that’s standing in the way is a safe ride to get help. That’s what this program is all about.

I just have a question as to how that works. You’ve said that you’ve also coordinated with Smart Vancouver as well. Is it like somebody’s by that person’s side to get them into the queue to get them the help that’s there so that it’s only one person speaking at a time?

S. Rahman: Thanks for the question. I think with the SMART, we have two aspects of the program. One aspect of the program is 24-7 crisis, so anyone experiencing sexual assault can pick up the phone. Through our partnerships with Fraser Health, we have an accompaniment that goes to the hospital when the patient arrives.

The van accompaniment is another aspect of the program, the SMART Van that runs on the streets of Surrey. That basically came out after the Pickton murders, when we saw that the sex workers on the streets were not believed or seen as credible witnesses.

There is still a lot of fear that people have in going to the hospitals or going to report to the police. The SMART Van has built relationships on the streets, where a woman would disclose her injuries or disclose the abuse and feels safer, where we can actually accompany her to…. She would disclose the report of what has happened to her, but would not feel comfortable going to the hospital or in an ambulance on her own. That’s where our SMART Van transports women to the hospital and gets that support of doing a risk assessment, safety planning, and holding her hand throughout that process.

I’m not sure that answers your question or if there was a piece I missed in it.

M. Starchuk: That answers it perfectly. To have to repeat that story just retraumatizes the person that’s there. I’m very happy with the program. Thank you very much.

B. Bailey: Hello to everyone on the panel. I’m Brenda Bailey, MLA for Vancouver–False Creek.

First, I just really want to thank you for your work. I think it was Elijah who mentioned how long the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre has been around. I know that because I worked there back then, in the ’90s. It’s disheartening to know how little change we’ve seen in that time, frankly.

I did just want to ensure that you’re aware of some of the work that one my colleagues, MLA Niki Sharma, is doing in regards to looking at the question of how challenging it is not receiving core funding for administration. I’m completely not able to say that that’s something we are able to solve, but I know that she’s looking at it. I hope that you’re connecting with her in regards to that, because it’s just so pivotal and so hard to run these absolutely key and important organizations without that kind of funding.

My question to you is really about…. I’ve been in politics only a short period of time. But I’ve been there long enough to know that what we want to do and what happens in Treasury Board are two different monsters, sadly and, often, heartbreakingly.

[3:45 p.m.]

Let’s pretend that’s not the case just for a minute. If that were not the case, what would you be asking for in terms of administrative costs? Would it be 15 percent, 20 percent, 10 percent? What do you think you’d be asking for? Anyone can respond to this.

S. Rahman: I can speak to that. I know the reality of running services and structures, especially in diverse programs. I feel that the infrastructure really suffers when you are doing payrolls, when you are doing audit of these various programs and various projects that are funded from multiple funders, the reports that are being submitted. It definitely adds a lot of pressure.

Right now we are able to allocate 15 percent to 20 percent in costs, which really barely meets it. A lot of our admin costs get covered through other means — either private donations or basically dipping into our reserves to make those ends meet.

It’s unfortunate that the admin costs are not seen as an important factor in delivering the services that we deliver. We’ve seen that really weighing down…. One of the struggles that we face with that is also seeing a huge…. Because of the infrastructure and the lack of core funding, we’re seeing a lot of staffing turnover.

Surrey Women’s Centre saw a 37 percent staffing transition last year. That really weighed us down. As the executive director of the organization, I was just wondering what we can do when there are competing wages out there — getting our people out to those positions. It is getting more burdensome to continue to struggle with these limitations.

K. Kurisu: To add to Shahnaz….

Thank you, Shahnaz, because as an ED, you definitely have a greater understanding — maybe someone like myself who is only an assistant director — of the budgetary constraints.

What I do know is…. A quote that I had while I was still in policing, from a front-line victim service worker I worked with in a coordinated response…. It has stuck with me all these years later. What she said was: “I don’t know how I can work for a feminist organization when I have to rely on a partner in order to qualify for a mortgage.”

She was only making $19 an hour to work with myself — an RCMP officer making $80,000 a year at the time — and a Ministry of Children and Families social worker who was making in the $70,000s. She was making below the poverty line and expected to do the same front-line work as two government employees. That was not fair.

When we look at core funding and look at the allocation of funds to just our wages, it is pivotal and it is important, because we simply cannot compete with outside folks who are in private practice. We just can’t. We do see a huge staff turnover, or we don’t even see what the qualifications are that are required to be met by some of our government contracts…. We can’t meet them, because we simply cannot say: “We can offer you a fair and equitable wage.”

It is huge for us to see an increase in some of the funding that we do get. We can add all the project funding we want, but we’re just adding more work and not able to keep up with a base wage to fund front staff, to fund clinicians, to fund even executive directors. So it is very, very important. Thank you, Brenda.

E. Oswald: I have one final thought on that, Brenda. It was so funny, as you asked that question, watching the folks on the panel all go: “Huh. We have never been asked that question before.” I just want to thank you for bringing your expertise from working at VSAC and sharing it with the committee.

When it comes to administrative costs, these are the costs that support us to be agile in times of crisis. I hate to be the person that’s going to reference the pandemic, but I am. COVID-19 hit, and we had funding from government contracts to pay people, but we did not have any wiggle room in our administration to attend to the emerging needs of needing to be able to support our staff to work from home, investing in tech to get survivors computers and phones to access remote services.

When conceptualizing that number, a traditional budget would reflect, potentially, a 15 percent to 20 percent ask. Anything beyond that is going to support us to handle pandemics and to be agile in these modes of crisis, which, fundamentally, are the moments when survivors and our most vulnerable community members need us the most. So thank you for that question.

[3:50 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Harwinder has a question. Depending on time, we might have a chance to get back to Megan’s second question.

H. Sandhu: Thank you to all the panellists. Thank you for the work you do. It’s life-saving, as all of you know.

I have one point on which you’re well-versed, I’m pretty sure, where there are cultural barriers. Some women, in certain situations, face actual or gender-based violence. That has been normalized for decades. They can’t even differentiate it. What’s happening to them doesn’t seem right, but they’re thinking, as Henry previously alluded to, that it’s just a problem in the relationship.

I’m hearing lots of stories lately that some women in certain cultures have been facing gender-based and sexual violence from their partners for over 20, 25 years. Now their kids, who are Canadian-born, are calling the police or getting their moms help. There are several stories I have been hearing directly.

I wonder. When I talk to some of the women, they say there is also stigma associated — that society will say: “Oh my god. She’s not a very culturally….” You know, whatever they want to say. “She’s not a nice woman. She called the police on her partner or husband.”

It’s a very big issue in certain parts of the province. I wonder how much emphasis is being put on creating awareness and education — to encourage those women who are facing, every day, this violence, no matter in which form — in multiple languages. It’s not only in communities that are dominantly diverse. Now we’re seeing it in rural communities or among people where they don’t have access to these services.

What additional steps do you think we should consider taking to improve those conditions? We know that some cases have been deadly. I just wanted to get your thoughts. Sorry for the long question.

S. Rahman: If I may, Harwinder — others can definitely join — that’s a really important question. In Surrey, what we’re doing is that we’ve found partnerships with our South Asian media outlets. Often we’re invited on these radio stations. The language-specific staff who speak the language, either Punjabi, Urdu or Hindi, would go and talk on these taboo topics that would otherwise not be discussed, like sexual violence, sexual assaults, gendered and physical violence.

We do talk about that — talk about the resources and the impacts to break down. We are seeing that even through the services we provide to women, the word of mouth is really important. We find, in communities, word of mouth, women supporting women.

If you get a chance to visit our website, we just recently launched a video where a South Asian woman has shared her story of courage — Gagan’s story. Giving victims a voice to share their experiences has also been really helpful. The South Asian media outlets and our educational groups have been very critical in this.

I’ll leave others to speak to this as well.

E. Zimmerman: Thank you for the question, Harwinder, and for your thoughts there, Shahnaz. I think this is part of my recommendation for prevention funding but also for funding — I specifically asked around Indigenous partnership-building — across cultures, partnership-building to build culturally safe and relevant information and responses.

Our organization has been around for a while. We have information, but it does need to be translated, literally and more figuratively, to be relevant towards unique needs and communities. In our organization, we see that, and we desperately want to do that, but at this stage, it’s more of a side-of-our-desk kind of thing. We just don’t have the funding for it.

Again, prevention funding or funding to work in partnerships so we can share resources and knowledge to lift each other up would be incredible — in addition to that operational, administrative piece.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much, Shahnaz and Elijah. I just want to highlight that I think there’s a bigger problem, also, in some of the rural communities, whether it’s northern B.C. or other parts. Those radio stations don’t often work. I think something to consider — or something that we, as a committee, can recommend — is that that’s where there are still some big gaps. That’s why I wanted to highlight that.

[3:55 p.m.]

Thank you for the work you do — it’s incredible — to save many lives and many women.

K. Kurisu: I just wanted to add on, Harwinder, to your question. I really appreciate you asking it. Coming from northern B.C., we do have to get creative, and it is on the side of our desks.

We’ve done two things recently which are contributing to that creative process to get the information out there and make it more approachable. One, which has been amazing, has been hiring a social media coordinator, an outside contractor, to come in and manage that piece for us in our small agency. The cost is not huge but not easy to set aside in what funds we have. But it has been able to increase that presence, especially with teens and youth who are in rural communities that do have access to Wi-Fi, to Internet.

Then the other piece that we’re doing is that our centre is creating a podcast in order to be able to have a digital presence for harm reduction information and education, in order to get the word out there to different folks. Then hopefully, we can see that eventually translated or present in different formats to make it accessible. Thank you for your question.

E. Oswald: I’d love to use the last ten seconds to just echo that, hearing about immigrants and hearing about racialized folks, we have colonial systems. We have systems that were developed by cis, heterosexual, white men. Of course, these systems are not going to be able to meet the needs of the survivors who need them the most. Many of our panellists touched on it today.

In addition to prevention and in addition to outreach, we need to look at systems that exist outside of the medical system and the criminal-legal system. They are going to be the systems that best…. These alternatives are going to be, honestly, the first offering that is going to be able to connect our most vulnerable community members to the support that they need with regard to healing, both physical and emotional, as well as a sense of justice.

I really thank you for asking that question, Harwinder.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, on that final note, I’d like to conclude this panel by thanking all of you for joining us today, for the way you’ve interacted with us and with each other, and for the work that you do, day to day, in your communities.

You really emphasized the importance of prevention and that you have great ideas and programs, if you could afford to put them in place adequately, for prevention. You’ve also reminded us — in your stories of people who, later in life, are still coping with the lifelong challenge — that healing matters and that it has to be a complete program that has prevention but also healing. Thank you for that. That’s an important reminder for us. With that, we’ll bid you goodbye.

Welcome to our next panel, which is addressing issues of justice and the law. There are three panellists. You’ll each have an opportunity — you have five minutes — to make a presentation, make your recommendations in turn. Then we’ll open it up to an equivalent amount of time for the committee to ask questions and engage with you about your recommendations.

What we’ve found is that because it’s a panel, some of the questions may be directed to individuals, or some of them may be directed to the whole panel. Feel free to build on each other’s ideas in your responses to the questions.

I will invite Aleem Bharmal, representing the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch, to kick us off.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 9 – Justice/Legal

CANADIAN BAR ASSOCIATION,
B.C. BRANCH

A. Bharmal: Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity to address you. My name is Aleem Bharmal, and I am the first vice-president of the Canadian Bar Association, B.C. branch.

I acknowledge that I speak to you from the traditional and unceded territories of the Coast Salish people, specifically the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

[4:00 p.m.]

CBABC is the voice of British Columbia’s legal profession. In preparing this submission, we draw on the experiences of lawyers and their clients within our legal and justice systems. This includes perspectives of lawyers working in every field of law, with clients from all kinds of backgrounds.

We advocate for a fair, just and affordable justice system. In our Agenda for Justice 2021, we provide 40 recommendations in 22 key areas to the provincial government. We offer concrete suggestions for the legal profession and the B.C. government to work collaboratively to improve B.C.’s justice system and modernize legislation and to move families and communities forward.

You have our written submissions. We are seeking funding for three primary areas: a robust data collection and disclosure infrastructure within the justice system, funding for expanded legal aid services and continued modernization and digitization of the court system infrastructure. Each one serves the public interest to improve access to justice while building a strong and sustainable economy.

However, if there’s one thing I could impress upon you today, it is that the single greatest improvement we could make to advance the rights of our most vulnerable citizens is funding to expand the scope of legal aid. Every year we stand before you and ask for funding for this essential service.

Like health care, legal aid is an essential public service, yet currently, funding falls drastically short of meeting the needs of British Columbians. There are two areas of service in particular which urgently require more resources from government: family law services and specialized legal services for members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Let me elaborate. Although many people assume that legal aid is available to address family law problems, for decades there has been no legal aid funding to address the majority of family law matters. This affects single parents seeking child support, some of them more complex situations than others, or families looking for help establishing parenting arrangements. Legal aid representation is provided only where there are actual or threatened safety or violence issues or to resolve a serious denial of access to children.

Legal Aid B.C. needs to be able to provide legal representation to parents and children with more routine problems. Providing legal advice and representation would reduce the stress on families, help them to reach solutions faster and set them on a better path to ongoing parenting relationships.

Additionally, British Columbia’s 2SLGBTQ+ communities have a greater need for legal services. They are overrepresented in the lowest income brackets and suffer from heightened discrimination in many areas. Despite this, there are no legal aid clinics with a specific mandate to serve 2SLGBTQ+ members, and they face a particularly large gap in accessing justice. Funding for services for this community would improve their circumstances greatly.

CBABC has asked this committee for increased funding for legal aid each year for over a decade. There remains insufficient funding to help lower-income people with typical family problems. I ask you today: why are these vulnerable, low-income members of our society still being left behind? They are left on their own to navigate the legal system at a time when they need help the most. We can and must do better.

We urge the government to place funding back into legal aid representation so that people can access the basic financial support and secure parenting arrangements to provide stability to their families. The government has the ability to fund a fair and effective justice system, which, in turn, will support the well-being of residents in British Columbia.

CBABC thanks the committee for this opportunity to present these recommendations for consideration in their budget for 2023.

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

Our next presenter is Richard Tarnoff, representing Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

VANCOUVER ISLAND REGION
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE ASSOCIATION

[4:05 p.m.]

R. Tarnoff: I’m Richard Tarnoff. I’m the president of the Vancouver Island Region Restorative Justice Association.

I’m speaking from the traditional territories of the Stz’uminus First Nation.

VIRRJA represents 20 restorative justice programs on Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands and the Sunshine Coast. We host six meetings per year and an annual conference where members and guests can engage with experts in fields such as law, reconciliation and working with people with disabilities and addictions. Finally, VIRRJA provides member organizations with a united voice when recommending changes to the justice system.

Recommendation 1, it is time for the province to recognize restorative justice as a human right and an essential service — like safe roads, clean drinking water and legal aid. In order for RJ programs to meet this need in an effective, reliable and professional manner, there needs to be adequate, stable funding.

Restorative justice is known to make communities safer and to reduce court costs and backlogs. It can provide victims of domestic violence with additional choices for how they want to address the harm they have suffered. It can give communities a say and involve them in repairing the environmental damage from industrial activities.

For the past few years, your committee has recommended increased funding for community-based restorative justice programs. Many ministers have also advocated for an increase in the use of restorative justice. Despite this unanimity, most programs still spend much of their time and energy fundraising.

The Ministry of Public Safety provides a $4,000 annual grant to community accountability programs and the opportunity to apply for civil forfeiture grants. Unfortunately, applying for grants is time-consuming and unpredictable. It forces programs to compete with each other for a limited pool of money. Imagine if Vancouver Island Health Authority had to compete with the other regions every year for funds to pay nurses and maintain hospitals.

Clearly, the needs of programs differ widely. Larger programs like Victoria and the North Shore have paid staff and serve many clients. Smaller programs are usually run by volunteers and have smaller budgets. If restorative justice were treated as an essential service, the Ministry of Public Safety could establish a reasonable budget with each program based on their workload and needs.

Recommendation 2, remove the moratorium on the creation of new CAP programs and provide adequate funding for their effective operation.

The ministry has stopped allowing new programs to apply. Communities that had not established programs had to find alternative sources of support or accept RJ services from a neighbouring community. As some of these communities grew and interest in restorative justice spread, there’s been a growing interest in creating new programs that are based within their communities.

Recommendation 3, allocate funding in the 2023 budget to create a dialogue, which includes all jurisdictions and relevant parties, to seek ways to protect the legal rights of children and Indigenous peoples.

The restorative justice community can play a role in supporting the province to accomplish its goal of reconciliation with First Nations. As Perry Bellegarde, the former Grand Chief of the AFN, stated: “There’s still room for greater use of restorative justice as an alternative to Criminal Code remedies to reduce the huge overrepresentation of First Nations in Canadian prisons.”

The good news is that the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples and the convention on the rights of the child have established the legal basis and many of the steps that need to be taken. The province has committed to implementing UNDRIP. UNDRIP guarantees to Indigenous people all the rights of citizens of their country.

Canada has signed the convention on the rights of the child, which provides for children to be informed of alternate options when criminal charges are being considered and for the child to be consulted about decisions that are made that affect them. B.C. needs to take leadership in this process. It is complex because the administration of justice in Canada is shared by provincial and federal jurisdictions.

Nevertheless, to say that implementing the rights of children is not provincial jurisdiction is not acceptable. There needs to be a dialogue between those who develop provincial policy and those who administer justice to develop legal procedures to ensure that the inherent rights of children are protected.

We would encourage your committee to endorse the goal of implementing the terms and spirit of our international agreements and to allocate funding in the 2023 budget to create the needed dialogue, which includes all jurisdictions and parties, to seek ways to accomplish this goal.

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

Next, and finally, we’ll hear from Lisa Hamilton, Law Society of B.C.

[4:10 p.m.]

LAW SOCIETY OF B.C.

L. Hamilton: Thank you so much, everyone.

I’m pleased to appear before you on the traditional, unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, including the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

I am currently the president of the Law Society. I also happen to be a family law lawyer, mediator and arbitrator. I’ve also been a user of the family law justice system.

The Law Society regulates the legal profession, and our mandate is to protect the public in the administration of justice. In doing so, we must uphold the rights and freedoms of all people, including those who cannot speak for themselves.

We’ve made a written submission, but today I would like to focus entirely on protecting the public interest in family law matters. There’s a huge concern in the Law Society and amongst family law practitioners, as well as other professionals, such as doctors, with whom we’ve been working. It relates to the toxic stress that relates to children and families going through separation and divorce.

There are significant legal as well as health concerns for families and children who go through separation and divorce. Divorce and separation itself is an adverse childhood experience. That’s one of ten of those ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, which is right up there with physical and mental child abuse as well as neglect. It has similar long-term and short-term repercussions on children and families going through it.

The long-term and short-term effects include substance abuse, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and later on, long-term effects such as heart disease, diabetes and a shortened life expectancy by some 20 years just by being exposed to ACEs and the toxic stress associated with those.

The Law Society has committed to do all things possible to reduce the harm to families and children going through separation and divorce and to reduce the risks of these long-term health repercussions. The approach, in terms of our adversarial justice system, has unintended consequences in terms of exacerbating the toxic stress that families and children face when going through separation and divorce.

As such, the Law Society has adopted in its strategic plan and is working with the Doctors of B.C. as well as other professions and has joined in the transformation of family justice project in order to reduce these harms.

It’s a bit of a crisis, I would suggest, with some studies saying that divorce and separation is up some 30 percent since the pandemic started, and intimate-partner violence also being up. That’s also combined with a backlog in the courts. It’s really quite an urgent and significant concern.

We are very heartened by funding, such as in Victoria and Surrey, for provincial court matters where there is mandatory needs assessment, early resolution, recommended non-adversarial and less-adversarial processes being utilized, and also parental education about separation and the effects on children.

We can do more. We support and recommend anything that will reduce the adversarial nature of the court process and increased options for non-adversarial and less-adversarial resolution in family law matters.

We also support funding and recommend funding for more mediation and parenting coordination, which is not currently funded whatsoever. Only in the private sector do you see that funded. Counselling for all family members and children, including co-parenting counselling and individual counselling. As well, funding for education of parents regarding ACEs and the effects on their children, and also education on the options for non-adversarial resolution such as mediation.

[4:15 p.m.]

We need to look at this holistically. Just a small part of it is a legal problem. We recommend funding in all those sorts of areas. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much, Lisa. That concludes the presentations. I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask questions and engage you further about your recommendations.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentations. They were really great. Actually, I have a lot of questions, but I don’t think I’m going to have time for them.

I’m going to ask Lisa first, if you don’t mind, Lisa. I especially really appreciated your introduction about the importance of mediation and working with families, doing advocacy, when dealing with the potential of gender-based violence, or partner-based violence or a divorced relationship, which does carry a lot of stress for the kids.

The reason why I want to ask you a question about that — please, I’m asking as someone who wishes to learn more about it — is that I also have a concern. Unfortunately, some of the people from my cultural background often will have this cultural expectation where the older generation…. The family member will push for mediation when, unfortunately, the less powerful members of the acute conflict might not be comfortable.

I would love to hear, from your side, what kinds of strategies you guys would utilize to make sure that you introduce some kind of mediation to encourage restorative justice, which was mentioned earlier, to help in dealing with partner-based relational conflict that involves kids. What can we do to make sure that individuals in a lesser-power position can feel supported or are properly screened to ensure that they don’t get dragged into such unfavourable circumstances?

L. Hamilton: That’s an excellent question; I thank you for it.

In the early resolution projects in Victoria and Surrey, there is specifically a needs assessor. That’s the only mandatory part of their early resolution — well, that and education. The mediation is not mandatory. It’s not appropriate for every single case.

It’s really crucial that the needs assessor is able to privately screen the parties for power imbalance, as well as intimate-partner violence and the broad definition of family violence, and if there’s going to be mediation, design the process to be handled by a skilled mediator who will continually screen for violence, or screen it out so that those that are appropriate for mediation have early resolution, and they clear up the courts to deal with matters that actually need to be before the courts.

There will always be those matters, perhaps 30 percent or less, but it’s important to have that private needs assessor. A private mediator does that. Those two registries do that. The concern, in the rest of Provincial Court and in Supreme Court, is there is no one privately assessing the needs of these people that are going through separation and divorce. That causes me to lose sleep at night.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for the presentations. It’s incredibly interesting. I only wish we had a lot more time with you, because there are so many aspects to legal assistance that I think we could discuss and look at solutions for. I’m really interested in the question of digitization. When we look to ways to make justice more accessible for more people, in addition to trying to bring costs down, it strikes me that digitization is perhaps one of those solutions.

Now, I’ll share that I’m biased. I’m the Parliamentary Secretary for Technology, and I do love all things technical. But it seems to me that, of the many different industries I’ve been exposed to, one of the least embracing of technology is law. I wonder if that has shifted at all during the pandemic and whether there are potential solutions, perhaps, to be looking at in regard to digitization.

[4:20 p.m.]

I know that Lisa, in particular, spoke a lot about family law. I think there are some areas of the law that perhaps really don’t lend themselves to self-advocacy. Areas where there is a great discrepancy between the partners would be one of them. But I think there are other areas of law where that might work quite well. I’m thinking about the example of the civil resolution tribunal, which has now been digitized. People can have a sort of self-help model, to some degree, and a collaborative approach to resolution.

I wonder if I could just, then, ask you to share your thoughts on whether we’re doing enough in regard to digitization, whether there are opportunities, whether we saw any changes in the legal profession as a result of COVID, and if this is an area we should be looking at more seriously, going forward.

A. Bharmal: If I could address that, that was one of the three areas in our written submission where we are asking for increased funding. You’re right. The province had a court digital transformation strategy. It was a key development in modernizing the justice system. The pandemic accelerated the implementation of this strategy. Additional funding was provided by the government, and it provided a much-needed boost to modernize the court system, which primarily, as you know, operates through paper documentation and in-person appearances.

There remain gaps, and we need more funding to facilitate remote appearances for pretrial hearings in criminal, civil and family law matters; digital information- sharing platforms, so that the system is not reliant on paper documentation alone; and a digitally skilled workforce, which requires training of the existing workforce and establishing new jobs for people with those skills to support the justice system.

The technology is available, and pilot projects have been developed for services such as online court scheduling and electronic filing of documents. There’s still — in Vancouver, believe it or not — an ancient, old system of calling on a certain day. Whoever gets first through gets priority in court scheduling.

These innovations are long overdue, but they continue to be delayed or restricted from provincewide implementation due to lack of funding. Currently these basic services are only available in certain courts, within certain regions. The lack of consistency in the application of these available technologies creates uncertainty and lack of efficiency. In a climate where access to justice is critical, this funding is needed quickly to ensure timely and effective access to the courts.

H. Yao: As I mentioned before, I actually have a lot of questions. This question is for Richard. It might be a simple question, and maybe you’ve already provided the information. I do apologize if it sounds repetitive. For restorative justice, obviously one of the key goals, too, is….

Whenever we can take a criminal legal issue out of the court and be able to address it as more of a restorative justice circumstance, it technically saves money for our legal system and for our province. Do you mind maybe, potentially, walking us through the numbers?

It would help us to be able to find a deeper appreciation for how restorative justice is not just a good relationship-building opportunity but it also helps our provincial government, in the long run, to actually save money at a legal system level, where we can actually address issues outside of the court instead of reaching the court.

Maybe I’m just wrong. My apologies if I am.

R. Tarnoff: I think you’re absolutely right; I think it’s true. I don’t have any statistics with me right now, but certainly there is a reduction in costs through the use of restorative justice. Most referrals are made by police officers pre-charge. In those cases where they determine that it’s appropriate to refer to alternative measures, it doesn’t even go to Crown.

[4:25 p.m.]

Subsequently, if charges are forwarded to Crown, Crown can also refer to restorative justice, so those cases don’t go to court. That frees up the courts, frees up those workers for the times that those cases are happening. So there’s a definite savings there. There’s also, we believe, long-term savings by giving offenders a chance to repair the harm they’ve caused and not go through incarceration and not have the criminal record — so long-term social costs and benefits for victims and for communities, as far as rebuilding relationships.

I’m not sure if I answered your questions entirely.

H. Yao: No, that’s perfect. Thank you so much.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we have time for one last question and answer. Ben’s going to ask the question.

B. Stewart: I appreciate everything that you’ve put forward about the access to greater legal aid, digitization and modernization of the legal system.

I think that the data collection…. I’m not exactly certain where that’s leading to, Aleem.

But I want to ask the question that, as an MLA, I hear often on the frustration with the justice system, in terms of the reason that people the police are apprehending for petty crime and things like that…. I don’t hear anything in your presentations that talks about the term that we use: catch and release. I’m just wondering. Do you have an opinion on that?

A. Bharmal: Well, I don’t work in criminal justice, personally. But obviously, as our organization represents a large sector of criminal law lawyers, we’d be happy to consult and get back to you with some answers on that question. If there’s a place where we can send the answers to, we would be very happy to consider your query and get you a meaningful answer.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, with that…. Well, we might have time for a….

Henry, you said you had other questions, so if you can make your question brief, we can slip it into the time frame.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I was going to ask a question to Aleem about legal aid. So I apologize to….

What’s it called? I ask a lot of questions. I should slow down on that one.

One of the things, when I worked in bc211 prior to my life as MLA, is that legal aid is actually one of our most commonly requested services. That’s based upon individuals dealing with social services issues, family issues, criminal issues. We often were hearing that there would be a lot of delays. I’m assuming it’s a funding issue, obviously, that we’re talking about here.

I guess my question right now is…. Obviously, you’re asking for more money to support legal aid at this time, but is there any other way we can also look for ways that…? If somebody’s going to legal aid and they couldn’t get help in a timely manner, are there any other kinds of referral services that they go through to help them find other forms of legal support that potentially would be able to complement a situation which, in this case, has made it more difficult for an individual who has more of a timely, urgent matter?

A. Bharmal: I personally work in the social justice sector. There are a lot of publicly funded organizations that utilize legal advocates and paralegals. The government, as you know, is moving towards, potentially, a single regulator. In the area of mental health law, for example, we utilize legal advocates quite extensively when people are certified under the Mental Health Act and their liberty’s at stake. They have a right of review and a hearing before a mental health board.

I would say that in terms of legal aid, it’s very narrow in terms of the income level and what is covered, whether it be criminal, family or other areas. That’s why we refer to what we call an access-to-justice crisis. That is one very critical component that needs to be addressed. But modernization of the court system, better data collection to see where we can improve — all of that needs to be addressed.

[4:30 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much for that answer. With that, we’ll conclude this panel. We want to thank you very much for taking the time to meet with us and engage with us about the justice system.

I think a theme that is very clear, that has woven its way through your presentations and your answers to the questions, is that basically, you’ve led us to question whether or not the most vulnerable in our society are being served adequately by the legal system.

As MLAs, I think most of us, actually, from the experience of our constituency office staff, can confirm that. We get a lot of desperate calls to our offices from people who need legal help. Our staff spend a lot of time searching around, trying to make that happen. The recommendations that you’re proposing address that, so thank you very much.

We have one more panel today, so we’ll say goodbye to you. Thank you again for your time.

A. Bharmal: Thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Good afternoon, panel 10 on transportation. You have the honour of closing out the day with your presentations.

There are three presentations. We’ll invite each of you, in turn, to make your five-minute presentation and your recommendations. Then, at the end of all of the presentations, will be an opportunity for the committee. We’ll spend an equal amount of time asking you questions, engaging you further.

They may ask specific questions to a specific panellist, or they may ask a question to the whole panel. Having said that, what we’ve found is that some of the previous panels have built on each other’s ideas, so feel free to jump in and add to and clarify and further elaborate on what other panellists have said.

With that, I would ask Alastair Craighead, Friends of Rails to Trails Vancouver Island, to lead off.

Budget Consultation Presentations
Panel 10 – Transportation

FRIENDS OF RAILS TO TRAILS
VANCOUVER ISLAND

A. Craighead: I’m making this presentation on behalf of Friends of Rails to Trails Vancouver Island. We support, in general, the province’s policy priorities of bus public transit and now active transportation on Vancouver Island. We see an opportunity for investment that focuses on the complementarity of these priorities, an opportunity which will support the province’s goal of doubling active transportation trips by 2030.

Recommendation: that a feasibility study, including an economic impact study, be done for a continuous active transportation multi-use trail from Langford to Courtenay and to Port Alberni, on the Island corridor railbed, as has already been done for rail service. The study should consider secure bike parking and park-and-ride facilities where they would enhance active and public transportation.

FORT-VI’s purpose is to work to have unused rail rights-of-way on Vancouver Island converted to trails. A very successful example is the Galloping Goose–Lochside rail trail, which connects the municipalities of Victoria, Langford and Saanich. This trail, within the CRD, carries about 4,000 active transportation trips a day. To put that in context, traffic into Victoria over the Malahat Highway is about 25,000 trips a day.

[4:35 p.m.]

This comparison demonstrates that continuous trails are significant and important parts of regional transportation networks. The Island corridor has been unused for 11 years. The corridor is a public asset, and the public wants to see it preserved and used. There is also growing public demand for active transportation corridors. People who bike, and who are buying electric bikes, are looking for routes where they can use them safely.

A provincial assessment of the corridor has all but ruled out rail service because of high costs and low passenger estimates. We are recommending that an assessment be done for a continuous trail which requires removal of the rails.

There are about 37 communities of varying sizes on the corridor. The average distance between them is less than ten kilometres. That means that anyone living on the corridor has, on average, only a five-kilometre trip to the nearest settlement, well within a 20-minute bike ride. Sales of electric bikes are very high, much higher than electric cars, and these bikes are doubling the distance which can be covered in 20 minutes.

An active transportation trail on the Island corridor is an opportunity to extend the kind of active transportation trip numbers on the Goose into other Island coastal regions and into interregional active transportation. It’s an opportunity for mode growth, mode shift, and an opportunity for low-carbon tourism.

There’s a trail in Pennsylvania, the GAP Trail, which is very similar to the Island corridor in terms of history, settlement pattern and population. It attracted one million visitors and generated $121 million in economic impact in 2019. In 2014, 74 percent of visitors indicated that the trail was a major factor for the trip. Average daily spending was $184.

In 2020, a study from UVic’s School of Public Administration found that 96 percent of potential visitors to Vancouver Island would be influenced by the availability of high-quality trails. In the same study, residents’ preference for trails was based on safety, 80 percent; and a quieter environment, 90 percent. The inland highway on the Island and the coastal highway are not friendly or safe for active transportation. People will make more active transportation trips when there are more safe places to do so.

A 2020 study by Pollution Probe showed that intercity bus is by far the most economical and fuel-efficient way to provide public transit in Canada. The province’s strategic transportation priorities of buses, especially electric buses, and active transportation complement one another and allow a multi-modal solution to Island transportation. This can be delivered by frequent and affordable bus service between Island regions, coupled with secure bike parking close to bus terminals, which encourages active transportation connectivity. Park-and-ride facilities can allow car commuters to park and ride into the city either by bus or by bike.

What these recommendations offer is the opportunity to build back better, to advance the province’s transportation priorities and rebuild the economies of Island corridor settlements in a more sustainable manner.

Thank you. That’s my presentation.

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

Next we’ll hear from Michael Koski, representing B.C. Cycling Coalition.

B.C. CYCLING COALITION

M. Koski: I’m so glad we’re at the end of the day. Like my physio always told me, make sure you always get the morning physio appointment, not the afternoon physio appointment.

Thanks to all of you for listening to us all day. I really appreciate it. The longer I’ve done this job, I always start my conversations with government by saying thank you so much for listening to our groups and taking into consideration what we have to say.

I’m Mike Koski. I’m executive director at B.C. Cycling Coalition. We speak on behalf of all coalitions across the province — for HUB Cycling and Trails B.C., which I think you heard from yesterday. Eric and I just got in touch today, so we’re connecting too.

I really wanted to try to focus. What we’re bringing forward is probably not new to you, but it’s allocating more money to active transportation.

I know that the government is committed to investing $36 million over three years to active transportation infrastructure grants, but we know that’s a small percentage of the overall service plan, going forward. If I think about what CleanBC calls for — for the shared trips, walking, cycling and transit — I don’t think what government is spending on active transportation is going to get us there. I think I’ve even personally talked to some assistant deputy ministers and asked them that question, and they’ve agreed: no, it won’t. The amount of investment in active transportation is not going to reach those targets.

[4:40 p.m.]

What I hope this panel can understand is that groups like ours and like the Friends of Rails to Trails and the Better Transit Alliance of Greater Victoria are all here to help. We’re all here to help, and we’re all here to support government in reaching those targets. These are some of the recommendations that we want to bring forward to help those and to be a partner with government to help you reach your goals.

When I look at recommendation 1, we want to look at how we can shift the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure spending from expanding highways to improve resource-efficient modes such as walking, bicycling and public transportation.

I’d like to call out point 2, because I know that even talking with Deputy Minister Krishna, who commented to me that sometimes when government gives out grants, they’re not spent by the small communities…. We have found that that’s because it’s just not enough money. They don’t have the resources to match. They don’t have the resources to do any additional funding, so it’s hard for them to spend the grants unless they’re meaningful, unless they can make meaningful change.

Another point I’d like to pull out of here is allocate funding to changing in a review of the B.C. Motor Vehicle Act to protect vulnerable road users. This is something that’s really dear to all the coalitions, but it’s safe-passing legislation. It’s a way that we can create an environment so government can reduce VKTs, vehicle kilometres travelled, and help with mode shift and also help with reaching those climate action targets.

The last thing I’ll put on here…. I know you’ve got the full quorum, but I can’t reinforce enough that government invest more in options for e-bike and financial incentives for people to purchase e-bikes. We get this all the time from our members. We get this all the time from our organizations. We know, with the pandemic, that there’s been so much more interest in cycling and riding, and e-bikes are able to level the playing field.

If you talk about someone who’s going to move out of their car and onto a bike, this is such a fantastic opportunity for them to be able to carry those heavy loads, carry children to school, carry groceries home. The investments in e-bikes and e-bike rebates…. I know that certain staff in MOTI are working on this, but it needs to be quicker. Shops are ready for it, and people are ready for it — to have that incentive right across the board, not just for specific targeted people, and to prioritize transportation investments in safe and equitable, healthy, independent mobility.

This is very important, again, for all our coalitions. But to be focusing on addressing the barriers faced by disabled persons, children, seniors, women in Indigenous rural, suburban and urban communities…. It’s the small communities that really matter, I think. There’s lots of effort put into Kelowna, Victoria and Vancouver, but we hear from so many small communities that feel they’re left out. If we could focus more and help them, it would be greatly appreciated.

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

Next, and finally, we’ll hear from Eric Doherty, Better Transit Alliance of Greater Victoria.

BETTER TRANSIT ALLIANCE
OF GREATER VICTORIA

E. Doherty: Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I’m speaking from Victoria, B.C., Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ territory.

I wanted to note that I spent a fair bit of time at my in-laws’ place in Lone Butte. My presentation is very much focused on greater Victoria, but I keep the needs of smaller rural communities very much in mind.

The Better Transit Alliance is a grassroots group advocating for better transit. We see improving public transit as an important way to advance social and climate justice as well as making our region healthier and more pleasant. We work closely with local groups like Greater Victoria Acting Together and provincial groups, including the West Coast Climate Action Network that wasn’t able to present today on this panel.

[4:45 p.m.]

Our first recommendation is to align transportation budgeting to meet the CleanBC targets, particularly focusing on the crucial October 2021 CleanBC target of reducing “distances travelled in light-duty vehicles 25 percent by 2030 compared to 2020.”

I’m going to assume that you’re not going to let me go on forever, even though the timer hasn’t started.

We enthusiastically approve of this new CleanBC target and suggest that this target, even more than the active transportation mode share targets, really requires a fundamental realignment of transportation budgeting.

Currently the provincial government has dozens of highway expansion projects planned which predate this target. All of the assessments of them have been done before we had a CleanBC target that actually targets a significant reduction in vehicle kilometres travelled every year.

Our local example is the Keating flyover, which is budgeted at a mere $77 million, which is actually big dollars in greater Victoria’s spending for transportation infrastructure. That would go a long way to creating the bus lanes that we need for B.C. Transit’s RapidBus project in this region. The small little bit of bus lane that we’ve already got is saving commuters ten minutes in each direction at peak times.

The Better Transit Alliance and over 350 other organizations have signed an open letter that includes a demand that the B.C. government “reallocate infrastructure funds from highway expansion to transit and active transportation” — that is, cycling, rolling and walking. It’s time to recognize that this is a fundamental question. Does the money go to highway expansion, or does it go to public transit and other forms of sustainable transportation?

The benefits of this shift would include improving affordability for families across the province; improving safety; better meeting the needs of B.C.’s aging population, which I’ll mention more later. It could also benefit B.C.’s rural areas with a capital investment in a B.C.-wide intercommunity bus service, as called for by the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and many other groups.

Our second recommendation is just basically to realign the transportation budget in the capital regional district, which has unanimously voted to prioritize public transit, walking and cycling over highway expansion. Basically, the CRD’s policy is completely now in line with what’s needed to meet the CleanBC vehicle kilometres travel reduction target.

Our third recommendation is to realign transportation budgets to meet the needs of an aging population, including the increased number of people with disabilities who need handyDART. The oldest of the baby boom generation will turn 78 in the 2023 budget year. In the coming decade, meeting the needs of an aging population and the increased numbers of people with disabilities will be a huge challenge.

I want to wrap up by saying that these changes that seniors need, people with disabilities need, are very much the same changes needed to meet the CleanBC target. Bus lanes benefit handyDART. Bike lanes benefit people with mobility scooters.

All of these things fit together and meet multiple objectives.

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

That concludes the panel presentations. I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask questions and engage you further.

M. Dykeman: I just want to thank you for your presentation. I don’t have any questions. I felt your presentations were really thorough, and I enjoyed them. I wanted to thank you for taking the time to come and present to us today.

[4:50 p.m.]

M. Starchuk: I find it somewhat disappointing that both Alistair and Michael don’t have bikes in their background.

M. Koski: My wife won’t let me. No bikes in the dining room.

M. Starchuk: Oh, okay. That’s probably a good rule.

My question is to Alistair. You had talked about a recommendation to do an assessment. Is the assessment…? I mean, I’d like to know…. I assume that the assessment is: how many people are going to use it? What is it going to cost? What is it going to be made out of? Is it going to be paved? Is it going to be gravel? What kind of users are going to be there? I make the assumption that it’s also accessible for everybody.

A. Craighead: Absolutely. It would be a very similar project to the Galloping Goose. It would just be about three times the length. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Galloping Goose Trail in Victoria.

M. Starchuk: I’ve been on it.

A. Craighead: It’s very successful, and they’re having to expand it already.

The reason why we’re asking for an assessment is that we believe that at some point, the Island Corridor Foundation, who won the corridor, will likely change their purposes to lose the requirement to support rail. It’s pretty clear that there’s not much money coming from that direction, whereas there’s a lot of money coming from active transportation. As you probably know, there’s a federal fund with about $200 million, up to $50 million per project, for active transportation.

We’re kind of hopeful that if we can get something towards a business case, which has been looked at for rail by the province…. We’re simply asking to look at another alternative. Your description of what that would entail is pretty thorough. That would be the sort of thing that we’ve been doing.

We’ve got a pretty good idea of what the prospects are for a trail like this already by looking at other trails. The one I mentioned in the United States is highly successful, and it’s been very well studied by competent accountants. The numbers I’m quoting are from a reliable company.

There’s the Okanagan Rail Trail. The engineers, actually, who worked on that trail came down at looked at our corridor. They gave us some numbers of what the costs would likely be, so we’ve got quite a lot of information already that would be available to anyone.

But what we’re really just saying is that this is an option that should seriously be looked at, because we’re really short of active transportation. It’s quite remarkable that, for no collusion in these presentations, we’ve all covered many of the same points, especially about the small settlements. Small settlements in the Island are really suffering after COVID, trying to bring their tourism back. But they also want to bring it back to include active transportation, and this is a perfect opportunity to do that in one stroke.

It obviously wouldn’t all happen at once, and there are a number of other issues, like First Nations issues, that have to be dealt with as well. We’re well aware of them, but none of them are a threat to the trail. First Nations, for instance, get part of the corridor bite that goes through the reserves. That would obviously put an end to rail, but the trail can go around these small sections of corridor, as the trail already does in Victoria.

There is an E&N trail already in existence in Victoria, but it’s beside the rails. To do that, it costs about $2 million per kilometre. To do the trail, the numbers from the capital region are that a trail normally costs about $100,000 a kilometre. So $2 million. The costs of building trails beside rails is enormous because of all the extra work that has to be done. Separate bridges have to be done. A lot of extra expense.

That’s a rather long answer. But really, the idea is to put this idea on a level with other things that have been studied, including rail.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for that. I really think that one of the key things, aside from moving people, is the tourism side of things. I have to tell you that I ran into a couple of colleagues that were in the hotel yesterday, and they brought their five-year-old and eight-year-old all the way from the ferry, all the way up here, and they were just looking for places to go riding. That is a key point. Thank you very much for what you do.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to ask Alistair. I see that there was a report out — on, it looks like, the 16th, I think — by the Island Corridor Foundation about the feasibility of the rail. I know this has been talked about a lot. But, anyways, people are still beating the drum. It looks like it’s almost a half a billion dollars just to build the infrastructure, and then operating is another $13 million a year.

[4:55 p.m.]

I guess the thing about it is: are you working with them to try to, I guess, come to a conclusion? I mean, I think their feasibility study…. I don’t know where the money’s going to come from. But anyways, it’s been around for 30 years or longer, ever since E&N shut down. I say that meaning that it just seems to me that you’re sharing the same resource. It’s just one of the things that makes you wonder about the competing kinds of dynamics.

I know what you’re talking about. The rail trail in the Okanagan, which is where I’m from…. There’s a lot of interest in expansion of that.

A. Craighead: Yeah, well, I can certainly answer that question. We have had conversations with the ICF. But the problem is that the ICF has, in their constitution as a charitable organization, to support rail service on the corridor. It’s part of their charitable purposes. So they more or less have to do that until that changes.

There’s a motion coming to them — it may have already come to them; I’m not sure they’ve had a meeting yet this month — from the Comox region to reconsider their purposes. There is a way to do that. I’ve sent them an outline of what that procedure would look like.

So there is definitely…. I wouldn’t call it discussion yet, because they have in their purposes that they have to support rail. So I ken it ties their hands in terms of doing something about a trail until that has changed.

B. Stewart: Right. But I do think they’re working at cross-purposes with what your goal is. So if you could align that better, it would probably go forward further and faster.

A. Craighead: We would very much like that to happen.

B. Stewart: Yeah. I don’t have any contacts there.

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda has a question.

B. Bailey: I apologize that my question is also in regards to the prior E&N line. I don’t know much about it. I’ve read your brief, and I just wasn’t sure who currently owns that land. That’s question No. 1.

I’ll share with you that part of the prompt for this question is that I’m MLA for Vancouver–False Creek, and close to my riding is the Arbutus corridor. Of course, there was quite a significant and protracted process, which was very contentious, that ended up resulting in quite a fabulous cycling and walking experience. I wonder who is the current owner of the E&N.

The second part to my question, if I may, is not dissimilar to Ben’s, in some ways — wondering whether there’s opportunity for collaboration. Is there opportunity for both to happen? I think that one of the challenges of the question of light rail mid-Island is that the population doesn’t quite yet support it, I don’t think, although that’s very likely to be true in the future. As we get more adept at hydrogen-based mass transportation, there might be opportunities to have really clean rail running up the Island.

I wonder. Is there any thinking towards whether there’s temporarily an active transport trail that could then be twinned next to it 20 years from now, if light rail is brought in? Is there any of that sort of collaborative, long-term thinking occurring? Might that be an opportunity in the future, or are they just really different goals for that particular line?

A. Craighead: Well, I’ll answer your first question first. The corridor is owned by the five regional districts and five of the First Nations who are situated on or close to the corridor. They have ownership. The ICF is a board which has a representative from these organizations plus two at large. So they own the corridor, and they have to look after it. Their purposes include rail, so they have to support rail.

The idea of having rail and trail is a good one, and it does exist in some places. But in this case, it would cost, we reckon, about the same to build the trail as it would to re-establish rail. The gentleman that spoke before…. You’re looking at somewhere between $500 million and maybe $1.2 billion to put rail back in.

The potential passengers that were shown in studies — over, perhaps, the last two years, I think; the last one that came out — show that the passengers just aren’t there, as you point out. They probably won’t be there in the foreseeable future. It takes a lot of people to support that kind of rail service or to support LRT.

[5:00 p.m.]

We’re still waiting, in Victoria, to see what the point will be when we get LRT in the largest city on the Island, and it’s probably still ten years out. The electric buses are going to do it until we get up to about 15,000 passengers a day; then we’ll look at light rail. And that’ll be on the corridor, on the highway. It won’t be on the E&N. I actually chaired an advisory committee in 1996 that came to the conclusion that the Island rail corridor was not the correct alignment to put a modern railway on.

There are about 40 bridges between Langford and Courtenay, where we’re proposing that the main part of the trail would be. These bridges would have to be twinned to put a trail beside the rail, because the bridges are too narrow. They’re only built for a single track. The idea that we would spend all that money, about $2 million a kilometre up the Island, 225 kilometres…. That’s very big bucks for a trail. It’s not likely to happen. I don’t know whether that answers your question.

It’s a complicated subject when you include all of the factors like the Arbutus corridor. It’s likely to take some time to get this to happen. I was one of the people — and another person on the board — who worked on the Galloping Goose. It took about 15 years, actually, to get that to come to full fruition, but it was really worth all the trouble. This is going to be the same.

B. Bailey: You did answer my question. I thank you, and I thank you for that work on the Galloping Goose. I lived in Metchosin for five years and was on it daily. Thank you for that as well.

A. Craighead: I’m very pleased to hear it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Eric, you wanted to jump in on this question, too.

E. Doherty: I wanted to jump in, particularly, on the Better Transit Alliance’s position on rail versus bus. Our position is that we need frequent, high-quality and affordable public transit between Victoria and Nanaimo and other centres on Vancouver Island. That can’t happen without either a rail service on the E&N or a substantial amount of bus lane, not just in greater Victoria out to Langford and beyond, towards the Malahat, but also through frequently congested areas in Duncan and in Nanaimo.

If that’s the direction that things are going, we need those bus lanes, and we don’t need, in all of these areas, highway expansion. The money is there if the money is reallocated to public transit, whereas if we’re trying to do everything, nothing will be done properly.

A. Craighead: Can I respond to Eric? I’m in complete agreement with Eric. In my written presentation, which I’ve put in, I said that we obviously are unlikely to have exclusive bus lanes all the way up the Island, but we can have priority lanes and allow the buses to pass traffic. I’m convinced that there are ways to do this. Like Eric, I believe that’s where the money should be spent.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, on that note, I’d like to thank all three of you for joining each other on a panel. If I understand correctly what you said earlier, you didn’t know each other before this panel, and you’ve actually been coordinating and building on ideas.

The thought that I’m left with is that yes, our government is committed to CleanBC. Many of us individually are committed to CleanBC. The choices that we make have to coincide with that commitment. The funding — what we fund and how much we fund it for — needs to reflect that goal.

You’ve also pointed out just how complicated it is. Thankfully, you’ve said that you’re there to help. You’re clearly providing some leadership on this transition. We will read your recommendations, take them into consideration in detail and pass them on. Thanks again for your leadership. We know it will continue.

I will now entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:05 p.m.