The committee met at 8:35 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.

We are grateful to be meeting today in the Legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on 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. 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.

For today’s meeting, all presenters will be making individual presentations. Many of today’s presenters are from communities that we were unable to visit in person this year, including Abbotsford, Dawson Creek and Merritt.

Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation. To assist presenters, there is a timer available when in gallery view. Following presentations, there will be time for questions from the committee members.

I also ask that everyone please put themselves on mute and wait until you are recognized before speaking. All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted.

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

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

R. Merrifield: Hi. I’m Renee Merrifield. I am the MLA for Kelowna-Mission.

B. Stewart: Good morning. My name is Ben Stewart. I’m the MLA for Kelowna West.

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

M. Dykeman: Good morning, everyone. My name is Megan Dykeman. I’m the MLA for Langley East.

B. Bailey: Good morning. I’m Brenda Bailey. I’m the MLA for Vancouver–False Creek and the Parliamentary Secretary for Technology and Innovation.

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

M. Starchuk: Good morning. Mike Starchuk, the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale. I’m looking forward to 30-plus presentations today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Assisting the committee is Jennifer Arril, Jianding Bai and Victor Lucy from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services.

For individual presentations, each presenter receives five minutes to speak, followed by five minutes for questions from the committee.

Our first presenter today is Pat Tonn, B.C. Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation.

Over to you now, Pat.

Budget Consultation Presentations

B.C. AGRICULTURE IN THE
CLASSROOM FOUNDATION

P. Tonn: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I gratefully acknowledge that the place that I work is on the traditional and unceded territory of the Stó:lō people and the Semá:th First Nation.

My recommendations today are to expand and shift the B.C. school fruit and vegetable nutritional program to create an environment where students are properly fed for learning.

My first recommendation is to maintain the current universal B.C. school fruit and vegetable nutritional program in over 1,400 schools around the province, including the Indigenous communities, at $5 million annually to encourage all students to understand the importance of healthy, local food choices in a non-stigmatizing way. Thank you for the positive health and economic benefits of this program. They’ve been a valuable investment by the provincial government, respected by teachers, parents, farmers, students and communities.

[8:40 a.m.]

Fruits and vegetables and milk are delivered right to their classrooms, anywhere in the province, 24 weeks of the school year, alternating half of the province each week. It’s an educational program built on food literacy, teaching students to select healthy food choices in a non-stigmatizing way, leading them to make positive choices for a healthy, balanced diet to learn, grow and prevent health concerns like chronic diseases.

The B.C. school fruit and vegetable nutritional program is also important for the economic stability of B.C. farmers in our domestic market. Furthermore, it provides stability in our provincial supply chain, with distribution of fresh fruits, vegetables and milk to all corners of the province and in our Indigenous communities.

The second recommendation is to increase funding to the B.C. school fruit and vegetable nutritional program: an additional $4 million to pilot weekly supplements of healthy local food products for students who are in the lowest socioeconomic catchments. Transition with a targeted pilot. This will make it a food security focus and augment current school food programs with fresh B.C. produce and dairy products.

More and more students are not able to access enough nutritious foods to support health and learning. The pandemic and the recent climate events have made existing food access challenges worse. More students are arriving at school hungry and are accessing school food programs daily for food.

For the 2023 school year, the B.C. school fruit and vegetable program could be adapted to better support school food programming. During COVID-19 and the provincial climate disasters, our program demonstrated the ability to maintain and pivot delivery of fresh B.C. products to augment school food programs and to reach vulnerable schools in harder-to-reach areas of the province.

Schools with a higher proportion of students experiencing hunger could be prioritized. This would shift the B.C. school fruit and vegetable program to augment school food programs with nutritious produce and dairy products and will better meet the health and educational needs of students who need support the most.

My third recommendation is to allocate resources to assemble provincial and school district advisory bodies to collaborate to develop and build a stronger provincial school food program. B.C. Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, which manages the school fruit and vegetable nutritional program, is a member of the B.C. Coalition for Healthy School Food, along with other community-based food literacy and food security programs.

There’s a need to build together, with a collaborative approach and each organization’s expertise, as well as government’s, to make a provincial school program for all students. The program must appreciate Indigenous food customs and consider all unique areas of the province with school district, community health and local agriculture priorities.

This revolution needs management, leadership and communication expertise from the Ministries of Education, Health and Agriculture so all associations in the field can contribute to create an environment where students are properly fed for learning.

These are my recommendations.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Pat. There are a number of questions.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Pat. That was a phenomenal presentation. I really appreciate what you’re advocating for.

I do have a quick question. I really appreciate your cultural sensitivity to Indigenous community members. Obviously, I’m representing Richmond South Centre, so my riding also has very diverse community groups. Unfortunately, a lot of the food preferences are not from the B.C.-grown regional area. Is there any way you could recommend how we can reconcile or encourage people to appreciate (1) culturally diverse fruit and vegetables and (2) the cultural heritage connected with the food?

P. Tonn: Yes, we’ve certainly recognized that recently. Right now the mandate of the program — actually for 17 years, as it’s been developed — has been on B.C. food products. More recently, certainly, we’ve become, I guess, more in tune with diversity. What we plan to do and hope to do….

[8:45 a.m.]

As we change the program or transition the program to different organizations or schools that are more socioeconomically challenged, we would then speak with them — do some surveys, speak with the principals — to ask what is needed. Like: “What do you already get from your local community, and what can we add with B.C. products that would supplement your culture, your area — what you already have operating?”

I think that’s the best way communities and provincial delivery — because you can’t grow everything in every community — can support a stronger program.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation, Pat. We’ve heard from a number of other school food programs. This is just so I understand how this works. How do you work with organizations like the Breakfast Club and other groups that are providing food in schools?

P. Tonn: For now, it’s only been a consultation at regional or provincial meetings, based on those times when non-profit organizations are able to get together.

I think this can be stronger, and therefore my third recommendation. I think this revolution can have communities and province and agriculture and health all work together better. So that’s my recommendation for that collaboration and that leadership — government and the associations, combined.

I’d just like to add, also, the reason for my second recommendation on doing the survey, doing the touchpoint with schools: to find out what’s going on already, to augment it so we’re not all doing the same thing.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Pat, for your presentation. I’m going to try and contain my excitement and enthusiasm. Having been a Breakfast Club chair and board member for 15 years, I’m super passionate about getting food into all of our schools, because we know that it directly correlates to better outcomes for kids learning. I’m super passionate about it.

I want to commend you on No. 3. I think that that is what B.C. needs. I think it is a great equalizer and a true step forward for equity for all children. So I really am excited about No. 3.

If I was to do your recommendations in a different order, I’d probably do…. Well, one, keep the program going; three; and then two. That, I think, would be a good step forward.

So very passionate about it, but I would like to see a collaborated effort. I think there are a lot of regional efforts that are going on right now. I’d love to see it under one umbrella, and it being offered to all children across B.C., including our Indigenous communities.

Thank you, and I just commend your efforts.

J. Routledge (Chair): Ben has the last question.

B. Stewart: Pat, thanks very much. Love the poster behind you there. I recognize it from a long time ago.

Pat, can you tell us: how do you bring agriculture together across the province? What’s the connection with all of the diverse groups of agriculture, rather than just going out ad hoc? Maybe that’s to Renee’s point. Is that something that still could be improved?

We often think about a lot of crops that are grown in the Lower Mainland or south Vancouver Island. But you know, there’s the Okanagan and Creston Valley and places up north. They don’t have the processing. How are you improving that, or can you?

P. Tonn: We use a procurement process. We go through that every May, June. We invite all agricultural producers to put in a bid for the products that they produce. Then we take from small producers and larger producers and collect it and distribute it in different parts of the province. They’re all welcome to contribute to the procurement.

This is where I also think that there’s a better way to connect community and provincial delivery. If we already know what’s been sourced in the community by schools, we can augment that. We don’t have to reproduce it. I think that there are areas of the province that can’t grow everything. In that way, we could augment it with areas of the province that do and on a larger scale, because of course, in agriculture, there’s small-lot agriculture and larger producers.

[8:50 a.m.]

We do work that together in the way we can right now, but I think there’s more potential if we meet more collectively.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Pat. We are out of time — unfortunately, because I think you’ve really engaged the interest of the committee. You’ve given us a lot of food for thought — pun intended.

P. Tonn: It’s a passion of mine, and I love to see the energy.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we’ll be having more meaningful conversations about this. I note and like that you referred to what you’re proposing as revolutionary, and I see it transforming my community. Thanks again. I wish we could talk to you more, but we’ll have more opportunities in the future.

Our next presenter is Sharon Gregson, representing the Coalition of Child Care Advocates of British Columbia.

Welcome, Sharon. Nice to see you. You have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by questions from the committee for five minutes.

COALITION OF CHILD CARE
ADVOCATES OF B.C.

S. Gregson: Thank you very much, Chair, and to the committee for the opportunity to speak this morning. I am here today to talk with you about child care and the very popular ten-a-day plan and the expansion across the province.

The Coalition of Child Care Advocates is the leading organization advocating for child care in British Columbia. You might know that in 2010 we partnered with our colleagues the Early Childhood Educators of B.C. to release, develop and advance the popular ten-a-day plan, moving child care from a failed, market-based, commodity approach to a public service and a public good that families can rely on.

In order to achieve those goals, there are three recommendations in front of you today. The first one is very central to success in the immediate and the long term. We’re recommending an urgent strategy to recruit and retain early childhood educators in B.C.’s child care system, starting with a competitive, provincewide wage grid, as committed in the bilateral Early Learning and Child Care Agreement, which B.C. signed with the government of Canada last year and which is worth $3.2 billion for British Columbia between now and 2026.

As government funds the expansion of much-needed child care spaces in the province, urgent action is required to ensure there are qualified educators for those new and existing programs. While very welcome, the actions taken by government over the last few years to address these recruitment and retention challenges, including the $4-an-hour wage enhancement and many student bursaries, have been insufficient to resolve the depth of the crisis.

We are recommending some creative approaches to recruit new ECE students into the profession, encourage educators who have left to return, and retain current educators in the system. As part of an overall compensation strategy of wages, benefits and working conditions, government must develop, fund and implement a competitive, provincewide wage grid.

In 2020, we did a very thorough, cross-Canada report which recommended a starting wage for a one-year college certificate of $26 an hour. For people working with infants and toddlers and in special needs, a two-year post-secondary diploma, it would be $29 an hour, and up from there. We’re in the process of revising those 2020 rates for current circumstances. The wage grid must provide encouragement and incentives for those working in the sector to upgrade and complete their qualifications. That’s a central recommendation.

We also know that as ten-a-day expands across the province, operators need to know that they will have an equitable operating funding formula in order to be in the ten-a-day system. As programs transition or convert to become ten-a-day sites, a funding formula is necessary to integrate and replace current funding operating streams into one stream that’s easier for child care providers to manage, with accountability back to taxpayers.

[8:55 a.m.]

A funding formula — some might call it block funding — should provide sufficient public funds to bring parent fees down to a maximum of $10 a day, with no fees for low-income families, and also improve the quality of child care in our province. A funding formula should be designed around four categories of child care operating budgets: human resources, of course, which is the bulk of a child care budget; programming costs; facility operating costs, excluding mortgages and leases; and admin.

Additional resources would also be required, of course, to support the inclusion of children and families with disabilities and strategies required to move towards decolonization, to support equitable access and outcomes for marginalized groups and, very importantly, to move child care beyond the Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five scenario. It doesn’t meet the needs of too many families who need extended hours, who need weekend care — shift-work care, for example.

The third recommendation we have — and that’s my grandson in the background — is to expand the ten-a-day child care sites across B.C. to meet the needs of families. The promise to bring ten-a-day child care to more families was one of the B.C. government’s first and most significant election commitments in both 2017 and 2020. In fact, child care is very much a non-partisan issue. All parties agree that we need to have access to quality, affordable child care in this province, where educators are well compensated for their important work.

In the bilateral agreement that was signed last year, there’s a commitment to 12,500 ten-a-day spaces by the end of this year, which are life-changing for families; a fee reduction of up to 50 percent for families in other programs; and ten-a-day fees across British Columbia by 2026. To achieve this goal, B.C. must replace the current, reactive processes of ten-a-day sites to a planned transition.

Just to summarize, these three recommendations are in our roadmap to ten-a-day, and we remain committed to ensuring ten-a-day expands across B.C. and now across Canada. Thanks for the opportunity to present to you today.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much. Oh my god, he’s so cute.

Hello, there.

Do we have to ask questions, or can we just ga-ga the whole five minutes? Okay. I guess not.

I have spoken to a few child care providers. One thing they did also express as a similar sentiment is the challenge in supporting shift work, especially for nurses, doctors, police officers and firefighters.

There were two challenges they were actually dealing with. One, it’s hard to find enough children to fill a shift. Even if there’s a certain amount of government compensation, it’s hard for them to justify the cost. The second thing is that a lot of parents, according to feedback, would prefer to actually be able to put the child to bed and then go to work, instead of bringing their kids, during a graveyard shift, to a child care centre.

I would love to hear feedback as to what you feel, on the two suggestions made by some of the child care providers that spoke to me about the challenges of shift work. Of course, they talked about seven days as well.

S. Gregson: Yes, there’s no question that we need opportunities for families to have earlier starts and extended hours at the end of the day. We’ve known that for a very long time. The research across Canada shows that.

Fundamentally, we actually have to also look at the shift work that we’re asking parents to do. Perhaps there is a reimagining of work, when people do have young children at home, about how we should be or not be expecting those families to do shift work in the first place. I think there could be work done with employers to look at what the demands are that we’re putting on families with young families, and a consideration of what shifts are appropriate for people with young kids at home.

There’s no question that we actually do need to have more child care outside of the Monday-to-Friday, eight-to-five model.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much, Sharon. Good presentation. Much of what you’ve said I agree with.

[9:00 a.m.]

I know one of the challenges for the private, as well as the non-profit, is that fee caps have really had the result of pushing down the ability for child care providers to raise wages. So I can’t agree with you more in terms of the equitable operating funding formula, because I do worry that that’s an impediment to getting to that $26, which I’d love to see.

Over 50 percent of the child care providers in British Columbia are privately owned. Most of them are small business, women-owned organizations. How are we going to get to this equitable, universal, across British Columbia provision of child care if we don’t engage that group as well?

S. Gregson: Yeah, I think we do…. Speaking from the advocates’ point of view, we’re always looking to engage all child care providers. From the very first time that the $10-a-day plan was released in 2011, we have always said that all providers need to be welcomed into the new system on a level playing field.

Everybody has to be accountable for the way in which we’re using taxpayers’ dollars. There’s a lot of mention of women entrepreneurs. When we think about women entrepreneurs, what we also have to think about is the women who are parents paying fees and the women who are working for low wages in the programs.

We can’t just focus on women entrepreneurs. We have to think…. If we’re looking at this as a gender equity issue, we need to look at all the women who are impacted by child care. And absolutely — our position is that all providers are welcome into the new system.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you. I couldn’t agree more. I appreciate the answer.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have two more questions, Mike and then Renee, and I note we have 49 seconds left.

M. Starchuk: No pressure.

Sharon, thank you very much for your presentation. It’s full of numbers. Sometimes I love numbers, but I’m just wondering if you can tell us either how many families or how many children are involved with paying a lower monthly child care fee.

S. Gregson: Right now, there are about 6,500 child care spaces that are $10 a day across the province, but there are many more families than that paying $10 a day, because they have the access to the affordable child care benefit. They have their fees reduced based on their income. The number of $10-a-day spaces will double by the end of the year.

So happy to talk more numbers. We’ve got about 125,000 licensed child care spaces in the province right now, so by the end of the year, we expect at least 10 percent of them will be $10 a day.

M. Starchuk: Great. Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Super quick. Thank you so much for the presentation. A quick question on your funding formula. You’ve got “excluding mortgage/leasing costs for private assets.” I’m just curious as to that. Obviously, if we want to get daycare spaces, and especially $10 a day, in some of our highly urbanized centres, that is very difficult.

S. Gregson: Right. Yes, that’s why public and non-profit provision — the expansion of the system — is important through those vehicles. It doesn’t make sense for British Columbians who are struggling to pay for their own housing to be paying off the mortgages, private assets, of other individuals or corporations.

Expansion. We need to maintain the child care that we have, but expand in the not-for-profit and public system. This is why, in the recommendations, the part of it I wasn’t able to get to, it talks about, actually, government needing to engage with the for-profit sector, and look at options for them to participate in the $10-a-day system.

Absolutely, we are aware of and supporting the participation of the for-profit sector in the $10-a-day system, and that is going to require some creativity and government actually exploring options that are fair to the child care business owner and fair to taxpayers.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Sharon. We are out of time, but on behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for making a presentation, and your props are great.

Thank you for your leadership on this topic and reminding us that we can introduce sweeping programs, but the effectiveness is in the details. Thank you for your attention to the details.

With that, we’ll say goodbye.

[9:05 a.m.]

Our next presenter is Rod Santiago, Archway Community Services.

Rod, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We’d ask you to keep an eye on the timer, and after five minutes, we will ask you some questions.

Take it away.

ARCHWAY COMMUNITY SERVICES

R. Santiago: Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present this morning. I am Rod Santiago, the CEO of Archway Community Services.

I am presenting on the unceded traditional ancestral territories of the Stó:lō peoples and, specifically for me here, the Matsqui and the Sema:th nations.

Example 1. Today all youth have to do is look for Foundry in their local community or online, and they are guaranteed to receive mental health, primary care, counselling, substance use, social services, employment and other supports. Nothing remotely close existed just eight years ago.

Vast problems require vast responses that draw in partnerships, collaborations and networking, particularly focusing on mobilizing tri-sectoral, non-profit, public and private entrepreneurship by developing common agendas, mutually reinforcing activities and shared performance measurements such as a collaborative scorecard with a large ecosystem, being a virtual organization.

Agile processes can result but will raise the bar substantially from operating within sustainably broken systems to viable transformation and collective impact. These strategies and activities can lead us to new possibilities for addressing complex issues.

Our recommendation is: invest in the pursuit of innovation and collective impact in community social services as defined and driven by the community social services sector.

Example 2. Archway and the entire sector employ highly educated and experienced staff who have no choice but to work two or three jobs as well as access our own food bank to make ends meet. That’s too high of a price to pay just to keep a roof over your head and food on the table.

The community social services sector provides the backbone of social care in our province yet are not receiving comparable remuneration as colleagues within the public and private sector. This pay disparity is further exacerbated when sector workers within non-unionized settings do equivalent, sometimes identical, work to counterparts in unionized worksites yet are not afforded equal pay.

Wage comparability would give our sector the ability to attract and retain the best. Rather than concentrating our energies on ever-growing recruitment and retention issues, as well as wage compression and inversion realities, we could be focusing our attention on supporting clients to achieve their desired outcomes.

Our recommendation: provide wages for all community social service employees that are competitive with the public sector and equitable for both union and non-union staff.

The final example. Let me tell you of a strong, proud farmer, still brought to tears months later when he speaks of floodwaters reaching nine feet up the exterior of his house, of the devastation from losing so much livestock, and of his kids, who freeze and panic whenever the heavy rains come down.

No municipality in either the Fraser Valley or the Lower Mainland has experienced such a natural disaster as last November’s flooding since 1948. Not unlike the global roulette game of who’s going to catch COVID next, every municipality in these regions and throughout B.C. is faced with a growing likelihood of having to deal with a disaster of significant proportions.

Few communities are currently equipped to address catastrophe with a systems-level approach to collaborative preparedness, response, recovery, resilience and prevention and mitigation.

We are fortunate in Abbotsford to just now be working towards collecting and analyzing one central repository of all individuals personally affected by November ’21’s flood disaster. To date, no such single site exists by which EMBC, the city of Abbotsford, Archway, Red Cross, United Way and numerous other community partners and stakeholders can better understand the scope of damage and negative social impact.

[9:10 a.m.]

By working together to gather and interpret this data, we are better poised to collaboratively support those negatively affected and to come up with next solutions.

Our recommendation: create collective impact solutions for impending and imminent climate disasters and other catastrophic events, factoring in the needs of our most vulnerable populations.

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

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

The first hand I see is Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, Rod. Nice to see you. I love the word “innovation” when talking about social services. I would love to see more of that. I won’t ask you to define it now, but curious as to, kind of, what you perceive to be innovation.

I did want to ask about my favourite subject, which is the low-wage redress. What is the pay disparity now within the sector for employees, paraprofessionals doing identical work for government, between the union and the non-union contracts?

R. Santiago: Thank you for the question. It depends on the position, but it could be the difference of $10 to $15 per hour in terms of what wage we can provide. That’s often with social enterprise approaches to trying to increase ours as well. So it is a constant losing battle unless we can arrive at some kind of wage parity that actually is competitive.

H. Yao: I want to have a conversation regarding the information provided by Foundry about innovation earlier. Obviously, innovation provides greater ways for us to reduce the resources and still provide great services to some of our youth. With a youth work background in the past, I also know some youth, unfortunately, due to their family background, cultural background or, potentially, family discipline, have limited or sometimes even no access to technologies.

Do you have any kind of recommendation of how we can provide a strategy or program to bridge the gap so that all youth who are reaching out to Foundry for support, whether they have access to technology or not, can still find a creative way to receive services without adding additional burdens to organizations such as yourself as you provide services?

R. Santiago: Thank you very much for the question. There are such opportunities for — when Karin talked earlier about innovation — finding ways to get resources to the youth who know them. We know the youth, so every month, 100 new youth come to the Foundry here in Abbotsford. There are 20 Foundries throughout the province.

How can we ensure that all of those youth actually do have the technology that they need? The answer isn’t going to come from any one source, but as we invite, for example, the private sector to also be a part of that solution…. For these complex challenges, that’s why we need big solutions — and big solutions that go outside of our boxes. Then we can get all of the partners being a part of the solution — not just expecting it all from the government but pulling it from all the various sources.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Rod, for the presentation. Really appreciate it. I loved your kind of one-stop-shop idea and example used of the flooding and having a website where all of the different resources are accessed. Absolutely brilliant.

Do you have any sort of idea of order of magnitude of what that type of innovation would cost, even if it was a website that was set up at all times, that would always have different disaster sites? I know it sounds horrible that we’d have to plan that way, but we have to plan that way. Have you ever put any sort of dollar figure to that innovation?

R. Santiago: We do have to plan that way, so I appreciate so much that you acknowledge that and are moving in that direction.

The dollars — we don’t know. Part of why we don’t know is because we don’t even know how many were affected. Red Cross has some of those numbers. Every organization that provides services has some of those numbers, but there’s no one centralized repository. So what we are proposing is an opportunity for all of us together to gather the information, for the people to not have to tell their story yet one more time and waste it — but toward something bigger.

[9:15 a.m.]

When we aggregate that information, when we find out and analyze it, then — again together — we can identify: here’s the next step, and here’s the cost for that next step. And here’s the next step after that, and here’s the cost for the next step. And to do it for people in community as much as we do for economic development, infrastructure or environment.

R. Merrifield: Absolutely. Great idea. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Rod, we don’t have time for more questions, although I think we’re all pretty engaged in what you’re talking about. Thank you for your leadership on this, and thank you for putting your suggestions, putting your recommendations in the context of, as you describe it, a sustainably broken system. I think we hear you — that the solutions need to be systemic. Thank you so much.

R. Santiago: Thank you for your time. I wish you well.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Tony Rebelo, representing CUPE Fraser Valley district council.

Tony, whenever you’re ready. You have five minutes.

CUPE FRASER VALLEY
DISTRICT COUNCIL

T. Rebelo: Good morning, everyone. My name is Tony Rebelo, and I’m the vice-president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Fraser Valley district council.

The council is the regional voice of CUPE in the Fraser Valley, representing thousands of K-to-12, library, health care, social services, transportation, municipal and other public workers who live and work between Surrey and Hope. I’d like to speak today about municipal funding and funding for public transit.

CUPE represents more than 37,000 municipal workers across B.C., the majority of whom live and work in the Lower Mainland. Additionally, CUPE represents workers at SkyTrain as well as transit supervisors in Victoria and the Lower Mainland. I, myself, am a proud SkyTrain worker.

CUPE members working for local governments in B.C. have seen firsthand the financial challenges experienced by this level of government. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts of the toxic drug overdose crisis, the stresses and costs of the housing and affordability crisis, changing economic structures, other increased cost drivers and capital project costs, and the many more factors outlined in the Union of B.C. Municipalities’ policy paper on municipal finance, Ensuring Local Government Financial Resiliency, can all be seen and felt by our members in their communities.

As municipalities struggle with limited financial options as well as social and economic pressures, workers and the public feel the effects. Increased numbers of precarious workers with no job security, limited benefits and limited hours have become the backbone of the municipal workforce. These financial pressures also lead to services that should be high-quality, publicly delivered programs being contracted out to private companies that profit through poor service levels and unlivable wages.

The public services provided by municipalities are some of the most important to communities and citizens, particularly our most vulnerable. Underfunding of libraries, recreation, public safety, community health, parks, planning and development, public works and so many more has a direct impact on the citizens in every community in B.C. As we struggle with extreme weather and other climate change effects plus the many other social and health issues we confront collectively as a society, we need public services to be robust, responsive and high quality.

Municipalities and regional districts should not be asked to bear these responsibilities alone, with limited means of raising funds. Therefore, we recommend that Budget 2023 include increased resources to support local governments in B.C., as envisioned by the Union of B.C. Municipalities policy paper Ensuring Local Government Financial Resiliency.

The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is the transportation sector, where single-occupancy vehicles are a substantial contributor. Increasing transit service pro­vides a lower-cost, higher-quality alternative to personal vehicle transportation, which makes a substantial contribution to addressing climate change.

[9:20 a.m.]

Additionally, expanding existing transit systems provides affordable and universal mobility to all citizens equally and helps reduce the cost of living for workers, students, seniors and other transit users alike. This is a major issue in the Fraser Valley, where transit access compares poorly to that of Metro Vancouver. The expansion of the SkyTrain is an excellent start but needs supporting investments before rapid transit will be accessible to dispersed communities.

Dispersal itself is a challenge for those in our region. It makes commutes longer and transit more difficult to access. Investments in transit can change this pattern, as high-frequency transit corridors and hubs attract new development, while providing a venue for densely populated, affordable housing options that are not car-dependent.

The factors in our region demonstrate how long transit can make positive contributions to solving affordability, equity, land use, climate change challenges and the many more issues with which our communities are struggling. Provincial support for public transit commonly comes as capital funding operation. Local government struggle to find the resources necessary to build the transit capacity required to create sustainable communities for our future.

The current funding model for TransLink, which is reliant on gas taxation and fare box revenue, is not sustainable. The gas tax revenue inevitably declines with the expansion of electric vehicles. Pressure will build on fares, making the system less accessible. Additional operational funding is needed to reduce fare costs, support expanded transit operation and create more sustainable and affordable communities that are less car-reliant and provide equal mobility for everyone.

For these reasons, our second recommendation is that Budget 2023 increase public funding for B.C. transit systems to facilitate growth of service, reduce reliance on fare revenues and move towards free, universal public transit in all communities.

Thank you for listening.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Tony. This is a fantastic example of where we need to move and how we need to grow. I agree that transportation, especially essential transportation, is one of our number one contributors to our greenhouse gas emissions, so I love that you’re bringing forward solutions.

My question on your recommendation No. 2 is this. When you’re talking about expansion, are you talking about volume — like, just simply more buses or opportunities? Or are you talking about an actual schedule expansion? Are you finding with your members that the schedule is appropriate, but when you get to a bus, there’s just simply not enough room, or is it the schedule itself that needs to be augmented?

T. Rebelo: I think it’s a little bit of both, to tell you the truth. With SkyTrain, I can sit here and give you a bunch of arguments on why SkyTrain is key to expanding deeper into the Fraser Valley and into the north side of the Fraser River as well. But we all know that comes with a large capital cost, and while we’re moving forward towards that, there should be more buses that feed into all SkyTrain stations.

Even where I live here in Surrey…. I live not even a five-minute drive to Surrey Central, but the community shuttles that run around in my neighbourhood just aren’t frequent enough for me to jump on one of the buses to go to SkyTrain. I elect to drive, because it’s quicker.

I live in a rapidly growing city. It’s going to be the biggest in B.C., probably, in the next eight to ten years. It’ll surpass Vancouver. So that’s just not good enough.

But I think it’s a bit of both. The schedules definitely need to change. If you need more frequent buses or if you’re going to make the schedule more frequent, you’re going to need more buses, anyway. So it’s a bit of both.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the answer.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Tony. I really appreciate your presentation. There’s one comment you made that sort of caught me off guard. You mentioned precarious workers and a shift…. Obviously, private sector is taking over, becoming the backbone of the municipal services being provided through the community. If you don’t mind me asking, maybe you can elaborate a bit further on how much further a negative impact that has created.

[9:25 a.m.]

My question right now would be — I’m going to just throw it out there, because I don’t know the system as well as I should: does it mean individuals, maybe people of colour, people of different ethnicities, unfortunately have a difficult time finding regular work in the municipal system? Is there some kind of gender bias, even, regarding precarious work as well?

I just wanted to double-check to see if there are any negative consequences associated with that. Maybe we, as the provincial government, can find a way to work with our municipal governments to ensure we provide better labour support and better equity for our labourers and for our workers.

T. Rebelo: I’m not an expert on the municipal side, as I’ve been a transit worker for the last 20 years. I’ll try to help you out and answer that question as best as possible.

From what I gather from our members, I think it’s just the precarious work in general. It’s not necessarily affecting our racialized workers or equity-seeking workers. I think it’s just more that the municipalities are taking advantage of having casual workers that don’t have benefits, don’t have access to pension. They’re keeping them under part-time hours, where the full-time workers, obviously, have the full pension and full benefits and all of that.

What we see…. Some municipalities are moving towards privatizing, using private companies for certain issues. That’s where we want…. Public works and public services should always remain public. In my opinion and in CUPE’s opinion, there should never be a for-profit, private company providing public services that continue to suffer because that private company needs to make a certain percentage every year from their bottom line.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tony. There are more questions, but we are, unfortunately, out of time. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

I, for one, am struck by part of your presentation, putting it in the context of the emergencies and the crises that we’ve been endlessly facing as a society and pointing out that to anticipate and respond and for us to feel secure as a community, as a society, we need strong public services that are ready to kick into action when we need them.

Thank you for connecting the dots on that front.

T. Rebelo: You’re welcome. Thanks for the opportunity to present.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Lisa McGuire, representing the Manufacturing Safety Alliance of B.C.

Welcome, Lisa.

MANUFACTURING SAFETY
ALLIANCE OF B.C.

L. McGuire: Thank you for the opportunity. I’m Lisa McGuire, CEO of the Manufacturing Safety Alliance, an organization dedicated to providing health and safety support to the manufacturing sector.

I’d like to begin by saying I’m grateful for the opportunity to join you today from our office in Chilliwack, on the unceded territories of the Stó:lō people, part of the Coast Salish region of southwestern British Columbia.

Our organization provides health and safety support to the industry. We serve approximately 3,000 manufacturers and food processors across Canada. We deliver support to the industry in many ways, including providing training through online, virtual and on-site mechanisms, and provide health and safety advisory support through specialists. We have seen success in our approach, with an injury reduction of almost 9 percent over the past five years, with a correlating WorkSafeBC premium reduction of almost 21 percent.

Our organization played a critical role in assisting companies through the pandemic and the climate change crisis, which impacted our industry. We are working with them in many ways to strengthen their emergency management and contingency plans for the next crisis.

Several challenges are impacting the manufacturing sector, but labour shortages are a critical area that intersects with the well-being of people. The Advanced Education Ministry compiled a document and, in that, cited three challenges related to labour shortages that we will need to define solutions around.

[9:30 a.m.]

The first recognizes that labour shortages are not unique to manufacturing but across all sectors.

The second challenge speaks to the misalignment of skills with emerging and expanding sectors. This includes not having enough qualified health and safety professionals in the sector of which the SLMP funding has been instrumental in supporting solutions of understanding why this exists and how to shape a path forward.

The challenges focus on the lack of standardization in the health and safety profession, not only in B.C. but across Canada. We’re working with key stakeholders to align the educational institutions with the newly established health and safety framework using SLMP funding over the next 18 months. Our first recommendation is to continue investing in SLMP funding initiatives, as they are invaluable to collaboratively solve industry challenges.

Another key challenge associated with labour shortages in our sector is the importance for workers and employers to adapt quickly to the demands of a diverse and rapidly shifting and changing economy. Recognizing that the introduction of new technologies in climate change adaptation will introduce new health and safety risks, health and safety training will be needed for workers to address the new risks from these emerging occupations and roles. Training partners will be needed with the skills and competencies to develop and deliver support with virtual and online adaptation and funding to support and assist industry upskilling in these critical areas, especially small business.

Our second recommendation is to invest in training and technology retooling grants for employers and workers with industry partners to support industry. One of the key components of assisting companies to adapt quickly to a rapidly evolving economy is to establish a lifelong learning culture. To develop a sustainable culture of learning is difficult, especially in an industry struggling with gender equality. We need proven pathways for success. Developing health and safety management systems has successfully been shown to have higher safety performance outcomes.

Our occupational safety standard of excellence system approach has been successful in accomplishing this outcome. To strengthen the OHS system approach, we’re working with national counterparts to enhance the tool by incorporating culture, psychological safety, inclusivity and diversity concepts.

Funding to assist manufacturers with establishing occupational health and safety systems could successfully assist companies with building and maintaining a sustainable culture. So our final recommendation is to invest in funding that helps employers and workers build and maintain occupational health and safety systems that support a healthy, sustainable safety culture.

Thank you for the opportunity, and I invite any questions that you have.

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

The first question is from Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. That’s great. Obviously, labour safety is a huge topic for all of us. We definitely want to make sure our workers are able to go home safely and be able to enjoy and spend time with their family.

You mentioned something about…. Obviously, we have a labour shortage where we have a lack of people to fulfil the roles. Of course, we need education to start kicking in. That sort of trigger almost feels like a perfect storm brewing, as you talk about safety. Obviously, one thing I know from my personal experience, when people have been working a job longer than typical, they tend to better at understanding the cautions, the hazards they need to watch out for.

I guess my question, back to you right now, is: would there be a generational gap in manufacturers, where because of the labour shortage, due to lack of experience, that actually, potentially, increases the number of potential injuries in the workplace? What can we do, if that is an issue, to actually try to minimize that?

L. McGuire: Well, training helps a great deal. But you’re right. I mean, you have the older generations that have learned differently than the younger generations. So ensuring that the training meets the needs for both generations is critical.

I would say that the training grant has been helpful for organizations to be able to access different ways to train and educate the different demographics within a workforce. But it absolutely has safety implications.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Lisa, for your presentation. I find the topic fascinating in the sense that we were in a time where COVID was knocking the staff out of the buildings, and you had to pivot to be able to do this.

[9:35 a.m.]

My question. You talked a lot about health and safety professionals and probably modifying work plans. Has WorkSafeBC been in your consultation pathways with regards to either training or funding models?

L. McGuire: Absolutely. I mean, WorkSafeBC is one of our stakeholders and partners. We receive funding…. Employers support a levy on WorkSafeBC premiums that go through WorkSafe to us, so they’re certainly aware of the work that we’re doing, and we certainly work together.

I will say that there really is value in understanding the needs of our constituents, which is our sector, and it’s really important to be able to know what is the best model for our industry. They told us that the three ways to learn are virtual, online as well as on site, and really different needs depending on what we’re training — on-site needs for some specifics, where you need to see the machinery and be able to interact and interface with that. But there are some online mechanisms where we can train more of the technical components.

I would say there’s flexibility in the different models and that we are learning to adapt and really be better at it in really engaging with our learning styles. Ways that we can help are really to look at investing in opportunities for industry to be able to access funds to help them with this. It’s coming at them so fast. With all of these changes, they really need as much help as possible to be able to learn in the different ways that are successful for them to upskill as required.

M. Starchuk: Great. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have time for one more question. Ben is going to ask that one.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Lisa. I just wanted to ask…. You made a comment about people that have learnt or been trained in a — I don’t know what you’d call it — more hands-on type training versus online and virtual. How do you ensure that the people that maybe haven’t really been around certain pieces of equipment or processes or whatever…? How do you test to see that there is an understanding?

I go back to a comment that I heard recently about the home inspection business. I didn’t realize that there’s a lot of virtual training going on in that. I just wonder, in your area, what are you doing to guarantee or ensure that they understand?

L. McGuire: There is the case study approach, where you walk through examples of how they would approach a situation and be able to validate that way. In some cases, there is on-site testing required, especially when you’re dealing with a more technical type of training — like mobile forklift training, for example. That would be very difficult to do, and impossible to do, online, unless you really have a virtual 3D-type learning.

I would say that not everything is able to be trained online. There are those on-site type training that is still required to demonstrate that competency of learning.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much. I do think it is important. You mentioned forklift training. Having operated forklifts for my lifetime, I can tell you that lifting things up 20 feet in the air and stacking and stuff like that requires real skill. I wouldn’t want to see that done virtually.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Lisa, for your presentation. We are out of time.

I’ll just wrap up this portion of our agenda by saying that it probably doesn’t come as a surprise to you that a strong theme that has been weaving its way through the presentations is alerting us to the implications of labour shortage and more extreme weather.

Thank you for addressing that, as well, and putting it in the context of the implications that it has for workplace safety. Thank you so much for anticipating that and helping us and encouraging us to put things in place that make people safe at work.

L. McGuire: Thank you for the opportunity. Have a wonderful day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Derek Holmes with the B.C. Stone, Sand and Gravel Association.

Derek, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then the committee will ask you some questions. Over to you.

[9:40 a.m.]

B.C. STONE, SAND
AND GRAVEL ASSOCIATION

D. Holmes: Good morning. Thank you for allowing me to present today. My name is Derek Holmes, and I am the director of the B.C. Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, or BCSSGA. We are a non-profit member organization that represents the interests of all aggregate producers in the province.

Gravel isn’t sexy. It may have a reputation. But without this valuable commodity, not a single construction project in the province is possible, The flood events of last fall put a spotlight on the industry, and as climate change transforms our physical landscape, we are seeing more climate-related events strain everything from infrastructure to the ground our homes are built on. Quite simply, we need to ensure that there is a ready, cost-conscious supply of aggregate available at all times.

Our recommendations today are centred around immediate needs for more inspectors and forward-looking needs that will start to transform the industry into modern times — so spending on inspectors, electrification, and education and innovation.

The first recommendation is to invest proportionately in additional mine inspectors to permit and monitor regional mines in the province. The BCSSGA estimates that more than two or three in each region, or 15 in total, are needed to address backlogs of updates and new applications. My colleague Dan Allard, who presented last year, put out a request for 20 new inspectors.

Many new hires in the past year have been in the back office of the ministry, but we still see the need on the front lines as inspectors. Regulations and shorter permitting times are necessary to a healthy industry, and being able to permit, monitor and inspect gravel mining operations will lead to a safer, more trusted industry.

The second recommendation is to invest in electrification of the industry, with a subsidy or a rebate of 50 percent for installation of line power over diesel power. I don’t really have to explain this one too much, but switching to line power instead of using diesel-generated power is just the right thing to do. Many of our member operations would like to, but the capital costs are prohibitive in many cases. Like installation of charging stations in our homes, retiring generators should also see priority funding through B.C. Hydro.

The final recommendation is in education and innovation. CTEM, or the Centre of Training Excellence in Mining, focuses on job preparedness and innovation through the workforce of tomorrow. The grade 5 education package championed by the BCSSGA, our organization, is more of a grassroots program aimed at bringing awareness to mining in general. Actually, today one of our members, Arcosa, is hosting a school tour of their aggregate operation on Texada Island.

The BCSSGA program requires $20,000 each year in funding to push the program to teachers and develop the program in languages other than French and English. CTEM requires continued funding through the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training, WorkBC and the Industry Training Authority.

So while gravel isn’t sexy, it’s a core building product needed to secure the province’s economy that’s worth spending taxpayer dollars on. Investing in the industry pays off, since more than 95 percent of aggregate is consumed locally and 70 percent is consumed by government.

I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the consultations today, and I invite questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Derek. I’ll now ask members of the committee.

M. Starchuk: Derek, thank you for your presentation. One quick question.

With regard to the additional inspectors, you had said that there would be 15 provincewide to get through the backlog that’s there. How hard or how easy would it be to find these 15 inspectors that you’re talking about and that are required to get rid of the backlog?

D. Holmes: Well, in our discussions with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, it hasn’t been easy for them. They’ve seen a lot of turnover, for whatever reason. I think discussions with them show that they are having trouble recruiting. I don’t know specifically why, but there’s a definite shortage, and they’re needed.

[9:45 a.m.]

M. Starchuk: Is this something that is just found in B.C.? I mean, there’s money elsewhere in the province and globally as well. Is this a commodity that’s in short supply, as far as inspectors go?

D. Holmes: The inspector shortage in B.C., I think, is partly related to some new regulation and legislation that came out requiring updates to mine plans. That was an Auditor General recommendation after Mount Polley. What we’re seeing is that there’s this backlog of updates that are required to permits that was never anticipated before. So I think it is specific to our region right now.

B. Stewart: Derek, that was great. I really learned a lot. Very succinct.

I do want to focus in on this inspector issue. The issue around Mount Polley, which you just mentioned — is that taking resources away from the aggregate side of it because people have been tasked with checking work that was done previously on different mine sites?

D. Holmes: Great question. Thank you, Ben. I don’t think it is. There are, sort of, two areas. One is large mining operations in the province, and the other, which we’re more focused on, is regional mines. These are the sand and gravel pits. We’re all under the same regulation, but the inspections happen differently, so I think there is a divide in the two. I don’t believe that that’s been the problem here.

B. Stewart: I would just encourage you to maintain good relationships with the ministry, because I know that they’ve added inspectors. We had Mining Day here just a few weeks ago, and they had mentioned that there’s been additional…. But you need resources out on the front lines, not the back office.

D. Holmes: Absolutely, yeah. That’s the priority.

B. Bailey: Hi, Derek. Thank you for your presentation. I just want to poke a little bit at the suggestion of a 50 percent investment for electrification. I wonder if you can just help me understand a couple of things that I didn’t quite catch.

I think you used the term of transitioning from diesel to line. So you’re not talking about electrification, about battery use. I think you’re talking about getting on the grid. Is that correct? That’s the first question.

The second one is: I’m wondering how you got to that 50 percent. It’s a little bit higher than I’ve seen for some other industries, and I wanted to understand that a bit further. Does it take into consideration the savings that people would have on the cost of diesel, for example? How did you guys reach that number?

D. Holmes: Okay, some great questions. Yes, it’s not on battery power. We’re talking about the switch to the grid power.

The 50 percent was actually a very complicated calculation, but it matches, somewhat, that of the rebate for installing a charger in your home. There are similar savings in doing that at home as there are in industry.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we have time for one last quick question.

H. Yao: I’ll give it to Renee. That’s fine.

R. Merrifield: I’ll take it.

Thank you, Derek. I really appreciate this. Do you know how many, within your organization, are actually eligible for the incentive funds or some of the other grant funds that are offered right now for that move towards electrification within a CleanBC plan? If so, is that being utilized, and is your recommendation in addition to those funds that are offered?

D. Holmes: It’s in addition to those funds. What we’re hearing from members — and I don’t know, specifically, the numbers — is that the capital cost to get the line power or the grid power to their operations is prohibitive.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for that clarification. Much appreciated.

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda has a quick follow-up.

B. Bailey: Just a quick follow-up in regards to the calculation you mentioned. Is that something you’re willing to share with us as we do our deliberations?

D. Holmes: Yeah, sure.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Derek. We’re going to have to wrap it up now. I want to thank you for your presentation. Thank you for engaging with the committee.

[9:50 a.m.]

I do note that you’ve situated your presentation in the context that we need to anticipate that there will be future and more climate-related events and reminding us that either mitigating those events or repairing the damage afterwards involves the people that you represent and that we have to be sure that we facilitate your ability to get in there and do what needs to be done to keep us all safe. So thank you so much.

D. Holmes: Well said. Thank you.

Good day, everyone.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Keir Macdonald, representing Phoenix Society.

Keir, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

PHOENIX SOCIETY

K. Macdonald: Sounds good.

Good morning, my name is Keir Macdonald, and I’m the CEO of the Phoenix Society. I would like to thank you for the opportunity to contribute to these Budget 2023 consultations.

Phoenix Society empowers lives and transforms communities. We provide a pathway out of crisis into renewal for people grappling with homelessness, substance use, and other life-threatening challenges.

With eight locations in Metro Vancouver, our innovative continuum of support connects a person’s natural strengths and resilience to a community that rallies around them, providing substance use treatment, emergency shelter, mental health supports, employment, education, housing and more. For over 30 years, Phoenix Society has walked alongside more than 35,000 people as they reclaim hope, rediscover dignity, embrace renewal, transforming their communities along the way.

As we speak, thousands of people in British Columbia are facing grave threats to their well-being, grappling with overwhelming obstacles like homelessness, housing crises, personal trauma, mental anguish, drug poisonings and more.

The Phoenix Society has identified two key areas that we believe require consideration for Budget 2023. The first of these is to invest in recovery. We’re calling on the province to fund the full continuum of services for mental health and addictions, including continuing care services and integrated wraparound supports, such as employment training, health care services and supportive housing. The Phoenix Society believes that recovery from addiction can be best supported through investments in a continuum of services for mental health and addictions, including the necessary funding for integrated wraparound services, which includes housing.

True recovery requires an integrated approach and the involvement of numerous stakeholders and partnerships across many sectors. At Phoenix Society, over 50 percent of our residents coming into treatment have either no fixed address or unstable housing. Why would we think that after 90 days in a bed-based program that people have somehow solved their housing challenges? This is not a system but a silo and one of the primary reasons that people constantly cycle in and out of recovery facilities across the province.

The goal must be to support people to achieve sustained recovery. We see every day how people thrive when provided stability and given access to longer-term supports. There have been significant investments in new treatment beds, complex care housing and primary care networks, but health services are often most effective when integrated with housing. We’re building the services, but we do not yet have a system. Phoenix Society has demonstrated that integrated service provision works, co-locating bed-based addiction treatment, supportive housing and vocational skills under the one roof.

What is urgently needed to support those struggling with mental health and addictions is access to quality bed-based treatment, followed by the provision of safe, affordable housing, with services that respond to each individual’s unique needs.

Our second recommendation is to expand the Foundry model to adults so that they also have the health and social resources and supports they need, both online and in their communities.

There is increasing demand for comprehensive community health care that integrates community mental health and substance use services along with primary care and other social services. Few adult resources today combine both health care and social services under one roof, making it easier to find the help and support people need when they need it. A high-performing health system features integrated models of care with smooth transitions for patients across the continuum of care. It’s for this reason that we’re recommending that more adult service hubs be created similar to the Foundry model.

One such example exists, and that’s the Abbotsford Community Hub Centre. Phoenix Society is the anchor agency of the award-winning Abbotsford Community Hub Centre, which opened its doors in early 2019. Our mission there is to deliver accessible quality health and community services to people facing challenges. The hub is a community partnership that offers people-centred care in a welcoming environment, providing a wraparound model of care for those experiencing health and social challenges. The following services are provided through the hub: primary health care, including access to physicians and nurse practitioners, harm reduction services, sexual health services and more.

[9:55 a.m.]

Integrated, coordinated access offers streamlined referrals for individuals and families who require access to housing, health services, income assistance and other support needs offered throughout the Abbotsford homeless prevention and response system, and drop-in services, including daily lunches, a food bank for those living with HIV or viral hepatitis, overdose prevention services, along with showers and laundry facilities.

We’ve come a long way in recent years, building many vital new services. Now it is time to create the system in which they operate.

Thank you to the committee members for your time this morning and for your consideration of our recommendations.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Keir. We have a number of questions.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation today. I was wondering in regards to the Abbotsford Community Hub Centre. I was just looking at the website. We do have a Foundry just being built in Langley right now. It’s a fantastic model.

Could you explain how housing around that area looks? It looks like there’s some housing within the hub, of course, but do you have networks nearby? Have you been able to create an area that allows people to easily access? Could you expand a bit more on the hub centre in Abbotsford, please?

K. Macdonald: Housing is often, for many of these services, the biggest barrier in many communities, including Abbotsford — still working on further developing, whether that be their supportive housing needs and non-market rental.

One of the biggest benefits we have at the hub is outreach workers actually connected through the hub. One of the other benefits we have is access to scattered housing, including private rentals. It really helps supplement some of the B.C. Housing subsidized housing. That really provides a great extension so that people can access that hub resource.

We have income assistance there, so MSDPR can connect people to income assistance and then literally just walk people down the corridor to the housing outreach workers that can do some of the in-office work, in terms of looking at the housing inventories, but also support people on housing searches.

It’s really great to have that in-reach ability but also the ability to do accompaniments and really understand the local market area.

M. Dykeman: Is there anything, of the Abbotsford hub you’ve learned from, that you would change, if you were to duplicate that in another community?

K. Macdonald: Yeah. We lack core funding. We had our hub governance meeting yesterday. This is a partnership of roughly ten agencies, running on a lot of goodwill. We have no overarching funding. Each partner…. Again, we have multiple Fraser Health teams there, the city of Abbotsford, MSDPR, as I touched on, and several social service agencies. Really, we’ve come together to create this concept. Phoenix holds the lease. We have no administrative funding or things like that. So we really…. We lack some stability and a long-term stable foundation.

I think that’s really what any services need to survive. That’s probably the biggest thing we’ve learned. It was great to launch it. We’ve learned so many different things about what services people need and how to deliver those. But we’re seeking stability moving forward now.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, Keir. Nice to see you. I find that Foundry model application to adults very interesting. It’s almost like: gee, why didn’t we all think of this before? It sounds like a great idea.

I did have one question, just with respect to Phoenix. What is your funding model? Do you run programs on behalf of government? Where are most of your funds coming from?

K. Macdonald: In particular, at the Phoenix Centre, our main campus — really, the substance use treatment hub — we are fully funded by government. I think really what the unique model is, is the integration and partnerships of those different components. As I touched on, one of our funders is PHSA, providing more of the intensive treatment; Fraser Health; B.C. Housing; and then WorkBC. We co-locate these services into one place. It really is the strength of the sum of the parts. In isolation, any one of those would not be successful for us.

We’re very fortunate to have the support of government. It really creates an amazing range of services here.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Keir. Thank you for keeping the work of Michael Wilson going strong.

[10:00 a.m.]

Your point about 50 percent of the people that come in don’t have a fixed address is a good reminder to all of us that if you are housed, then you can work on your pathway to recovery. My question is: how many of the locations that you have today have the ability to expand that Foundry model to adults?

K. Macdonald: It’s a really good question. When we look at it, we love integrated services. So whether it’s the treatment side we’re talking about or more of the community-based models, I think Abbotsford remains the biggest opportunity. We’re talking about a recovery community centre here in Surrey right now, as well, where again, the whole concept is to bring all the services together in partnerships into a hub. We have Little House in Delta-Tsawwassen — where again, we’re aiming at bringing more services together.

That’s just Phoenix. There are many resources and agencies out there that have a start. I think it’s incredibly efficient when you can work together to bring resources together. We all know how difficult it is to find space, leased premises, land these days. Finding at least what the core piece is, building wraparound services from that core, and then building it out, I think, is a really great foundation to start from.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we can have one more question, if it’s a quick question and a quick answer.

R. Merrifield: I can make it as quick as I possibly can.

I noticed in your recommendation 2 that housing needed to be associated with complex care. Is that something that you feel very strongly about, moderately strongly about, mildly strongly about?

I loved your point, just previously, that the strength is in the sum of the parts.

K. Macdonald: Yes, in complex care, we’re really on the beginning, front end of a journey there, and I think we’re still looking to find out what complex care housing will look like in how it’s rolling out. Again, so much of my focus has been around addiction services and people seeking treatment. Complex care is more of a minimal-barrier, harm reduction approach. Often in those seeking recovery from addiction, we haven’t got this next step — into supportive housing, into the complex care models.

We had some of those discussions last year, about the array of needs across the system. I think many people are just looking for that next step, once they leave a bed-based treatment program like Phoenix. I’m very biased, and I’ll say it: housing is just a fundamental basic need for any of these services. How can anyone work on health care, on mental health or substance use needs if you’re living in a tent or you’re unhoused? I just think housing is that platform.

I was making the point that it’s just so much better to deliver health and other services from that. Whether it’s independent housing…. Scattered housing models work as well. Those supportive housing environments — just trying to provide more supports into those, I think, is a really strong recommendation.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the answer, and thank you for offering hope.

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, thank you, Keir. Unfortunately, we’re out of time, and we’re going to have to wrap it up. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for your presentation and for the work that you do.

The note I wrote down for myself that I think sticks with me in terms of your presentation is the whole issue of stability — that Phoenix Society is helping people find stability in their lives but that you need stability, as an organization, in order to be able to continue doing that in the long run. Thank you for connecting those dots for us.

We have one more presentation before we take a recess.

Our next presentation is Glenda Phillips, who’s a nurse and is speaking on behalf of Abbott Diabetes Care, FreeStyle Libre.

Welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation and your recommendations.

ABBOTT DIABETES CARE

G. Phillips: Good morning. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak this morning. My name is Glenda Phillips, and I’m a nurse.

I have been nursing for 45 years, and 37 years ago I moved to Bella Coola. Since moving to Bella Coola and practising nursing, I’ve witnessed a dramatic increase in diabetes in Nuxalk Nation members. People are being diagnosed with type 2 much earlier, much younger, and the rate of diabetes has definitely increased in our community.

[10:05 a.m.]

I’m seeing far more people experiencing comorbidities secondary to diabetes, such as dialysis. When I first came here, we would see the odd person on dialysis, but now I may have up to four people in the community on dialysis. There’s hypertension, cardiac conditions and amputations.

I have three recommendations. My first recommendation is better access to blood glucose monitoring, the flash system. Plan W, which is PharmaCare, only covers test strips and blood glucose monitors where you have to have a sample of blood.

With the flash system, you have a sensor that you wear for two weeks, and you can use a glucometer, or you can use an app on your smartphone to do your blood sugars, and you can do them as many times as you want throughout a day. I’m finding that it really does improve the management and self-management of diabetes in the community. If you get better self-management, of course, you’ll prevent the complications of diabetes.

The second recommendation I have is access to healthy food, access to traditional foods. In 2021, the nation completed a food survey, finding that over 50 percent of Nuxalkmc respondents were experiencing moderate to high food insecurity, and 83 percent were worried about losing their traditional foods. They wanted greater access to foods.

I think, when you look at this through the lens of truth and reconciliation, a lot of the reason that people have gone in this direction is the loss of traditional foods — they were told to live on reserve land; loss of traditional territories; and loss of knowledge. You know the legacy of residential school. Now we’re seeing this increase in diabetes and the complications.

The third recommendation is access to better medication and health care. They don’t have access to an endocrinologist in our community. If they want to see an endocrinologist, they have to go to Vancouver. So clients must travel to see a specialist.

Plan W does not cover all medications. Physicians must submit a special authority requesting medication, such as Ozempic — which is an injection once a week, instead of taking insulin every day. It lowers blood sugars, plus it also improves weight loss.

I’m ready to answer any questions.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. Just yesterday I was talking about how sugar is one of the more addictive materials on this earth and that it has caused a lot of health concerns. We were actually talking about diabetes.

I remember watching a documentary talking about it. Unfortunately, it’s often easier for people who are stuck in a cycle of poverty to buy processed food that is cheaper and is able to fill a stomach up faster, but it puts their health at a greater risk and also causes long-term health detriments — which actually, indirectly, can be an additional expense to the family as well.

I would just love to hear from you…. You were talking about traditional foods, talking about different ways of food security. Do you also want to have a conversation, maybe, in regard to…? I believe you were talking about FreeStyle Libre — that’s the sensor — regarding blood sugar coaching.

Is there any kind of discussion about helping people to appreciate how the blood sugar level in your system impacts your ability to function? Instead of talking about simply interfering, with an intervention, let’s talk about prevention, to ensure that people can actually fulfil their maximum potential.

G. Phillips: What I have been doing is trying to get coverage for people to be on the Libre for at least three months when they’re newly diagnosed. I find that it gives them a lot of insight into exercise, nutrition and medication. It really does improve their self-management. They have a lot more insight into their diabetes and the control of their blood sugars.

[10:10 a.m.]

You can do your blood sugar 100 times a day instead of poking yourself. You can do it through your clothing. You can be at a lunch. You can be out in the community. We’re finding that there’s much better management and self-management. I do agree with you. People have a better understanding of the relationship to food, exercise and medication — and stress.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. We have questions from Renee, then Brenda, then Ben. I would ask everyone to think of that in terms of the time available left to us.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation.

Thank you, Chair, for allowing me a question.

I just wanted to draw your attention…. You can help me understand. Last year the government actually came forward and started to fund, through PharmaCare or income assistance, at-home programs for First Nations health, the continuous glucose monitoring systems, the CGM systems. Is this in addition to those systems, or is this…?

G. Phillips: I haven’t had access to them. I don’t know if it’s lack of understanding. I think the doctors have to prescribe them, as far as I’m understanding. People have to be on insulin. When people are newly diagnosed, maybe they aren’t on insulin, but the use of the sensor will definitely help them have a better understanding of their diabetes, and I don’t know why they would not have availability to a sensor if they’re on oral hypoglycemics.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for that. Definitely, expansion of the system will help to alleviate all of those concerns.

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda.

B. Bailey: That was the same question.

J. Routledge (Chair): Ben.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Glenda. I often wonder. That last comment you made about access to medication, and the once-a-week shot that would do that…. I just wonder, because of the remoteness and access to your community, if PHSA or the First Nations Health Authority or any of those groups that are working in Bella Coola, Bella Bella, places along the coast….

Are they doing anything to bring the right medical people into the community so that you can get access to this and they can make that connection? We know here, in urban and rural British Columbia, we have access-to-doctor issues, but I wonder if that is something that happens already, like doctors visiting.

G. Phillips: Well, I’ve worked all through the central coast. I worked in Bella Bella and Kitasoo Xai’xais. We had access to Dr. Greg Bondy, an endocrinologist from St. Paul’s, and he’s wonderful. So I think the physicians in the community have an option, but they can only bring so many specialists into the community, so I think they chose to have an endocrinologist in Bella Bella. He did great work, and it was wonderful to work with him. But I do not have access to one in Bella Coola.

B. Stewart: The last part. This explosion or increase that you talked about. Are the foods available, or food security — is that the issue?

G. Phillips: I believe so, and exercise, lack of knowledge. And you’re right. People are poor. Their houses are overcrowded. They don’t have the financial support to have the food. It’s the loss of traditional foods. I think once people moved away from traditional foods, you had a real increase in diabetes and chronic conditions.

B. Stewart: Okay. Thanks.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much, Glenda. This is really important, that you’ve taken the time to talk to us about something that is going on in a community that you’re part of. As you were making your presentation and engaging with us, what was struck in my mind was diabetes as a product of colonialization and that what you’re presenting to us as recommendations we can look at in the context of reconciliation and moving forward on that front. So thank you for making that connection.

G. Phillips: Thank you for listening, and thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. We’ll bid you goodbye now.

We are going to recess till 10:30.

The committee recessed from 10:14 a.m. to 10:32 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Welcome back, everybody. We’ll proceed with our consultation process. Our next presenter is Carol Paetkau, Brain Injury Alliance.

Welcome, Carol. You have five minutes to make a presentation and your recommendations, and then we have five minutes to seek clarification, ask you questions, dig a bit deeper.

Over to you, Carol.

BRAIN INJURY ALLIANCE

C. Paetkau: Wonderful. Good morning. It’s my honour to address the members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services today.

Thank you so much for your time and the opportunity to speak to you today on behalf of the alliance. My name is Carol Paetkau. I am a founding director and the current treasurer of the Brain Injury Alliance, and I’m also the executive director of Fraser Valley Brain Injury Association.

Just a little history for anyone that’s not familiar with brain injury in B.C. The Brain Injury Alliance was formed in 2014 by several community-based brain injury societies, including my own. With the assistance of an initial grant — $3 million over three years — from the province of B.C., the alliance formed what we call the brain injury fund in 2015. The fund was geared to support registered charitable brain injury societies in B.C. to provide direct services to people with acquired brain injuries.

In addition to direct funding of brain injury societies, the alliance also administers the Dr. Gur Singh Memorial Education Fund, which was established in 2015 with a $1 million grant from the province to assist people with brain injuries to get back into the workforce or into studies.

Over the past seven years, between 2015 and 2022, the province has given the alliance a total of $7 million in grants, of which we have distributed now $6 million for direct services to people with brain injuries, their families and their supporters, and their communities. The balance of these funds will be allocated in July 2022, and the brain injury fund will be depleted as of June 2023.

[10:35 a.m.]

Why is this fund so important? For those who aren’t familiar, an acquired brain injury is an injury to the brain that occurs after birth, but it’s not hereditary, and it’s not degenerative. Brain injury can result from many different causes, such as strokes, cardiovascular incidents, falls, workplace injuries, substance use, violence and sports — concussion in sports, probably, many people are familiar with now. It can happen to anyone, at any time. It’s not limited by your age, your career, your wealth, your IQ. It affects thousands of people each year in Canada and thousands in B.C.

Brain injuries or concussions, even so-called mild ones, can have a significant and devastating impact, not only on the injured person but also on their loved ones, their employers, the community, their friends, their children. I, myself, have experienced this firsthand, since I am a family member of several people that have had an acquired brain injury. There’s a historic one from 50 years ago now that I still see the impacts of in my loved one, and recently, over the last two years, two individuals close to me have had strokes.

Even though I have 30 years of experience in the brain injury field — I would be probably recognized as having some expertise — I, as a family member, experienced stroke in a loved one, recognized in the hospital, and the acute care system let my loved one out into the community. In spite of all that I know, everyone that I know and all the resources that I’m aware of, it was terrifying.

It still is, to this day, two years later. The rehabilitation hasn’t been there. I was actively advocating and fighting for a diagnosis, for simple treatment. There’s a daily aspirin that would’ve prevented a second stroke, which could easily have happened and devastated someone that I love that is very capable, independent, self-employed, intelligent. Things aren’t the same.

So to me, this is not just a work thing. This is a passion of mine now because of a personal issue. I am passionately committed to supporting my loved ones, both family members.

For many people with brain injuries, those supports aren’t sustainable over the long term. Everybody rallies around them when they’re first injured. “Rah-rah. Yay, you survived. This is great.”

Then over the years, people fall away, and friends stop calling. Loved ones say: “That person isn’t the person I married or committed to. My parent isn’t the same.” They become more and more isolated and left to deal with the cognitive impacts, the emotional and physical challenges on their own, within a capacity that’s not the same. They are more impaired.

This is why brain injury associations are so important and that funding, stable funding, is so essential. The alliance has a long history of working collaboratively in the brain injury community. We have a seven-year record of sound fiscal management, and we’ve demonstrated the ability to administer those funds effectively. Therefore, we respectfully recommend that government provide the alliance with secured annualized and ongoing funding agreements to offer more stability, support and growth in our sector.

Thank you so much for your kind attention. Please let me know if you have any questions.

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

Our first question is from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Carol. A couple of things related to funding.

You have received from government, I believe you said, $7 million in grants since 2015. This hasn’t been any kind of core funding. These are grants that you need to then pass on through the brain injury fund, and it will be depleted this year. Were there no funds for capital? How much do you grant out per year from that fund?

C. Paetkau: Yes, you’re correct. We do receive from government the two-year grants now, every two years. That funding will be depleted as of the end of June next year. All of our grants will have been distributed to local brain injury associations. There was no funding for capital, and we provide grants for direct services.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Carol, for your presentation. We’ve had quite a few different non-profit sectors come speak to us about grants and funding as well. One of the common themes is talking about administrative costs, because obviously, you can’t just deliver programs. You need to have management, directors, unfortunately, spending a lot of time chasing after grants to make sure the organization is sustainable and, of course, progressing forward. Some of them recommend about 15 to 20 percent, where a typical application is about 10 percent — 8 to 12 percent, I believe.

[10:40 a.m.]

May I ask, through the grant you’re referring to, if any percentage of that is actually considered as administrative grant? If there are administrative costs covered in there, is the percentage sufficient, or would you like to see an increase in the percentage as well?

C. Paetkau: For the alliance, we’re very proud of our administrative costs as an organization. As a granting organization, our administrative costs are quite a bit lower than 10 percent. We do provide the grants out to the agencies at a 10 percent administration, plus the 10 percent facilities cost, as well, so that it helps sustain them at a management level, because you’re right. People do require management to run programs. You have to have that infrastructure set aside.

We just reviewed all of the $1 million grant each year to each of those agencies. There are 12 of them currently. We do actually add to that with interest that we earn on our investments as an organization as well. So we actually are distributing more than $1 million each year.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions.

With that, Carol, I’d like to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for humanizing the situation and for sharing your personal perspective on acquired brain injury and reminding us that it can happen to anyone or any of our loved ones and that, at the very least, when it does happen, we need to have the security that supports and services are there to minimize the impairment. So thank you so much for sharing that and being very concrete about what it is you need to continue to do this important work.

C. Paetkau: Thank you very much. Take care.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Jacqui Mendes, representing Community Assistance Legal Society.

Jacqui, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation. Then we will ask you questions for up to five minutes.

COMMUNITY LEGAL ASSISTANCE SOCIETY

J. Mendes: Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. You know my name: Jacqui Mendes. I’m the executive director of the Community Legal Assistance Society, or CLAS.

I’m speaking to you from the unceded lands of the Coast Salish — the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

CLAS is a non-profitable firm. We’ve been working for 50 years in the areas of mental health, human rights, housing, income security, worker security and systemic law reform to address the needs of those who are disadvantaged or face discrimination. Thank you for this opportunity to present our recommendations.

The first recommendation is related to mental health. We recommend increased funding to expand free legal representation at hearings before the Mental Health Review Board and the B.C. Review Board for people who have been involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act or the mental disorder provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought sharp focus on mental health issues in B.C. and across Canada. The CLAS mental health law program, which has for decades served vulnerable and low-income people, saw a sharp rise in people involuntarily detained at mental health facilities or on extended leave all over B.C.

Hearings assigned to our legal staff at the mental health review panel increased by 31 percent in the first year of the pandemic. But those statistics have been steadily rising for years, and our assigned hearings under the Mental Health Act are now 63 percent higher than five years ago. In those five years, funding for our free representation to these vulnerable individuals has increased by only 18 percent.

As you may be aware, starting in 2023, some 20,000 people per year may be eligible to have one or more opportunities to obtain legal advice from a rights adviser when they are detained. This new rights advice service, which we welcome and have long advocated for, will create an increasing wave of requests for representation at, particularly, Mental Health Review Board panel hearings. There is the opportunity now to get in front of that wave and ensure that people without liberty and without resources have the representation that they need.

Going on to our second recommendation, focusing on housing, we recommend that resources be urgently increased to the residential tenancy branch to ensure that marginalized people who are in danger of losing their housing are experiencing an equitable, just, consistent and timely process.

[10:45 a.m.]

B.C. has the highest eviction in the country. In a 2021 national study undertaken by UBC, simply being a British Columbian is recognized as a risk factor for being evicted. Not only is this a huge source of distress for tenants; it puts a tremendous strain on the residential tenancy branch.

In our work at CLAS, we hear directly from around 300 people each year who have been evicted, and we work with dozens of non-lawyer legal advocates who represent thousands more clients at RTB hearings. We consistently hear that there are significant opportunities to improve the knowledge and training necessary to be arbitrators to ensure that hearings are conducted fairly for both parties, the landlords and the tenants.

The RTB needs resources to attract, train and retrain skilled arbitrators who can bring the expertise this critical issue requires. I think we can all agree that access to safe and affordable housing is a basic and a fundamental human need.

That brings me to our third recommendation — this is around a different area of our legal work — supporting human rights in B.C. Our recommendation is that adequate funding is needed to address the access-to-justice crisis for people experiencing discrimination in our province who are seeking redress through the Human Rights Tribunal.

The tribunal needs urgent support for its critical work in dealing with human rights complaints. Our human rights clinic here at CLAS reports that just the first stage in the process, which is screening complaints, is taking nine to 12 months. To serve the complaint to the respondent takes another couple of months.

We can confirm the reality that it will take three to five years for a complaint to reach hearing and get a decision. A system with such delays serves no one, not vulnerable complainants and not the employers and institutions responding to complaints, who also deserve a fair and timely decision.

We see firsthand the impact on the clients we serve. Some are left in poverty. Particularly, the most marginalized — including Indigenous people in remote communi­ties, the incarcerated and those with serious mental health challenges or addictions — give up on their claims altogether. Unresolved and lengthy complaints mean more dollars go into other assistance for marginalized people than would otherwise do so.

That brings me to the end of my recommendations. Thank you for listening and for this opportunity.

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

The first question is from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Jacqui. Did I hear you correctly when you said 63 percent increase in those detained under the Mental Health Act over the last five years? I wasn’t sure that the 63 percent was related to that.

An add-on to that is: what is your funding model? Is it government and Law Foundation as the primary sources of funding?

J. Mendes: For clarity, that 63 percent relates to what we call assigned hearings. Those who are detained can request representation from our lawyers and legal advocates.

We, obviously, count those statistics for hearings that actually go forward. That does not include hearings, for example, where the client changes his mind or some other circumstance intervenes. So the actual hearings that we assign to our staff — we count this particularly in relation to our funding model, which I will come on to — have risen 63 percent over those five years.

We actually saw a sharp rise in ’19-20 of 20 percent. It dropped down a bit…. It has now plateaued, from what we can see, in this fiscal year, but it’s plateaued at a significantly higher level than it was five years ago.

In terms of our funding model, we are funded by Legal Aid B.C. My understanding is that it was our flow-through funds from the Ministry of Attorney General. We have a sort of two-tier model where we are funded for what we call our core budget, which is the legal staff that we employ and all our scheduling assistants who work with both the B.C. Review Board and the mental health panel to schedule all of these — recruit, train all of our external roster lawyers.

The second part of our budget is that when we use external lawyers, we reclaim that from Legal Aid B.C. So we’ve actually seen that piece where we use external lawyers expanding more quickly in our funding.

[10:50 a.m.]

However, what we do is work the system and iron out those bumps in the system for the patients that we represent. We speak to facilities. We interact with the Mental Health Review Board. We report back to LABC. So we perform that sort of pivotal function for ensuring that the system is actually operating.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Jacqui, for your presentation. I really appreciate it.

I noticed you mentioned something about the residential tenancy branch. Especially, you provide support to clients while they’re going to residential tenancy branch to deal with judicial decisions. You talked about, also, mental health as one of the concerns being addressed there. It sort of triggered me. I would love to hear your feedback. This is less of a question and more like seeking your feedback.

Is residential tenancy branch staff equipped or prepped enough to make a judicial decision where it potentially involves mental health concerns when it comes to conflict between a landlord and a tenant?

J. Mendes: I think you’ve touched the heart of one of our concerns. We do understand that the RTB, of course, engages in training of its arbitrators and retraining of its arbitrators. But what we are consistently hearing…. This is why I emphasize the amount of people we speak to directly, that we provide legal supervision to and work with through our community advocate support line, which is a dedicated line to support legal advocates across B.C., and our community law program, which works on, more, the service piece.

Forty percent of the service pieces that come to our community law program are around housing, which is quite a significant number, because they operate across five areas of the law. We’ve been hearing this for some time. This actually has been going back even longer, if you sort of listen to the voices in B.C. social housing sector — that there are definite inconsistencies in training; fairness; responding, even, to court judgements; and looking at those in terms of how you go forward.

We welcome that the RTB is now recording decisions. That was a huge gap, because when you’re being evicted, you couldn’t go back and…. There was no sort of equivalent of Hansard that is being done — at least, with your recordings.

But we are definitely hearing that need for more resources to be pumped into the system for the RTB arbitrators, in particular, to work with tenants. Tenants often face an intersection of competing barriers. Often it’s not just income. They could be living with disabilities. They could be living with mental health issues.

Whereas I can’t speak directly to the training that the RTB provides, what we can certainly see is the impact on the hearings as they go forward. We see instances where arbitrators have expressed to tenants, even before their hearing happens, that they probably will lose. So we’re really not seeing consistency and fairness and timeliness.

Yes, one needs a timely system with no logjams that everybody can move through, tenants and landlords alike, but timeliness isn’t the only measure of the impact of a system. Fixed-time hearings — it’s a complex issue. Either party doesn’t often have time to express, tell their story. That’s on both sides of the table.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Jacqui. We are out of time. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for the work that you do, and thank you for engaging with us.

It wouldn’t come as a surprise that you’re not the first presenter to draw our attention to an increasing number of members of our society who are in a fragile state and are very vulnerable. However, this is, I think, the first presentation that has addressed it from the point of view that that doesn’t mean they’re not entitled to representation — that they are entitled to representation and to have their rights respected, and that you play a critical role in ensuring that that happens.

So thank you for advocacy on this front and drawing our attention to the disconnect between the support that is provided.

[10:55 a.m.]

Our next presenter is Halena Seiferling, who is presenting on behalf of Living in Community.

Halena, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we have up to five minutes to ask you questions and for you to respond within that five minutes as well, so a total of ten.

Over to you.

LIVING IN COMMUNITY

H. Seiferling: Sorry, I think I missed a little bit of that. Thank you so much. Good morning, committee members. I will jump right into it. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today.

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

As mentioned, my name is Halena Seiferling. I’m the executive director of Living in Community.

Living in Community — or LIC, for short — is a provincial non-profit. We’re based in Vancouver. We do education and training, policy advocacy and community development across the province to advance a sex workers’ rights–based approach to policies and practices. We also convene a group called the B.C. Sex Work Support Service Network, which is a group of 25 organizations that provide front-line services, supports and advocacy for sex workers in their communities across all regions of B.C.

In Budget 2023, we call on the province to invest in peer-led, person-centred and localized services and responses for sex workers. This focus is informed by our work with the B.C. network and by what they have seen in their own communities both before the COVID-19 pandemic, due to decades of criminalization and stigma, and as a result of how COVID-19 has further exacerbated existing inequalities and vulnerabilities.

The past few years have been extremely difficult for sex workers and sex worker–serving organizations. At the beginning of COVID-19, sex workers completely or significantly lost their income, and many struggled to access community services because front-line organizations had to reduce their services and hours. During the pandemic, many sex workers were ineligible for both federal and provincial supports, such as the CERB and the B.C. emergency benefit, and faced intensified stigma and judgment about their work as well as increased surveillance by law enforcement.

Now we are into the next phase of difficulty, which is that with the declaration that the pandemic is “over” by some governments comes the end of so-called temporary emergency COVID-19 funding. However, in the past two years, this province’s overlapping crises around the toxic drug supply, poverty and homelessness, just to name a few, have gotten worse. Staff at front-line organizations are experiencing mental health crises of their own as they struggle to provide the services that their communities need. In short, front-line organizations are being asked to do even more than before at the same time that COVID-19 funding is ending.

All of this is also happening within a resurgence and a concern about human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Exploitation and trafficking, in any labour sector, are abhorrent and must be stopped. However, approaches taken here must be evidence-based. From our work over the past 18 years, we know that more criminalization, surveillance and interference into the lives of consensual adults is not the answer. However, misguided approaches to anti-trafficking often call for these types of responses.

These misguided approaches lead to the criminalization of sex work, which drives sex work underground. This means that there are unsafe working conditions. It prevents sex workers from reporting violence when it does occur. It makes it hard to identify true victims of human trafficking, and it actually creates further systemic vulnerabilities to trafficking and exploitation. This is the system that we have under the current Canadian laws.

While we share concerns about safety and exploitation, the approach that we recommend here to you is to ensure that local front-line organizations and projects across the province have the necessary resources to provide options to their communities. This type of approach must be taken before funding organizations whose full aim is to end the sex industry or further criminalize people. This approach not only supports the rights of sex workers, but it also ensures that sufficient services are available for victims of trafficking. Therefore, I’ll talk briefly about just two recommendations that we have for you today.

The first is to provide increased funding for front-line organizations across B.C. that deliver peer-led and person-centred programming. Peer-led programming means that peers — in this case, folks who have worked or currently work in the sex industry — have leadership roles in the creation and delivery of programs and services. Those with lived experience provide invaluable insight into what will and won’t work, and they must be listened to if organizations want their programming to be effective and practical.

Person-centred programming means that the person seeking services can choose for themselves what works best for them. They’ll not be forced to change behaviours or aspects of their lifestyle in order to get the services they need, and they have options that they can choose from.

By funding this type of programming, the province can ensure that folks are getting the specific supports that they need without prescribing one solution that is meant to work for a variety of needs and experiences and without further criminalizing or marginalizing people.

Secondly, we also recommend providing funding toward the provincial bad date and aggressor reporting system, which is being developed.

[11:00 a.m.]

Here at Living in Community, along with four sex work organizations in B.C., we are jointly guiding a three-year project which will develop and create a provincial bad date and aggressor reporting system, also known as the BDAR system. This is an example of the type of program mentioned under my first recommendation.

BDAR systems are peer-led tools where sex workers share information with each other and help keep each other safe. While this project is off to an exciting start, the provincial government must support this project through funding. Provincial funding would ensure that more sex workers and sex worker–serving organizations can participate fully in the project’s consultations and ensure that the tool will meet the needs of diverse sex workers across B.C.

Thank you again for hearing our recommendations today, which would both protect vulnerable folks from exploitation as well as uphold the rights of sex workers. I welcome any questions that you may have.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Halena. There are questions from the committee. First one will be posed by Megan, followed by Karin.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the presentation. I was wondering two things, and they’re related.

Will you be providing a written submission for this? I looked, and unless I missed it, which is possible, I didn’t see it there. There was a lot of information that was really interesting, and it would be great to see a little bit more information on your program if you haven’t already submitted it.

Then the second one is that with sex workers and human trafficking, one of the challenges, as you would know probably better than anyone else, is the Internet mechanisms now. A lot of the challenges with sex workers aren’t seen on the streets, where you’d drive along and you’d have a district. In tackling some of the safety and protections for those that work in the sector, is it becoming easier to deal with it, as time has gone on, with the Internet’s complexities? Or is it actually making it harder to reach the people that need the services — the front-line people that work with sex workers?

H. Seiferling: To your first question, we will be providing a written submission. I was just able to book a last-minute spot yesterday, so I wasn’t able to send anything in advance for you, unfortunately. But we will definitely be sending a written submission to complement this, so thank you.

To your second question, it’s quite a large question. I think, in some ways, the Internet had made things easier and also more difficult. To that I think I would say that it just reinforces, I think, our recommendation that providing funding for front-line organizations in each community is really important. I mean, speaking from here in Vancouver, I know some of what the sex industry looks like here. But it’s very different in remote areas or more rural areas, who, perhaps, rely even more on Internet sites and options, because, perhaps, it’s more stigmatized to be out in the streets or to be out as a sex worker publicly.

So I think it looks really different in different places. That’s why these local organizations are really important, because they know best what’s going on in their community and what folks need. I think our approach is really to provide funding and support targeted to that type of peer-led, peer-informed programming so that those organizations can provide those services.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Halena. Thank you for the work you do for this vulnerable population. I appreciate that it’s been particularly difficult during the pandemic.

Can you give me an example of…? The increased funding or front-line organizations’ peer-led, person-centred programs — would that be around housing, domestic violence? What are the pieces, or what’s an example of something that that would go to?

H. Seiferling: I mean, it could be all of those. It could be more things as well. Housing is always a really big issue for a lot of folks, shelters as well. When I talk there about person-centred, I think the important part there is low-barrier services, low-barrier options and just many options folks can choose from. There are many types of shelters or housing programs. Folks might need to not have a pet or not have family or abstain from sex work or not use substances. There are many things that folks might be required to do to access some of those services.

But it could really look like anything from having a drop-in centre that’s low barrier, providing harm reduction, obviously, for sex supplies, housing. It could really run the gamut. I think, again, those local organizations that we work with across the province kind of know best what their communities would need the most.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry and then Mike, if we have time.

H. Yao: I’ll keep my question short. Unfortunately, in my community, there’s a lot of demonization of sex workers.

[11:05 a.m.]

I would just love to hear from you. What kind of outreach are we trying to do to actually humanize the individuals who are in the sector, and how can we make sure that the community can have a more comprehensive, a more inclusive approach when it comes to supporting individuals who are in the sector?

H. Seiferling: Thank you. That’s also a very good question. I think I would argue that a lot of the work we do, and the folks that we work with across the province, is all about trying to humanize and reduce the stigma. So that’s where a lot of education work that we do comes in and the educational materials that we provide.

I think even naming it — like having funding available that’s for sex worker safety, which is already available under civil forfeiture. Just naming that this is a priority and that these are folks that are our neighbours and our community members and we care about them — I think that really goes a long way as well.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. Mine is just very simple. With regards to the new immigrants and the challenges that they face and the educational materials that you have…. I’m making the assumption but also wondering: how are we reaching out in that area where language becomes a barrier?

H. Seiferling: That’s a good question. I think the only answer I could give on that, just briefly, is there are organizations like, for example, SWAN Vancouver, which works around the Vancouver area, particularly with immigrant and migrant sex workers. They would probably be the expertise to draw on in terms of how information is translated and how they’re reaching out to folks that might not speak English as a first language or might be newer in the community. I think they’d be a great resource for that.

M. Starchuk: Great. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Halena, thank you for taking the time to meet with us. I’m really glad that we were able to fit you in, even if it was at the last minute. You’ve made a very compelling case for a particular model of providing services to a workforce that is particularly invisible and underground and that it needs to be a model in which they do not feel judged. Thank you very much for your leadership on that.

H. Seiferling: Thank you for fitting me in. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Michele Wiebe, representing the Peace River North Teachers Association.

Michele, you have five minutes to make your presentation and your recommendations and another five minutes to field questions from the committee.

Over to you.

PEACE RIVER NORTH
TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

M. Wiebe: Great. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Michele Wiebe, and I’m the president of the Peace River North Teachers Association in Fort St. John, B.C. I’m pleased to present to you this morning. The PRNTA represents approximately 450 teachers in the North Peace area. I have three recommendations with a few points underneath each.

One, we would like to have increased funding for public education. Underfunding of education has been an issue for many years. Funding of our high-incident students is needed. I don’t know if you realize, but students that have mild intellectual disabilities, even our gifted students, students with learning disabilities, students requiring behavioural support or students with mental illness do not receive funding from the ministry.

We have difficulty attracting and retaining educational psychologists, who are the people who test students to give these designations. Ultimately, students aren’t getting the support they need in the classroom, and that puts the responsibility on the classroom teacher to make sure their learning needs are met.

Also, I want to mention that with the new requirement for the Indigenous-focused grad requirement to be implemented in high schools, there needs to be funding in order for the implementation to be successful. Teachers need training. They need resources and materials, plus money to pay Indigenous Elders to come into the classroom and share their stories and language. I do have an example of that. We have, at the high school, an Indigenous studies course, and it was to be funded to the tune of $5,000 this year. Actually, the teacher received no money for that class, which made it very difficult to run that class.

We all know that provincial bargaining is going on between the BCTF and BCPSEA. I do want to mention that teachers deserve a salary increase during this round of provincial bargaining. Teachers have been in the classroom during the COVID pandemic, and it kept the economy and B.C. going. When other provinces put learning online, B.C. teachers were in classrooms, even though they were concerned about being there.

[11:10 a.m.]

My second point is around recruitment and retention of teachers, especially in the northern region or area. Cost of living and housing costs in Fort St. John are the same as in Vancouver. Now, with inflation, these costs are even more for my salaried members. Allowing school districts to have incentives to attract teachers to come to the Northwould be helpful, but to retain teachers who have moved here is also important. We have a great mentorship program, but to have some provincial money put into our mentorship program would be also helpful.

Teachers who move here from the Lower Mainland or from other areas that have a temperate climate are shocked by the added costs to their life due to the severe winter weather we have. For example, they need to get a block heater and winter tires installed on their vehicle. They need winter clothing, a shovel, an ice scraper, to name a few things. It is truly a challenge for them when they come here.

During COVID, our teachers have been sick a lot. We’ve had COVID sick days. They were discontinued in January of 2022. When teachers got sick, they went into the negative, and they were actually deducted pay. So I had teachers who were like: “Michele, I am having trouble making my rent, my student loans, our mortgage payments.” It really produced a hardship for my teachers.

The third point I have is on teachers working during the COVID pandemic. I mentioned that teachers lost pay when they ran out of sick days, and this did create a financial hardship for my members. While other teachers in other provinces worked from home during the pandemic, teachers in B.C. were in classes.

I really believe that there needs to be a public acknowledgment from the Premier to thank teachers for their work this year — and, actually, all essential workers: our health care workers, our firefighters, everybody that was an essential service. The pandemic isn’t over, and teachers have kept schools open and the economy going. One way to thank teachers is to give them a substantial salary increase on the grid.

I’ve got 27 seconds left. I’ve looked through my files, and in 2001, the president at that time, Margaret Little, presented to you. There are common threads throughout: support for students, retaining and attracting teachers to the North, more supports. I think that after 21 years, we should be doing better for our students.

Thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michele. I’ll now invite the committee to ask you some questions.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the presentation. I have a question about the sick days that you mentioned. There were five sick days added for all workers within B.C. Were those not applicable to teachers as well?

M. Wiebe: No, because we have sick days in our collective agreement. They weren’t even applicable to teachers teaching on call, our substitute teachers, until the BCTF got involved and basically pushed BCPSEA to agree for TTOCs to be able to access those sick days. Contract teachers cannot access those five days. So it has become a hardship. They lost pay, honestly.

I said to one of my teachers: “You know what? We have no mechanism to give you money, but I will give you $1,000 to help you pay for your rent for this month.” Then she said, “Oh, Michele, thank you so much, but I’ll get my family to help out.” That’s what they did. It’s heartbreaking.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Michele, for that. Thank you for keeping my daughter in school in grade 12 — it’s much appreciated — during this pandemic.

A question. You had mentioned that with the Indigenous studies, the teacher received no money for the class. You were saying that there needs to be funding and training to work with that program. When you say “no funding,” was it just an inability to have materials and to have the Elders come in? For learning materials, there was no additional funding for that?

M. Wiebe: Interestingly, the principal had said to the teacher: “Oh, your budget will be $5,000 to be able to run this program. Please, we would like you to run the program.” She said, “Sure,” and then that principal retired. The new principal that came in said: “Oh, there’s no money for this.” She came to me, and I’m like: “I can’t. Unless something is put in writing, what do I do with that?”

[11:15 a.m.]

When I’m looking at this PDF, in the appendix, it talks about First Nations language courses. I don’t know if you’ve actually seen what is expected for our high school teachers to teach. The teacher wanted to have Elders come into her class, and she was unable to pay for them. So it kind of fell apart for her. She said her class trips…. Everything had to be cancelled. I don’t even know what she did.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I’ll just ask a clarifying question. As far as you understand…. I’m not alive to how this works. When the Indigenous studies grad requirement was brought in, was there not additional funding provided along with that from Ministry of Education?

M. Wiebe: I know that high school teachers here were asked to be part of training in August. I think that there needs to be a bit better communication around the funding part, because I’ve got high school teachers here that are concerned. “Michele, how am I going to implement any of this without any kind of training, any kind of in-service?”

Also, I think that this should be put on hold for a year so that we have the year to make sure that there is proper implementation of this. Teachers want to do a good job. They want to do a good job with this and not just try to figure it out as they go.

B. Stewart: Michele, thanks very much. I wanted to ask you about the situation with teachers in your area. Is there a shortage? Then you made a reference in your presentation about equality. I guess when I think about living in the North, there was a northern living allowance. Is that something that’s done? Is that what you were referring to when you talked about a differential or something being paid, similar to other provinces?

M. Wiebe: We’re really close to the Alberta border. Dawson Creek is closer, and Grande Prairie, Alberta, has a teacher ed program there. I know that teachers…. Our school district doesn’t even go to Grande Prairie to try to recruit. They’re like: “Unless you’re going to be paying me $120,000 a year, I’m not really interested in moving to B.C.” It’s about being equitable, I guess — the comparable salary, Alberta to B.C. It does affect us in our area.

We have what is called a remote allowance. It’s around $2,600 a year, and it’s divided into ten months — so an extra $250 or $260 on our paycheque every month for that.

Through CRA, we do have the northern living allowance deduction — correct. It’s not all of it. I think Fort Nelson has a higher amount than what we have in our zone. I think we’re zone B. So we have that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Michele, we’re out of time. I want to tell you that there are more members of the committee that want to ask you questions and get more details. What works in our favour is that the next presenter…. There are a couple of more presenters today that want to address, I suspect, the issues that you’re raising. So we will pursue this.

In the meantime, I want to thank you for taking the time to share with us the reality of the life of a teacher in the North, what your challenges are and what the barriers are to you and your members wanting to do a good job on behalf of the people of British Columbia. So thank you for taking the time.

M. Wiebe: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Elaine Fitzpatrick, Peace River South Teachers Association.

We still have two people on our speakers list, Mike and Henry, so I’m just going to give everyone notice that when we open it up for questions to Elaine, I’ll go first to Mike and Henry.

Elaine, you have five minutes to make your presentation.

[11:20 a.m.]

PEACE RIVER SOUTH
TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

E. Fitzpatrick: Thank you for allowing me to present today. My name is Elaine Fitzpatrick, and I am the president of the local teachers association here in Dawson Creek. I’m here today to make a presentation on K-to-12 education.

My written submission to the committee is focused on recruitment, retention and compensation, all of which go hand in hand in that without some measure of attraction or compensation, we’re not going to be able to recruit or retain teachers in northeastern B.C.

I could provide a number of data charts, salary grids, links to other provinces’ recruitment initiatives, teacher turnover rates, and so on. I could speak of the multiple challenges and considerations a new teacher faces when taking a job in the North. However, I’m going to highlight the human side of those I work with every day: the teachers, support staff, school principals and district leadership. More importantly, the teacher shortage is having a negative effect on our entire system but, most of all, on the success of our students.

Because we can’t attract or retain teachers in the North, it means that many of our students will have unqualified staff teaching them. Sometimes our students have an unqualified teacher for several school years in our district. This is not a criticism of our colleagues. They do the very best that they can, and we are very happy to have them when we can’t get qualified teachers. Since 2017 our district has had 10 to 15 percent of classrooms in every school in our district filled with unqualified teachers responsible for the learning of 20 to 30 students for the entire year.

In some cases, there’s no replacement to fill a classroom, and EAs, support teachers, principals and sometimes senior admin have to step in and plan, teach and report for days and weeks and months. Everyone lends a hand.

Retired teachers return to the classroom or substitute teach. Classroom teachers share their resources, lesson plans and time to help non-qualified teachers. Principals fill in when a classroom is without a teacher, and when they’re not available, an EA is asked to fill in. Non-enrolling teachers leave their student support work to cover in classrooms. Often students and classrooms go without support of an EA, as many of those colleagues have taken over classes full-time or cover classes when a teacher is away.

Every part of our education system is affected when there are not enough teachers to fill our classrooms. The people I see in the schools are superheroes and absolutely amazing. But behind the scenes, I assist numerous teachers every month to navigate the need for medical and mental health leaves; arrange for mentorship or peer support; and refer members to our health and wellness and counselling programs. I see teachers and principals leaving the profession, not just to retire. I hear frustration, exhaustion, impatience, disappointment and surrender in the conversations with people from every level of our district.

We can’t carry on like this. We need the B.C. government to take a serious look at the teacher shortage and commit some resources and funding that address both the inequity and the equality we are experiencing. Without significant funding and compensation, the northeast will continue to experience significant negative effects on the students, their families and the communities in general. Without a strong local educational institute in a community, which has complete staff that are trained and qualified, the students in this area will not have the same opportunities to complete or further their education, get training and advance themselves in life.

We want our students to have the same advantages as those in Prince George, Kelowna, Vancouver and Campbell River. Investing in education means attracting and retaining teachers in every part of this province. If one part is having difficulty doing that, then it no longer is a level or equal playing field.

The teachers of Peace River South share the same goals as teachers around the province. We want to provide quality learning opportunities for our students. In order to do so in a climate of this substantial teacher shortage in our school district, we ask that the government fund incentive programs that will help attract qualified, professional teachers to the area; acknowledge the financial challenges of working and living in a small, remote northern community; and encourage those people already in the system to get the necessary qualifications.

We need the future citizens of our community to have the same quality of education and opportunities as others throughout our province.

[11:25 a.m.]

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

I’m going to go to Mike first, on the assumption that the question that you didn’t get to ask the last presenter is still applicable to this presenter.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Chair. That’s an excellent assumption on the question that’s coming forward.

Elaine, thank you very much for your presentation, and even more importantly, thank you for what you do for not only your members but the students that are in the classroom.

My question surrounds…. You’re the advocate for the teachers that are there. Is your school board, is your school district actually there with the same train of thought as to how they want to see things come to fruition? I was kind of shocked at the 10 to 15 percent of unqualified people that were inside of the classroom making those deliveries, if you could expand on that.

E. Fitzpatrick: Well, I think it’s been an ongoing situation that we’ve found ourselves in since 2017. From the top to the bottom, everybody has made an effort to try and resolve the situation with what we have. But we often say that we have very little to attract new, young teachers to our district, and then to keep them here is even more difficult.

I would say yes, our school district, the trustees and the senior admin are of the same view that we just don’t know what more can be done. We just don’t have the resources entirely available to us, and we need some intervention, basically. We use that same type of tier 3 intervention in our schools when kids need extra help, and we need some intervention.

In regards to the 10 percent, we have approximately 211 FTEs. That’s full-time equivalent. Many of our open positions are classroom positions. So yes, in most schools you will have at least one, if not sometimes up to three or four unqualified teachers in classrooms, depending on the community and the level — more so in the elementaries. We more so will place a former EA or a parent who has said: “Yes, I have some training.” Back in 2017 and ’18, we were sometimes getting people with university degrees that weren’t education degrees, and we were putting them into classrooms as well. So we’ve used a variety of things.

Right now we have, probably, ten of what we call LoPs that have basically been taking classroom duties for the last four to five years. They’re long-term LoPs. But we’re stuck. I mean, in Chetwynd, every school has at least two if not four open positions, and right now we don’t have very many applicants. That’s what I’ve been told from the senior admin that does the hiring.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Our next question is Henry, followed by Ben and Harwinder if we have time.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I’ve always had a deep appreciation for teachers and the sacrifice and the hard work that you guys put in to looking after our next generation.

Whatever has happened in the discussion around the negotiation table — I won’t comment too much about it. But I would love to have a conversation with you about Peace River South struggling to attract teachers to actually come up there to teach. Obviously, we’re looking at more of a universal teacher shortage.

I’m wondering. Is there any other strategy that you can also consider to perhaps encourage teachers to come to Peace River South to teach? Could there be a tuition waiver for people who took the courses? Maybe a prac­ticum student has to stop by Peace River South to take certain courses to actually do a practicum as well.

I would love to hear additional creative ideas that we might be able to offer.

[11:30 a.m.]

E. Fitzpatrick: I did put several of those in my submission — of course, not in any great detail. We did recently partner with UBC and had some new, young teachers who were just graduating come up. They’re looking for substantial financial compensation, because they’re coming out of university with anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000 worth of loans. So they’re looking for those kinds of things. They’re not looking for cheaper housing, because they’re not buying houses. They can’t afford to. They have huge, big student loans.

Of those initiatives that would address that, one that I’ve talked about for several years with Mike Bernier, our MLA, is this idea, like they’ve done with nurses: “You agree to come and teach here for two years, and we give you $8,000 a year towards your tuition prior to coming. You commit to coming, and once you’ve come, the bill is paid. If you don’t come, then you need to pay the $8,000 back.” That works in Alberta. It has been like that for years. Even 33 years ago, when I started teaching, Alberta had that same initiative.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Elaine. We’re quite a bit behind time, so I’m going to have to ask the other committee members who have questions to hold off on those questions.

I do want to thank you so much for providing some important details to this picture that’s being painted for us about the knock-on effect of the teacher shortage and the impact it has on the education workforce, students and communities.

Our next presenter is Chad Anderson, of the board of education, school district 59, Peace River South.

We are a little bit behind, Chad. Sorry if we kept you waiting. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we have five minutes right after that to ask questions and for you to answer. Without further ado, over to you.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 59,
PEACE RIVER SOUTH

C. Anderson: Great. Thank you very much for the opportunity to present today. I regret that you’re not here to enjoy our beautiful Peace River country that we are enjoying today. Unfortunately, if you’ll forgive the joke, it does, however, illustrate one of the points that I’m making today about our challenge in getting people to come up to the Peace country and join our district. We miss your absence, but thank you for the opportunity.

The future of British Columbia is in its educated citizens. The Ministry of Education and B.C.’s boards of education have a mandate to enable every learner to maximize their potential, but British Columbia and its citizens will not reach their full potential if classrooms full of students are left without the teachers, educational assistants, skilled professionals, bus drivers and administrators that are needed to create quality individualized learning opportunities.

For nearly a decade, northern and remote school districts have identified the staff recruitment and retention challenge as a real risk to the future of our students. While some southern districts may lack a wide selection of certified teachers or fully trained educational assistants to choose from when filling their on-call or substitute rosters, the situation in Peace River South is far beyond that. We’re frequently unable to hire certified teachers even for full-time permanent classroom teaching positions.

To keep classes open, the letter of permission, or LOP, process though the teacher regulation branch allows us to hire, on a one-year term, staff who do not have an education degree, to become classroom teachers for that year. Our LOPs, those teachers on letters of permission, often produce great results for students, and we value them greatly, but they know that we would hire a certified teacher instead, if one were available at the beginning of the school year.

While we have no obligation to hire a past teacher on a letter of permission in a future year, we do have some staff that we have needed to hire for several years running in this way. Each year they must go through the same burdensome approval process at the teacher regulation branch. Given our situation, we have questions about whether that is valuable work for the TRB to be doing. At present, we have 26 LOPs on staff. These are, effectively, uncertified teachers — teachers just certified for the year. That amounts to about 10 percent of our classroom teaching staff across the district.

[11:35 a.m.]

Our district’s staff and students achieve amazing things in sprite of the severe recruitment and retention challenge. We saw only two days of functional closures in one school at the height of the pandemic, thanks to the tireless efforts of staff and administrators to maintain in-person instruction.

Our graduation or completion rates have been increasing for all students. Furthermore, we have been recognized provincially for significantly closing the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous graduation rates. We continue to close literacy gaps for vulnerable students through our primary literacy project, but our staffing situation is now totally unsustainable. We have near-daily bus route cancellations due to a lack of bus drivers. We have LOPs where we should have certified teachers. We sometimes have no one, where we should have an educational assistant, providing one-to-one support with a student.

We often end the year with unspent education funds for Indigenous education and other programs, as we lack candidates to fill those important positions. We have principals teaching in classrooms for a lack of teachers on call, and those school administrators are being stretched to the point of burnout. We believe that a number of actions need to be taken to safeguard K-to-12 education in the North.

We need to enhance opportunities for online teacher education. B.C.-based programs offer some of those elements, but we often recommend the University of Calgary’s Werklund program, which allows teachers to do that work without leaving their home community. We need to incentivize careers in education by providing tuition subsidies, student loan forgiveness and other incentives that are available to those in northern Alberta and other public sectors in B.C., such as health care and early childhood education.

We believe that there is a need for a pilot program targeted at school districts with significant staffing challenges. We believe these are northern and remote school districts, for the most part. A pilot program would allow for more flexibility in solving the recruitment and retention challenge where the need is greatest. We know of a few approaches that work in other sectors and that need to be applied in education.

We believe that a targeted pilot program will allow the Ministry of Education and school districts to create and measure the success of incentives that will cause people to build new careers in education to add to the educational workforce to the benefit students across the province.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today.

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

I’m going to go first to Ben and then Harwinder, because I’m guessing that the questions they had for our last presenters would be applicable.

B. Stewart: Chad, thanks very much for coming in and helping to backstop the teachers that have already presented to us.

I wanted to ask the question about the graduation rates. You touched on that you’re closing in the gap between First Nations and non-Indigenous. Because of these other challenges that you, broadly, face in attracting teachers with certifications, etc., how is the district doing in terms of the learning outcomes with students?

C. Anderson: We’ve had amazing success. I was fortunate to be able to present on behalf of our district, as one of three districts that spoke to this issue in the fall, at a provincial conference of board chairs, superintendents and secretary-treasurers that the ministry puts on.

Our gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous students has dropped over the past ten to 15 years from, as I think the numbers are, around 15 percentage points apart to the low single digits. I think it was below a 5-percentage-point difference in the last year for which numbers are posted on the student success website where all that data is stored.

We’ve had great success there, and obviously, we don’t want to lose any ground with this real recruitment and retention challenge that we’re now facing.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much, Chad. My question was for Elaine, but perhaps you can highlight some of the questions that I have.

Having lived in northeast and northwest B.C. previously, I know that retention and recruitment has always been a challenge, whether it’s education, the health care sector or other areas of demand, no matter what we did. You’ve highlighted that great point, with recommendations which are worth exploring. With the retention and recruitment in health, I know we have a two-years retention bonus in recruiting.

[11:40 a.m.]

Even with that, retention and recruitment still remains the challenge. Employers or health authorities would pay for the education, pay for everything. The moment two years are up, people like the different weather or lifestyle. They move. I don’t know what other areas we can explore, but you have great recommendations in your presentation.

Elaine alluded twice to, after 2017, the number of un­qualified teachers. I was just curious to ask, and perhaps you can answer. What was being done before 2017 that worked well and that we may need to look at it? As far as I remember, I know in 2010 there were 800 teachers laid off. I remember one of them moved to Terrace and then still, to make ends meet, he was having to do extra tuitions online — and several other teachers.

I’m just curious. Perhaps I’ve missed something that was being done which we should be looking at to do again. If you can share that, that would be wonderful.

The other question. Do you see having some benefit of unqualified teachers versus having no one? If we didn’t have this increased number of these teachers who are supporting unqualified teachers, what would the students do?

C. Anderson: Maybe I’ll start with the second question first. Certainly, we would far rather have a certified teacher that is trained in classroom management and in every part of education to give the best opportunities to students. But uncertified teachers, or teachers teaching on letters of permission, are most certainly preferable to closing a classroom and just not holding classes. They do present a burden on other certified staff that are assisting those LOPs in understanding how to run a classroom. That burden can’t be underestimated.

We do want to incentivize some of our great LOPs to go through and become certified teachers. I think I briefly mentioned that the University of Calgary, through its Werklund program, offers fully online teacher training that allows our LOPs to become certified teachers without ever leaving the community and without extended stays in the Lower Mainland. That’s just not available from B.C. schools. That’s significant.

With regard to the issue of what changed over the last few years, I think there are a number of things. Some of it’s probably demographic. But there also was the Supreme Court decision a number of years ago that caused a major realignment in how classrooms are structured and put on some real constraints that affect how many teachers are required. That’s a significant part of the challenge that we have today as well.

I think there is a real need to expand the labour pool and keep us competitive with our neighbours across the border. I’m sitting seven minutes from the Alberta border here and 15 minutes from another Alberta school. That’s a fact for us here.

H. Sandhu: Thank you for the answer and for the work you do.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Chad. We are out of time now, but thank you for the important pieces that you’ve added to the picture of K to 12 in the northeast and what you’re up against. Thank you so much for that.

C. Anderson: Thank you very much for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Helen Gilbert, representing school district 60.

Whenever you’re ready, Helen. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we have five minutes for questions. We are a bit behind time, so we’ll have to really be watching the timer, if you don’t mind.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 60,
PEACE RIVER NORTH

H. Gilbert: That’s fine. Good morning.

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you today from the traditional territory of the Dane-zaa and Treaty 8.

Thank you for the opportunity to talk about our budget. I had looked forward to doing this in person and would have happily driven one hour to Dawson Creek to do so. In the North, we are used to inclement weather and disruptive travel. To be doing a Zoom meeting here because the committee had trouble with travel arrangements is ironic.

[11:45 a.m.]

Our first recommendation asks that northern factors be considered in allocation of funds so our students have equity of opportunity. Last year two bus routes were consolidated to save costs. Despite looking at transportation efficiencies, we continue to spend far more on transportation than the provincial average or the amount allocated for transportation. Geography and infrastructure contribute to this.

Students in K to 12 are on buses by 7:30 in the morning and return home after 4:30. Five-year-olds put in a longer workday than some adults. Many of our routes require buses to go miles off the main road for pickup, with a return trip to the main road. There are no loops, so the miles add up. Much of our mileage is done on gravel roads, resulting in wear and tear on buses that exceeds what is typical of asphalt miles.

Ministry funding for transportation has not increased since 2016-17. Fuel cost increases impact many aspects of the district beyond transportation and maintenance. Delivery costs for everything are going up, including those of delivering water to some rural schools.

In our written submission, we referenced aging facilities being a factor in maintenance and heating costs. Our district spends 14.2 percent of our funds on operations, and the provincial average is 11.5 percent.

Recruitment and retention is a concern in all departments. In the past, we had teachers on letters of permission in specialty areas like shop. Next year there will be letters of permission for general teaching positions. Letters of permission are costly. Currently we have seven openings for regular classroom positions, with zero suitable applicants. We anticipate a minimum need for 13 more full-time teachers by September. Potentially this means 20 classrooms without fully certified teachers. Is this equity?

At least 50 percent of our sometimes insufficient teacher-on-call list is non-certified people. In the ’21-22 school year, there were unfilled part-time positions. Prep and remedy positions were filled by TTOCs when they were available. This situation added to the administrator’s workload, with the lack of consistency and certainty in staffing causing stress for students and teachers.

A fully online teacher education program, with local schools used to meet teacher candidates’ practicum requirements, would be helpful. Some of our non-certified teachers on call become interested in getting degrees. They need to work and remain in the community while doing so. An education degree option that allowed people to remain in the community would be attractive to them as well as some of our local Indigenous people who would like to become certified teachers.

Recruitment of support staff is also increasingly difficult. We can’t offer the same level of wages other local companies do. This year we have had bus cancellations due to driver shortages. Finding replacement drivers for the recently retired ones is difficult.

Affordable quality child care is important for our communities. Our mandate in this area has increased without parameters around expectations for operational guidelines being given. The scope of many staff’s daily responsibilities has increased with before- and after-school child care.

We expect the standing committee will hear many concerns related to the flat per-pupil allocation and unfunded liabilities. The district has received the same per-pupil allocation for two years. In that time, though, there have been increased expectations placed on districts, as well as inflationary factors.

We are extremely proud of the efforts of our staff during COVID. As we move from COVID safety plans to personal health awareness plans, what structural costs will remain? During COVID, there has been an increased use of sick leave. Will we go back to pre-pandemic levels? There is a social conscience about coming to work sick. Never taking a sick day is no longer a badge of honour.

Districts appreciated the additional federal and provincial funding received to support COVID measures. There are no additional funds for ’22-23. School district 60 will submit a balanced budget based on a 3 percent inflation factor. Optimistic? Yes. Realistically, though, we recognize there is the potential need for cuts through the year. Protecting the classroom remains at the forefront for us, though.

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

We now have a few minutes for questions.

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

[11:50 a.m.]

We’ve heard a consistent message in terms of the additional costs and challenges of working in the North and the difficulties of retaining teachers and the need to have unqualified teachers stepping in for your classes, so it’s appreciated.

In school district 60, is there…? Do you have a shortfall this year? If so, what are the additional funds that are needed in order to continue to operate without having to cut back on any of your services?

H. Gilbert: I’ll kick that one to the secretary-treasurer.

A. Telford: Hi there. My name is Angela Telford.

Interestingly, I just did an updated budget for the current year. We are seeing an increase in…. Well, our fuel bill went through the roof. We just paid one for $75,000, for May. Generally, we’re around $40,000, $45,000 per month. That’s during this time of year, not in the winter months, when we’re warming the buses up, so the buses are running for a much longer time. I’m a little frightened as to what the upcoming year will be, especially when I’m hearing that there will be increases in the fall.

Another area where we noticed marked increases was in our gas bills. We just received one, for just one location, at $13,000. The carbon tax was $1,800 of that. So those are budget concerns that…. When the budget was done a couple months ago, we weren’t seeing those sorts of inflationary impacts. It’s frightening how we’re going to pursue next year with these…. We budgeted a 3 percent increase. We’re probably likely more 5 to 6 percent.

Just as another note, the water hauling that Helen mentioned. The price of water didn’t go up, but they put a 25 percent fuel surcharge on the water. So we’re seeing…. We have several rural schools where we haul water to the sites.

Those are just a few of the cost implications. That can be addressed through the flat…. We didn’t see an inflationary aspect to the flat funding, but I’m hoping that comes in the fall.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. That’s very eye-opening for an urban person — to really get a picture of the impact of the cost of heating and all of those things. That’s quite significant.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for accommodating us virtually and giving us such great information. I have heard from other school districts that their operational costs are just through the roof. So sounding the alarm bell and giving us a rural context, I think, is incredibly valuable.

If I could just ask for one thing, and that would be that in a written submission, it’s if you could give us what the actual dollar figure is that you would need to accommodate that 5 to 6 percent increase. These practical examples of the fuel costs and of carbon taxes and natural gas, etc., I think, are really helpful for us to put into that context.

Again, just want to thank you for being here. Thank you for the presentation. It was very thought-provoking.

H. Gilbert: We had 300 words to go with our recommendations, so you didn’t get the detail. We’ll get it to you.

R. Merrifield: The written submission, hopefully, will allow that accommodation. We will be going and poring through all of that, as well, just to encourage you to do that, as it would be very helpful for us.

A. Telford: That’s great. We appreciate that opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): I am not seeing any other questions, and I’m not sure we’d have time for it anyway.

Thank you for adding your voices to this dire picture that’s being painted for us of the state of K-to-12 education in the North and the challenges that you still face. We’re hearing you. So thank you very much for taking the time to join us.

[11:55 a.m.]

We have two more presentations before we break for lunch. The next one is Leif Douglass, who is speaking on behalf of Thompson Rivers University Students Union. Hi there, Leif. You have five minutes to make your presentation and recommendations, and we have five minutes to ask you questions.

THOMPSON RIVERS UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS UNION

A. Billy: Sounds good.

Hello, everyone. I hope you’re all doing well. Before I begin, I just wanted to take a moment to thank the committee for giving us this opportunity to present to you today.

Like you said, we are from the Thompson Rivers University Students Union, and we have three recommendations that we wanted to talk to you about today. My name is Azul-Sky Billy, and I am the vice-president external for TRU’s student union.

L. Douglass: I’m Leif Douglass. I’m the campaigns coordinator here for the students union. I’ll be going over our first recommendation, which is to expand the B.C. access grant.

Needs-based grants are one of the most effective ways to make education more accessible, which is increasingly important for our province, looking to the future. The federal government has increased the eligibility for their grant from a maximum of $3,000 up to a maximum of $6,000 per student per year in response to COVID, but this is set to expire after the 2022/23 school year, which is coming up fairly quickly.

As their program winds down, there’s an opportunity for the provincial government to expand on their good work in establishing the B.C. access grant and increase the value of those supports. Particularly, I would note that this will be important for students as they face financial challenges with rising costs of living in many communities across our province.

A. Billy: Our second recommendation is to create a provincial strategy for international students. Currently it is up to every university or college in B.C. to recruit as many international students as they think that they can accommodate, and at TRU and other institutions across the province, this is increasingly a very large percentage of enrolment as well as a correspondingly increasing percentage of revenue. For example, TRU is anticipating, in 2022/2023, $68 million in revenue from international student tuition. That’s compared to just $42 million from domestic students.

This revenue is not typically accounted for in a broader, strategic way across the system. Further, this leads to challenges for international students themselves, as there is no consistency in the types of experiences that they have here in B.C. across different institutions and communities. For institutions, this can lead to significant financial uncertainty as well as unnecessary and resource-intensive competition for the same students.

For these reasons, we support the provincial government creating a provincial strategy for international students. At this point, we don’t have specific asks for this strategy, as we would like to see a full consultation with the sector.

L. Douglass: Our final recommendation is to restore apprenticeship offices to support trades training across the province. Last summer, in 2021, the B.C. government announced they’d be bringing back mandatory trades training, starting with ten trades and being phased in over the next five years or so. We support this change, as we believe it will contribute to workplaces having a high level of safety, where all workers are appropriately trained, where workers are paid fairly.

But with this change, we also believe there will be some increased challenges as a growing number of British Columbians are either coming back for retraining or seeking trades training for the very first time. For this reason, we are recommending the return of institution-specific apprenticeship offices that could help meet the unique needs of these students, such as connecting them with employers, assisting with financial aid as well as other issues.

Those are our three recommendations for the committee today, and we’d be happy to take any questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you so much to both of you. I’m sure we do have questions.

The first one is from Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I just would love to have a little bit of discussion about international students. I know you guys don’t have a specific ask. But I do want to…. It has been brought up quite a few times in our conversations around different post-secondary institutions, including student unions.

Can you give me an example of what kind of specific challenge, other than tuition and limited hours of work…? What kinds of other challenges, when it comes to quality of life, are international students experiencing when they come to study in British Columbia — specifically, I guess, Thompson Rivers University?

[12:00 p.m.]

L. Douglass: I think there are lots of specifics. I think you named a few, but I think there are also all sorts of specifics — for example, different experiences in how international students deal with things like fee deadlines that differ across the province. That, I know, causes a lot of issues, I would say, for international students.

Then during COVID, there’s been a lot of disruption, as I think people around the province are aware, in terms of immigration — all sorts of things like that. It can be really challenging to navigate. So I think there are some really different experiences around issues like that.

I would say housing is a huge one. Obviously, it impacts all British Columbians, but I would say for international students, specifically, they’re often trying to find housing while they’re outside of the country. Maybe they’re facing language barriers. So it’s really hard, when landlords maybe have hundreds of people that are interested in renting from them, to actually secure suites. Things like that.

I would say those are just some general examples. The reason we didn’t give specifics is because we think there’s probably a whole range of issues that maybe aren’t even specific to our institution that the provincial government should be looking at in a strategy to make sure that there is sort of a more consistent experience across the province, if that makes sense.

J. Routledge (Chair): Next question is from Brenda, followed by Mike, followed by Renee.

B. Bailey: Hi. Thank you very for your presentation. I recently had the opportunity to tour Thompson Rivers University and was really impressed by the incredible trades training that you have available there — the women in trades program and your new mechanical area. Just really, really good.

I’m curious about your suggestion to go to an institution-based apprenticeship office. I wonder if we can talk a little bit more about that. I’m curious because of two things. Why is it needed? I’d just like to understand that.

Also, I’m Parliamentary Secretary for Technology, and we’re looking pretty closely at a work-integrated trades apprenticeship model for all kinds of different designations within tech. I think there are other sectors that are also looking at these models. They’ve been proven to be very effective. Trades has shown that.

Do you think there’s possibility for a work-integrated, co-op trades, internship, apprenticeship office that would combine all of those things? Or do you think that there’s a necessity for this particular apprenticeship office to be stand-alone? If you could just flesh that out for me. Thank you.

L. Douglass: Totally, yeah. Great question. This recommendation kind of came from…. It was sort of before my time, but in the ’90s up until the early 2000s, that used to be the model in B.C. From talking to other folks who were around at that point, they’ve said that there were some significant advantages for students.

When you were going through doing your apprenticeship, you weren’t left in the wind to go, “Okay, I’ve finished year 1” or: “I’ve finished year 2. Let me basically try to call around.” Maybe be like: “Do I have to fly out to find out work? Are there opportunities locally?” It’s a bit of a scattershot, often, for students, depending on the trade you’re in, depending on the institution, depending on your faculty, who you might be connected with and who you might not be.

Basically, that’s kind of where this recommendation came from — to say that there could be a much stronger role for every institution to connect students directly to employers but also have a stronger relationship with them to help guide them through the process and meet, maybe, some needs in terms of financial aid.

I think your point is well taken, as well, in terms of maybe expanding that role. Maybe just going back to what we had 20 years ago could be not quite as imaginative as we want to be. There could be some expanded role to be like: what else could that office do? I think we would totally support that.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have a question from Mike, and that’s probably all we’re going to have time for.

Over to you, Mike.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for the presentation. As a person who’s related to a recruiter in the trades, there’s always opportunity to reach out to those organizations and have them come in.

My question is about…. You had talked about the federal grant and how it’s going to cease. You talked about expanding the access grant. How do you see the expansion, and what kind of numbers would be reflective of what the Finance Committee would be looking at?

L. Douglass: Yeah, definitely. It’ll be a $3,000 reduction from the federal government. They haven’t extended that further at this point, in terms of any announcements, as far as I’m aware.

Our provincial grant that we have available for full-time students, in programs longer than two years, is only $1,000, which I would say is on the low end in terms of what provincial governments offer for needs-based grants. I would say we were pretty happy to see that program implemented a couple of years ago, but I think, particularly, moving out of that, there would be an opportunity to expand that.

In terms of, specifically, that number, I think ideally we would like to see that match what the federal government is doing so students are not seeing interrupted supports in that way. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the only route it could go.

[12:05 p.m.]

I think any expansion on that grant would definitely be helpful for students, especially if it was just timed at the timing to sort of pick up that slack a little, if that makes sense.

M. Starchuk: Yep, that makes sense. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you to both of you. We’re out of time now, but we really do appreciate you coming, joining us virtually and making your recommendations. You’d be probably not surprised to know that there are other student unions that have made similar recommendations, so you’ve amplified their voice and we will pay close attention to what you’re recommending.

Our final presentation for the morning is Evan Klassen, representing Western Canada Theatre.

Thanks for joining us, Evan. You have five minutes to make your presentation and recommendations, and we have up to five minutes to ask you questions and explore your presentation in more detail.

WESTERN CANADA THEATRE

E. Klassen: Thank you so much, everyone. Greetings from Western Canada Theatre here in Kamloops, B.C.

On behalf of our artistic director, James MacDonald, and our board president, Beverley DeSantis, we acknowledge that we’re gathered here on the traditional, ancestral and un-surrendered territory of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc. We are grateful to be able to live, work and tell stories on this beautiful land, upholding and supporting a tradition of storytelling that has happened here in this place for generations.

Western Canada Theatre is Kamloops’s own regional theatre organization. We serve a large part of B.C.’s southern Interior, with professional, locally created theatre. Our name aspires to be more than just Kamloops. We aim to serve our local, provincial and national audiences with B.C., Canadian and Indigenous theatre and stories that are created right here in the heart of this province. Thereby, we serve as a bit of a calling card across this province, and for the province across the country.

This morning I’d like to make three recommendations for the next provincial budget.

Our first recommendation is an increase of funding to the B.C. Arts Council. As Western Canada Theatre, our second-largest public funder is the B.C. Arts Council, and it is an important support to our organization, as well as the arts and cultural sector as a whole. WCT aligns well with the province’s aims towards authentic, Indigenous reconciliation, and we welcomed the B.C. Arts Council’s new extending foundations action plan.

It’s critical the funding that flows to BCAC will reach and achieve that promised doubling that was in the previous term of this government. The funding provides organizations like WCT with critical funds to support organizational capacity–building, reconciliation and EDIA.

B.C. Arts Council has also recently undertaken a rebalancing of that funding, and it’s important that this pool of funding really does not stagnate. Organizations are really struggling to recover from the pandemic. We cannot do more with the same financial support. We need to be able to continue to invest in order to achieve those aims of extending foundation.

A second recommendation is to support organizations outside the Lower Mainland. As we are an organization outside of the Lower Mainland, we often balance the engaging of local artists here at home with bringing seasoned professionals in from Vancouver and Victoria. Our communities in the Interior are growing. They are an increased destination for people that are looking to find different qualities of life. But this, in turn, means that we see increased costs in terms of travel and particularly accommodation these days.

These have been really exacerbated by the pandemic. We see fuel prices, resource availability, staffing and availability challenges at hotels and more. Add to this, of course, the increased need for us as an organization to provide better access to mental and physical health resources to artists who are away from home, away from their support networks. The pandemic certainly has refocused organizations on ensuring the health and sustainability of our artists and staff, and this does come at a cost.

Just as one example, in our recent season that finished, we saw costs triple to bring in artists to Kamloops from the Lower Mainland, and these costs just simply cannot be recovered through ticket prices. We need a full, provincewide strategy to support organizations who are engaging B.C. artists away from their home and point of residence.

[12:10 p.m.]

Thirdly, our final recommendation is in our infrastructure funding. Western Canada Theatre has its home office and production facilities in a converted cattle auction house. That serves as our pavilion theatre. It is our administrative and production home. We still use lighting and sound equipment from Expo 86. We operate the largest soft-seat theatre in Kamloops, the 685 seat Sagebrush Theatre. It’s no longer adequate for our technical needs.

Just one example. During our recent production of The Wizard of Oz, we actually had to store scenery in a tent in the parking lot because the theatre’s backstage spaces simply were not adequate for the production.

Add to that, with it being one of the only soft-seat theatres in Kamloops, the demand for dates in the theatre also outstrips availability. We just do not have enough dates to go around to meet the demand.

WCT has been a leader, and continues to be a leader, in the push to build a new arts centre in the Kamloops area. We were working lockstep with the city of Kamloops, along with the Kamloops Centre for the Arts Society, towards a referendum to build a new arts centre here when the pandemic struck, which forced the cancellation of that referendum.

As we recover from the pandemic, of course, that momentum is now increasing again, and we will need to act quickly in the coming months to leverage provincial and federal funds towards this building project. We hope that we can count on provincial infrastructure funds to support this essential project in our community.

Thanks so much for the time. I look forward to your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thanks, Evan.

We do have questions. The first one is from Renee.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you, Evan, for the presentation and for your representation of the arts. I really appreciate hearing from you.

I’m going to focus on your last recommendation. That is on the infrastructure spending and, in particular, the theatre requirements. I got a little bit lost in all of the different theatres that you were speaking of. Would all of those theatres be replaced if there was a centralized performing arts space? That’s my first question.

I’m going to tag on my second question. That is: what’s the order of magnitude, in dollars, that Kamloops or WCT would be looking for, for that space — obviously, shared between all three levels of government as well as private spending?

E. Klassen: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for the question. We operate a studio theatre. That’s the pavilion. We have a larger space. Both of those spaces are going to be realized in the future arts centre initiative. That was, actually, an initiative…. We were working in partnership with the city of Kamloops towards a referendum. There’s a society that’s been formed that includes ourselves, the local orchestra, the Kamloops Symphony, as well as the art gallery here that was going to be moving that project forward.

We had an indicative design in 2019-2020. It was about a $70 million project. It had one level of underground parking. There have been some efforts to revive that proposal. Of course, in the last three years, we’ve seen the cost of building go up tremendously. We also know that if we’re making a structure of this magnitude, we want it to be able to serve all of Kamloops. So parking has to be considered. I believe the last number that was talked about was around $90 million between all three levels of government.

Obviously, we have a municipal election coming up. So there is some energy around this idea in the community once again. We are trying to gain some traction to make sure that this project doesn’t get lost in the shuffle that’s coming in October.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the advocacy that you bring to this.

E. Klassen: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Other questions?

I’m not seeing other questions, Evan. I do want to thank you for the time you’ve taken to present to us and for your leadership and the work that you’re doing in the arts. Those of us that are urban MLAs…. Those of us that have been drawn to the city stay in the big city in part because of access to the performing arts.

You remind us that we should not take that for granted and that it may not actually be compatible with our vision and plans for supporting the economy and supporting people outside of the big urban areas and that the arts are important to drawing people to communities and having them stay.

Thank you so much. We’ll say goodbye.

E. Klassen: Thank you so much for the time.

J. Routledge (Chair): We will now recess. I’m going to suggest we recess till one. We’re a little bit behind. If we can catch up on five minutes, that would help.

The committee recessed from 12:15 p.m. to 1:01 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Welcome, everybody. Our next presenter today is Jeremy Dunn, presenting on behalf of B.C. Dairy Association.

Welcome, Jeremy. You have five minutes to make your presentation and your recommendations, and then we have five minutes to ask and for you to answer questions. We have a bit of a tight time frame, everybody, so we need to be quite disciplined.

Jeremy, over to you.

B.C. DAIRY ASSOCIATION

J. Dunn: Thank you so much for having me here today, Chair and committee. As mentioned, I’m the general manager of the B.C. Dairy Association. B.C. Dairy is a producer association, governed by a board of 11 dairy farmers from all regions in British Columbia. We represent about 470 dairy farmers and their families and employees. Our industry contributes over $1.2 billion to our provincial GDP and about 13,000 full-time jobs right across B.C. Milk is the most valuable agricultural commodity in our province.

Today I’m going to talk about an incredibly high priority for B.C. Dairy. That’s water. It’s not the first time I’ve shared this perspective with this committee. As you’re well aware, B.C. dairy farmers have dealt with catastrophic floods through the Fraser Valley and other parts of B.C. this year. As well, many of our farmers have lost crops and faced economic challenges due to drought and lack of water. Available water supply is not just a long-term issue. There are immediate challenges in critical agricultural areas, and there have been for the past few years.

Without predictable access to water, dairy farming is not sustainable. Climate change has impacted the availability of water for dairy farmers in many regions, particularly in the Okanagan and on Vancouver Island. One example is the Koksilah watershed, which is part of the greater Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. For more than a decade, there has been ongoing community engagement and work in the region. Numerous studies have recommended options to manage both supply and demand; however, there has been little investment in water supply over this time, and the population has continued to grow.

Three summers ago, agricultural water access was restricted through the use of a fish protection order. Protecting wild fish is critically important; however, there was an associated loss of important and valuable crops. Ahead of the summer of 2020, farmers voluntarily developed a water schedule plan in order to assist in regulating demand. Government provided funding for an important water resource manager. The system helped, but it’s not a viable long-term solution. Last summer: further water access restrictions, more lost crops. Some farmers have indicated that they’re not sure if their business can survive if they do not have some predictable access to water.

Restricting demand — essentially, picking winners and losers — divides communities. It directly impacts food production for communities in the watershed. It impacts the viability of farms that have fed us for over a century. It cannot be the only solution.

Developing new water supply infrastructure in regions experiencing both increased demand and a reduction in supply from existing sources is a necessary investment to make. Climate change has an environmental cost, but there’s also a greater human cost: substantial financial and mental health pressures on farmers who are already under strain. Without adequate agricultural water, food cannot be produced. Without food, the health and resiliency of our communities are at risk.

[1:05 p.m.]

Speaking of risk, the risk of severe flooding in the Sumas Prairie has been well known by local farmers for a long time. This past winter, that risk was realized in catastrophic fashion. Farmers today are under threat of flood from freshet in the Fraser Valley and throughout other parts of B.C.

There is significant harm to the financial and mental health of our dairy producers. It is still ongoing today. A third-party analysis of damage from the November floods to the Sumas Prairie alone estimates the cost to dairy families at between $22 million and $100 million, including homes which are mostly still under some level of repair. I saw a report last night that estimated the total cost of November’s atmospheric rivers, all told, at close to $15 billion.

B.C. Dairy believes that the province has an important role in protecting our critical agricultural regions and our food security from an increasing frequency of climate change–related natural disasters. These investments don’t need to be made in five or ten years; they need to be made now. This includes provincial funding and strengthened partnerships with local governments that facilitate upgrades to critical agricultural commodity supply chain infrastructure, such as our highways, bridges and roads. Where infrastructure fails, funding should be made rapidly available for road repair and infrastructure, in partnership with federal and local governments.

Yesterday, the Abbotsford city council approved a plan to overhaul its flood prevention systems. This would cost $2 billion. We’ve not reviewed their specific plan, but urge prioritization of the required funds to make meaningful improvement as soon as possible, whatever the final plan may be.

As we saw last year, our food supply chain is incredibly fragile. While our food producers face many devastating challenges, their commitment to feed our communities did not waver. We need your support so that we can keep our communities vibrant and healthy, with investments to ensure that our farmers can continue to have access to water and the infrastructure to protect them from inevitable climate change events in the future.

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

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Jeremy. I really appreciate the eye-opening presentation you’ve provided for all of us.

If you don’t mind me going back a bit to earlier in your presentation about watersheds, I guess the competition is between water security for fish versus water provisioning for agriculture and livestock — right now, a bigger challenge. Obviously, we are always talking about food security. You and I both understand that unfortunately, food security fundamentally rests upon water security. Without water security, there really can be no food security.

I would love to hear from B.C. Dairy saying what we can do as a provincial government, as you mentioned earlier, to comprehensively fund a strategy that can provide water security, so that both our fish stocks and our water supply can be protected and that of course, hopefully, the agriculture and livestock will also be protected as well.

J. Dunn: Thank you for your question and your comments. The process that’s underway that Minister Osborne is leading on the watershed security strategy is a critically important process. The involvement of First Nations in government-to-government conversations absolutely is in the right place. We need to consider water for our crops and our agriculture as we do drinking water. Drinking water is foundational, but so is the rest of our food supply.

If we’re going to have an agricultural land reserve that is healthy, it must have water attached to that reserve to be able to be maintained as functional and quality agriculture-supporting land.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Jeremy. Good to see you again. I want to ask about this water infrastructure security, etc. Has there been an investment in the planning of what it’s going to take, outside of the atmospheric river and all of that magnitude of the issue, and what has to be done? Has there been any work that would lead us to, specifically, getting on with it in the most pressing areas?

J. Dunn: In the Sumas Prairie, MLA Stewart, the city of Abbotsford released its plan yesterday — it has got a $2 billion price tag — to ensure the security from floods of that particular region. Now, that’s only one region in the province, and I’m sure that you hear from others upcountry that have other figures that protect that land. But in the Abbotsford-Sumas area, it’s $2 billion.

B. Stewart: My question was on other areas outside of Sumas Prairie — the Okanagan, Vancouver Island, the ones you just mentioned. Is there a plan of any sort?

J. Dunn: Not that I’m aware of. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a plan. But not that I’m aware of. There certainly should be, though.

[1:10 p.m.]

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Jeremy, for the presentation today. I almost could put the B.C. Fruit Growers Association side by each on a panel discussion to talk about water security and water provision and how that disadvantages them — two of the neighbours to the south.

My question to you is this. A lot of times our conversation has gone to reservoirs or water storage. Would that be similar for B.C. Dairy? Would you see that, for the most part, across the province, or is it localized in certain areas?

J. Dunn: We think the approach of looking at each individual watershed with the local communities is probably the right one.

When we talk about storage, we’re thinking about water supply versus water demand. Water demand is cutting restrictions and being sustainable in use. Sustainable in use is critical, but from a farm perspective, we can’t have the water turned off at points in the year. We need to be able to have water to drink and water for fish — absolutely — and water for the people that live there.

That means we probably need to make investments in supply — dams, reservoirs, recharging aquifers. These things are expensive. They are needed in the future. It’s always talked about as: “We will need this when climate change is realized.” It’s here, folks. We need it now. We need a plan, with some money, so that these projects can get underway, because they certainly aren’t built overnight.

R. Merrifield: I couldn’t agree with you more. Climate change is here, and we need to deal with the here and now as well as in the future.

Thank you very much, Jeremy, for that.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions.

B. Stewart: Can I ask one more quickly?

J. Routledge (Chair): If you can get an answer in, in 14 seconds.

B. Stewart: Jeremy, thanks again.

I just want to know…. To MLA Merrifield’s question, you talked about the water security for humans and animals. I guess what I’m kind of wondering is…. Are there ways that the…? Have you looked at the industry as to how we can conserve water better in terms of crops, which are big users — rain guns and all that type of stuff? Are there other options that we could do to improve or utilize the water?

J. Dunn: Certainly. Quickly, I’ve got a board member who’s about to spend a quarter of a million dollars on top-end irrigation equipment for his dairy farm. He has no predictability of water access. We’re asking farmers to make investments. We need to give them predictability of water access, to be able to know that they’re going to be able to farm there for generations to come. Today they’re concerned with that.

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

I think the time is long past since we can take water for granted. We think of Canada as this big source of water for the world. You’re reminding us that those days are over, and we need to get our act together.

Thank you for your leadership on this. We look forward to working with you in the future to make sure that we address the water shortage.

J. Dunn: Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, committee.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Donegal Wilson, representing the B.C. Snowmobile Federation.

You have five minutes to make your presentation and recommendations, followed by up to five minutes for questions and discussion. Over to you.

B.C. SNOWMOBILE FEDERATION

D. Wilson: Good afternoon. I wish I was there in person, but Zoom will do. Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Donegal Wilson. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Snowmobile Federation.

I’m here today with two recommendations to this committee for next year’s budget. The first is to increase the operational budget of Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. to $20 million annually. The second is to establish a recreation infrastructure fund with an annual investment of $5 million.

I wanted to share that we’re not a small, unorganized sector. The B.C. Snowmobile Federation is a 57-year-old organization that currently represents 60 snowmobile clubs, 8,500 members and 43,000 snowmobilers in B.C.

[1:15 p.m.]

According to our economic impact study completed in 2018, in the four months we operate, our sport provides $299 million each year to the economy of B.C. and supports 4,272 rural jobs. We also represent almost $22 million in revenue to the various levels of government. We have entire towns that depend on our clubs opening for the season.

What is unique about the snowmobile sector is that each of our clubs is a non-profit association managed by volunteers, most often creating and operating our snowmobile trails on Crown land. I would hazard a guess that we were one of the first recreation user groups to implement a user-pay fee structure, which ensures that our trails are sustainable long term and that our infrastructure is built through rider support and private grants, not relying solely on government funding.

As non-profits, all money collected is invested directly back into our trails, allowing us to continually improve and grow. While our clubs and infrastructure could definitely use a strong investment, the reality is that today, for the second year in a row, I’m not here asking for funding for my snowmobile clubs, but we are looking for funding for our government partner, Recreation Sites and Trails B.C.

Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. is the provincial agency created to manage and support recreation on the 80 percent of land that is not within the authority or budgets of B.C. Parks. They are now aligned under the same ministry, but Rec Sites and Trails still maintains a separate budget of less than one-third of what B.C. Parks receives.

The snowmobile sector needs a partner within government that wants to help us grow our sector in a way that aligns with our values and to provide strong leadership and support to establish, maintain and protect quality opportunities for organized snowmobiling in B.C.

While I believe that Rec Sites and Trails was designed to be that partner, the reality is that today they do not have the capacity to lead and, therefore, are continually managing down. I’m not sure if this is a term used within government or not. Essentially, due to low staffing levels and stagnant budgets, they are constantly looking for ways to reduce workload, download responsibility and create roadblocks to growth.

In 2020, Rec Sites and Trails was managing 2,588 sites or established trails and over 900 unestablished trails in B.C. They are doing this with only 51 permanent staff. So it’s easy to see why they’re struggling. As their partner, that leaves us with only two options: reduce our growth to match that of our partner or increase the capacity of our partner. We’re here today asking you to increase the capacity of our partner.

The province of B.C. depends on recreation groups and volunteers to continue to maintain, develop and manage recreation infrastructure in B.C. Every trail in B.C. — be it hiking, biking skiing, snowmobiling, horseback riding, ATVing, climbing or you name it — is built on the back of volunteers. In order for this to be sustainable, they need a partner that is leading, supporting and helping us grow, not managing down. We believe they need an increase from $8 million a year to $20 million a year to accomplish this.

While Rec Sites and Trails is responsible for the management and maintenance of many recreation sites across B.C., it is also directly responsible for the rail trails in B.C. These are national assets gifted to the province of B.C. to provide recreational and economic opportunity for the communities along them.

These trails have been allowed to deteriorate to a point of almost no return. There’s no master plan or investment strategy for how we’re going to maintain these assets long term. Increasingly, we’re seeing sections of trail become impassible, individual communities making decisions that restrict access to certain user groups and our clubs being unsure whether they should be investing $200,000 to replace one trestle when there are ten more in the same area with no plan.

This is just one of the many examples of why we have made our second recommendation, which is intended to establish a recreation infrastructure fund for the province to leverage, as a 33-cent dollar, and to encourage investment by the federal government and B.C. recreation groups. This will create a fund of $15 million a year to ensure careful, strategic investments are made that continue to grow outdoor recreation as a tourism opportunity in B.C. This fund should be administered by Rec Sites and Trails to ensure those investments align with the provincial trail strategy.

We hope that you consider our two recommendations. Thank you for your time.

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

Mike has the first question.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Donegal, for your presentation.

I’ll be relatively brief. You’re asking for, basically, a $12 million increase to the budget that helps out Rec Sites and Trails B.C. What would be the outcome of a $12 million increase?

D. Wilson: We believe that they need adequate staff to process new applications for trails and to help our clubs get through the process of First Nations and the proper consultation process required. As it stands right now, any applications for a section 57, an authorization to do work…. Rec Sites and Trails does not have the capacity to manage those.

[1:20 p.m.]

We believe that $12 million will provide proper planning, staffing and funding to ensure Rec Sites and Trails can be an adequate partner.

M. Starchuk: Okay. Just to be clear, because at the end you talked about federal government. Is this $12 million also utilized to coordinate the different efforts that are out there?

You gave us a perfect example of working on one trestle while there are ten more down the street. Working on one doesn’t have any ability to improve anything unless the other ten are there. So is that part and parcel, or is that in addition to?

D. Wilson: That was $5 million in addition to that was strictly set up for those volunteer organizations and non-profits to apply to, to do the work and provide Rec Sites and Trails the funding they need to manage the rail trails specifically.

There is a large, ongoing investment that needs to start with a master plan. Right now Rec Sites and Trails does not even have the capacity to build a plan, let alone to actually execute on it.

M. Starchuk: Great. Thank you. I hope to hear from them later on.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. There was a lot of information there. I didn’t get everything written down, so I just want to clarify with you.

The establishment of the recreation infrastructure fund, with a budget of $5 million…. I missed the part where it then became a $15 million kind of endowment fund. How is that working, and who were the other partners in providing funding for that?

D. Wilson: We believe that if the province committed $5 million, the federal government, through Western Economic Diversification or other programs, would match that $5 million. Then the rec groups…. It would be up to them to come up with the matching. So that puts it down to a 33-cent dollar for our volunteer groups to invest.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Now I get it.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions. I think that means you’ve made a very clear case. Hasn’t been a lot of room for confusion for us.

Thank you for making the link between your organization, snowmobiling and the benefit to the local economies. I mean, that is very dramatic. Thank you for pointing out a capacity problem that we’re experiencing in the government. We will work with this information.

D. Wilson: My only other comment is to ensure that I did land that Rec Sites and Trails manages 80 percent that isn’t within B.C. Parks. While B.C. Parks is beginning the bump-ups, which we fully appreciate — we have many partnerships within parks — this is looking for the other 80 percent of the province that is not within a park.

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

Our next presenter is Paul Adams, representing B.C. Rural Health Network.

Welcome, Paul. You have five minutes to make your presentation and talk about your recommendations, and then we have up to five minutes to ask you questions. So over to you.

B.C. RURAL HEALTH NETWORK

P. Adams: Thank you very much, and I appreciate the time and the invite to speak to you today.

I first will recognize that I live, work and play in the Syilx territory in the upper Similkameen region of British Columbia, just outside the community of Princeton.

I’m here today to represent the B.C. Rural Health Network. We’re a group and a collaborative network of like-minded organizations that represent the health and health interests of rural British Columbians all over the province, and we have members in member communities throughout B.C.

I would also like to recognize that both our chair and co-chair today have worked in and championed areas that we also find to be essential to rural life, including equity, community outreach and helping the most vulnerable.

I have outlined, in my brief, that there are three areas of interest that we see a need to invest in, and they’re all directly related. We have seen a significant problem in rural British Columbia in people’s connection to their health care system and to science-based information and facts.

[1:25 p.m.]

This has been declining significantly over, really, decades. But the COVID-19 pandemic and recent emergency events have heightened those problems and really brought them to the forefront and created problems not only in health care service provision but with the spread of misinformation and non-science-based information between members of communities.

We have seen that the top-down approach in communicating with rural has failed to hit the mark and that, really, rural communities work best when they are communicating from the grass roots up. With information spreading through platforms such as social media, we do see that that same method of grassroots communication is being effectively utilized through social media platforms in the spreading of misinformation. So we really see a need to start reversing those trends and investing in rural communication and connection.

Now, the B.C. Rural Health Network formed about 40 years ago as a group of advocacy organizations that were protecting health interests in rural British Columbia due to things such as centralization of services. Really, since they first came together — and it was done with the suggestion of government at the time, that there was an umbrella group formed in order to provide a more universal rural voice — the group has grown organically. We now not only represent advocacy organizations, but we represent communities directly.

Perhaps, our biggest portion of our membership base are the volunteers who work in the communities, whether that’s in hospice or palliative care or in Meals on Wheels and various other volunteer organizations and entities throughout rural British Columbia. We really feel there’s a discrepancy between how we’re invested in and represented.

Although we actually sit and chair at several provincial-level tables on health, the rural voice is sometimes listened to but is often not heard, so we really see the need to invest in an organization that works at the grass roots. We really are the only voice in B.C. that is representing rural interests in the health area, in the health field. We’d like to see some equity in the amount of investment that government makes directly into that communication base.

With very few resources and a lot of volunteer hours and with a lot of dedication and hard work, we work daily on outreach and to present information to rural residents that’s based in science and connects them back to their health care system.

I’m also aware…. I’m grateful for the panel here, and many of the people who are representing today as MLAs also have worked in health care or do represent health care interests in their communities, so I’m grateful and appreciative for that.

I see my time is up, so I will hand over for any questions you may have.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Paul. Yes, there are questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Paul, for that. Yes, there was a lot we all learned in this last year in terms of the differences in rural communication, urban, and everything that was happening.

I’m curious. When you talk about the grassroots, community-level communication methods, what does that mean? I know you talked about community investment in volunteerism, and there’s an ability to have kind of a grassroots communication just through working with those community groups, but can you give some examples of those communication recommendations or methods?

P. Adams: Certainly. Social media has become the online coffee shop for many communities, and rural B.C. is no different. We see local Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, just general social media information reaching people readily.

Unfortunately, most of that information is misinformation. Then the local community groups will spread that information between each other, and those things become cemented in people’s minds as being factual. Then they go out into their communities, and in their actual physical discussions and interactions with each other, then tend to spread that misinformation through communities.

[1:30 p.m.]

I think that becomes very apparent when we’re looking at things like vaccination rates and responses to directives coming in from our experts. Those are now being looked at with skepticism and doubt.

We’re reinforcing those messages, and with very little investment, we’ve created a new website that I’d encourage you to look at, which is bcruralhealth.org. We start countering some of that information with real information.

Again, with some money and ability we could staff people in outreach who would work directly with reaching out to individual communities and getting more social media contacts and connection, and doing more in that arena.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Just to clarify, and I think you got it at the end there…. You’re looking for grassroots, community-level communication — new ways of dealing with the social media and the Facebook pages and all of that.

I’m trying to understand what government can do in order to push out what would have been health information and vaccination information. You’re saying government did it maybe not the wrong way, but there were better ways to engage with community.

P. Adams: I think that, over time, it’s just become a situation where the trust has dropped to a level that people just are no longer accepting the official statements coming from the top down. Again, our membership tends to be the volunteers working at the grassroots level and moving that information up. If we’re ensuring that our membership is given factual information and invested in, then they do a good job, in their door-to-door work and just in their community outreach, whether it’s community services or other programs, in reaching more residents.

Again, if you have 20,000 physicians in rural B.C. who are receiving over $1 million of money from government to represent those 20,000 voices, and we have 1½ million people who are residents and patients and they’re not receiving any investment, then there’s a feeling of discrepancy between how those voices are represented. It’s not that we don’t…. We’re very closely connected with rural physicians of B.C. and the RCCBC and Doctors of B.C. and other groups. We’re just looking to have an equal investment in communication at the rural level.

J. Routledge (Chair): Looking at the time, I think we have time for one more question.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Paul. Building off that same subject…. I mean, we always heard it on Seinfeld. If you say it enough times, you believe it’s true. I really like the fact that you have that connection that’s already there.

Is it your intent to just simply support the information that comes from government and the other doctor organizations out there from a medical point of view, or is it to basically tell people: “No, that’s not correct”?

P. Adams: Well, I’d say it’s both. It’s a correction of misinformation, and it’s a provision of accurate, science-based, factual information. As an organization, we’re solutions-based. We have regular meetings with health authorities, with BCMHSUS, with Ministry of Health, with Ministry of Mental Health and other associated ministries.

We’re interested in providing solutions and providing information to solutions and to being a conduit. It’s not a unidirectional conversation. We’re looking to provide information from the grassroots to the authorities and vice versa.

Again, we just see that there is a discrepancy to how our voice is represented and invested in, and we would strongly recommend that more effort and focus is put on rural grassroots.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Paul. We’re out of time.

This is a very interesting topic that you’ve raised. The whole issue of rural voices and the issue of social media and misinformation is pretty topical. We want to thank you for taking the time to meet with us and to share your thoughts and for the leadership that you and the network are exercising to try to amplify rural voices when it comes to health care and to take on the issue of misinformation.

Thank you very much for your contributions.

P. Adams: Thank you all, and thank you all for your service.

[1:35 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Amber Papou, who is representing SelfDesign Learning Foundation.

Amber, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation and explain your recommendations. Then we have up to five minutes to ask you questions.

SELFDESIGN LEARNING FOUNDATION

A. Papou: Wonderful. Thanks for inviting me here today to speak with you. I’m not sure if the Chair introduced me, but I’ll introduce myself anyway. My name is Amber Papou, and I’m the president and CEO of the SelfDesign Learning Foundation. Our foundation is 40 years old, actually, this year, and we have been working at developing and implementing personalized and online and lifelong learning programs for the past 40 years.

We have two programs. Our newest program is called the HomeLearners Network. It’s a program that has been developed as an online supplement for learners who are learning online at home, both in B.C. and throughout North America. Our largest program, the one I’m actually directing this conversation to today, is the SelfDesign Learning Community.

The foundation is the school authority for the SelfDesign Learning Community, which is one of the largest independent online schools for K-to-12 learners in the province. We currently enrol about 2,100 learners in K to 12, and an additional 500 children are enrolled in our home-schooling program.

We have a connection to the ministry in many ways. We align our program completely with the mandate of the minister in regards to the curriculum. As well, we are very proud to say that we work towards inclusion and celebration of diversity. We also based our model on the principles of Indigenous learning, and we do share, in terms of our programming, shared responsibility and reconciliation.

We have approximately 200 certified B.C. teachers that work with us. Seventy of those specialize in working with children with special needs. We have a very small — which makes us unique — ratio of teachers to learners. It is 1 to 33 maximum, regardless of the grade, and even lower for our educators who work with children with special needs.

In regards to 10 to 12, we’re also very unique in the sense that we are a school record. We do not cross-enrol, and we have a very high completion rate. It is a little higher than 95 percent.

In regards to inclusion, we are the largest school record for children with special needs in the province. That’s regardless of whether it’s public or independent, online or otherwise. We have approximately 700 learners that are designated with low incidence, which receives supplemental funding from the ministry, and an additional 250 to 300, depending upon the year, of learners with high incidence.

That dependence is really depending upon how many resources we have for the learners with high-incidence learning, because they do not receive supplemental funding from the ministry. We do support these learners, despite receiving about 33 percent of what a public brick-and-mortar receives. The high-incidence learners do require significant support for their learning, including access to assessments.

Based on that, I have two recommendations, and I have two minutes, so that’s good. I first want to say that I acknowledge that the government and, in particular, the Ministry of Education do make decisions based on the best interests of families and children in the province. However, I do have a couple of concerns in regards to some of the changes that have been made in the last couple of years.

One in particular — and one of my recommendations is based on that — is I would like to recommend that the ministry consider increasing the per-student funding grant back to the minimum of what it was prior to the 21 percent cut that we received in funding in our per-student grant back in 2020. Ideally, I’d love the ministry to consider increasing that rate to the same as the public online schools.

The rationale for this is that the majority of our learners, especially in special needs, do not thrive or do well or succeed in traditional or brick-and-mortar schools. Thus, our families make financial sacrifices to be part of our program and be able to educate their learners at home. As a result, being a charity, as a school authority, we do not charge tuition for our program. In addition, because of the funding cuts, there has been a dramatic decrease in support that we can provide our high-incidence special needs learners.

The second recommendation is to increase the funding of the supplementary funding grant for all learners with special needs. Inflationary costs, cost of living and supply chain issues have increased the amount of funds that have been required to support those learners. That would be over and above what is being issued today.

[1:40 p.m.]

Finally, in closing, I’d just like to say thank you. I just want to acknowledge that we support the ministry in regards to the curricular outcomes and the model in which they operate, and we feel that we operate as a partner to the ministry and are here to help wherever we can.

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

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

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Amber, for the presentation. I really appreciate it.

What is the order of magnitude to restore funding up to the 2020 level, and do you know what the differential is between what you receive and what the public school receives? I was trying to take notes here, but I might’ve missed that.

A. Papou: I can’t give you an actual in regards to public schools. As I was a teacher — I’m a B.C.-certified teacher, and I worked in the public system — my understanding is that many districts have different per-student-rate funding, depending on their location geographically. But we used an average to determine what that number is.

Basically, we receive around 33 percent in our per-student general grant as a public brick-and-mortar does on an average. Order of magnitude in regards to how that affected us in 2020, which is slightly different than it would be today…. It was roughly $1.6 million that was taken off of our revenues to support learners.

R. Merrifield: Okay, so $1.6 million to restore back to the 2020 levels, and then that represents about 33 percent of what the public school system receives?

A. Papou: Yes.

R. Merrifield: Perfect. Thank you so much for the clarification, and thank you for the presentation today.

B. Bailey: Hi, Amber. Thank you very much for the presentation. Nice to see you.

I’m wondering if you could just…? I apologize. I walked in a couple of minutes late to your presentation, coming from another meeting, so I’m sorry if I’m asking you to repeat something.

I’m trying to understand your funding model. I heard you say that you receive funding from the Ministry of Education. You don’t charge the individuals or the families that receive your services. So what other sources of funding are you accessing? What is your funding model?

A. Papou: We are a foundation, and we’re a charity. I can’t speak for other independent online schools, but it makes us a little different. We’re not associated with a church, or anything like that.

We receive funding partially through additional…. We would call it tuition, if you will, but not directly for the program. It’s for additional services that we might offer families, like in-person camps, etc., as well as our new program, which is the HomeLearners Network. The HomeLearners Network is designed to support our learners in SDLC, and they have access to it without cost. But for learners outside of SDLC, in B.C. and in North America, we do charge a minimal fee for them to access those activities.

B. Bailey: Do we have time for other questions?

Amber, I’ve been allowed a second question, so me again. I wonder if you can share with me what percentage of the students are British Columbian and what percentage are from outside of B.C.

A. Papou: At SDLC, it’s 100 percent B.C.

B. Bailey: Okay, so it’s just in regards to the camps and the HomeLearners Network that you have students that are outside of British Columbia.

A. Papou: Yes. HomeLearners Network isn’t part of the school. It’s a separate program. So it doesn’t run into the same…. Again, because we’re a charity, we can offer programs. We can accept donations. We can do those types of things. It makes us slightly different than, say, a school board, for example, in the public system. Again, I can’t speak for other independent schools and how they access other funding, but we’re a charity.

B. Bailey: If the Chair would indulge me, I have a third question.

I don’t see another hand, so I’m getting to speak to you a lot, Amber. Thank you.

I’m thinking about the comparison that you’ve given us in regards to how much a student would be funded in a brick-and-mortar school versus through the options that your organization provides. I wonder. Do you know…? Does that calculation include the costs of running a school, or are those capital costs separated out? I imagine that they’re quite different expenses, running online versus brick and mortar.

A. Papou: I can’t speak for a brick and mortar. I don’t know their baselines. We have different costs associated — IT, technology and developing in that realm, I think, pretty significantly.

Of course, we don’t have the same costs in terms of maintenance of a building, etc. So I can’t do the comparison for sure. But I can say that in terms of support, a significant amount, well over 70 percent, of our funding goes directly back to our learners, especially in our SE, special education, programs.

J. Routledge (Chair): A quick final question.

[1:45 p.m.]

R. Merrifield: It really is quick.

Thanks again for giving me a second question, and that is: what percentage of students would be alternately abled or have some form of disability, out of the percentage that you serve?

A. Papou: Of us, approximately 50 percent of our enrolment.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the clarification.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Amber, we’re just about out of time. I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for joining us. Thank you for what you do, for what you offer to students in British Columbia, and for making the connection with inclusion — that what you offer is about allowing more students to be included.

Our next presenter is Adam Jensen, representing CUPE Okanagan Mainline district council. Welcome, Adam. You have five minutes to make your presentation and present your recommendations. Then we have up to five minutes to ask you further questions.

CUPE OKANAGAN MAINLINE
DISTRICT COUNCIL

A. Jensen: Good afternoon, committee members. I’m Adam Jensen, and I am the president of the Okanagan Mainline district council of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. Our council represents public sector workers in the Thompson-Okanagan region, where CUPE members work predominantly in the municipal, library or public education sectors.

I come from CUPE 900, which is a municipal local, representing workers in the Thompson-Nicola, including those working for the cities of Kamloops, Merritt, Ashcroft, Barriere, Chase, Clearwater, Clinton and Logan Lake. We also represent workers at the Thompson-Nicola regional district and in the village of Lytton.

Though I am a municipal worker, it is not local government I would like to present on today. Our council represents K-to-12 workers across the Thompson-Okanagan. As a new parent myself, I understand that the challenges faced in this sector are affecting all of us, especially those of us with young families. Schools are a key point of contact for diverse populations, and recent experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic have shown us how they can be a venue for community disease spread.

Daytime custodial hours are our first line of defence in stopping the spread of colds, flus and other common illnesses in our schools. The work of daytime custodians reduces the amount of time that staff and students miss due to illness and protects the overall health of families and communities. During the pandemic, enhanced cleaning and custodial work was a key strategy to maintaining school health. This had extremely positive results for students, families, workers and communities.

Many school districts do not fund daytime custodial positions or hours, leaving public schools with evening or nighttime custodial services only. This was not always the case, as daytime custodians were fairly universal across all schools in B.C. prior to 2000. As part of sweeping cuts to the public sector by the past government in the early 2000s, school districts suffered funding shortfalls, and daytime custodial services were among the casualties of the system funding cuts. Cuts to daytime custodians were a financial decision. The negative impacts to school health, which are better understood today, were not properly considered.

Daytime custodial work featured prominently in the 2020-2021 school reopening and operations planning. Through one-time pandemic funding, universal daytime custodial hours were implemented for all B.C. schools for the first time in 20 years. The conclusion of the pandemic funding means that daytime custodial hours have been, or will be, cut again. Our improved knowledge about disease vectors, transmissions, community spread and the effects on vulnerable populations demands an expanded investment in prevention.

[1:50 p.m.]

Maintaining and expanding funds for full restoration of daytime custodial staff is a reasonable direction that will enhance schools’ health and help protect children, workers and the public. We recommend that the 2023 B.C. budget include increased funding to the school district to maintain, expand and/or restore daytime custodial staff.

Educational assistants, or EAs, are a key part of the public school system and perform a variety of roles. With a focus on providing individual assistance, EAs support a cross-section of students who require a diverse array of specialized resources. The work of EAs ensures educational success for our community’s most vulnerable students and relieves workloads for teachers and other school staff. EAs have evolved to be a critical support structure of the K-to-12 system.

An overwhelming majority of educational assistants in B.C. work less than seven hours per day. With a ten-month employment pattern, overall income levels are very low. Eighty percent of educational assistants in B.C. earn less than $36,101 a year. A systemic model of underemployment and very low incomes undermine this vital profession and undermine the recruitment and retention.

Additionally, the EA workforce is more than 90 percent women, meaning that this model of underemployment contributes negatively to the ongoing struggles with pay equity for women workers. EAs frequently cite both hours of work and unpaid time as the most significant negative aspects of the job, and unpaid time is a significant issue for this profession. Approximately 40 percent of EAs report that they do extra work in addition to their regular position as an EA. This further undermines the sustainability of EA jobs.

J. Routledge (Chair): Adam, if you could wrap it up. Oh, you’re wrapping it up.

A. Jensen: Yeah. I’ll finish up now. Thank you for your patience.

Our second recommendation is that the 2023 B.C. budget include increased funding to school districts to expand working hours of educational assistants to make these jobs more sustainable for workers and to provide better access to support kids in need.

Thank you very much. I will accept any questions.

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

Our first question is from Megan.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for that thorough presentation. I appreciate you going into detail on your recommendations.

I’m curious in regards to the janitorial, custodial daytime hours. That’s something that, as a former school trustee, I remember being a long conversation that has taken place over the years, of the concerns about those salaries being cut.

Now, what I’m wondering is: as a union, have you received any information on the percentage of school districts that are still maintaining daytime custodial hours, any that have decided to permanently include that into budget projections going forward, or conversations where those have ended? I know that, as you mentioned, during the pandemic those hours were put in there. So I was wondering what the state of play is right now.

A. Jensen: Thank you, Megan, for the question. That’s an excellent question. I don’t have those numbers for you, unfortunately. I believe I’ll be looking into them myself now that you’ve raised this important numbers issue. However, I do believe that these hours are being cut in general.

As you said, being a former trustee…. I ran for school trustee myself and was not successful, but I know the struggle that it takes to run for a position that doesn’t get a lot of air time, if you will. So all the power to you.

What I would say is that I want my child to have the same kind of cleanliness that I grew up with when I was in the school system. I had a daytime custodial janitor that was there, well, every day, and I would like my daughter to have the same opportunity when she goes to school. Thank you, Megan, for your question.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your answer. I noticed that you don’t have a written submission, so if you have an opportunity to put one in and add that information, that would be great — unless I’ve missed the written submission on here.

A. Jensen: I did submit a submission, but it was late, Megan. If you don’t have it, that’s my fault. I do apologize, but it is a busy schedule. I’m sure you understand.

M. Dykeman: Totally. Absolutely.

[1:55 p.m.]

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Mr. Jensen, for the presentation. I have a question about, actually, the second part of your recommendations on the EAs. My experience with EAs is that a number of them have actually enjoyed the more part-time hours, simply because it affords them the ability to do that as well as have a family.

Do you know what percentage of EAs are supporting going to that full-time, 40-hour work week and the order of magnitude of the numbers that that would include, just within the Okanagan?

Great to see you from the Okanagan.

A. Jensen: Thank you. I missed your name. Sorry. But excellent question, and I appreciate that. Yes — Okanagan strong.

I am remiss. I believe I know where I need to add to my submission in the future. I don’t have precise numbers for you. However, I believe you are correct. Some EAs do enjoy the flexibility of the position. However, a lot of them do move to the private sector to support themselves in sustaining their practice, if you will.

I know I have friends that are speech pathologists. Their frustration with the system ends in them just doing private sector work all the time, and then the school district loses that ten years of training and all the effort that they’ve put into the school system before they leave.

I do hear your point, but I am remiss to lose those experienced staff that do move on to the private sector because of those other, more lucrative opportunities, if you will.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Adam.

I’m not seeing other questions. Oh, there’s Mike.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Adam. I’ll be very brief.

From the daytime custodial people that are there, what’s the difference in cost that would be there? It seems like it’s hours or hours, whether you work them from two till ten o’clock or you work them from eight till four o’clock.

A. Jensen: I’m not clear on the exact change of cost in the hours. My understanding would be that there would still be custodial staff in the evening to do those evening jobs that are more, let’s say, easy access with the children not there. Then you would have that support during the day for those bathrooms and things that need more general maintenance.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Adam. I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for your presentation and your advocacy for K-to-12 staff that aren’t perhaps as front and centre as other positions but are nonetheless very critically important.

Thank you for reminding us that the custodial staff just doesn’t keep things tidy. They perform a very important health and wellness service to the community. So thank you very much. We’ll let you go, and hope to see you again soon.

A. Jensen: Do take care. Everybody have a great day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Cassandra Strain, Parent Support Services Society of B.C.

Cassandra, you have five minutes to make your presentation and recommendations, and then up to five minutes, the committee will ask questions.

PARENT SUPPORT SERVICES
SOCIETY OF B.C.

C. Strain: My name is Cassandra Strain.

I am grateful to live, work and play on the traditional and unceded territory of the Secwépemc people.

I am Métis on my mother’s side and white settler on my father’s side. I am speaking on behalf of Parent Support Services Society of B.C., which I will refer to as PSS from here on out, where I work as an advocate social worker.

PSS recommends the following to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. One, the families we work with are struggling with poverty. Therefore, we strongly support the recommendations of the B.C. Poverty Reduction Committee coalition.

Two, we recommend fully accessible, professional mental health supports for all B.C. families. Parents, guardians, children and youth are grappling with mental health issues, and they are lacking free and accessible supports. When families have to choose between rent, food or supports for their mental health, their mental health needs often finish last.

[2:00 p.m.]

The current free supports, services and programs often have long wait-lists or have guidelines that not everybody fits. Some of our families have to travel long distances to access supports. It is crucial to provide more funding into mental health services.

Three, make all kinship care agreements with MCFD equitable. Kinship care providers are grandparents, aunts, uncles who are raising relatives’ children. They have stepped up to raise these kids, most often because the parents are unable. Kinship care is not easy. Many of the caregivers are aging, retired or may be living in poverty when the children unexpectedly come into their care. There are more than 13,000 children being raised in kinship care in B.C., and the numbers are rising. These children often have experienced trauma, and kinship care providers are expected to care for them without adequate supports. I know this firsthand, as I have been a kinship care provider for 15 years for three Indigenous nieces.

There are various MCFD agreements for kinship care providers. The most fulsome agreement is the extended family program agreement. This agreement provides a monthly maintenance payment that is reasonable, the affordable child care benefit, medical-dental-optical benefits, and the caregivers can claim the child on their income tax and receive the Canada child benefit.

All children in kinship care should be able to receive the same level of support. Other agreements do not provide the same level of support. We appreciate that in 2019, this government raised the rates for some of the families in kinship care. However, those who are in the Child in the Home of a Relative did not receive any raise and get a fraction of what others receive. PSS recommends that all children raised in kinship care receive, at minimum, the same supports as children raised in foster care.

Thank you for listening to the recommendations of the Parents Support Services Society, and I would be happy to answer any questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Cassandra. We do have questions.

The first hand I see is Henry’s, then Renee and then Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your presentation, Cassandra. I think, being part of the child and youth select standing committee, one thing we keep on advocating for is for children to be raised by their families, when talking about kinship care compared to foster care.

You mentioned that, apparently, foster care gets better payment coverage than kinship care. I assume, based upon your description, that obviously the system is encouraging children to be moved towards foster care instead of actually being looked after by their own family members. Is that an assumption I can make?

C. Strain: I think they’re encouraging people to take on their relatives, so it’s moving away from foster care. But the same level of support is not there, in most cases, unless it’s under that extended family program agreement.

H. Yao: I just want to double-check, obviously. I just want to confirm with you that when people choose kinship care, they tend to be able to stick with their community better than when it comes to foster care, in which they might be moved around. Is that a typical difference, one that we should also pay attention to?

C. Strain: Yes, absolutely. The children raised in kinship care do much better.

H. Yao: Thank you just for confirming that.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. It was inspiring and very informative.

My question is also on the kinship care agreements. Is the support that should be equalized…? Is that mostly in terms of the financial support, or is it also in terms of the other support mechanisms that children in foster care receive that the kinship care agreements do not cover, whether that’s things like mental health supports or any sorts of extra health supports, etc.?

[2:05 p.m.]

C. Strain: Definitely. It should be not only the financial. We have to remember that kids in kinship care have come into care with trauma — so counselling. Many don’t have access to medical, dental or counselling services.

R. Merrifield: Excellent. Thank you.

B. Bailey: Thank you, first, Cassandra, very much not only for your presentation but for taking it upon yourself to be a voice for kids who can’t be here presenting to us. Also, I just really value that you, yourself, have stepped up to support children in your family — so just really appreciating that you know of what you speak. That’s clear to me. I also just found your presentation really impactful and helpful, so thank you very much for that.

I’m curious about the three different types of kinship care. I apologize that I’m not as familiar with this as I should be. I know it’s something that I will, in fact, read up more on before we’re making recommendations. How does one determine which level of care they’re categorized under? I guess that’s one question. The other would be: do you find that having those three different categories is a helpful thing or a less-than-helpful thing? If you could just help me understand that a bit further.

C. Strain: For one, to start, it’s less helpful. The Child in the Home of a Relative is an old program that we can no longer get on. The extended family program, which is the most fulsome program, comes before the support involvement. The parent has to be willing to sign some documents to allow that to go through, and it’s the most fulsome program that we have.

Once there’s court involvement and maybe a child has been removed from parent care, that’s where you get those other ones, which aren’t as fulsome, if that makes sense.

J. Routledge (Chair): Not seeing other questions, Cassandra, I’d like to thank you on behalf of the committee for taking the time to work through your presentation and your recommendations — to make a presentation to us and to answer our questions.

You have reminded us that children thrive in families and that many families need extra support in order to help children thrive. So thank you so much for reminding us of that, and thank you so much for the work you do in the community for helping families.

C. Strain: Thank you for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is here — Jessica Colasanto, representing Malahat Nation.

Jessica, you have five minutes to make your presentation and then up to five minutes for us to ask you questions and for you to answer within that time frame.

Welcome, and over to you.

VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY PARTNERS

J. Colasanto: Thank you. My name is Jessica Colasanto. My pronouns are she/hers.

I’m here on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin peoples.

I see that my Zoom name has been changed a bit. I’m representing a group of the Vancouver Island University partners that includes the Malahat Nation, the tutoring program in Parksville and Literacy Now Cowichan, but I, myself, am with Lift Community Services of qathet, and I’m in Powell River.

There was a bit a mixup as to who was able to present today, so you’ve got me. I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak about the importance of literacy in our province.

[2:10 p.m.]

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs, the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training, the provincial literacy organization, Decoda Literacy Solutions, and our community partners work together to provide community-based literacy programs and services which support people of all ages who are not served in other ways.

We’re very grateful to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training for its long-term commitment to adult literacy through the community adult literacy program, called CALP. CALP programs work with hard-to-reach and vulnerable people. We really appreciate the increase in CALP funding that Minister Kang announced on May 5 of this year.

We are also grateful to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs for funding literacy outreach coordination in B.C. communities. Decoda Literacy Solutions and the provincial literacy network continue to seek stable, multi-year funding for literacy in B.C. so literacy programs can meet the increasing needs of their communities. Minister Kang’s announcement is a positive step in that direction.

Communities in B.C. continue to ask literacy service providers to do more. The need for community-based programs and services, putting people first, is even more acute as we rebuild from the effects of the pandemic. Adult literacy is a key component in getting people back to work and building the workforce of tomorrow. We’ve never seen a greater need for digital literacy as we see now. Literacy is tied to family health and financial wellness, and it helps to rebuild healthy, resilient communities.

We find that by allocating funding based on population, the remote and rural communities are being deprioritized. It sometimes feels that way. Our population continues to rise, but we’ll never reach the city centre numbers. Everything seems to be moving online, everything from the homeowner grant for your taxes to applying for OAS — all sorts of stuff that we’re helping folks navigate onto computers. So the need for digital literacy in our communities is huge.

With decreased funding, we can’t staff enough. We ask the province to increase funding for community-based literacy work to a minimum of $3 million for literacy outreach coordination and $4 million for community adult literacy programs. This funding will help us reach all parts of the community: adults, youth, children and families, seniors, Indigenous people and immigrants. It will allow us to deliver the community-based services that people count on.

Literacy helps reduce poverty and affects everything from health care to employment. Increased literacy rates improve a community’s ability to recover from COVID-19 while building a strong, sustainable economy that works for everyone. Stable, consistent funding for literacy allows us to put people first, making life better for British Columbians. Literacy is a key component of the StrongerBC recovery plan. Multiple program goals can be tied to literacy, including digital literacy, in communities and sectors through the province.

Thank you for your time.

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

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

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for your presentation. I wanted to share a thought and then ask a question, if I may.

I know that one of the top priorities for our government has been expanding connectivity to rural communities, and we’ve spent $90 million on that in the last little while. We’ve seen more than 500 communities come on board, including 87 Indigenous communities. I’m hoping that you’re feeling some of that — that maybe some of the communities that you work with are having opportunities to connect. I’m someone who loves technology. To see fibre laid down in places like Keremeos and 45 times the bandwidth than prior…. I think that that’s important.

But now to my question. When you talked about literacy, I kind of noticed you using literacy and digital literacy. I’m wondering. Are you seeing a need for both literacy and digital literacy, or when you use “literacy,” do you primarily mean digital literacy? I really feel what you’re saying in regards to how many things are online now. Having access to that is just of such importance to people just to go about their daily lives.

J. Colasanto: Thank you. That’s an excellent point and question.

[2:15 p.m.]

Personally, for our program itself, I can tell you, on the ground, that the funding we receive, especially through Decoda and through CALP funding, is mainly paying for a coordinator role, so one human to organize tutors and connect them with students. So we feel the pinch when that funding gets cut or if it doesn’t increase as the cost of living goes up.

We feel that the demand for literacy is so intense. What we’re finding is that we’re having less time to be able to spend with folks who could be studying for exams trying to get through a FoodSafe course, that kind of literacy work which traditionally we’ve always done. Now we’re seeing the immediate need that “I have just turned 65, and I’m not getting my old age pension.” Why not? “I need help filling out this form.” Or people with disabilities.

We run a tech tips program. We could be doing that every day all day, just navigating people’s different devices and getting them comfortable using them so that they can fill out online forms.

It’s both, but we’re finding the immediate need of digital literacy is driving all of the other needs into the background.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. Obviously, literacy is a huge component for us.

I actually want to specifically talk about…. You talked about filling out forms for OAS and the homeowner’s grant. I guess my first question would be: have you been working with your local MLA offices? Sometimes constituency offices can provide a similar level of support and help alleviate some of the stress off your shoulders so you can be able to move forward.

The second part is…. I’m not sure which region you’re from. I do know that even in the region where I’m from, Richmond, we have a huge immigrant population that is struggling with the language barrier and cultural barriers. Language and literacy are something that also have to be dealt with, a component as well.

You’re talking about having a coordinator and then relying on volunteers. I’m looking at the number you presented, which was $3 million for outreach and $4 million for programs. Do you mind maybe sharing numbers on what previously you were receiving?

J. Colasanto: I believe that the CALP funding was $2.4 million over the last ten years. Now we’re asking for $3 million. Oh, wait. Sorry. I have this here somewhere.

Currently Decoda is getting $2.185 million and is reaching 400 B.C. communities. Decoda is $2.185 million, and CALP has just been increased to $3.4 million. We were hoping to bump that up to $4 million and to bump Decoda up to $3 million.

Did that answer your question?

H. Yao: Yes, thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): I don’t think we have time for more questions.

With that, Jessica, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to make this presentation. Thank you for the work that you’re doing at the community level.

I commend you…. Speaking for myself, what you’ve really clarified is that as the world moves more and more online, digital literacy is really critical. It’s so necessary for one’s sense of self-confidence, personal agency and sense of belonging in a world that is increasingly living online.

Thank you very much for your leadership on this.

J. Colasanto: Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): We are now in recess.

The committee recessed from 2:19 p.m. to 2:36 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Allison Schwartz with D-Wave Systems.

Welcome, Allison. You have five minutes to make your presentation and your recommendations, and then the committee will have up to five minutes to ask you questions.

Over to you.

D-WAVE SYSTEMS

A. Schwartz: Good afternoon. I’m Allison Schwartz, vice-president of global government relations and public affairs at D-Wave Systems Inc. Thank you for the invitation to speak today on the importance of commercial quantum computing for Canada.

D-Wave is proudly based in Burnaby, where our world-renowned R-and-D efforts at our quantum centre of excellence have developed the world’s first commercial quantum computing system and four subsequent generations of quantum computers. We continue to be the leader in the development and delivery of quantum computing systems and are the only company building both annealing and gate model quantum computers. We are also a full stack provider, which means our technology products and services include hardware, software, cloud access and more. Our platform-agnostic and full stack approaches allow us to provide a broad industry perspective.

The quantum computing industry is rapidly advancing, and D-Wave is at the forefront of this growth. Our customers have built applications that tackle a wide variety of globally important use cases, including increased supply chains and manufacturing efficiencies, new drug development as well as optimization for emergency response. Quantum computers and quantum hybrid applications will be important for unlocking new discoveries and solving some of the world’s most complex challenges.

Our policy recommendations focus on three areas: first, near-term commercial use case of the technology; second, inclusivity of a variety of academic disciplines and skill training; and third, support for quantum hybrid technologies.

Many companies and governments are beginning to build quantum applications to tackle a wide variety of problems. For example, Australia is looking at quantum to optimize transportation networks. In Japan, there’s a use case to optimize waste collection while reducing CO₂ emissions by nearly 60 percent. Right here in Canada, Save-On-Foods is looking at quantum to drive efficiencies in grocery.

These near-term commercial use cases guide our first recommendation: creating a quantum sandbox. A sandbox can serve as a living lab, run through a public-private partnership to develop proofs of concept and test near-term quantum applications. This will accelerate commercialization. Such a program would showcase how quantum applications can be rapidly developed, deployed and used today.

Our second recommendation focuses on skills training. Funding opportunities for industry collaboration between quantum companies and academic institutions is critical for future innovation and talent development. As evidenced by the success of Minister Kahlon’s recent European trade mission, B.C.’s strength lies with our skilled workforce — and is a pillar of StrongerBC.

Quantum computing is inherently interwoven across a variety of academic disciplines. Therefore, we recommend that engagement with quantum be multidisciplinary. The quantum ecosystem requires a workforce with skills encompassing everything from engineering, cryogenics and software to IP and business strategy. What is often forgotten is that to be successful, users must bring existing skills, across a variety of sciences, both theoretical and applied, to ensure the business value of quantum computing is unlocked.

[2:40 p.m.]

A government training program should be created. This training program should work with local quantum industry, like D-Wave and others, to provide funded training on their systems, building the necessary skills for the workforce of the future. Such a program could be open to academia and government, as well as industry, to accelerate quantum fluency.

Our final recommendation is that quantum should not be viewed in a silo. As highlighted in the recent consultation report by ISED, quantum-hybrid technology should be supported. There will likely always be a need for classical computation as a part of the solution, but for many problems, the most complex part will need quantum computers. For example, the hybrid solvers in D-Wave’s Leap quantum cloud service combine the best of both classical and quantum technologies.

Government should think of quantum computing in a holistic manner and note that quantum computing technologies will likely be integrated with and work alongside a variety of other technologies. To accelerate this, the government should consider investing in a domestic high-performance computing data centre that is integrated with quantum.

Our three recommendations will result in a significant boost to quantum partialization, turbocharge talent development and provide a holistic view of the quantum industry, as well as the benefits for its end users. This approach will accelerate Canada’s lead in becoming a global quantum centre of excellence for commercial quantum computing.

I thank the committee for your time today. We look forward to working with the government on your efforts. I’m happy to answer any questions.

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

Now I will invite members of the committee to ask some questions. I see Ben’s hand first, and then Renee.

B. Stewart: Hi, Allison. Thanks very much. I know a little bit about D-Wave.

This vision that you have about a centre. What is something like this…? What would the investment have to be, in quantum computing, in terms of a centre where it attracted and helped inspire people that are either outside or inside, being able to create solutions?

A. Schwartz: You’re talking about the quantum sandbox?

B. Stewart: No, not the sandbox. In recommendation 3, you talked….

A. Schwartz: The quantum centre of excellence.

B. Stewart: Yeah, the centre of excellence. Thank you.

A. Schwartz: Absolutely. A centre of excellence really is the place where everybody sees that B.C. is a leader in quantum. Currently you actually are setting that up with the work that’s being done through a variety of the different academia, as well as work within industry with D-Wave as well as Quantum Algorithms Institute as well as with work that’s being done at the digital superclusters and others. So it’s really formulating this quantum sandbox. It’s creating a training program.

All of that will actually become this quantum centre of excellence, where people will be gravitating to B.C. in order to become fluent in quantum computing. They want to learn about it. They want to develop it. They want to really set ground roots down in B.C. to create those applications.

B. Stewart: Thanks.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Allison, for the presentation. I am not as familiar with D-Wave or with quantum computing, so my question might be somewhat out of ignorance, and that is: where would you be trained currently in quantum computing, and how would that differ from what you’re asking for?

A. Schwartz: Most of the training right now is done virtually, so people can be stationed anywhere. But frankly, there isn’t a focus on application development and training from that perspective.

People have to come into each individual company. Some folks have worked with D-Wave. We have a quick-start program in order to get trained up. But there isn’t one place where they’re able to get trained holistically against all these different technologies. You have different quantum computing companies, and each of the ones have different training on their individual systems.

It all depends on if an academic…. Right now that’s where the training is focused. It’s not as though somebody from government or somebody from industry who wants to get engaged and trained up on skills development…. How do I use my AI knowledge or optimization knowledge? And add in: can quantum computing help with my business problems?

That’s the idea of this training program. And it can be done virtually so it does help break down the barriers and doesn’t get impacted by a pandemic, say.

R. Merrifield: Excellent. Thank you.

B. Bailey: Hi, Allison. Nice to see you. Thank you for the presentation. I’m very excited about all three of your recommendations, as you won’t be surprised to learn, I’m sure. I’m going to try and squeeze in two questions. We’ll see if we have time.

[2:45 p.m.]

First, I think about what you’re proposing is probably…. There are probably multiple opportunities for funding, not just B.C. government. I’m assuming that’s probably what you’re thinking — that maybe there are federal government investments that come in, as has been in the case in the past, and maybe an opportunity to work with Supercluster on this as well. I’m not sure if that’s what you’re thinking. So that’s question No. 1.

Question No. 2 is…. I’m trying to think about…. I’m from software, and I think about what people would usually do to code in C++ Object-Oriented coding. What does it take to move somebody from coding in bits to coding in qubits? Somebody has a master’s degree in computer science and wants to look at building applications. Maybe they work at AbCellera, and they’re using machine learning to try and discover new drug opportunities. They see this as…. I could see how this could have real opportunity for them in terms of how quickly you could search massive databases if you were using a hybrid model.

What does it take to take someone with that kind of skill set and train them into quantum? I just don’t have a sense of that — if you could help me understand that.

A. Schwartz: Sure. A quick answer to your first part. The answer is yes. I do think that this is a funding opportunity both at the national level…. I actually testified before the INDU committee in Ottawa about this as well.

As for getting folks trained up, we’re, right now, running training programs every month. If you have a basis in Python coding or C++, we can actually train you up fairly quickly. You’re not going to be running right away, but you’ll have a basis knowledge of that. It’s actually why we created a professional services group — to help folks on their quantum journey.

B. Bailey: May I just ask: what kind of time frame would that look like for someone to be trained?

A. Schwartz: Our current training is a five-day training online, virtually. Then again, some people will have access to our system beyond that and then use our professional services to get up to speed a little bit more. But the fluency…. The basic level is about one week. Then we can build up, depending on the complexity of the problem or the algorithm development that’s needed.

B. Bailey: Just correct me if I’m wrong, in terms of understanding the opportunity that you’re presenting in front of us today. I interpret it as a chance for the technology ecosystem in British Columbia to transition into hybrid or full quantum through this opportunity of being able to access a sandbox and train up and understand how the future of computing might look for them and where they might fit into it.

Am I sort of getting the vision?

A. Schwartz: Absolutely. I think that there are a couple different legs of the stool. The one is creating the sandbox, which is the application development. But in order for folks to create applications, they need to be trained up on the technology. So that creating of the training program is critically important also, to understand what can be done. Not every problem can be tackled with quantum computing, but there are a lot. Optimization problems are really great on, say, annealing systems.

You’re looking at how to navigate and build that up. If you kind of build this together, all of these together become that quantum centre of excellence as well, because B.C. is kind of leading the way in all of it.

B. Bailey: Great. I have about ten more questions, but maybe we can meet offline.

A. Schwartz: That works.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you to both of you.

Yes, we are out of time, Allison, but thank you so much for taking the time to make this presentation and remind us of the important work that D-Wave does. I think you do Burnaby proud. You do British Columbia proud, and what you have to offer is so good for the future. Thank you so much.

A. Schwartz: Thank you so much, and I’m happy to have a conversation offline with anybody if there are additional questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Murray Mollard, representing North Shore Community Services.

Welcome, Murray. You have five minutes to make a presentation, including your recommendations, and then the committee has up to five minutes to ask you follow-up questions. Over to you.

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY SERVICES

M. Mollard: Thank you and good afternoon, Members. I appreciate the opportunity. This is a great example of democracy in action where citizens and members of the community get to talk to their elected representatives, which is exactly what I want to talk to you today about.

North Shore Community Resources. We’re a social service agency. The vision is a thriving North Shore community, and we design and deliver programs and services that enhance well-being through social connections, empowerment and community participation.

[2:50 p.m.]

One of our programs is a Democracy Cafe program. Essentially, it’s a non-partisan program — non-partisan being key — that encourages residents and citizens to more actively participate in democratic life while encouraging governments to better facilitate citizen participation in decision-making.

We organize educational workshops, voter engagement campaigns and community forums — like our North Shore young civic forum, which helps younger adults, ages 18 to 39, learn about local government and then create projects relevant to local government. We do a variety of this work, under this program, of a Democracy Café.

Here’s the challenge I want to discuss with you today. As you may know, there are declines in citizen participation in democratic life. If you look at the recent example of the Ontario election, only 43 percent of eligible voters showed up to vote. But you know municipal elections in British Columbia face the same problems around voter participation — in the city of North Vancouver in the last election, 33.84 percent; in the district of North Vancouver, 36.58 percent; district of West Vancouver, 38.29 percent. Almost two in three eligible voters don’t bother showing up to vote in municipal elections.

This is just a symptom of a larger problem. It correlates with a lack of belief in the ability for citizens to impact local governments and provincial and federal government decision-making and a decline in trust.

Now, there’s been a small but growing problem that we see of a significant number of people challenging the whole idea of democracy and the rule of law. The Ottawa trucker protests — or occupation, depending on your point of view — is a great example of a diminishing respect for democratic processes.

That’s part of the challenge. The question is: what do we do about it? One response is for government and civil society organizations like ours to be undertaking more efforts to encourage and nurture greater participation in democratic life by citizens and residents. That’s what we do, through our Democracy Café program.

But — and I capitalize all the letters in “but” — there’s a big other challenge. There’s almost no funding pathways for this sort of work. I have to beg and scrape and plead to get the very smallest amount of funding to do this work. People say: “Oh, that sounds political. We don’t fund political work.” So there’s this big challenge to actually undertake this work, and very few organizations are doing it. I review the Union of B.C. Municipalities emails for funding opportunities. There’s almost nothing, and I haven’t actually seen an opportunity for this.

In a society that believes in a robust democracy, this must change. We must invest in democratic engagement if we want to continue to have vibrant participation and confidence in our democratic systems and processes, not just at election time but between elections. Here’s our proposal. Create a strengthening democracy fund. Fund $15 million over three years for three funding streams.

First, a community capacity building stream — any initiative that increases civic engagement and education regarding our system of democracy and participation in it.

Number 2, equity, diversity and inclusion in democracy — funding initiatives that target populations that face barriers and have a history of being excluded from participation in democratic life.

Three, innovations in democratic systems and institutions — funding that is available to local governments and other organizations that focus on testing out new ways to engage citizens and residents to allow them to provide meaningful input into important decision-making and innovative deliberative democratic practices, such as participatory budgeting, citizens assemblies. Take a look at Scotland’s Community Empowerment Act.

Wow. I finished exactly on time. How’s that?

J. Routledge (Chair): Congratulations, and there are questions.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much, Murray, for this presentation. It’s important, and I couldn’t agree with you more.

[2:55 p.m.]

I find it a really bizarre conundrum that at a time when we have perhaps one of the cleanest governments…. We’ve moved away from big money from business or from unions from being in government, and we’ve got very tight rules in regards to a lobbying act. Yet the perception of government is at its lowest. What a bizarre and odd juxtaposition those two things are. I think it’s related, obviously, to social media and our close proximity to the U.S.

I wonder. My question for you is…. In our political system — the three main parties that we have represented in the House, for example — we’d want to make sure that this isn’t something that becomes partisan, that all voices are equally included, that young people have the opportunity to make their own decisions. How would you design this to ensure that it doesn’t become partisan, that it really is about democracy and supporting people’s activities, regardless of where their particular political leanings may lie?

M. Mollard: Great question. You can’t always. I mean, in politics and democratic life, often you can’t avoid partisanship or points of view. That’s the nature of democratic politics. We have different points of view. How do we maintain an ability to come together and share those points of view in civil and respectful ways?

That’s a lot of what we try to do in Democracy Café. We’re organizing events in the next two weeks on affordable housing on the North Shore, and we’re inviting everyone from the community to flex their democratic participation muscles.

I think it’s a great question, though. If we’re going to create this kind of fund, how do we do it and ensure that it’s fair, non-partisan, that it’s inclusive, etc.? I don’t have a complete answer to that. I’m going to work on that answer.

I think there are ways to ensure that there are non-partisan advisors or organizations that can fund this in a way that ensures that there is fairness in funding, fairness in a variety of ways — geographic, age, equity, etc. So there are ways to do this. You’ve got UBC’s Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. We’ve got SFU’s Centre for Dialogue. We have non-partisan, non-political entities that can help us do this and make this fund a reality.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry and then Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the opportunity to ask this question, Chair.

Unfortunately, coming from Richmond, British Columbia, one of the biggest challenges we have is the voter turnout. I think one of the many concepts we often struggle with is the Chinese-Canadian community and some other ethnic communities seem to have one of the lowest voter turnout compared to the rest of British Columbia. So we’re talking about low voter turnout. We are literally the worst-case scenario you can study there.

I would actually love to hear, from your perspective, what kind of cross-cultural, cross-generational strategy you’d like to utilize that you think is needed for us to encourage this greater level of democratic participation.

I guess another thing I would also love to have a conversation about is different forms of social media and how it is actually deterring individuals from having faith in the democratic system or democratic government.

M. Mollard: I’m running out of time here, and you’ve got big questions that need to take a long time to answer.

Your point about newcomers to Canada is really critical. As you know, we are planning to invite 400,000 new Canadians to come to Canada every year, and a large number of them will come to British Columbia. Those are individuals who have come to this country because they believe there is an opportunity for freedom and a fair and true democratic spirit and process and that they can be citizens as part of that.

We need to figure out a way to help them plug in, not five years or ten years down the road after they immigrate but as soon as possible. That’s challenging, because they’re focused on getting jobs, learning a new language, figuring out how to take the bus. But we need to make that a priority for when those newcomers arrive.

We want to plug them in. They’re an important part of what makes us a free and democratic society. So in my proposal, there’s a funding stream there that’s around equity, diversity and inclusion that would include newcomers as part of that.

The social media question. I think that’s going to be a longer answer and another conversation for us.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, in the interest of democracy, I’ll ask Karin to ask her question.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, Murray. I really just wanted to say thank you. I really appreciate what you’re doing.

[3:00 p.m.]

I’ll say, with a non-partisan statement, I do appreciate your work, and I think this is great work. You do a wonderful job, and all of the MLAs together on the North Shore support that. So thank you very much.

M. Mollard: Great, thank you. I will say that this is a message I’ll probably come back to in future years if you don’t take up my idea. There will be more of us coming to talk to you as well. Be ready, if I don’t persuade you today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Murray. Speaking for myself, you’ve persuaded me. In fact, my favourite button is: “Democracy is not a spectator sport.” But getting voters out of the bleachers and onto the playing field is another challenge. Thank you for taking the lead on that. I’m very intrigued by what you’re working on. Hopefully not only will MLAs on the North Shore be actively engaged, but perhaps on the other side of the inlet as well.

M. Mollard: Thank you for the opportunity, and best wishes in your important work.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Dr. Nigel Smith, representing TRIUMF.

Dr. Smith, you have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we’ll have up to five minutes to ask you questions and explore what you’ve told us.

Over to you.

TRIUMF

N. Smith: Thank you for having me here today. My name is Nigel Smith, and I am executive director of TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre. Our centre, established here in Vancouver in 1968 by the University of British Columbia, University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University, is a hub for discovery and innovation.

Inspired by a half-century of ingenuity in answering some of nature’s most challenging questions, TRIUMF is pushing frontiers in research whilst training the next generation of leaders in science, medicine and industry. From the hunt for the smallest particles in nature to understanding the evolution of the universe and developing cures for cancer, TRIUMF addresses these fundamental contemporary challenges by creating new technologies, including next-generation medical isotopes.

One thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated is the need for increased life sciences research, of our capacity within the province. These facilities require specialized buildings and infrastructure, often challenging to construct. TRIUMF has a current opportunity to expand B.C.’s lab capacity. The Institute for Advanced Medical Isotopes is currently under construction on the TRIUMF campus thanks to investments by the provincial and federal governments, as well as partners including TRIUMF, B.C. Cancer, the B.C. Cancer Foundation and UBC.

IAMI, as it is known, is a state-of-the-art facility for research into next-generation, life-saving medical isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals. The facility is made up of an integrated series of labs and a B.C.-built medical cyclotron to create a variety of radioisotopes, provide isotope security and develop next-generation cancer therapies. It will enable clinical trials and support cutting-edge medical research while striving for technological innovation and skills training.

Construction is almost complete, and we are expecting to take possession of the building in the next few months. There is an opportunity for the provincial government to create further capability within the facility by adding three state-of-the-art laboratories using the remaining unoccupied space within IAMI. These labs would enable medical, scientific and technological innovations that will help deliver on the objectives of the Stronger B.C. plan and support a resilient health care system to benefit all British Columbians.

The proposed labs include regulatory-compliant space for preclinical and clinical research. They would offer pharmaceutical-grade lab space to support the research and development of medical isotopes and other life-saving diagnostic and therapeutic agents and to provide spare capacity, should that be required for production. This would further enhance British Columbia as a worldwide hub for life sciences and biomanufacturing and will leverage the research capacities of B.C.’s post-secondary sector, developing new talent that will lead to jobs and sector growth.

[3:05 p.m.]

There is an advantage to moving quickly on this opportunity, before IAMI is fully operational. There are significant time and cost efficiencies in starting this project in the near future over either a new build or a later renovation of the space in IAMI. Funding these new laboratories would ensure that B.C. has lab space to both support growth of opportunities in next-generation medical isotopes and mitigate risk and provide specialized surge capacity for the health care system in the case of future pandemics or other crises.

TRIUMF’s recommendation is for the investment of $10 million in three additional labs. That will quickly deliver tangible benefits for B.C., advancing health care goals and the economic vision of the StrongerBC plan. Investing today could get us to research and discovery more quickly, bringing benefits to the people of B.C. sooner. Thank you for your time.

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

Henry has a question.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Nigel, for your presentation. I’m just so glad to hear that that kind of project is happening in B.C. As a cancer survivor myself, I think to years before my diagnosis, which allowed me to stay alive today and be able to ask you this random question. So I stand before you fully appreciative of what you are asking right now.

I’m going to just put a random question out there. I hope you don’t mind. You’re talking about radioactive material, isotopes right now. What is the seismic protection that is incorporated within the infrastructure to ensure that we are minimizing or preventing any kind of potential harm within the immediate environment if there’s an earthquake?

N. Smith: Thank you for the question. I think it’s important to recognize that TRIUMF runs cyclotrons. These are particle accelerators, which are different, for instance, to nuclear reactors. Now, you can create medical isotopes from both nuclear reactors and from cyclotrons. A cyclotron only generates radioactivity primarily when it’s on. Now, there is some residual material that is created from targets, but the bulk of the radiation is actually only instantaneously created when the machine is operated.

So in the event of any major incident, whether it’s an earthquake or any other situation that we may need to face, by taking down the cyclotron, we are actually controlling the production of radiation. It fails into a safe mode. I hope that answers your question.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much, Dr. Smith. I appreciate your presentation and the opportunity to learn more about TRIUMF.

I’ve heard…. I’m 18 months into Parliamentary Secretary for Tech and Innovation, so my learning has been quite a direct climb. I hear often about the shortage of wet lab space. It’s something that people raise quite often with us. I’m not sure if the lab space you’re describing is wet lab space.

Part 2 of my question is: these three labs that you’re proposing — would people outside of the UBC community have access to these labs? If you could help me with that.

N. Smith: Maybe I could describe the process of generating medical treatment using radioisotopes. There are several components. One component is the radiochemistry — the extraction of, if you like, the isotope itself, the material that destroys the cancer by being delivered to the tumour. So there are labs that are required for the extraction of that material. There are then labs which have good manufacturing process compliance — very compliant, because we are looking to put these, obviously, into humans. There are labs, then, that are used for developing the drug itself and the generation of the drug.

So in the sense of using the terminology “wet lab,” I guess that’s the secondary component, where we are actually generating material that could be delivered into people. Then the doses would be shipped to the delivery for patients.

So that’s the first part of your question. Your second part of the question is: who can use these labs? We are working with B.C. Cancer, PHSA and UBC already. So for instance, B.C. Cancer and PHSA do have access into those labs. But the three labs that we’re looking at would have an initial focus on research, where people outside that community would have access to those labs in the way that people have access to other facilities within TRIUMF. So it would be broadly available, and then, if required, transition to production to support the B.C. ecosystem, generally.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have a little more than a minute left.

Harwinder, over to you.

[3:10 p.m.]

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Dr. Smith. This is Harwinder Sandhu, MLA for Vernon-Monashee. Part of my question has been asked by MLA Bailey.

In addition to that…. You asked for $10 million for these three additional labs. So the question is: would these labs…? Have you thought about just expanding these labs outside the Metro Vancouver area? Have you thought about the location? You can hire talent from all across the province, and it can also benefit the other areas, perhaps the areas like Kelowna or Prince George, if you wanted to be central. I just wanted to see what your thoughts are about that.

N. Smith: Currently there is very much a focus on TRIUMF as a site, because that’s where the cyclotron is. To really utilize production from the cyclotron, you do need to be local. You are looking to ensure that you have access to the radioisotope directly as it’s produced. In terms of the research that is possible, generally you want those to be co-located with the cyclotron. That generally means located at TRIUMF.

That, of course, does not mean, in answer to the previous question, that those labs are not, then, accessible to others within the province. It’s just that they would need to come down to TRIUMF to get access to those, to the facility and the laboratories.

H. Sandhu: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Nigel. I will wrap up this part of our agenda by thanking you, not only for making this presentation and patiently explaining to us the very complicated and advanced work that you do.

I also want to say…. I think that British Columbia is rightly proud of having TRIUMF here. Thank you for not resting on your laurels but continuing to move forward to break new ground and save more lives.

N. Smith: Thank you for those words.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Kendra Johnston, representing the Association for Mineral Exploration.

ASSOCIATION FOR MINERAL EXPLORATION

K. Johnston: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kendra Johnston, and I am the president and CEO of the Association for Mineral Exploration, or AME for short.

I would like to acknowledge that our offices are located on the territories of the Coast Salish people — the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh Nations. However, AME members do live, work and play across all territories in B.C., so we like to acknowledge all of the lands that we call home.

I would like to begin today by thanking the provincial government for its investment in Budget 2022 of $18 million to make mining regulatory decisions more efficient and to attract investment to B.C., including, most importantly, the $4 million going directly to the regional mining offices.

As we move towards 2023, B.C. mineral explorers are well positioned to contribute to our low-carbon economy by innovating and discovering new deposits of much-needed minerals and metals. We have the geology, the expertise, the regulatory systems and the relationships between industry and Indigenous communities to achieve being a supplier of choice for responsible minerals and metals to the world. To do that, discoveries need to be made. To do that, permits need to be issued in a timely manner.

Last year companies spent $660 million on mineral exploration throughout the province, conducting geological, geochemical and geophysical research that helped determine where tomorrow’s metals, for everything from infrastructure in hospitals and schools to computers and cell phones, will come from.

An efficient permitting system ensures that our members can do the work while our land and water resources are being used responsibly. A well-resourced permitting system allows for effective consultation with Indigenous peoples, and the resulting exploration leads to economic opportunities for First Nations and municipalities in all regions of the province. In fact, more than 20 percent of mineral exploration expenditures are spent with Indigenous-affiliated vendors.

Approximately 93 percent of all B.C. exploration spending stays within the province, as most of our companies and their suppliers are based right here in B.C. Simply put, an efficient permitting system provides certainty for individuals, for vendors and for investors who are employed and/or supporting the mineral exploration sector.

[3:15 p.m.]

Over the past year, we have started to see the $4 million investment in the regional mines office put to work. We’re seeing internal changes to processes and investments in people, skills and computer systems that were long overdue. We hope that those changes will be seen on the ground by our members next field season.

However, in order to make these changes last, we need sustained investments into our robust permitting system to ensure it not only becomes timely and efficient but can stay timely and efficient. We’re asking today for permanent increases to the regional mines offices of $2 million per year to ensure that the people and the systems within government are maintained and have the resources to continue to improve.

Likewise, public geoscience was once in alignment with B.C.’s geological potential, with a well-staffed B.C. geological survey that included regional geologists in all corners of the province and regular funding for Geoscience B.C. to generate new research in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Canada, the B.C. geological survey, academic institutions and industry.

However, investments in this public geoscience in recent years have fallen drastically behind our peers and competitors. At the same time, basic information about where to find copper, nickel and other critical minerals is necessary for our low-carbon future. Emergency management requires geoscience data to assess and plan mitigation steps for dealing with increases in natural disasters. Modernized land use planning processes require current, reliable geoscience data to make decisions to assess mineral potential and determine the best use of our land.

Fortunately, B.C. possesses the basic geoscientific infrastructure to become a world leader again. When combined with the renewed federal interest in the Pan-Canadian Geoscience Strategy, annual provincial investments of approximately $3 million to $4 million in public geo­science are needed to ensure that this important work gets done and is world leading.

Finally, the province’s physical incentives have long been one of the mainstays of the mineral exploration industry in B.C., having created certainty for both in­ves­tors and companies. However, mineral exploration is globally competitive, and we’re starting to slip behind our peers. Modest increases to both the B.C. mining exploration tax credit and the B.C. mining flow-through share rate, as recommended by the Mining Jobs Task Force in 2019, will lead to B.C. having the most competitive physical incentives in the country, which, in turn, will continue to spur mineral exploration in all regions of the province.

We also encourage the province to establish a professionally managed investment fund focused on responsible mineral and metal exploration, which was also recommended by the task force, with dividends from that fund going toward capacity-building and reconciliation activities with First Nations, industry skills-training programs and tracking the important industrywide environmental, social and governance best practices.

In conclusion, with the impact and reach that mineral exploration has across the province, it’s imperative that we build on our current success and strengthen areas that are needed to support and maintain B.C.’s competitiveness.

Today we are asking for three things: that recent investments in timely and efficient permitting be made permanent at approximately $2 million a year, that investments in the order of $3 million to $4 million in foundational public geoscience be made and that physical incentives in line with the 2019 Mining Jobs Task Force — including increases to tax credits and the establishment of a professionally managed investment fund for mineral exploration — be implemented.

Thank you. I’m happy to take questions.

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

Our next presenter is due at 3:20, but we do have a few minutes for some questions.

B. Bailey: Thanks very much, Kendra.

I think you’ve priced out the first two. Do you have an estimate of what the cost would be for the changes to the tax credit that you’re proposing?

K. Johnston: The tax credit is an interesting one. I believe it’s a cost of about $10 million. Some of that comes back by way of expenditures and PST credits and that type of thing. The mineral exploration industry supports the PST by approximately $40 million a year. So some of that will come back.

Then the mineral exploration investment fund…. We were looking for an input of approximately $50 million — professionally managed, again, with those dividends going back towards skills training and reconciliation activities.

B. Bailey: Great, thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions.

[3:20 p.m.]

Thank you, Kendra, for taking the time to make your case. While I think our government agrees that the future of B.C. should be tech-based and low carbon, you’ve reminded us that to be tech-based and low carbon needs minerals and that there may be some barriers right now. You’ve identified them, and hopefully, we can move to a more efficient system.

Thank you so much.

K. Johnston: Great. Thank you so much; I very much appreciate it. Have a great day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Gavin Dirom, representing Geoscience B.C. Society.

Gavin, you have five minutes to make your presentation and then up to five minutes for questions.

GEOSCIENCE B.C. SOCIETY

G. Dirom: Good afternoon, Chair, Deputy Chair and committee members. My name is Gavin Dirom. I’m the president and CEO of Geoscience B.C. I’m connecting with you today from Toronto; however, our office is located in Vancouver.

That’s on the traditional territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Thank you very much for this opportunity to present our recommendations for Budget 2023.

Folks, we’re at a critical moment. The need for public geoscience is increasing with the transition to net zero by 2050 and the change in demand for B.C.’s natural resources that it brings. Meanwhile, the province of British Columbia’s last significant operational funding for Geoscience B.C. was $5 million in 2019.

Governments, industry, academia, communities and Indigenous groups increasingly recognize the need for collaboration as today’s challenges…. Finding critical metals to supply growing electrification, reducing emissions and identifying where to safely store carbon, supporting hydrogen development, locating economic geothermal sources, and understanding and mitigating geohazards can only be done if we work together. Collaboration and knowledge-sharing have always been at the heart of Geoscience B.C. It’s what we do.

In January 2022, we went a step further by launching new corporate, individual, student and associate membership classes. Already we have more than 80 members. In addition, we have support from and agreements in place with key partners such as the B.C. geological survey, the Geological Survey of Canada, several First Nations, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce, active communities and relevant mineral and industry groups. We envision an opportunity for a more collaborative and sustainable funding model for Geoscience B.C. that brings together industry and both the federal and provincial governments.

Geoscience B.C. appreciates past support from the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. As we progress to a new model, we recommend that the province of British Columbia work with Geoscience B.C. and the government of Canada to develop a shared-funding model that, with commensurate support from industry, can provide $5 million per year for our relevant public earth science programs. That would focus on critical minerals and metals, geological carbon capture and storage, cleaner energy and understanding water.

The independent public earth science and new relationships that this can generate are needed to inform the decisions we must consider to achieve net zero. It creates opportunities for more economic reconciliation and increases B.C.’s competitiveness by helping to generate certainty, attract investment and spur innovation.

For your background, Geoscience B.C. is an independent, not-for-profit society that develops and shares unbiased, peer-reviewed earth science. Since 2005, we’ve collaborated with over 75 partners, and we have completed 212 projects. Currently Geoscience B.C. has 28 projects underway. We have developed a cost-effective and efficient operating model that provides a strong economic, environmental and social return on investment.

For example, Geoscience B.C. has completed 143 mineral-focused projects to date and has 14 mineral projects currently underway. A study of our mineral projects shows that for every $1 invested by Geoscience B.C., there’s a corresponding $6.60 of investment in exploration. In the critical areas of energy research, Geoscience B.C. has completed 67 projects since 2008 and has 14 energy projects currently underway. These projects support environmental, social and governance — also known as ESG — commitments and have earned the trust of communities, Indigenous groups, governments and industry alike.

[3:25 p.m.]

Our energy and water research delivers tangible returns on investment. For instance, the energy sector has invested more than $50 million in water treatment facilities, based on Geoscience B.C.’s research on the groundwater in northeastern B.C. since 2008, thereby reducing surface water usage in the region. Geoscience B.C.’s geothermal research at Clarke Lake helped to inform Fort Nelson First Nation’s decision to pursue development of the Tu Deh-Kah Geothermal project.

Based on 16 years of operating, Geoscience B.C.’s average annual expenditure is $5.1 million. In a typical year, Geoscience B.C. allocates 80 percent of its budget directly into projects and 20 percent towards governance, community engagement and public access to research results.

In summary, Geoscience B.C. is an effective and efficient organization. It is worthy of provincial funding, to support a proven model that brings people together to help achieve net-zero goals through public geoscience.

Thank you very much for your time and your consideration of Geoscience B.C.’s recommendations for Budget 2023.

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

Now I’ll entertain questions.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much, Gavin, for introducing me to Geoscience B.C. Society and telling me more about what you do. It makes me think of…. We like to ensure that we’re making science-informed decisions, and I think that’s exactly what you’ve just described to me. I appreciate that.

I wonder if you can just help me get under one of the numbers that you shared with me — that $1 of investment has a $6.60 ROI. Could you just walk me through that a little bit further, please?

G. Dirom: Sure. That’s based on the projects that we’ve undertaken and completed in B.C. over a set amount of time. It’s related or corresponds to assessment reports that are then provided by industry into government. In those assessment reports, it allocates and shows the expenditures related to the project. There’s a correlation for the research that was undertaken and then the expenditure that a company would have expended in that particular area.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Gavin, for your presentation. My pen can’t write as quickly as you can speak. So could you just go back a bit to where you talked about a shared-funding model, the $5 million and the topics that were there, and whether or not the $5 million was one-time or annual?

G. Dirom: Right. Our annual expenditure is on the order of $5.1 million. The model we’re looking to build is an annual $5 million budget, which would then have contributions from provincial, federal and industry alike. It may be equitable or whatever ratio that we may arrive at. That’s still in discussion, but I certainly believe industry and the members we now have would be contributing into those research projects at a commensurate level.

B. Bailey: Perhaps I could indulge in an additional question. When I think about the minerals that we need to decarbonize and to work for the goals that we have in our CleanBC plan, many of them but not all of them are available in British Columbia, I understand. When we think about trying to have our economy really focused on electrification, is it realistic to consider that British Columbia might be self-reliant in that regard, or is that unrealistic, based on the minerals that we have available here?

I know this is a little bit of a distraction, but we have three minutes, and I’m really curious to know.

G. Dirom: Well, “self-sufficient” is quite a loaded term. I’m not sure I would be in a position to state that. However, I would offer that there are tremendous resources of copper, zinc, molybdenum and, we’re finding out, of course, niobium and lithium, as well as, maybe, nickel. These are some key metals of the future.

The copper production in B.C. is historically, and will continue to be, very strong, as well as the molybdenum that’s produced here. It’s only produced here in the province of British Columbia, as well as zinc. There are a number of other key elements on that list.

[3:30 p.m.]

We’ve also done studies — I didn’t mention it — on rare earth minerals as they relate to hard rock but also soft rock, meaning coal resources can actually be a source of rare earths, which in fact could help achieve net zero through electrification.

B. Bailey: Thank you for indulging me.

J. Routledge (Chair): Renee and Ben have questions.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Gavin, for the presentation.

I, as well, am intrigued at the return on the investment dollar of $6.60 on every $1. You indicated that was the return based on the investment in exploration. How many of those, then, have turned into full mining projects? Has there been any analysis done by your organization as to what the return is in the long term?

G. Dirom: Excellent question. Some of the studies that I referred to are provincial in nature. But there have also been national studies related to the value of geoscience as it then transcends into exploration investment and that exploration investment then into mine development.

To perhaps simplify it, the numbers that are often used are that $1 in for geoscience would beget at least $5 — these are national numbers that have been well vetted by Finance Canada, the Prospectors and Developers Association as well as AME and ourselves — into exploration. You can imagine a deposit, once discovered and developed, is in the order of usually thousands of dollars, in terms of a ratio.

The discovery rate, though, obviously, is challenging. That’s why we explore. They’re hard deposits to find. The geoscience helps to target the effort so that explorers have a better chance of making a discovery that’s actually economic and can be moved into production.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Gavin, thank you very much for coming and presenting to us and having a dialogue about the work that you do.

I’m fascinated. I think we are in the process of trying to transform our economy to meet the reality of the 21st century, and we can’t do it without the kind of work that you do. Thank you very much for being part of that and looking towards the future.

G. Dirom: Thank you for the opportunity. All the best.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Brian Sauvé, National Police Federation.

Welcome, Brian. You have five minutes to make your presentation and your recommendations.

NATIONAL POLICE FEDERATION

B. Sauvé: Thank you for inviting me to appear. I’m glad to see everything is efficient and that we are a little bit ahead of time.

I’m Brian Sauvé, sergeant of the RCMP and president of the National Police Federation, the sole certified bargaining agent representing close to 20,000 RCMP members, including about 6,500 in British Columbia.

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m speaking from the traditional territory of the Mohawk people today.

Today I want to highlight three pressing issues that are affecting our members. The first is the need to increase resourcing, both human and financial, for the B.C. RCMP. Inadequate funding for the B.C. RCMP has become in­creasingly difficult to manage while continuing to provide the level of service expected. Since 2015, the cop-per-population ratio has decreased from 185 to 183 while the population has increased 8 percent.

The lack of adequate resources impacts important programs, such as the integrated gang enforcement team, the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit and relief teams. These units play a vital role in British Columbia and have responded to hundreds of emergencies, arrested gang members and disrupted illegal and violent activities. In 2020, gang-related homicides in B.C. represented over 17 percent of all national cases; 26 percent of all homicides in B.C. were gang related.

B.C. continues to see escalating gang violence, especially in the Lower Mainland, where, on average, 40 to 50 percent of police calls have organized crime and gang involvement. It is more important than ever to ensure police services are properly resourced and well funded to protect the public from ongoing public safety threats.

We recommend that in partnership with the federal government, the province prioritize RCMP recruitment to address the ongoing expansion of police mandates and fill vacancies to ensure the B.C. RCMP is adequately resourced and funded to protect the public.

[3:35 p.m.]

The second issue is the Surrey police transition. The city of Surrey continues to transition from the RCMP to a municipal police force. As the transition moves forward, the province, municipalities and, ultimately, the taxpayer continue to bear exorbitant and unplanned costs.

During a recent committee appearance, Minister Farnworth stated that the province has already paid an estimated $2 million, with costs continuing to be incurred for another four years. The Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner also had a budget increase of over $1.4 million to expand supports related to Surrey.

In Surrey, the transition budget has grown from $19 million, in 2019, to, potentially, $81 million today. Surrey residents have seen increased property taxes and levies to pay for the transition, which still isn’t enough to cover the growing costs. At the end of 2021, the city of Surrey reported an unfavourable variance of $28 million in their police budget due to the transition.

We recommend delaying or suspending the transition and reassessing its financial implications, assessing where the province can make improvements to the Surrey RCMP, including more resources, programs and local accountability.

Lastly, increased funding for social services. Our members are often the first responders in mental health crisis events, which impacts their availability to deliver core policing. Unfortunately, there has been a consistent increase in mental health calls in B.C. Between January and August of 2020, the B.C. RCMP responded to over 46,700 Mental Health Act occurrences. This means officers spending countless hours sitting in hospital waiting rooms, taking them away from their core police duties.

The RCMP does take a collaborative approach to serve people experiencing a mental health crisis, including integrated mobile crisis response teams and other programs. While programs such as these are valuable, they are contingent on resources and government support. The NPF supports and recommends increases in social services funding, including consideration to make IMCRTs available 24-7 as they are currently only available at certain times of the day.

Also, consideration of implementation of a health IM or similar program. Other provinces have implemented health IM, which provides officers immediate access to the mental health history of persons before arrival, via an app-based database. This has resulted in a reduction of mental health apprehensions and decreased police wait times in hospital.

Our submission outlines some key recommendations for this committee’s consideration. The NPF believes it is imperative that the government address these issues.

Thank you. I’m happy to answer any questions.

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

Our first question is from Karin, followed by Ben.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate the presentation. I’m excited to hear “increased funding for social services.” I know that so much of your time responding is related to mental health and other issues, which are taking resources away from you.

A question I do have, though, is about the Surrey police transition. As you probably know, the committee for the reform of the Police Act actually made a recommendation to have a provincial policing force. One of the reasons was because of the inability for the RCMP to react to community-based issues, so working with municipalities as opposed to reporting to Ottawa and having an inability to stay for longer terms in communities.

How do you address those kinds of concerns? If you’re saying that Surrey shouldn’t go ahead, what…? You’ve given us the cost arguments, but from what we’ve looked at in B.C…. I’m going to stop talking now, because I’m rambling. What is the solution there?

B. Sauvé: Well, I think one actually has to look into the provincial police service agreement that the Province of British Columbia has with the RCMP. I’m not positive of the exact article. I could get it to you. I believe it’s article 6 or 6.1 that ultimately gives the province and the commanding officer of British Columbia complete control over the deployment of the resources within.

[3:40 p.m.]

Then you have your municipal police services agreements between different municipalities, such as with the city of Surrey. They have similar clauses, where the council and the mayor can meet with the officer in charge to determine priorities in where they would like to go and where they would like to deploy.

With respect to police officers moving around, that is an old and antiquated rumour within the RCMP. In fact, we’re a very family-friendly organization. Whether it be Alberta, British Columbia or the Lower Mainland, I know many members who have spent their entire career in one detachment or in one particular unit or in one particular area. So they do stick around, and they do become members of a community.

One of the things we’re seeing in Surrey is that a lot of those Surrey taxpayers are actually our members who are serving in Surrey and have been for a long period of time.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Brian. I appreciate your comprehensive presentation. I want to understand the statement, the paragraph: “In Surrey, the transition budget has grown from $19.4 million in 2019 to, potentially, $81.1 million.” Where’s that number coming from, and who’s the taxpayer that’s funding that?

B. Sauvé: The taxpayer that’s funding that, it’s my understanding, is the city of Surrey property owners and businesses that live and reside and do business within the city of Surrey. So you have the $19 million which was forecast way back in 2019, when the original transition report and the Oppal report were provided to the province, and 81 is where we sit now.

One of the challenges there is…. Obviously, Surrey is seeing the same challenges every police service is seeing across Canada, with the ability to recruit enough qualified talent and candidates to be able to fill those jobs. They have a number of members who are on the payroll but have not been able to be deployed into the field for whatever reason — seats at the Justice Institute of B.C. or the ability to train. So that adds to costs and obviously increases the budget.

B. Bailey: Thank you for your presentation. I was particularly interested in your comment that having access to data on folks that you’re responding to, having a mental health crisis, was helpful for officers. I think, if I understood correctly, you mentioned that some provinces are using an app that assists officers in that way. I’m interested in that.

I’m wondering if you could share with me which provinces have it. Is this an app that has been locally produced, if you happen to know? I’m curious about the concern about protecting data that often comes up when we look at using an app to assist in that way.

I know we’re very short on time, but if you could just hit a couple of those, that would be very helpful to me.

B. Sauvé: I’d love to say it’s a Canadian-based software. I don’t know. But the province of Manitoba is the one that is using HealthIM. The province of Saskatchewan has actually gone a different route. What they have done is they have embedded a psychiatric nurse within the 911 dispatch centres. So a number of options available for your consideration.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Brian, we are out of time. I would like to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for joining us and making some concrete recommendations and making those recommendations in the context of sensitivity about some of the challenges that B.C. is facing, that Surrey is facing and that our whole society is facing with regard to what, perhaps, is a redefined relationship with police. So thank you very much for your insights.

B. Sauvé: If there is any follow-up required, like more information on the HealthIM, we’re more than happy to get some information to you. I appreciate you having me.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Scott Stanners, representing B.C. Bioenergy Network.

Welcome, Scott. You have five minutes.

B.C. BIOENERGY NETWORK

S. Stanners: Wonderful. Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the select standing committee and esteemed associates. My name is Scott Stanners, executive director of B.C. Bioenergy Network.

I would like to begin by thanking the provincial government for establishing and funding B.C. Bioenergy Network in 2008. I’m pleased to continue being at your service to grow a thriving bioeconomy.

I would like to compliment the government for approving amendments to the Low Carbon Fuels Act. This legislation will likely increase the stringency of the act from 20 percent in carbon intensity reductions by 2030 to as high as 30 percent, continuing to make B.C. a leader.

[3:45 p.m.]

Other updates in the new statute to increase the credit market participation, impose a cost-containment mechanism, and update penalty and non-compliance authorities are important components that provide increased market stability.

Now, our estimates indicate that attracting $4 billion may be required to achieve the renewable liquid fuel goals in CleanBC Roadmap to 2030. If we are successful in attracting this capital, building this low-carbon fuel infrastructure will create construction and permanent jobs, use value-added biomass residues from B.C.’s forest sector and municipalities across the province to decarbonize our economy and maintain B.C.’s leadership role in decarbonizing transportation, responsible for nearly 40 percent of emissions in B.C.

The three overarching recommendations I have are…. Let’s stop what’s not working, which is having a carbon tax on renewable fuels. It’s important to continue to collect the tax from fossil-based transportation fuels, but stop applying the carbon tax to renewable fuels to increase their competitiveness.

Second, let’s continue supporting what is working. The B.C. Low Carbon Fuels Act is a cost-effective, market-based mechanism that has proven to be successful. This has led to blending up to 8 percent renewable content into our eight billion litres of gasoline and diesel consumed annually in B.C.

We have seen impressive announcements from the two refineries in B.C. Parkland fuel announced plans to expand processing activities to 5,500 barrels a day and build B.C.’s largest renewable diesel complex at 6,500 barrels per day. Last year, Tidewater Midstream in Prince George announced the creation of Tidewater Renewables, which is formed to become a multifaceted energy transition company focusing on the production of low-carbon fuels in the north.

Supporting leadership and innovation in our energy sector will help B.C. achieve these climate goals, and I encourage the committee to align provincial funding initiatives with federal programs to achieve the best leveraging for B.C. taxpayer dollars.

Third, I’m recommending support for four initiatives to accomplish the CleanBC targets. As you know, over 99 percent of bio and renewable diesel is imported into the province. B.C. does not have significant volumes of primary feedstocks like oilseeds and tallow, harvested in the prairie provinces.

In order to achieve the goals in CleanBC, which state that the low-carbon fuels have to be derived from B.C. feedstocks, support scaling up and deploying innovation in B.C.

Second, develop a biofuel strategy that attracts federal funding and provides assurances to the investment community by committing to a long-term plan.

Third, establish a GHG institute that delivers training and certification for GHGenius, the life-cycle assessment software used in B.C., and a facility to test the biogenic content in fuels. BCBN, the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation and Simon Fraser University are progressing these concepts.

Fourth, establish a production credit program for renewable low-carbon fuels. It is the strongest way to attract investment. Alberta established significant biofuel manufacturing through their production credit program, and Archer Daniels Midland built in Alberta because of the program.

To recap, stop what is not working and stop taxing biofuels. Two, continue supporting what is working, including the Low Carbon Fuels Act and part-three agreements, and three, support initiatives that would enable B.C. to decarbonize its fossil-based fuels and achieve the targets in the CleanBC Roadmap to 2030.

Thank you for your attention.

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

I’ll now invite questions from the committee. The first hand I see is Henry’s.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Scott. I really appreciate your presentation. I do want to ask a question. Pardon me if I didn’t hear clearly.

You were talking about how a lot of biofuel sources came from the Prairies, as they grow agriculture products over there in order for us to feed our biofuels. So my question right now is: if we want to do something in B.C., would vertical agriculture be able to take advantage of those circumstances, or are the crops you’re referring to not suitable to vertical agriculture?

S. Stanners: You’re correct. The crops we’re talking about are not suitable for vertical agriculture, simply because they’re land-based crops, oilseed crops, that need significant land for growth. The vertical solution is not suitable for harvesting in the same mechanised manner.

[3:50 p.m.]

H. Yao: Is there any way you can recommend that we can actually allow B.C. to be a leader in regards to producing our own biofuel crops?

S. Stanners: My recommendation is to use the biomass that we have. In general, it’s the biomass waste from a variety of sectors. The largest volume of biomass waste is in the forest sector in B.C.

Of course, we also have projects like Metro Vancouver using the genofuel technology to convert human wastewater sludge into bio-crude that is then being transported to Parkland Fuel to co-process and make finished fuels with lower carbon intensity. So there’s a variety of options for biomass feedstocks.

H. Yao: That’s incredible. Thank you.

B. Stewart: Just to follow on MLA Yao’s question about the feedstocks, they’re not practical to be grown in areas like the Peace River, or is it just because of the fact that these seeds or oil products are not able to be grown or the financial incentive is not there for them to grow them.

S. Stanners: As a matter of fact, the Peace region is a great area for oilseed agriculture production. It would be a great location. I mean, it’s really there and, potentially, the Fraser Valley, which is very limited in space. So ultimately, the Peace region would be a great place to produce oilseeds.

Of course, we also have forestry-based residues — slash, harvesting residues, mill waste — as well, that can contribute, as Canfor Pulp is doing in Prince George. They’re taking pulp mill waste and black liquor and converting that into a bio-crude which will be co-processed into finished fuels as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions, so with that, Scott, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to make your presentation and to educate us about biofuels.

I’m the MLA for Burnaby North, so the Parkland refinery is right down the street from me. I’m absolutely intrigued by what this shift can mean for our community, for our economy and for our lives. Thank you very much for your leadership on this.

S. Stanners: Wonderful. Thank you very much for your attention.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Pamela Charron, representing the B.C. Employment Standards Coalition.

Over to you. You have five minutes.

B.C. EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS COALITION

P. Charron: Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for providing the Employment Standards Coalition the opportunity to discuss our budget submission that we feel is very crucial. My name is Pamela Charron. I go by she/her.

I’m calling from T’Sou-ke First Nation territory today.

I’m co-chair of the Employment Standards Coalition and the executive director of the Worker Solidarity Network.

In light of our past submissions — 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021 — and because of the failures and the inabilities of the employment standards branch to carry out its mandates due to significantly reduced and inadequate staffing and lack of proactive enforcement and worker accessibility, we’ve been advocating for an increase in budget to the employment standards branch.

We thank you for the increase-in-budget recommendation that was put forward in last year’s committee report. However, the employment standards branch budget has been frozen for three years. The Ministry of Labour has committed to addressing workers’ issues and bolstering the current complaint mechanism in its current service plans.

The coalition recommends that there be an increase of at least $14 million to the branch budget for the purpose of our three recommendations, as follows. For the sake of this presentation, I’ll be referring to the branch as ESB.

Firstly, these resources should go towards hiring more staff to address the backlogged complaints and increasing number of complaints. The rationale behind this call is as follows.

The ESB is still recovering from the tremendous cuts experienced under the provincial Liberal party’s leadership, between 2001 and 2017. The number of employees in the province has increased by approximately 38 percent, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and the number of employers has increased by approximately 32 percent since 2001. Also, the current number of staff at the branch is 147. It is well below the 162 staff employed in the year 2000. Given all these numbers, it is reasonable to advocate for a corresponding increase in the branch budget for the staff resources.

[3:55 p.m.]

Additionally, it is understood that the number of complaints to the ESB has increased substantially over the previous years due to the expansions of the rights and benefits under the act, which also isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and reports from the Ministry of Labour that the number of complaints doubled up with the removal of the self-help kit complaint process in 2019.

Secondly, the Ministry of Labour needs to address the inadequacies of staff training and procedural fairness in the ESB. These inadequacies are detailed in our April report titled Justice Denied: The Systemic Failure to Enforce B.C. Employment Standards. A copy of that report has been provided to each member of the committee.

Temporary staff are being hired to address a backlog of complaints, and this makes sense, because workers are waiting over a year to recover wages, and that’s unjust. However, the ESB is hiring investigators and decision-makers who lack adequate legal training and experience. Consequently, the quality of decision-making is declining, and the wrong standards of law are being applied.

We are experiencing undue delay in responding to advocates, investigation officer biases and hostility from investigators when there is an advocate present. Examples are listed in our report. Particularly, in one case, a worker was advised to settle for less than they were entitled to during the investigation process. Thankfully, an advocate was there to ensure that this worker got what they deserve and what they are legally entitled to.

Lastly, the coalition would like these resources to address complaint suppression. This involves a number of factors, including employee fear and intimidation, language barriers, in-person access to ESB staff and offices, inconvenient hours of operation and failure to perform complete payroll audits when there is evidence of systemic employer violation. Complaint suppression can also be a major problem among temporary foreign workers.

The expansion of its enforcement activities to include proactive investigation can also support complaint suppression. This is especially crucial to address the growth of gig employment and the widespread misclassification of workers.

To conclude, there is evidence of major shortcomings at the ESB, such as complaints left unresolved for years, investigations not conducted thoroughly and a lack of proactive investigation.

Our concern is that with such a limited and inadequate budget, the ESB is not able to carry out its mandate. Because of this, the ESB is in crisis. This failure is especially harmful for low-wage, racialized, recent immigrant, young and women workers. At a time when workers have been impacted by a pandemic, the least we can do is uphold workers’ minimum standards.

The three recommendations that our coalition recommended — being, dedicating resources to staff hiring, more resources for staff training and addressing complaint suppression through proactive enforcement — can address these shortcomings to ensure that the Employment Standards Act is enforced in the interest of B.C. workers.

Thank you so much for your time.

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

I’ll entertain questions from the committee.

H. Yao: Thank you, Pamela, for the presentation. I don’t really have much to say, except that I really appreciate what you’ve been doing for workers and fighting for workers’ rights.

Obviously, we’re talking about the Employment Standards Act, and what it is you’re requesting supports our immigrants and young workers, moving forward. I think one thing you mentioned very clearly is when we have a stronger, progressive value that has been incorporated into our employment standards, it does require additional resources, though, supporting us to ensure that we bring fairness and justice to workers’ rights.

Like I said, I didn’t really have much to ask. I just really appreciate your presentation. Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. I like the way that you’ve framed things, as it’s the good news and bad news at the same time when changes come forward.

My question to you. I mean, you clearly identified that there are 147 current staff that are there. Have you identified what you believe the staff number needs to be to be able to maintain it and whether or not there should be a recommendation in there to overstaff to catch up?

P. Charron: That’s a great question. Thank you.

We are suggesting that it goes up to 162, like it was in the year 2000, but also whatever the budget increase could provide to add adequate resourcing to staff funding. Equally…. Yeah, it depends if….

With the fact that there are more employees and more employers and the rise of that economy, then there should be equally as much staff in the ESB to address the growth in labour, I guess.

[4:00 p.m.]

M. Starchuk: Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I’ve heard the complaints about the employment standards branch and just how long things are taking. I definitely appreciate your attention and advocacy work to really draw this to this committee’s attention.

On the $14 million, do you know, percentage-wise or a breakdown, as to how much is going to hiring of new staff, how much is training and how much is enforcement? And my next piggybacked question is just: is the $14 million an annualized amount, or is that a one-time to get through the backlog?

P. Charron: That’s also a great question. I’m presenting on behalf of my co-chair colleague, David Fairey, who would possibly have the numbers or percentages of what would be dedicated for enforcement and staffing, staff resources and training. But in our submission that we’ll be sharing, I’m sure that we will add, possibly, if this could be an annual thing, or if this is to address the backlog.

But I do believe that it isn’t only to address the backlog. We think that backlog isn’t the main issue; it’s that there is procedural unfairness taking place. And partially, there is such a backlog possibly because there is so much procedural unfairness taking place. So they kind of go hand in hand.

R. Merrifield: Thank you. I look forward to the written submission.

B. Bailey: I, too, want to thank you for your submission. You’re paying attention to something that is so important in terms of rights of workers and equity. So thank you for turning your attention.

I’m wondering about…. And this is theoretical, so perhaps you won’t be able to answer it. But if you are, please do. When I think about the ESB and the theory behind it…. You don’t need to have legal representation. Speaking in theory, you will be able to navigate it on your own. It will be accessible, timely — things that we definitely want to get back to, right?

Is it your view, or not, that were that operating as it should…? Were it timely — were it that someone could come in, file a complaint and be seen within a reasonable amount of time — do you think it’s necessary, under those circumstances, to have an advocate? Or is it because the system is backed up and challenging — and, as you’ve described, inequities — that they need an advocate?

In a best-case scenario, were this problem solved, would people need an advocate, do you think?

P. Charron: That’s also a great question. I’m, of course, very hopeful that if the system…. If there weren’t any inadequacies in the system, of course, we hope that workers would be able to come forward without an advocate. But that isn’t the case currently, right now. Of course, with the barriers that I mentioned, the language barriers…. And of course, the law is difficult to understand, in general.

So would it be possible to not have an advocate? I’m not sure. But currently, right now, it’s definitely necessary, especially when investigators are telling workers to settle for less than what they are entitled to.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Pamela, that wraps up the time that we have with you. Thank you for your presentation.

Thank you for the work that the coalition does. It’s hard to hear that you represent some of the most vulnerable workers in the province and that the system is failing them. But you’ve given us some very concrete ways to correct that, so thank you for that.

P. Charron: Thank you so much for your time, everyone. Take care.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Bonnie Olson, representing Islands Wellness Society.

Hi, Bonnie. Welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation.

ISLANDS WELLNESS SOCIETY

B. Olson: I am happy and pleased to be joining the committee. Thank you for your time.

I’m joining from the beautiful unceded territory of the Haida Nation.

[4:05 p.m.]

I really appreciate this opportunity. My name is Bonnie Olson. I work for a non-profit organization called Islands Wellness Society. We serve the community in many ways: counselling, front-line services. I run a food bank off the side of my desk. We do the CCRR child care program. Just so you have a feeling for…. I’m speaking from a lot of voices for my agency.

We have three recommendations. I’ll go right into that.

Our first recommendation was that we would like to see social service positions, such as the ones I’ve mentioned, be funded in these rural communities up to full-time hours, 30 or 35 hours a week. This would include front-line positions in the violence response sector, counselling, outreach, family support services.

The explanation I’ll give for that is…. I’ve been in this role for 12 years and lived in this community for almost 30. A lot of these issues, such as poverty, lack of housing, isolation, intergenerational trauma, and lack of access to services and specialists in these areas of physical and mental health make it challenging to address the needs of our rural communities.

We are especially remote here in Haida Gwaii. We don’t have specialized services to refer to. Often we are the only service available. So we end up having about ten hats in these 18-, 19-hour-a-week positions. Having full-time positions would make it easier for people to access our services and, for staff and people — I include ECEs and other people — doing front-line services, to accommodate the complex interweaving of systemic issues that our clients are navigating, and it would improve recruitment and retainment when looking to hire qualified staff.

I’ll go right into our second recommendation. It’s connected to that. It would be increasing wages in these positions, especially those managed by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, such as the outreach coordinator, victim assistance; our PEACE program, which serves children and youth; as well as ECE and home care positions. These require education, training and experience, but they often do not pay well. They are generally part-time, most often filled by women, and this contributes to gender inequity.

Due to the nature of front-line social service work and the challenges of living in a rural community and having many hats, we’re at risk for burnout. This is due to having to navigate those dual relationships within personal and professional roles and to provide appropriate and competent services when there are no other supports to do so. Recruitment and retainment, again, are impacted here.

Our third recommendation would be to provide secure yearly funding to communities or community agencies in order to build capacity in the areas of community coordination, transportation, housing, addiction services, food security. Reliable funding, not having to constantly write grants and never know what we’re having — and having a lot of time consumed writing grants — means that we could have better well-being in our rural communities and relieve the pressure placed on these small organizations or individual volunteers that provide piecemeal responses to people in crisis.

Our small organization manages a local food bank and is able to partner with other agencies, but there’s no formal funding to support that coordination. Community coor­dination, in general, around safety for women is a way of creating safety and best practices for the service that is currently expected to be done within these half-time roles. Prioritizing this role by providing that sort of funding is vital.

Those are my three recommendations.

Haawa. Thank you.

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

We will now entertain questions from the committee. I see some hands already. Karin and then Brenda.

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

Are most of your programs funded by MPSSG? I didn’t hear…. I don’t know if you’ve got the STV program. You were talking about domestic violence programs. Is that primarily where those are funded from?

B. Olson: Yes, that’s right, except for the CCRR. That is the child care resource and referral program, which we serve the whole island with. The rest of us are funded that way.

B. Bailey: Hi, Bonnie. First, I just really want to thank you for the work that you do. To be funded 18 hours and to wear ten hats must be absolutely exhausting. I don’t know if you get thanked on behalf of government, but thank you, on behalf of government, for what you do. It’s so important — so first, that.

[4:10 p.m.]

I’m considering what the need might be in your community. I think you’re asking for one full-time role. Am I understanding that correctly? Do you see…?

Just sort me out on that, Bonnie, if you could.

B. Olson: Certainly. Just in my example, I am also the victim services coordinator and the outreach, which is outreach services for women and their children impacted by violence. I take two programs to provide one job for myself. I think there are a lot of people in that position who have this funding, and it’s very hard to recruit. I have a passion for community, and I love my work, but I do a lot of unpaid work as well. So I think that there are a lot of challenges.

Often those jobs will sit empty. I tried to serve the whole Island in 18 hours, because that job — victim services in the north end — sat empty, if that helps answer your question.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): The majority of the positions that you do have, then, through MPSSG, are not full-time positions. Do you have more than one contract? I presume you’ve got a contract for each program, and you’ve got some that may be a 0.3 person and one that’s a 0.8 person, but they’re in different streams of programs. So you can’t necessarily put them together, like you have done with what you’re doing?

B. Olson: That’s right, and I think sometimes there can be conflicts. The STV counselling is a better-funded position. It’s 30 hours a week, or 31. The outreach, the victim services and the PEACE programs are all under 20 hours, which is also challenging for benefits if a small agency wants benefits and things. I just feel like it’s a bit complex. It seems like I’m advocating for my own job, but it’s a legacy piece I’ve seen with 12 years doing this.

It’s very hard to keep people in positions unless they have that added passion for community and don’t mind not being paid well and having a half-time job. I just feel like basing it on crime stats and things like that isn’t helpful either, because — I am the native courtworker; I am the family law person — there are so many hats that you try and help people with. We don’t have specialized units or services here to refer on to.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you. I’ve tried to staff those positions in the same way, so thank you. I hear what you’re saying. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions. Bonnie, I’d like to, on behalf of the committee, thank you for taking the time to present to us. Thank you for the work you do to fill a gap, and for identifying that it needs to be filled in a different way. I hope you may find some comfort in hearing that we have already heard a lot of presentations from all over the province, including some of the big urban areas, which are identifying exactly the same challenge that you’re identifying. We are hearing it loud and clear.

B. Olson: I really appreciate the committee’s time. It was a privilege to be able to share the voices of the many people I serve.

Haawa. Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Now we can hear from Alex Hemingway, representing the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the B.C. office.

Welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

CANADIAN CENTRE FOR
POLICY ALTERNATIVES

A. Hemingway: Thanks very much to the committee for hearing from me today. I’m the senior economist with the CCPA B.C. office.

I’ll begin with our first overarching recommendation, which is that Budget 2023 should help meet the major social and environmental challenges of our time by increasing public spending as a percentage of our total economic output, or GDP. Really, the most important observation I want to leave with you today is that when it comes to the provincial budget, the planned levels of public spending are substantially too low to meet these challenges.

[4:15 p.m.]

A growing body of evidence tells us that long-term underinvestment in key public services and infrastructure is both economically and socially destructive. Yet the most recent B.C. budget, for 2022, plans for a continued decline in provincial operating spending as a share of GDP — which is projected to be 19.2 percent in 2023-24 and to fall to 18.7 percent the next year.

Keep in mind, this assumes that the large, multi-billion-dollar contingency funds in the budget are spent in full, otherwise these figures would be even lower. This represents a significant drop from B.C.’s operating spending levels of two decades ago. To put this in concrete perspective, if we returned spending to the 1999-2000 levels, which was 21.5 percent of GDP, the provincial government would have about $8.5 billion more available, in the upcoming fiscal year, to spend on urgent social and environmental priorities.

Increased public spending can be funded by a combination of borrowing, particularly when used for growth-enhancing investments in social and physical infrastructure, and by raising revenue through inequality-reducing tax measures that focus on the rich, large corporations and wealthy landowners.

Our second recommendation: within this more expansive fiscal framework, Budget 2023 should increase operating spending to address urgent social needs in health and seniors care, K-to-12 and post-secondary education, child care, public health, poverty, housing and ending toxic drugs, as well as putting this towards fairer wage increases for public sector workers, who are essential to making our province and our front-line services work.

The general economic case for increases in public expenditure is strong, but the evidence is also clear in specific policy areas. Just one example is universal public child care, which has large and very well-documented economic benefits. That’s one of the reasons the expansion of child care investment is extremely welcome — it’s happening right now — but the research case is equally strong in the other policy areas I mentioned.

Our third recommendation is to increase capital investments in physical and social infrastructure. The case for public capital investment is very strong. In our submission and in more detailed publications, we review research from institutions like the IMF, as well as dozens of academic studies, detailing the economic benefits. This literature finds that public capital is undersupplied in OECD economies like ours. While B.C.’s capital budget is more ambitious than its operating budget, the 1 percent of GDP increase in that capital budget, which was promised in the fall of 2020, hasn’t actually materialized.

Levels of investment continue to fall short of what’s necessary to address the backlog of urgently needed and highly productive infrastructure projects, including in areas like affordable housing, public and non-profit child care facilities, schools, hospitals, public transportation and action relating to the climate crisis. As just one example, a massive increase in public investment in housing would be extremely beneficial, both socially and economically. Our research shows that much of this investment could in fact be structured as self-supported debt, because the costs, up front, of housing investment are offset by a dedicated stream of rental income.

To sum up, we have the urgent need to increase public spending to meet the very significant crises of our time. We have the economic capacity to do so, and the evidence tells us that underinvesting in the public sector hurts our long-term productivity and growth.

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

I’ll now entertain questions from the committee.

B. Bailey: Thank you for your presentation. I just want to explore, a little bit, one of your last points: an increase in public investment in housing, which would be extremely helpful and could be funded in self-supporting debt. I wonder: how is that different from HousingHub? To me, it sounds like the same model. I wonder if you could help me understand that.

A. Hemingway: There are similarities to existing models of public and not-for-profit housing. Specifically, what I’m suggesting here is restructuring and then expanding that investment — for example, under an arm’s-length agency, like a Crown corporation set up for this particular purpose, or a repurposed version of B.C. Housing. That would allow, as in the case of other Crown corporations like B.C. Hydro, setting up a system of capital investment that is booked specifically as self-supported debt.

[4:20 p.m.]

Now, there is an aspect of this I don’t want to overstate, which is that…. This approach would allow us to bring large amounts of moderately below-market housing online and bring the financing of that to bear through the public sector’s ability to borrow at the lowest possible rates compared to the private sector. But you do also need to take other measures, including subsidies or capital grants, to achieve deeper levels of affordability, as well as doing things or imposing requirements on the local level, in terms of land use policy. There’s a whole other discussion there.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Alex, for the presentation. I am somewhat, I guess, concerned about fundraising for the increase in spending through the two means that you indicated, debt and taxation, largely because I don’t believe that it would necessarily make us recession-proof or resilient.

I would ask the question: what would your solution be to, let’s say, the continuance of interest rate increases? Every half a point at B.C.’s current debt is about $95 million in operating interest costs that B.C. has to fund. Let’s say we do head into a recession, which many economists are now predicting. How would B.C. continue to spend at a higher level and still accommodate and afford to pay for higher interest rates and costs associated with higher debt?

A. Hemingway: Well, there are a few things to say here. First of all, our debt levels are very affordable in B.C. We have the lowest net debt among the provinces in the country. Our interest costs remain near historic lows, despite currently rising interest rates. It’s important that a lot of…. The borrowing, for example, that’s happened during the pandemic — much of it will be at interest rates that are locked in for 10, 20 or 30 years.

In the case of a recession, that’s a scenario in which you would, in fact, want to increase…. The case for increasing public investment would be stronger than ever, in terms of economic stimulus.

I think the other…. The larger point, and perhaps the most important point here, is when we have a backlog of very important and highly productive investments that need to be made in this province — whether that’s to address the climate crisis, to address the housing crisis, to invest in our public transportation system — those types of investments have payoffs that are substantially larger than the interest costs associated with the borrowing that would be required to undertake them.

So we’re actually, from a fiscal and economic perspective, shooting ourselves in the foot by not increasing those investments now. That’s actually the fiscally irresponsible thing to do — to leave those productive investments on the table.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Alex, for your presentation. I have a question. You mentioned a lot about social investments. You mentioned a lot of environmental, climate change investments. Do you have any data you can maybe showcase that when we invest a certain amount of money today, it will prevent the unnecessary expense in the near future of exponential different expenses?

If we look at if we had done a better job preventing climate change, we wouldn’t be dealing with so much flooding. We wouldn’t be dealing with that many forest fires. We wouldn’t be dealing with the food security and water security issues and the polluting of water. The health care crisis that we’re dealing with right now. I know if we had invested more in the health care system, it would have been more robust in dealing with the pandemic as well.

Do you have additional data in the area to showcase the fact that it’s important to invest early to avoid, actually, the greater expenses that can come up later on if we fail to recognize the dangers coming our way?

A. Hemingway: Yeah, that’s really very clear in each of the areas you mentioned. I mentioned child care earlier. We published research out of our office showing the economic impact and benefits of child care investment, including through increased labour force participation of women and the additional revenue that comes with that.

That’s also true…. I’ve done some research in the area of health care — in a whole number of areas of health care. One example would be pharmaceutical drug coverage.

[4:25 p.m.]

The research is very clear. If we had a universal drug system, that would actually drive down prices of those drugs, drive down the aggregate costs of pharmaceutical drugs in our economy, not only leaving households better off and with more equal access to those drugs but actually adding to the efficiency of our health care system.

Climate change research is not my area of specialty, but I have reviewed some of that research, and it seems very clear. All the economic research that I’ve dipped my toe into in that area says that each year that we delay action on climate change increases the long-term costs to our economy. We are in the situation, at this moment in our province’s and in our world’s history, where we have to pivot to making these types of investments and recognizing the long-term returns that they offer.

The flip side of that is to recognize the costs that are imposed by delay and by inertia — by not breaking out of, for example, budgetary frameworks that say we can’t spend more than we are today, when in fact we know that we did that in our own recent history, just a couple of decades ago, and when we look at other vibrant economies in areas of the world like the Nordic countries, which do in fact invest substantially larger shares of their GDP publicly and to the benefit of those societies.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Alex. You are our last presenter of the day. So far, we’re about halfway through the consultation, and so far, we’ve heard from about 150 different organizations, different presenters. It won’t come as a surprise to you to hear that many, many of them put some large dollar signs on some very urgent needs.

What we’re hearing from you today is that we actually do have the economic capacity to respond to those needs. What we also hear you saying is that if we don’t exercise that capacity, it will hurt our economy in the future, and our ability to address these issues in the future.

Thank you very much for closing out the day with your message.

A. Hemingway: Thanks for having me. I wish you all a restful evening after a full day of this type of session. Take care.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thanks. Bye-bye.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:27 p.m.