The committee met at 8:31 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

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

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting in Vancouver today on the territories of the Coast Salish peoples — the Squamish, the Musqueam and the Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

Welcome to everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting on the 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. Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation, followed by up to five minutes for questions from committee members.

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

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi there. I’m Karin Kirkpatrick, and I’m the MLA for West Vancouver–Capi­lano.

B. Bailey: Good morning. I’m Brenda Bailey. I’m the MLA for Vancouver–False Creek.

B. Stewart: Good morning. I’m Ben Stewart, MLA for Kelowna West.

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

M. Dykeman: Good morning. I’m Megan Dykeman, MLA for Langley East.

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

R. Merrifield: Good morning. Renee Merrifield, MLA, Kelowna-Mission.

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

Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Emma Curtis from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and Dwight Schmidt and Simon DeLaat from Hansard Services.

Our first presenter is Martha Rans, Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society.

Welcome, Martha.

Budget Consultation Presentations

PACIFIC LEGAL EDUCATION
AND OUTREACH SOCIETY

M. Rans: Good morning. Thank you, everyone, for the warm welcome. It’s early. It’s Wednesday, hump day. I’m thrilled to be in person. I’m deeply honoured to be speaking with you today.

For those of you who don’t know, the Pacific Legal Education and Outreach Society, PLEO, serves B.C.’s non-profit and charitable sector, writ large, through two initiatives, the Artists Legal Outreach and Law for Non-profits. This sector, as you know, consists of 29,000 community-based societies. It’s vast in scope, size and impact. The sector, as a whole, provides more than 86,000 jobs and generates $6.7 billion towards our GDP.

We join with our colleagues at the Vancouver Foundation in calling for a further $30 million investment in the non-profit sector. A home for the sector should have a permanent budgetary allocation to it. It might be more accurate to say a series of budgetary allocations, because it’s never a single allocation.

I want to quote from what you heard from Kevin McCort. “This budget is about more than money.” As noted by the Vancouver Foundation, “it is an opportunity for the government to signal through legislation, policy and priorities its embrace of the significance of the non-profit sector and its commitment to support innovation and collaboration in the sector.”

[8:35 a.m.]

I want to highlight the words “innovation” and “collaboration” to you. I think they are, in every way, the future of where we need to go.

Last month I attended my first meeting as a member of the national Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector and the national summit on arts and culture, focusing on the post-pandemic recovery. Our colleagues at the B.C. Alliance for Arts summed up what I think I learned at the national summit, and I’m kind of taking a few words here.

Arts and culture are common languages that dissolve the barriers between us and galvanize community. Through prioritizing resource allocation to the non-profit and arts and culture sectors, we enhance our ability to bring people together to make life better for all through community, collaboration and care, what we have called the three Cs. My colleagues at ArtsBC and the alliance, my many other colleagues.

With those principles as our backdrop, in addition to the ask for money, I’d like to propose — in light of the federal Budget Implementation Act passage, which will amend the Income Tax Act’s ability for charities to distribute their resources — that we carefully look at how we deliver legal supports and services and that such legal supports and services be opened up to cross-sectoral collaborations that support the many, not just the few.

By cross-sectoral, I mean…. Let’s work together, people. Child care, housing and the arts working together on projects that would change how we access legal supports. We’ve been siloed as a community. I’ve been in the non-profit sector for 40 years, I think. I will say it’s…. You know the fragmentation. I’ve been reading your comments, and I know you know the fragmentation. So what we need to do is work together.

I’d like to tell you very briefly about the Arts Re-Entry Clinic that our organization offered through a pilot project funded by the B.C. Arts Council. They are our only provincial funder. I would add that we do not receive Law Foundation funding. In that, as a result of the post-pandemic recovery, the opening up of PHO orders, a number of small, rural and remote organizations were calling ArtsBC, Heritage B.C. and Actsafe. What happened was…. We provided a three-month pilot of direct legal advice and information and education to the sector. Over 800 organizations were delivered services in three months, with a cost of under $50,000.

We know how to deliver innovative services. We know how to deliver innovative legal services not just to the arts but to the non-profit sector, writ large. We join the CBABC in saying that the priority should be on focusing on those who have traditionally been shut out — that being, in their case, the LGBTQ community. In ours, it’s Black-led and Indigenous-led new non-profits that are just getting going and need our help.

We’d like to see a new program within the Ministry of Attorney General that supports cross-sector collaborations and, also, support for the digitization efforts of those like Clio as we innovate in the provision of legal services. Our legal self-assessment and learning tool is now live. It addresses two areas of law. We see an opportunity for more, with not a single dime of the province of B.C.’s money.

Our collaborations have demonstrated that new models for the provision of legal services need to be tried and supported…

J. Routledge (Chair): Martha, if you could wrap it up. You’re past your five minutes.

M. Rans: Yeah.

…by allocating funds to enable us and other relatively new entrants to innovate how we provide legal services. That’s how we will meet access to justice and heal the deeply harmful social and economic inequalities that exist in our society. It’s by funding organizations like ours that combat racism and that serve Indigenous people and organizations that advocate for human rights.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Martha. Now we’ll invite members of the committee to ask you a few follow-up questions.

[8:40 a.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Martha. I did not realize your connection to the arts and culture centre. I realized the other work you were doing.

So many questions. I’ll just ask one. Can you say again what this new ministry…? You were suggesting a new ministry on cross-collaboration.

M. Rans: I don’t think we need we need a new ministry. What I think we need is….

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Oh, okay. I was thinking what? Thank goodness.

M. Rans: No, no. By the way, I think the idea of a stewardship ministry is a really good idea, because it sets it out. But, no, I didn’t mean a ministry. I just mean a way for there to be cross-sectoral collaboration, particularly when you’re talking about the non-profit sector. Every sector of this economy is affected.

B. Bailey: Nice to meet you, Martha.

M. Rans: Nice to meet you, Brenda.

B. Bailey: I worked in the non-profit sector for a little while and wasn’t aware of your services. I’m thinking about some of the challenges that were facing the organization I was with at the time, Big Sisters. It was adapting to the new legislation in regards to lobbying, etc.

I should imagine the legal need in the non-profit sector to be, really, very high. I know, in my time there, we incurred significant legal fees, even though we had a discounted rate. What percentage need do you think you address when you consider your organization? What do you address, and what’s left behind when you’re not able to get there?

M. Rans: The primary recipients of our services are those that don’t have access to networks, like Big Sisters, to find lawyers. They are predominately women and various ethnocultural groups, Indigenous-led organizations and, as I mentioned, Black-led organizations.

I just got an email from the Indigenous Editors Association, and they had a question about employee versus contractor, which probably, in my experience in employment and labour law, is one of the bigger questions that people have. What should they do? They’re hiring for the first time. This is what a lot of the new organizations getting funding are going to be dealing with. It’s questions like this. I sent them to the Pacific Legal Education Outreach website. They got their questions answered. They didn’t need to see a lawyer.

I gave over 300 workshops during the transition to the new Societies Act, all across the province, including places like Quesnel, Fort St. John. I got to know communities in the Kootenays. And my friends in Kelowna…. Over 300 organizations benefited from me training a group of mentors to deliver services through a grant from South Okanagan and the city of Kelowna that enabled us to ensure that those 300 organizations transitioned compliantly.

It was a low cost. Over the entire budget, all the money we got from that entire project was about $100,000. We can do a lot. But when the Ministry of the Attorney General does not fund public legal education, which is one of the asks — which I should have mentioned — then we’re in a problem.

We have organizations like the Justice Ed Society that are working on digitization efforts all across the civil law space. While I agree with Mr. Bharmal and my colleagues at the bar, I’m like: “We don’t need lawyers.” We need to get services out to people. We need to get people to know what they don’t know so that they’re empowered. Then, at the end of the day, if they still need legal advice, let’s make it accessible to them.

I will say…. You know, I’m 59. This is a sort of milestone year. I’ve been working on this for 20 years. I came out of the non-profit sector. I know what I’m talking about, and I believe firmly that we’ve created, with this platform, something that can make a huge difference. But we need government’s help to reach people.

We’ve asked the registry to put a link to our website on their page so that they can inform the 29,000 societies of the existence of this service. They have refused. Our services are free. Dye and Durham’s aren’t, but Dye and Durham is all over that website.

I’m sorry, and I don’t mean to criticize the government in this way, because in many respects, we’re making up for 16 years of an austerity government, with the greatest of respect to my Liberal friends around the table. I genuinely think this should be bipartisan.

[8:45 a.m.]

I genuinely believe that we can do something. I would welcome an opportunity, Ms. Bailey, to meet with you and talk about what we’re doing with this digital platform, as the Parliamentary Secretary for Technology. I have spoken to the innovation folks.

I believe that we have immense opportunities. What we’re doing, though — and this is something that we’re very good at, in this space — is supporting legacy players, and we’re not looking to fund new entrants. The Law Foundation is closed. They will not provide continuing funding to any organization right now. They’re just not going to. They’ve told us that. They’ve told the government that.

So how is it that we’re going to find some provincial funding? I don’t know. I’m really mystified. It’s a real problem that we have. I think there should be a publicly funded legal clinic system with all the bells and whistles — yeah, yeah. But this is not Martha’s world. This is 2022. We are coming out of a major event, and I do appreciate the difficult task that is ahead of you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Martha. There were some other questions, I think, but we have run way out of time, and there are other presenters who are waiting to present.

M. Rans: Please, I’m happy to receive any questions, Madam Chair.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’re out of time for questions, but thank you very much for coming. Thank you for your passion for this and your leadership on this and highlighting to us that non-profits need this kind of legal support. We will take your suggestions and your intense passion for it and try to work it in. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Karen Dearlove representing the B.C. Centre for Women in the Trades.

Karen, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We’ve got a timer. At the end of five minutes, we will ask you some questions.

B.C. CENTRE FOR WOMEN IN THE TRADES

K. Dearlove: Thank you very much for having me here this morning. I really appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you in person. I represent the B.C. Centre for Women in the Trades.

I’ll put a very short nutshell of what we do. We’re an organization whose mandate really is to look at increasing the number of women in the skilled trades in B.C. Basically, we have three programs that we run based upon funding that we get through the Industry Training Authority.

We have WDA, workforce development agreement, funding that funds women in trades: getting women trained up; providing them PPE, tools and other wraparound supports like daycare, even, and transportation; and connecting them with employers.

We have our Be More than the Bystander program, which is something I’m particularly proud of and I actually spoke about when I was here back in the fall. It’s aimed at creating safe, healthy, respectful and inclusive workplaces for everyone by tackling issues of bullying, harassment and discrimination in skilled-trade workplaces and training institutions.

We have our regional representative program. This is a leadership program for women. It’s aimed at women and other underrepresented and equity-seeking groups. It’s aimed at advancing women, giving them the skills so that they can advance in their careers in the skilled trades and move into leadership positions.

One of the things that I want to talk about is the idea of inclusion. It’s Pride Month in most of Canada, and as we are B.C. Centre for Women in the Trades, we are really looking at the fact that we’re not just serving women in the trades, and nor should we be. We really want to be a more inclusive organization and look at other equity-seeking groups, in particular, the LGBTQ+ community.

They face many of the same obstacles and barriers to entering into the skilled trades, to advancing and finding a place in the skilled trades where they can thrive. They face a lot of the same issues when it comes to bullying, harassment and discrimination. It’s a group that we are looking at trying to be able to be more inclusive of and advance.

However, the problem is that many of the workforce development agreements are very specific in who they serve. The one we have through the ITA says: “Women and those who identify as women.” But that means non-binary people, folks who are trans women and trans men, gay men and other members of the LGBTQ+ community don’t see that they have a space.

[8:50 a.m.]

We had a cohort of queer-trans people that we did in our leadership back in May at Harrison Hot Springs, and they were speaking to one of the representatives from the ITA. It was an interesting meeting, because they were really voicing that frustration that they didn’t feel that there was a place or space for them in any of the programs, any of those programs that are aimed at increasing the skilled trades in B.C.

That’s really what I want to stress today. I think we really need to look differently at how we do these workforce development agreements. Right now, our organization is looking at, perhaps, even changing our name to make it really clear that we’re working for inclusion in the trades, not just for women in the trades.

I think you’re all pretty well aware that there is a large labour shortage right now in the province of B.C. and the rest of Canada. The only way to address that labour shortage in the skilled trades is to bring in underrepresented people and equity-seeking people. We need to have the tools to do that. We need to be able to address not just recruitment but retention. More than anything, we need to make sure that they understand that there is a place and space for them in these excellent careers, these in-demand, high-paying, sustainable and stable careers.

That’s one of the things that I want to really stress today. We need to look at a new way of doing these workforce development agreements. We want to look at a way that we can really make sure that we’re providing opportunities for everybody and that there is a place and space for anyone who wants to have a career in the skilled trades.

I was recently, two weeks ago, at the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum national conference in Halifax and the Supporting Women in Trades Conference in St. John’s. What I found really interesting is…. We were one of the only organizations that was focused not just on women. We are one of the only organizations in Canada that has these wraparound, fulsome programs that look at not just recruitment but retention and advancement, which even we felt we were missing. There was a gap in what we were doing, and we were not being able to be inclusive enough.

My ask, really, is to look at the workforce development agreements and the supports that exist. We would be very happy to be able to expand our services so that we can also provide training, supports, employment and opportunities for members of the LGBTQ+ community in the skilled-trades workplaces in B.C.

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

I’ll invite members of the committee to ask questions. Renee and then Ben.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Karen, for your time and for all of your efforts and advocacy work. Having come out of the private sector in construction, I know firsthand just how desperately we need a workforce and how we needed to change the industry. So thank you for all your efforts to that effect.

Women are a fairly easy number. Fifty percent of all the population is, approximately, women. What would be your estimation of adding to that, in terms of the LGBTQ2S+ community? Also, how would that need to shift in terms of funding, and is there a specific ask for funding?

K. Dearlove: It’s difficult to estimate the population, but at least 5 to 10 percent would be my best guess. Again, I’m not an expert on the statistics. However, I think that it is a substantial population. It is a population…. Because they are able to identify themselves more freely than before, the numbers are probably underestimated as well.

In terms of the ask, currently we have a workforce development agreement with the ITA. It’s approximately $1.3 million a year that we receive in order to be able to provide these services. We serve…. Currently, today, we probably have at least 200 women that are enrolled in our program, and we’ve been very successful in finding long-term, sustainable employment for our clients.

I think that we are really well suited to do this work. We’re able to do it with an individualized approach, which I think is something that’s required, especially when you’re looking at equity-seeking organizations and equity-seeking groups.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have three more questions. Ben, Megan and then Henry.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Karen. I just wanted to clarify the point, when you were at that national conference you mentioned…. Was B.C. the outlier in terms of not being inclusive, or the reverse of that?

K. Dearlove: I think we were the reverse of that. We were one of the few organizations that really recognized that even though…. We know that women are a large, untapped labour market. What we are looking at is…. It’s not…. The barriers and the obstacles that women face in getting into the skilled trades in these workplaces are similar barriers and obstacles to other equity-seeking groups. We were one of the few organizations….

In our other two programs, our bystander program and our regional rep program, we do serve more than women. I think, in that sense, we’re both leading the way and elevating the discussion nationally.

[8:55 a.m.]

We actually were one of the only organizations that brought tradeswomen with us, our regional representatives. It was kind of amazing to see the impact that they had, being able to talk about their personal experiences at these conferences.

B. Stewart: Just to follow on, I guess the problem that you likely will face…. Let’s say we get acceptance in British Columbia. The development agreements that you talk about are inclusive of all different equity-seeking groups. Then it becomes…. How does it transfer when you go to work in another province, which is one of the goals?

Anyways, my compliments to what you’re trying to do. Thank you.

K. Dearlove: I appreciate that. Thank you.,

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. My question is: have you contacted the ministry about this? If so, have you received your response? I’d be interested to see if there already is some sort of plan for that in play. I’m just curious what the status is of you reaching out.

K. Dearlove: We’ve reached out to the ITA, who contracts the WDA agreements with us, and we’ve raised that issue with them. We are in the process…. We’re going to be able to start a new round of contract negotiations. I’m hoping that that will be something we can bring up, through the ITA and through the ministry, to be able to say that this is a service gap that we would like to address.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry, and that’s probably all we have time for.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your great work. I just want to emphasize that, for more inclusivity, you’re serving everybody. I think all individuals become more empathetic towards one another, create a stronger, better and more healthy workforce too. In the long run, it might be safer, too. Thank you so much for your great work.

I have a question. Speaking about inclusivity, I know a few women’s supportive organizations that have a different perspective when it comes to individuals that self-identify as women as well. There’s even a conflict we’re seeing there at the same time. I just would love to hear from you on how you work through those kinds of challenges to ensure that we create a more inclusive collaboration, where everybody feels welcome.

K. Dearlove: That’s a really good question. One of the things we look at, especially with our bystander program, for example, is that we don’t want to put the onus and the burden on women and other equity-seeking groups in the workplace to be doing the work.

It’s really about educating everybody else and about making the statement that creating safe, healthy, respectful and inclusive workplaces is a job that everyone needs to be involved in, especially in a lot of these workplaces where it’s 95 percent men and, specifically, a lot of them white men, that we really need to be able…. They need to be the ones that carry that weight and make those changes and set that culture and that tone.

I think that’s part of what we really try to do. It should not be on the people that are seeking the equity and seeking the space and seeking the place to be always the ones that have to be fighting for it. In that sense, that’s how we try to bring about that change and really just say that this is the standard that we should all be operating under.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Karen. We’re out of time, but you’ve made your point very, very clearly. I want to, on behalf of the committee, commend B.C. women in trades. You, over the years, have exhibited a lot of courage in taking on the system, and you’ve transformed an industry. That you are now at a point where you want to use that experience and skills to open up even more inclusiveness is very admirable. So thank you so much.

K. Dearlove: Thank you very much. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Maria Howard, representing Family Services of Greater Vancouver.

FAMILY SERVICES OF GREATER VANCOUVER

M. Howard: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me here. I’m Maria Howard. I’m the CEO of Family Services of Greater Vancouver. Today I’d like to share with you a little bit about a very important program that we offer, called financial empowerment, and how we believe this is a very important program for British Columbians.

Family Services of Greater Vancouver has been around since 1928. We are almost reaching our 100th-year anniversary. We are really established as a very long-standing community partner who is there to serve people — homeless youth, families in trauma, seniors — and fill many, many gaps. We have done that for almost 100 years.

[9:00 a.m.]

Last year we served almost 12,000 people, which is significant, given COVID, with none of our services changing. We have many partners — health authorities, municipal government, provincial government, federal government, many community social sector partners — and it’s partnerships which help us do our work and serve British Columbians.

As MLAs, you are all very connected to your constituents and hear many stories, and they come to you asking for help. Often, I suspect, you are the last resort when many of them don’t know where else to turn. That’s what happens at Family Services too. We are often the last resort when people have nowhere to go.

I’ll share a pretty quick story about Christine, an individual we worked with, who is a single mother. She has a disability. She lives on a disability pension. She has a teenager. In order to continue her financial management, she had to access some benefits, but she couldn’t, because she had complications with CRA. She hadn’t filed her tax receipts, her tax returns, and she wasn’t able to manoeuvre through the banks.

She was referred to us, and through our financial empowerment program — which is a one-on-one, in-person support — we helped her to understand how to go through all of those steps and start to get her finances turned around. It isn’t just straight financial management. It is also talking about what the other problems in her life are that are barriers — housing, food, a teenager — all of these issues for her.

As we came through that, she was able to start to make some changes. At one point, CRA actually started to claw back some money, and she panicked. But she came back to us again, and through the relationship with the financial empowerment counsellor, she was able to think that through. So not only did she gain financial experience; she gained, actually, confidence and courage to take on the system to help her and her family.

That is what financial empowerment is all about. In fact, before COVID, we set up a program called money navigator, and it was really this wonderful way to reach out and start helping people manoeuvre through their finances. In fact, that really wonderful idea was set up by a very forward-thinking MLA sitting in this room today. Off of that idea, we’ve grown to financial empowerment.

Although Family Services tends to offer our services predominantly in the Lower Mainland, financial empowerment is set up to actually be a provincial program, whether we are actually offering those services through our website, through our provincial phone number, through one-on-one counselling, or we’re doing the train-the-trainer modules where we’re working with other agencies and other communities so that they can offer.

It is such an important element for B.C. It doesn’t matter if you are Christine living with a disability and trying to manoeuvre the system or you’re a new Canadian or you’re a person who is suddenly unemployed or you’re a youth living on the street. Finances put a stress on all of us. Without that education and that confidence to move forward, life really can be overwhelming.

Our ask really is for a partnership with the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to think about how we can take this very important program, this concept, and move it forward so that all British Columbians can begin to have that help, which is beyond the panic of a website and a tool that most people, when they see it — who are already panicking — just turn off the computer.

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

Our first question is from Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Maria. I really appreciate our conversation and the sharing of information. As a youth worker, I have heard of so many financial literacy programs out there that end up being a gotcha or maybe: “I’ll get you to buy some kind of Visa application.” I’m so glad to hear non-profit services provide genuine financial literacy and a financial empowerment program. Of course, I think what you’re doing is incredible — helping people to actually be able to be financially independent.

I’m wondering. As you’re talking about Social Development and Poverty Reduction, is there any appetite for maybe having MLAs’ CAs to actually take the course or training with you? Our constituency assistants, who work in different ridings, can also provide maybe the basic connection or know where to refer for information. Maybe we could create some kind of greater partnership there as well.

M. Howard: It’s a wonderful idea, and we’ve had discussions with our own MLA about that interest, and Parliamentary Secretary Niki Sharma has shown some interest in it. Certainly, that is something that we would like to do.

I think to your point about other agencies doing financial literacy…. What we hear in the social service sector all the time, from our own partners and from ministers, is that there are so many people in the sector. There are so many people who want to help, which is great, but even, sometimes, so much help can be overwhelming for a person who doesn’t know where to go.

We also see a role that we can do in providing some navigation so that we can ensure that…. Maybe the best place for a person in Nelson, B.C., to connect with is their neighbourhood house that they know well, but we can help make sure that there’s some consistency to that through our phone number.

[9:05 a.m.]

The program also has had a national lens to it. We’ve ensured that family services across Canada are also looking at these exact same concepts in other provinces across Canada and that the information in it is evidence-based. It’s been scrutinized through banks, through credit unions. So again, it has an evidence base.

The gem to it, which is exactly what Karin set up, was that not is it just financial literacy, but it’s that trauma-informed safety net that sits underneath, that recognizes that you can’t take a person and just talk about money. You have to take their whole situation to give them the confidence and the courage to know how to do it all in one package, because people come in whole.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there other questions for Maria?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I’ll ask. I didn’t want to hog the questions.

Thank you. That was excellent. It sounds like you’re expanding and doing many more things. How are you doing with respect to funding the program? Are you still getting Decoda and some other ones federally? What kind of funding do you have as a gap?

M. Howard: Yeah, absolutely. In the past years, we’ve received funding through Prosper Canada, a federal agency, and they have continued to be a major funder. They’ve had to change some of their funding models because of other federal…. We are working currently with a couple of credit unions to look at partnerships. We have talked again to the Minister of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

What we would like to do is to have a funding model for the program that is diverse so that it isn’t dependent on one source — so that we are very confident that if things happen, which they do, the program can continue. So we see a diverse model which also includes a number of donors who have shown interest.

It definitely is something that we would like to see in a suite of provincially offered programs. We have worked with WorkBC, but that has a certain mandate, and we believe it expands much beyond the WorkBC mandate.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Maria. The work sounds great, and having been in the financial service industry a long, long time ago, I know exactly the problems people come in with, and I can’t imagine how diverse they are.

What I’m wondering about…. You mentioned the more distributed part. You’re the…. Family Services of Greater Vancouver is what the title says in the program here. How is there…? I’m assuming that there must be somewhat similar services in other communities. Is there a network or some way…? I go back to Henry’s suggestion about training CAs. Is there work to be done to help bring people together so that that literacy, especially considering inflation, housing pressures, etc…? Tell me what we could do better.

M. Howard: Absolutely. The concept of developing a network and, again, training trainers is really fundamental to it, and we have begun to reach out to different partners.

One of the challenges is often many of the agencies who offer this type of support…. It is also done on a very small scale. So we are trying to think of how we can slowly move it out into a network but not burden people to do that. We are also very cognizant that we hear from families continuously: please don’t offer a service that they can’t count on. We are very cognizant of committing to something that actually can’t be sustainable.

Yes, there is an initial conversation. I think the MLA idea is wonderful, and we can certainly take that one away. But there are a number of ways, and absolutely, a partnership, a network, is how we have to help people.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for being here and for your presentation and for all your work with families.

My question is pretty simple. What is the dollar figure that you’re looking for from the Ministry of Poverty Reduction?

M. Howard: The dollar amount that we have discussed with the ministry is $1 million over three years, and that’s really to scale up the program in terms of resources and training the trainer and actually building out that network and scaling that out across the province. So $1 million over three years.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Maria. Thank you for taking the time to come and have this conversation with us, and thank you for being proactive about this initiative.

[9:10 a.m.]

You’re absolutely right. I think from the perspective of MLAs and from the staff in our offices, what you’re addressing is something that we can really identify with. The idea of providing financial literacy and empowerment before it becomes traumatizing will make a huge difference in people’s lives. So thank you so much.

M. Howard: Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Kole Lawrence, representing QMUNITY.

Welcome, Kole. You have five minutes to make a presentation, and then at the end of that, we’ll take up to five minutes to ask you questions.

QMUNITY

K. Lawrence: Thank you.

First, I just want to acknowledge that this presentation is taking place on Coast Salish territory — Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, specifically.

My name is Kole Lawrence. I’m the counselling coordinator at QMUNITY.

QMUNITY has been around under different names for nearly 50 years now. It’s a non-profit organization based in Vancouver that works to improve queer, trans and two-spirit lives across the province. We provide a safer space for LGBTQ2SA+ people and their allies to fully self-express and also feel welcome and included. QMUNITY has a range of programs, including a seniors program, a youth program, an education program and a counselling program.

For you folks today, we have two recommendations we want to emphasize. The first is that the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions prioritize funding for identity-based mental health and therapy-related services. This is important because 2SLGBTQ+ organizations like QMUNITY do not fit in any of the conventional funding streams that would normally apply to other sorts of provincial organizations and resource centres, which means that we are functionally excluded from renewable funding grants each year.

It’s also the case that for many societal reasons, mental health–related challenges, like depression, anxiety and self-harm, are more prevalent among queer and gender-diverse individuals. It’s also the case that identity-based counsellor-client relationships are effective in overcoming mental health related challenges. Queer competent providers are not required but needed around care for 2SLGBTQ+ communities. As such, QMUNITY, as B.C.’s 2SLGBTQ+ resource centre, urgently requires identity-specific counselling staff specific to various subgroups under the queer and gender-diverse umbrella, including trans-specific, senior-specific, Indigiqueer and two-spirit specific.

The second priority we want to emphasize is the creation of a 2SLGBTQ+ advisory committee designed to lend policy advice to various ministries and government bodies or offices. The rationale for this is that there is a clear underrepresentation of queer and gender-diverse perspectives and people in policy-shaping roles at the B.C. provincial level.

An advisory group can help ensure safety among trans, queer and two-spirit individuals across the province, especially those of whom who live in rural areas in smaller B.C. towns, who, through conversations we have over the phone and email everyday at QMUNITY, are seemingly more likely to experience homophobia, transphobia and other forms of discrimination at their workplaces and at their homes, just for being who they are.

On behalf of QMUNITY, I want to let you all know that we really appreciate your time today. You’re all clearly believers in the value that comes from bringing as many perspectives and voices to the table as possible, which is what we strive to do at QMUNITY as well.

B. Bailey: Thanks very much for your presentation and those two recommendations. I’ve sometimes wondered about that second one — why that’s not in place. It’s something that I think is a wise recommendation, from my perspective.

I want to share with you that I just value your work so highly. I have had the opportunity to do a training with you, about ten years ago. It impacted my life enormously, and I’ve been able to help other folks through what you’ve taught me. I intend to come back for more. I think your work is incredibly valuable.

My question is…. I heard that it is coming soon, that there is a new space for QMUNITY. I wanted to ask about that and get an update from you and inquire about how that funding piece is going and if there are any needs in that regard as well.

K. Lawrence: Yeah, totally. Thank you.

We received a $9 million grant from the city of Vancouver. Our new space is on the corner of Davie and Burrard, and it’s actually going to be about six times the square footage of what we have right now. We are set for, I guess, the capital grant, in terms of the building, but we are expecting to expand quite a bit to kind of fill that space and build our programs and staff. Less so on that front.

We’re all very excited. It’s due for, I think, 2½ years from now.

[9:15 a.m.]

B. Bailey: So 2½ years. Okay.

H. Yao: Back then when I used to be a youth working with the non-profit sector, we had done so much great work with you guys. Thank you so much for your great advocacy.

This is a question I’ve asked in the past and will be asking again. I’d really love to hear your recommendation advice about how I can tackle some of the challenges. I realize that when you are coming to a culturally diverse group, there seems to be less warmness, sometimes, to be accepting and inclusive to individuals from LGBT2SQ populations, and we’d really love to see what we can do to promote additional support of that.

You talk about identity-based mental health funding. It is one of the things I actually often see. Youth are so afraid of sharing their preferences to their family or identity to their family members that they suffer many mental illness and mental concerns in silence and in private. Often they’re not part of the data, yet we know they all exist out there, and we know they definitely could use support.

I’d love to hear from you. In regards to identity-based mental health funding, what can we do to also include the cultural sensitivity component to allow different community members from various cultures and villages and faith groups to really see the importance and bridge that gap of inclusivity?

K. Lawrence: Yeah, totally. I think it speaks to different programs in communities. For instance, we have a youth program. Lots of what the youth program does is go to different high schools and stuff, across the Lower Mainland normally, and speak to different classes about 2SLGBTQ+ education and terminology and simple things like that sometimes. If we were able to expand that a little bit more and make it a little bit more culturally appropriate, I think, to which high school or where in B.C. we were headed, that would be extremely useful.

In terms of another program, our counselling program, right now we have a set of fee-for-service counsellors, basically, who see clients. It’s normally up to the person who’s receiving counselling — who they want to choose. We’ve been working now, for a long time, to prioritize getting those identity-specific counselling staff — like getting an Indigiqueer staff and getting a BIPOC staff — that folks can turn to and still make a choice with who they want to see but have those as options. So I think it does apply to quite a few different programs in QMUNITY.

H. Yao: I appreciate it.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Kole. Near the beginning, you made a comment about how it doesn’t fit into the typical funding streams. Why not?

K. Lawrence: Well, there’s no ministry of queer people.

A Voice: Yet.

K. Lawrence: Yeah.

Right now we receive…. Most of our grant funding comes from the Ministry of Children and Family Development. But there’s no coordinated, I guess, funding formula from multiple ministries. So 25 percent of basically all that we receive comes down to that amount.

It’s kind of curious that a queer organization like QMUNITY receives the majority of their grant funding from that specific ministry. It’s just been a conversation that folks, I think, higher up at QMUNITY have been having for a long time, which is just that it seems necessary at this point that there should be a coordination between different ministries to see what portions of which should be contributed each year, annually.

Yeah. I don’t know if that really answered your question.

M. Starchuk: It did, and it didn’t.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for your presentation but moreover just your advocacy work. I love that all of us sitting around here are very familiar with everything that you do.

I love your second recommendation. Just to piggyback on what MLA Bailey said, I think it’s fantastic. I love that idea.

I, too, had a little bit of lack of clarity just on what the funding from the Ministry of Mental Health you were looking for was, in terms of those mental health supports. Is it specific funding, or is it cross-funding?

K. Lawrence: It’s program-specific funding. For instance, our ask this year was basically an amount that was set aside so that we could hire three identity-specific counselling staff — one BIPOC-, one Indigiqueer- and one trans-specific counselling staff. We just looked at what that would cost QMUNITY and what we would expect in terms of what we need for money for that over the next three years. That was an example of the ask for this year.

[9:20 a.m.]

R. Merrifield: What was the amount, the dollar figure, of the ask?

K. Lawrence: It was $210,000 each year for three years.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Quick question. Your MCFD funding — is it grant funding or program funding?

K. Lawrence: As far as I know, it’s grant funding. To be honest, I’m not totally on the funding side of things.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Do you have to do something specific for it? That’s the question. Run a program on behalf of government, or….

K. Lawrence: Yes. Would that mean it’s grant funding?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): That could be. I’ll look it up.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we’re just about out of time, Kole, but thank you so much for coming and sharing with us your vision, and thank you so much for the work that you do.

One of the takeaways for me…. We’ve had a lot of presentations so far that have addressed the gaps in mental health services and the seriousness of mental health. You’ve clearly framed this in the context of the impact on someone of not feeling like they belong or entitled to be part of the community, and the impact that has on their mental health. We need to address that, systematically.

K. Lawrence: Cool. Yes. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Colette Trudeau, with Métis Nation B.C.

Welcome, Colette. You have five minutes. We’ve got a timer here. We ask you to make your presentation and recommendations within five minutes, and then we have up to five minutes to ask you questions and get the answers.

MÉTIS NATION B.C.

C. Trudeau: Taanishi. Dishinihkaashoon Colette Trudeau.

Hello, my name is Colette Trudeau. I am a proud Métis citizen of Métis Nation British Columbia and the interim chief executive officer for Métis Nation British Columbia. I’m just so pleased to be here today. I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to present on behalf of Métis Nation British Columbia and provide the 2023 submission.

I’d also like to acknowledge last year’s clear recommendation to support our previous submission. We trust you’ll see the strategic value of supporting our new request in a broader context of reconciliation.

Just a little bit of a backgrounder on Métis Nation British Columbia. We are the recognized government for Métis people in B.C. We represent almost 90,000 self-identified Métis people in the province, with almost 23,000 registered as Métis citizens within the province.

As part of our governance structure, we have 39 Métis chartered communities, which are volunteer-driven. We represent a third of the Indigenous population in British Columbia. We have a provincially elected board of directors, so we have our provincially elected president, vice-president, women’s representative and youth representative. With all of our chartered communities, that makes up our governance structure.

For quite some time, Métis people have fallen through the cracks. We are considered the “forgotten people,” but we are getting really strong. Our culture is being revitalized. Our youth are really ensuring that there is a sustainability of our nation.

It’s through that awareness that we are starting to see our communities become stronger, and those connections, across the province and nationally, be created. We really, truly see ourselves as a really great partner for the province around the DRIPA action plan and around all reconciliation efforts in the province, but we do lack core funding capacity to do this work.

I do want to bring your attention, noting I’m already halfway through, to the three key areas.

Our first request is around Métis governance. As I noted, we have a very strong governance structure.

The governance funding that we are requesting will support our board of directors; contribute to the core capacity of our chartered communities, which make up our Métis Nation governing assembly; support our annual general meeting; as well as key demographics within our nation, which is our Métis women and our gender-diverse individuals, as well as our 2SLGBTQQIA+ community members, our Métis youth and our Métis veterans. The funding will advance key priorities contained in our strategic plan to build a healthy and vibrant Métis Nation B.C.

[9:25 a.m.]

The next part is around cultural protection and strategic programming. Similar to the provincial government, Métis Nation B.C. is set up with different ministries that do align with the provincial government. We are seeking funding to ensure Métis culture is recognized, respected and protected in the distinction-based approach.

We have key programs, services and advocacy efforts around children and families, around our citizenship, which is the heart of Métis Nation B.C. It registers all of our citizens in the province.

Through cultural protection, so it’s ensuring that the Michif language stays alive and well and that our culture is handed down to all of our youth for future sustainability of the nation.

Economic development opportunities.

Education, specifically to early years, K-to-12 and post-secondary.

Our health outcomes — we have been doing a number of works in partnership with the province, specifically anti-racism data legislation. We were a key partner on that.

Housing and homelessness — we’ve been really visioning what that looks like for Métis people in the province.

Sport.

And again, as I mentioned, women and gender equity.

The last piece of our submission is around reconciliation engagement. The province and MNBC are advancing their relationship by pursuing a new whole-of-government approach. We have, over many years, signed Métis Nation relationship accords with the province, and we continue to do that work. We’ve just recently had an approved terms of reference and continue to be asked by the province to engage on a number of key priority areas. This would really support our capacity to do that work.

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

Our first question is from Mike.

M. Starchuk: Wow. I saw the edge of the cliff right there. Holy smokes.

Thank you, Colette. You talked about the 39 chartered communities and your government structure. I’m curious how the structure works. How does that funding reach those citizens of those communities?

C. Trudeau: Absolutely. We have developed a key department within MNBC, which is our community services arm. Any funding that MNBC receives that is really targeted toward community capacity, we deliver through that department. Really, it’s about ensuring that our communities have the ability to connect with members. As part of the approach to citizens gaining citizenship, they have to connect to their modern-day community, which we have 39 of across the province.

Really, MNBC funnels different supports — primarily, federal funding — to our chartered communities to ensure that they’re able to host different events, have an office that people can go to, have events that bring community together and ensure that the culture remains alive and well in all of our communities.

M. Starchuk: Great. That’s awesome. Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Thank you your presentation and your advocacy work. A question on what the total funding is that you’re looking for. I was tracking all the different categories, but the total number.

C. Trudeau: The total amount we are requesting is $84.2 million. Quite a large portion of that is earmarked for housing and homelessness. We recognize that’s a key priority of the provincial government and is a key priority for us and our citizens.

Our board of directors recently held a visioning session around housing and homelessness, and we really want to ensure that we’re aligning our efforts with the province and with the federal government to ensure that we’re providing Métis communities and homes for our Métis people to come home to. So we are really aligned in that strategic direction with the province. We’ve heard our citizens say that loud and clear.

We want to be a strong partner in ensuring that we’re providing homes and a safe and healthy home for our Métis people.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I do want to apologize for my ignorance. I would love to learn a bit more.

Often you mentioned how a Métis community can fall through a crack, as it’s Indigenous and, of course, British Columbian. So my question right now is: is Métis Nation still part of a government-to-government conversation when it comes to DRIPA? When it comes to government-to-government, is there any kind of revenue-sharing, negotiating treaty that is in process right now that’s also helping with the revenue generating for Métis Nation?

[9:30 a.m.]

C. Trudeau: When I say slipping through the cracks, it’s really…. Quite often when people say “Indigenous,” respectfully, people immediately think First Nations. They don’t recognize the 90,000 self-identified Métis people within the province. So we’re doing a lot of the advocacy work.

In terms of revenue-sharing, it’s something that we’re broaching with the province, and we have heard very clear from the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation that we’re looking to create a new fiscal relationship. We have key partnerships with different ministries, and those relationships are getting stronger and stronger because MNBC has been identified as a very strong partner for the provincial government. But we haven’t gotten to a point where there is that revenue-sharing piece.

We have had conversations around gaming revenue–sharing and other opportunities to really support economic development and core capacity for Métis Nation B.C., to really support our communities and our citizens. That conversation is just starting, but through DRIPA, there is a clear mandate for a new fiscal relationship, and we are prepared to enter those conversations in order to, again, support the sustainability of Métis Nation B.C.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): One-third of Indigenous people in B.C. are Métis. Do you find that, working with MCFD, you’re able to identify children in care who are Métis, or does government lump that all into one thing, which challenges funding?

C. Trudeau: We do a lot of our own work around data collection. There are numbers that we have received. They are kind of dicey. I have no other way of saying that. We’ve worked with RCY to try and work with MCFD to identify the number of children in care. Our numbers say that there are over 700 Métis children in our care system.

We have signed a jurisdictional transfer agreement with the province. However, Treasury Board hasn’t provided us with any funding support to do that work, so we’ve had to work with different child and family services providers to take care of our children. It’s work that we really want to do, but we don’t want to do it without funding to do that. Anything that happens to our Métis children, as a nation, would look terrible. We want to make sure that anything that we offer to our Métis children in terms of supporting children in care is well funded.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Colette. We are out of time. I note there were other questions that people had.

I want to thank you for coming and giving us some insight into your nation and the work that you’re doing to strengthen and build your nation. Certainly the phrase that resonated for me is when you talked about coming home and putting your resources into creating a home for people to come back to. It says a lot.

C. Trudeau: Thank you so much. We have created some packages. It’s very similar to what you have already received, however there’s a message from the CEO and a few more details. I’d love to be able to pass that out to everyone.

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, thank you.

Our next presenter is Dr. Sharalyn Jordan of Rainbow Refugee.

RAINBOW REFUGEE

S. Jordan: Thank you for this time. Very much appreciate it. Sharalyn Jordan. I’m board chair with Rainbow Refugee and have been a volunteer with them since 2004.

Queer and trans refugees arrive in B.C. with the hopes of belonging, of equity, of respect and of safety. Rainbow Refugee has been around for 21 years, supporting people to arrive in this province through sponsorship, or to thrive in this province through our time to thrive program. We also work with refugee claimants who are already in B.C., as they navigate the refugee system. Although we are deeply rooted in Vancouver, our work extends to individuals living on the Island, settling in the Interior and even remote communities of northern B.C.

What we’ve seen over the years is that although people can come here and thrive, build homes, rebuild lives, this is a challenging process for all newcomers, and LGBTQI refugee newcomers face distinct challenges. Because of that intersection and the compounding effects of racism, homophobia, transphobia and often precarious status, their opportunities for belonging and thriving often fall through the cracks.

There are, sort of, gaps between where federal programs end and provincial programs pick up. There are gaps between the service mandates of organizations that are focused on LGBTQI communities but don’t think about racialized and newcomer communities, or the settlement agencies that are very focused on newcomers but where LGBTQI refugees may experience hostility.

[9:35 a.m.]

We’ve got three recommendations. I hope you will see that it’s sort of investing in the early years of someone’s arrival that sets them up to thrive.

First, we’d like to see that all LGBTQI refugee newcomers arrive into places where they can be safe and access services. Too often people cannot afford homes in neighbourhoods that are safe near services that are responsive. They end up in outlying areas, away from transit — overcrowded, shared shelters or homes where they cannot be out, leaving them isolated and disconnected.

What we’re recommending are portable rent subsidies for highly marginalized LGBTQI racialized newcomers who face barriers to employment, like mental or physical health challenges. These could be administered through trusted agencies and ensure that we identify and refer people who really need these subsidies. Again, a few years of support would mean people are not in prolonged and protracted housing and food precarity.

Our second recommendation is around mental health. It’s unfortunate. We have witnessed, with both sadness and outrage, that people who have arrived here with hopes of belonging, die here due to overdose or suicide. This shouldn’t be happening. It’s very preventable.

We applaud the province’s vigorous investment in mental health, but we’re seeing that too often, again, it doesn’t reach the people that need it. So we would like investment in community agencies that could provide that targeted mental health service that is intersectional, culturally safe and LGBTQI focused, such as our time to thrive program or QMUNITY’s targeted program.

Finally, we’ve seen a need for a whole-of-government approach. Here’s where an investment in some core funding for Rainbow Refugee’s government relations at a provincial level could make a big difference. Workplaces, mental health, health — all of these policies, practices need to be thought through with a truly intersectional lens that considers status, racialization, homophobia and transphobia. We would like to work with government on that approach, as we have done with the federal government.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you very much.

Our first question is from Megan.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the fantastic presentation. Admittedly, this is an area I know absolutely very little about, so if my question comes off as a bit disjointed, it’s because I really don’t have any experience in this area.

With your first recommendation, you’re talking about wanting to see people who come over be safe and close to accessing services. Now, as I understand it with refugee programs, that’s one of the things that most people are trying to do — get people into places close to transit or close to work opportunities or close to communities that will serve the various groups of people from around the world that come.

What I’m wondering is: can you drill down a little bit into what would be needed that would be different from, say, the refugee services we have — I’m in Langley — versus what you would be looking at doing here and how it differentiates?

S. Jordan: Yeah. Where Langley might be a very safe community for a heterosexual family that is arriving in B.C., for queer and trans refugees…. They tend to arrive alone. Being in a small community far away from transit…. The services that are responsive in that intersectional way tend to be based in the city centre, so Vancouver — and Surrey, now more. But transit from Langley is three zones and two hours, often through neighbourhoods where people…. We have people who will walk or ride a bicycle two kilometres on an unsafe street. We have experienced people being bashed because of that.

Again, it’s that unique intersectionality that puts people at risk of both violence and then not getting to the services they need.

M. Dykeman: Okay, thank you.

[9:40 a.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Sharalyn. I had never thought about this before, so thank you for bringing this to my attention, to our attention.

Do you work with groups like ISS and MOSAIC cooperatively in referring people?

S. Jordan: Yeah. We’ve been around for 21 years, and we have good, collaborative relationships, particularly with the settlement organizations like MOSAIC, DIVERSEcity, ISS, good relationships with QMUNITY. In fact, they’ve been our sort of host for many years. We are very open to these programs being funded in and through collaborations. What we would ask: we can get lost in the gaps, so please ensure that there’s some way for us to be coming to the table with some resources to that partnership.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. It was really great to hear from you. Basically, listening to you inspired, right off, a question in my head, which I’m concerned about. Obviously, a lot of people are refugees coming from different countries. Some countries, unfortunately, have a reputation that the general population is not favourable towards individual, different identities. Often, when we’re thinking about bringing refugees together with some view to language and cultural familiarity, which groups them together, it actually could create an unsafe environment for individuals.

When you’re talking about providing services for individuals who identify themselves as in the LGBTQ2S population, and they’re going through a refugee process, how do you find the challenge between supporting their language and cultural needs, yet at the same time realizing that similar cultures and similar languages could actually become a harmful environment for them to settle nearby?

S. Jordan: Yeah, you’ve exactly named our challenge. We need to find and create the places of acceptance and belonging that exist in every culture and in every language. Yes, hostility exists, but we have been around for 21 years now and have good relationships within diaspora communities.

Our organization functions well in four different languages now, and we’ve created this sort of multilingual queer and trans community that is a space of belonging within that community. Then people get brave and more courageous and kind of create and find the spaces of belonging in their local co-national communities. It can happen; it is happening. That is also why, as you take on this sort of anti-racism work that you do as a province, it’s important that our voices be part of that conversation.

J. Routledge (Chair): We don’t have much time left. Mike, is your question a quick one?

M. Starchuk: You had spoken about affordable rent subsidies for about two years. I’m curious if you’ve identified properties where the safe places can be in. I know you can’t predict how many clients you get, but what will you typically get? It’s so that we can get an idea as to what the cost factor is.

S. Jordan: If each year there were 300 available — we’re not talking huge numbers — that would make a huge difference. Think about it as 300 as a pilot for a first year, and then build on that. What we have identified are areas in East Vancouver, New Westminster and in Surrey that are near transit and that would be safe. As well, Victoria and Kelowna are two other areas where we’re looking to be able to offer rent subsidies.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Sharalyn. I think many British Columbians assume that we are inherently a safe haven. You’ve pointed out to us that some refugees bring their vulnerabilities with them, and that that can continue here. Thank you for recommending some proactive approaches to make sure that it really is a safe haven for all refugees.

Our next presenter is Paul Holden, from the Burnaby Board of Trade.

BURNABY BOARD OF TRADE

P. Holden: Good morning, everybody. I’ll dive straight in. As MLA Routledge said, I’m Paul Holden. I’m the president and CEO of the Burnaby Board of Trade.

[9:45 a.m.]

We are the chamber of commerce for the city of Burnaby, with about 1,100 members — ranging from the about 85 percent of which are small businesses, to some of the larger corporations that you will be very familiar with. It’s our job, really, to be the catalyst for economic development for the city of Burnaby, the convener of business and community leaders and a champion for business.

I have three areas that I wanted to touch on briefly here, one of which will be very familiar to this group — I think we’ve mentioned it a few times before — and a couple of slightly different ones. I just got back last week from the B.C. Chamber of Commerce AGM, where we presented some policies for consideration by chambers. The first area I’d like to touch on is a policy that was passed and is now part of provincial chamber policy. That’s in the area of building B.C.’s biomanufacturing supply chain.

I think we all saw, during the COVID period, that there were some definite, severe downsides to not having a manufacturing facility for either testing vaccines and therapeutics in Canada — certainly not in B.C., and nowhere in Canada. A lot of money has been invested, quite rightly and with much appreciation, into the research and development areas of life sciences or the bio sector, but to date, that hasn’t extended to investment in biomanufacturing in a local sense.

I’ve got a lot of verbiage I could go through here, but I think you probably get the message already. We’re hoping we’re not staring down the barrel of another COVID any time soon, but I think it’s probably generally accepted wisdom that something will happen at some time. We certainly don’t want to find ourselves again in the position where we don’t have manufacturing abilities. As MLA Routledge knows, even in Burnaby we have a lot of companies that would be able to get up and get going in this sector, and we’d like to see funding directed to biomanufacturing supply chain development.

The next area is the old chestnut, which is in the area of property tax. We have mentioned it before, and we’re not really seeing the kind of progress that we would want to see. We’re seeing many, many businesses where it’s really a threat to their very existence — the level of property tax they’re facing. It really comes down to this one “highest and best use” issue that we have discussed before. It’s something which we really urge the provincial government to look at investigating and making some significant changes to.

As a very brief example, you could find a small business operating on the ground floor of an existing, low-rise mall of some sort which happens to be zoned for development. That business will be paying the commercial rate on all the space above it. In some cases, we’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of percent increases to property tax for businesses. It’s not going away, and nothing’s happening.

We’ve been proposing, for some while, a split assessment program, which I think many of you are familiar with. We’d certainly like to see, in the next budget preparation, that something of that order is investigated a bit more fully and developed.

The last area I’d like to touch on. I think everybody is aware that one of the biggest challenges facing business right now is access to staff — workforce development, talent acquisition. We ourselves have developed a couple of programs over the years, with a little bit of funding that we’ve managed to get access to, which have worked.

I’m just going to give you a quick example of those programs as, perhaps, areas that could be for future funding. Organizations like ours are really the ideal channel through which to place that funding, because of our unique position of the relationships we have with business with the groups I’m about to mention and with potential employees.

We developed a program with some federal funding — it was only $25,000, not a ton — where we were able to put seven or eight students into project-based work with 40 local businesses in Burnaby. It didn’t cost the businesses anything. It was to help those businesses in digital development.

Many businesses didn’t have a website. They didn’t have social media. They didn’t have an e-commerce page. Those students were able to go in, on a project basis, to help those businesses develop some of those products. The difference it made to those businesses was humongous. It was $25,000; that was it.

I would encourage the provincial government to look at funding similar programs. The students are crying out for work — integrated learning experiences; not everyone can cope with a co-op. This is one area. We did a program called bridging the employment gap. There were lots of underrepresented people who sometimes fall through the recruitment process — people with disabilities, women returning to work, new Canadians who often don’t find themselves in the natural recruitment process. We developed a program that enabled us to help those folks as well.

I can answer questions now.

[9:50 a.m.]

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

The first question is from Ben, followed by Henry. We’ve got lots of questions.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Paul. That was great, succinct, right to the point.

Now the question. For the first point you raised about biomanufacturing, tell me what type of support or resources are needed to get this off the ground. I totally understand what you’re talking about. How do we get there?

P. Holden: Well, I think it’s interesting. As part of the investigation we were doing when we were preparing our policy statement, we were finding that — I think it was for the Pfizer vaccine — there was something like [audio interrupted] components that go into making this vaccine. It’s not a question of finding one organization and saying: “Go ahead and make a vaccine” or “Go ahead and make a test.” There are many, many components.

What you’ll find is that there are many businesses that have the expertise in some of those component areas but maybe don’t have the financing or the funding to be able to manufacture them. So I think it’s looking at it from almost a jigsaw puzzle point of view and building the components that, then, create that product.

H. Yao: I do apologize. The five minutes, I know, is extremely short. Thank you so much for being so precise. I know it’s difficult to get all of the knowledge that you have in here.

I will piggyback off my colleague Ben’s comment about biomanufacturing. As you know, one thing the pandemic taught us very well is that we need to invest early in this as well in order for us to prepare for the future that is upcoming.

Obviously, biomanufacturing isn’t just simply vaccination. We’re talking about medication. We’re talking about PPE. We’re talking about huge industries and sectors. If government comes in, wanting to be a part, as you mentioned earlier…. Talking about the chamber, across B.C., has already been wanting to step up and going through…. What kind of strategies can we utilize to really, even, draw additional foreign investment to invest in B.C. so we can become a leader in the biomanufacturing sector itself?

P. Holden: We, as a chamber of commerce, are obviously the group that can bring businesses from all sectors together with government and with local stakeholders. But there’s a very active — certainly, where I am in Burnaby — life sciences sector, with businesses that would be able to answer those kinds of questions a lot more effectively than I could.

I think, like anything in life, it’s one of those collaborative conversations. As I mentioned, it’s hundreds of components needed to build one — whether it’s a vaccine, medication, therapeutic, a test, whatever it might be. I think it’s really a question of working with the folks in those sectors, as well, to really understand what the priorities might be and what the synergies might be between the different businesses in the sector.

J. Routledge (Chair): So we have Brenda, Megan and Renee. Then that’s probably all the time we have.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much. I’m particularly interested in placing students in work-integrated learning and the digital component. I just wondered if you were familiar with some of the programs that we had going — for example, the digital bootcamp. I think we originally funded it at $2 million and had to increase it to $4.5 million. I think we put 3,500 people through. There was also a $12 million program for launch online to help businesses.

Did you find businesses accessing those programs?

P. Holden: We did. To be honest, this was all in that first year, I think, when we were facing COVID and the need to digitize was massive. We certainly were a conduit to helping businesses access some of those government programs. There’s another one from the federal government now, where people can access experts who can help train them and coach them through their digital development.

So I certainly think all those things are hugely helpful. I think that the specific on this one is it is a win-win, as much as the businesses benefit, because they’re getting either free or very-low-cost assistance to develop the work they need.

I’m just quoting the digital example. Obviously, there would be others in other aspects of business. But the real key to this is the ability to have students gain a meaningful work-integrated learning experience. Many students prefer that kind of project-based experience, rather than, “I’m going to be in a co-op for the next three months,” or whatever it might be.

We had Dr. Johnson from SFU speaking yesterday at one of our events, and we were discussing this. I know it’s something which…. They’re really looking to see if they can get opportunities for their students.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for the presentation. We’re very lucky in Langley, because we were able to get Corey Redekop.

P. Holden: Don’t mention it. Now you’ve upset me.

M. Dykeman: I’ve been waiting all week to tell you this. We’re so lucky.

Thank you, though. Really, the presentation was so interesting — looking at the three angles that you were talking about and ways that we can help businesses and support the economy in growing.

[9:55 a.m.]

In regards to the biomanufacturing, I know there’s been a lot of talk about interest in wanting to go in that direction. But some of the other obstacles that exist are the very rigorous standards that the building has to be in and all the regulation that goes into producing things like that.

The businesses that you’ve spoken to that have expressed an interest — are they already at that standard? Is there any thought, perhaps, at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce level of having sort of a national conversation about that? These would be federal and various provincial components and several regulatory bodies that would have to be involved in that conversation.

I’m wondering. Is it well formed, or is just sort of a thought at this…? It is quite an opportunity.

P. Holden: Thanks for the question. On the Canadian aspect of it, it’s the Canadian Chamber of Commerce AGM in three or four months. So we’re taking the same policy to that AGM in the hope of getting federal attention for it as well.

We have a number of companies in Burnaby that have facilities where they’re up to standards, if you like, on manufacturing in the life sciences sector but perhaps not specifically in the areas that we’re talking about here. I don’t think there is necessarily a shortage of businesses who would be able to meet those standards. I think it’s a question of the funding coming their way so that they can actually start a new line of manufacturing.

For us, this is a relatively early ask, if you like. It’s something that we were hearing through COVID and something we’ve heard a bit more recently. It’s something which we’d like to get some momentum behind.

M. Dykeman: Fantastic. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): We are significantly over time, but Renee, if your question is quick and the answer can be quick, we’ll take it.

R. Merrifield: No.

J. Routledge (Chair): No. Okay. I guess it will be an informal discussion afterwards.

Paul, thank you so much for coming and presenting and engaging with us. Burnaby Board of Trade has a lot of creative ideas, and these will be very interesting to pursue.

P. Holden: I appreciate the opportunity. Thanks very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Ingrid Jarrett, representing the British Columbia Hotel Association.

Welcome.

B.C. HOTEL ASSOCIATION

I. Jarrett: Good morning, everybody. The B.C. Hotel Association is the voice of more than 1,300 diverse motels, hotels, remote adventure lodges, destination luxury resorts and large urban hotels — a very diverse sector — the majority of which, in British Columbia, are independently owned and operated primarily by British Columbians or certainly Canadians.

You might see a global brand name on a B.C. hotel or motel, but the ownership is local. The brand, which is determined internationally sometimes, actually is not the indication of the ownership. For example, Hyatt Place in Prince George or Sheraton in Kelowna are both owned by local British Columbians.

Accommodations are fundamental and like an anchor tenant to the visitor economy and to local communities. We play a significant role in building a sustainable, stable economy across British Columbia.

Hotels and motels and inns allow visitors to stay at a destination, which supports attractions and experiences like museums, restaurants, galleries, mountain biking, parks, golf and many, many small local businesses.

As British Columbia moves forward with the vision of the StrongerBC economic plan to train people for the jobs of tomorrow, to tackle climate change and create opportunities for people, the hotel sector is here to support achieving those goals.

Our first recommendation is to ensure that the hotel and accommodation sector is recognized and supported as a key player in building a sustainable future. The B.C. Hotel Association’s go green program with our partners…. We analyze, educate and provide key strategic investments to reduce carbon footprints, retrofit equipment as well as ensure that energy use is reduced and built wisely. We’re playing our part to ensure that we support the training required and contribute to the goal of tackling climate change.

[10:00 a.m.]

As I’m sure you’ve heard from many other sectors, hoteliers and accommodators are facing serious workforce challenges that threaten and constrain growth of the sector and of local economies. We’re proud of the kind of employers we are in the hotel sector. We’re one of the largest employers of women, youth, Indigenous peoples and immigrants. The average hospitality salary in British Columbia is $49,600 a year, significantly higher than the living wage in every region of the province. Hotel jobs come with a wide range of benefits including health care, discounted travel, flexible hours and career development.

We’re already working to foster the talent needed for the sector in the long term. Together with universities, colleges and training institutions, we’ve developed a comprehensive education program the industry can access. Employees can take courses, upskilling, sessions and webinars to enhance their skills. Upskilling unemployed and underemployed B.C. residents benefits everyone, and we’re proud of the role that we’re playing currently in that area.

We’re also partnering with go2HR to ensure that training is available for those who want to start careers in the hospitality sector and for all the benefits that it can bring. We’re taking steps as an association and as a sector to connect people with critical skills that can support projects related to the future skills plan.

The flourishing tourism industry is a key pillar of the StrongerBC economic plan, which is why our second recommendation is to continue working together with the sector and ensure that workforce development takes place. This will enable the hotel sector to support local economies in every part of the province. B.C. needs to be a 12-month-a-year destination for meetings, conferences, events and leisure travel, both domestic and international. The focus on the shoulder- and off-seasons for growing B.C.’s position on the world stage will support the growth of full-time, year-round work.

Our third recommendation is for government itself to return, as the pandemic allows, to in-person meetings and events and to travel in every part of the province. Encouraging in-person meetings by government and Crown corporations, especially in the coming shoulder- and off-seasons, can play a major role in supporting accommodations and local economies across the province.

The economic plan is clear about giving more visitors more reasons to travel to B.C., from hosting world-class events to our iconic destinations and supporting Indigenous tourism opportunities. This is important because it ensures that the social, cultural, environmental and economic benefits come with a thriving hospitality industry, which is enjoyed by all British Columbians. B.C.’s hotels and accommodations in the urban, rural and remote areas of our province are the foundation of making sure this vision becomes a reality. Support for my three recommendations that I’ve shared today can ensure that we all go forward together.

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

Now I will invite questions from the committee.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Ingrid. Question. What I’ve heard from some of the boards of trade is that there is still a critical lack of rooms in British Columbia. In Vancouver, you can’t host a large conference. Also, some of the small Travelodges and Econo Lodges are used for transition housing, in terms of affordable accommodation for families. Is this a challenge that your membership is facing?

I. Jarrett: Yes. Well, we can host, but we need more hotels. There’s no question. I think the economic investment driving in, especially, Victoria, Vancouver, Whistler, Kelowna, the central Okanagan area and Richmond are key areas within the province. We also find, in central British Columbia and northern B.C., because of very different economic drivers, that additional investment there.

We currently have 17 hotels that are in-build in British Columbia, which a lot of people are surprised by. But you’re right. The housing for the most vulnerable during the pandemic that was taken out of the motel-style properties needs to be replaced with additional new hotels.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Ingrid. It’s great to see you.

I. Jarrett: And you.

[10:05 a.m.]

R. Merrifield: I just want to say thank you for all your support and for being the voice during the pandemic, in particular, but then also during emergencies. You guys and the whole, entire association have really risen to the challenge when we were needing to house those that were fleeing their homes. So thank you for that.

I would echo what Karin has already stated. That is that we’re seeing a huge, critical need. Are there things that government could do? Recognizing that, possibly, the workforce, etc.… Are there other things that we could be doing to really look at targeted areas?

I was thinking, in particular, in the North. To try and find a hotel in Terrace is very difficult at times.

I. Jarrett: Yeah. You’re absolutely right. Yes, I think support for investment, the federal and the provincial but also at the municipal level, where we’re looking at those economic drivers…. Certainly, Terrace is one. I can tell you equally….

Ben, you’ll know this from the Central Okanagan and Kelowna.

There are different demand generators that we can look at. What is coming now, but in the long run, how is it growing? I think incentives, from both a property tax perspective but also a contribution model of what different investments would bring from the hotel sector, are really important.

As camps grow and mining grows — or exploration and pipelines, whatever it is — in the North or throughout British Columbia, there’s real pressure on the municipalities, where the inventory is actually contracted long term by companies, which takes it out of the tourism economy and then limits economic development. We’re certainly seeing that in Fernie and different areas in the Kootenays right now, and it’s a significant challenge.

I believe the provincial government has a real role to play to support how we make sure that we house those large projects but that we’re incenting long-term investments so that those communities can grow, not just for a quick development plan but actually, in the long run, to support economic growth.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation.

Just to touch on the tourism side of things and how that blends into the hotel association. Where does the playing field lie today with things like VRBO and Airbnb, with regards to the taxes that are there, the destination taxes?

I. Jarrett: Yeah. Thank you for that question. I really appreciate it.

This is one of my biggest files. We actually have two researchers and an economist that will be presenting a final report. We’ve scanned British Columbia and all the communities. It is a very well known and defendable fact that affordable housing is negatively impacted in every community.

Long-term rental housing is being taken out of the market and being operated primarily by commercial operators, not independently owned…. “I own my home, and I’m renting my basement suite.” Between 60 and 80 percent are commercial operators, which means more than ten units. So they’ll take multiple condos or buy houses and put them in the short-term rental market.

Our position is that this is not a fair playing field. Insurance is not paid for. Commercial taxes aren’t paid for. MRDT is not paid for. DMF isn’t paid for. This is completely not fair. Not only that, but the livability of communities and the impact on neighbourhoods…. I get the calls every week. “Why is there a party house next to me when I have a young family in my neighbourhood?” It’s a big problem. In Victoria right now, they’re hiring enforcement officers, yet it’s all about policy.

We will be presenting a provincial recommendation of a policy. I sit on an international committee that analyzes the impact on communities from short-term rentals and what policy and regulation have done to ensure that not only the province has a role in this but that municipalities do too. It’s about policy, and then it’s about enforcement. Enforcement can all be done digitally. You don’t need an army of bylaw officers. It’s actually about digital enforcement to make sure that there is licensing and then a policy that supports the livability of the community.

I know I went over.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Ingrid. We are significantly over time. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for reminding us that hotels are central to the work that a lot of British Columbians do around the province. It’s where we stay to do our work, and it’s where we meet to do our work. You’re central to that. So thank you so much.

I. Jarrett: Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for your time today.

[10:10 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll go to the next presenter and then take a break.

Angela Chapman is here, representing the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation.

Welcome, Angela. You have five minutes to make your presentation. We would like to also fit in the questions and answers within a following five minutes. So you have ten minutes.

VGH AND UBC HOSPITAL FOUNDATION

A. Chapman: Wonderful. Thank you very much. I admire your ability to shift sectors and industries every five, ten minutes.

On behalf of VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation, our board of directors and the thousands of donors that support our mission to transform health care and save lives, I’m delighted to have this opportunity to take part in your hearings today.

In 1980, we began as a foundation supporting Vancouver General Hospital, B.C.’s largest specialized teaching hospital. Today we support the most specialized care, ground-breaking research and system transformation in Vancouver Coastal Health, one of B.C.’s largest health authorities. Working in close partnership with VCH, we inspire philanthropy to identify and fund health care innovation and transformation. Last year we raised over $100 million in net revenue. We’re regularly among the top two health care charities by revenue in the province.

We have a recommendation and one offer to the Finance Committee today. Our recommendation is: continue and increase government investment in creating the structures for innovation and incentivizing innovation in health care in this province. Our offer is that the VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation is a sophisticated, creative partner open for collaboration to achieve improvements to quality of care and accessibility, only made possible through innovation. That offer includes a suggestion that looking at the health care philanthropy sector as a way to leverage government investment is an opportunity that we are certainly open to.

Some recent examples of health care system change brought about by the funding partnership of our foundation with VCH include: in May 2022, B.C. Cancer announced the rollout of the provincewide lung screening program, funded by the Ministry of Health. Six years earlier, with the generous support of a key donor to VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation, a lung cancer screening pilot program was established at VGH, drawing on expertise of respiratory medicine, thoracic surgery and radiology. After an extensive study, so compelling was the data, which not only was local but international in terms of health outcomes and savings from early detection, that the government invested in rolling it out provincewide.

TEC4Home, a telehealth study supported by our foundation — in partnership with Dr. Kendall Ho, emergency medicine physician and head of digital medicine for UBC Faculty of Medicine — deployed home health monitoring equipment to safely discharge patients with heart failure from hospital. A 90-day pilot resulted in a 44 percent reduction in ED visits and 59 percent less hospital emissions. For those admitted, their stays were cut by one-third, with notable savings for the health care system.

In partnership with Dr. David Wood, an interventional cardiologist at VGH, our foundation supported a multi-centre three-M — being multidisciplinary, multimodal and minimalist — transcatheter aortic valve replacement called TAVR trial. The comparison of TAVR and surgical valve replacement in low-risk patients has resulted in a change of the standard of care — not only for B.C. patients, but also globally, who require aortic valve replacements — freeing up surgical resources and drastically reducing hospital stays.

In March 2022, so very recently, VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation acquired the 1.4 acre property located at 900 block West 12th. This $100 million investment, the largest of its type by a health care foundation in B.C., helped ensure that a prime long-term-care facility is retained within the publicly funded long-term-care beds, and it represents an exciting and unique opportunity to expand the VGH health care precinct and services in the future.

These examples are representative of the many investments our foundation has made, bringing together talent and resources to create innovation. The results include disease prevention, improved patient care, changes to standard of practice and significant health care savings. These have been made possible by relatively small investments, by comparison to health care budgets. The investments of our foundation have de-risked innovation for the provincial government by funding effective trials and pilot programs to demonstrate proof of concept.

Health care budgets are finite, and with an aging population and net immigration to B.C., demand for services is going to continue to outstrip supply. We recommend funding innovation in health care that leverages B.C.’s health care foundations and that sets in place structures by which reinvestment of savings can incentivize continuous innovation. These structured and partnered investments in innovation could be strategic, measurable and sustainable.

I want to thank you for your review of our recommendation and our offer and for your important work in the service of the people of British Columbia.

[10:15 a.m.]

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

Our first question is from Renee.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the presentation today. I fully agree that it’s through innovation that we can actually deliver better service for less money, less cost.

My question is around the continued innovation structured funding. Could you describe what those structures are and a specific funding request, if there is one?

A. Chapman: The structures are obviously within the Ministry of Health with Vancouver Coastal Health. What I’m suggesting is that ways of incentivizing, the savings that are created by these innovations…. We bring these forward. They’re funded by donor dollars, sometimes leveraged by grants. Some of those are by way of government. They create change, and they don’t necessarily return any of the savings from that change.

We know it’s a big bucket. There are a lot of reasons why that happens. But trying to identify a mechanism by which that can be monetized, turned into a dollar value, and returned to those areas that are creating those changes in order to incentivize them, as well as to fund the infrastructure….

I can speak on the case of VCH. There is an office of innovation that oversees these kinds of implementations, identifies the metrics required for pilot projects and then evaluates them and determines which ones can be scaled up. So I think each health authority has its own structure in place. I think it would be effective for government policy to recommend some way of incentivizing those changes.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much, Angela, for your presentation. There was a lot of information in there.

A. Chapman: We will submit it online too.

B. Bailey: Yeah, I know. That’s great. I appreciate thinking creatively about ways to fund and drive innovation, and that really aligns with a lot of the work that I’ve been doing with the innovation file, so I’m particularly interested in that.

I didn’t catch, when you were describing the recently acquired 900 Granville…. I heard you say…. Did I get that address wrong?

A. Chapman: It’s 900 West 12th.

B. Bailey: West 12th. Pardon me.

A. Chapman: Directly across from VGH.

B. Bailey: Right, okay. Thank you.

I think you said that it was currently LTC. What is the…?

A. Chapman: There’s a long-term-care facility, Windermere Care Centre. That is now being operated by Vancouver Coastal Health. We own the building, and we own the property. And there is an apartment building on the corner which, as part of the Broadway plan, has the potential to become office and clinical space for the use of Vancouver Coastal Health.

B. Bailey: Okay. I was going to ask about the long-term plan for that, but it sounds like you’ve just given it to me. Thank you.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Angela. I’ve got to say, from my part in the community, hospital foundations, especially the Richmond Hospital Foundation, are very great at doing cross-cultural fundraising. No other organization that I have ever seen has done such a fabulous job. Everybody in the community wants to fundraise and be part of it.

As we mentioned earlier, in health care, we need early investment if we’re going to stay ahead of innovation, so I want to talk about innovation a bit with you. I want to talk about specific fundraising innovation. You mentioned earlier that you have to use some grants to attract donors to match. We’d love to hear from you, too, what else government can do to participate in a way to encourage donors, including the private sector, to participate in partnerships to support foundations just like VGH and UBC Hospital Foundation to continuously fundraise to support our investment in health care.

A. Chapman: It’s a great question. I would tell you that in my experience fundraising for the hospitals, where government money goes…. It can be very much an incentive for donors. So when we raised the $60 million for the future of surgery campaign…. We built 16 new ORs on the third floor of the Jim Pattison Pavilion. People — our donors — knowing that there was an $85 million investment from the government helped us raise that $60 million. So I would say that there is a big driver of where government investment goes.

That’s why I think, not forgetting our health care foundations and the kind of leverage that they can bring…. I know, from previous discussions I’ve had with folks in the Ministry of Health, that sometimes there’s bit of a perception that there’s a tail wagging the dog. In other words, we get the donations, and then that drives the investment. But I would argue that really well scoped-out priorities and thinking of us and making that, we can actually leverage it the other way around. I think that we all want it to be that way. That’s a better investment of health care dollars.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have time for one more question, and that will be from Ben.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Angela. How is the government looking at this matching investment? Things like…. You talked about the lung screening and stuff like that. What work is going on between foundations that are throughout the province so that there is, I guess, collaboration in a sense? Where should this happen?

[10:20 a.m.]

Having been a part of a foundation, I just know that we tend to be very territorial. We look at the things that are immediately in our community. How do we do it so that we can get better bang for the buck for the government?

A. Chapman: Thanks, Ben. I think that’s a great question. I think there is a role to play in incentivizing that partnership.

I want to actually highlight that that partnership is underway. There are lots of partnerships. In fact, I was just speaking this morning…. I have another conversation this afternoon.

This morning we were talking about a donation that we’re working on together with the UBC Faculty of Medicine. It’s both UBC and ourselves that are going to benefit from this very substantial donation. This afternoon we’re talking to a donor about pancreatic cancer, a cancer that has not had a lot of movement in terms of the outcomes and, in fact, is increasing in its incidence. We have a donor that we’re talking to, to make a gift that jointly brings together….

The reality is that the care is delivered across all of these organizations. I think that as long as the foundations follow the care, we will work together.

I think there are ways that partnership can be incentivized. I also want to assure you that I think…. While we recognize that in some ways we compete for donors, care is what the donors care about. So we will collaborate.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Angela, for your presentation. Thank you for your leadership in this area, and thank you for your offer of a partnership. I’m aware of one little project that has that possibility, and it could be life-changing. So thank you for that model.

A. Chapman: Wonderful. Thank you so much for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll now recess until 10:40.

The committee recessed from 10:21 a.m. to 10:40 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Damian.

Welcome, Damian Stathonikos, representing the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C.

Damian, you have five minutes. We’ve got a timer to help you keep on track. You have five minutes to make the presentation, and then we have five minutes to ask questions and get your answers, so it’s a total of ten minutes.

Whenever you’re ready.

BUILDING OWNERS AND MANAGERS
ASSOCIATION OF B.C.

D. Stathonikos: Good morning. Thank you, Chair, and good morning, committee members, as well.

I wanted to acknowledge that I’m here speaking on the traditional unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

On behalf of the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C., thank you for the opportunity to present. My name is Damian Stathonikos. I’m the president of BOMA B.C.

Our association has over 300 members that own or manage most of the commercial real estate space in the province, as well as the businesses that support those members. Our industry contributes over $4.5 billion annually to the provincial economy and employs over 40,000 British Columbians.

We support the province’s mission to building a stronger B.C. that is sustainable and inclusive. My presentation today will highlight opportunities for the province to partner with the private sector to make this mission a reality. I’ll be focusing on three key areas: climate action, labour and taxation.

First, climate action. The province has ambitious greenhouse gas–reduction targets, and BOMA B.C. is a recognized leader in supporting our members to help achieve this goal. Our organization provides tools, resources and education to improve building performance and reduce carbon impact. Many of our members have their own ambitious carbon reduction goals.

The province has unveiled a series of building retrofit incentives, including the 5 percent clean buildings tax credit and removal of PST on heat pumps. This was welcome news, and the province has the opportunity to do more.

Deep energy retrofits, such as building envelope upgrades, are expensive, complex and have longer payback periods. Upfront capital costs and financing can be a barrier. In British Columbia, electrifying a building can come with several costly barriers, including higher rates and costly upgrade fees, not to mention potential capacity issues.

All buildings have unique circumstances, different levels of capital and debt and various degrees of retrofit needs. We believe there needs to be a variety of programs available. For example, municipalities across North America are implementing additional energy retrofit tax deductions. The province should enable municipalities to create tax incentives for retrofits and provide funding to backstop lost tax revenue. The province could also collaborate with financial institutions to facilitate financing such as low-interest loans, specifically for energy retrofits.

The province has also spoken for several years now about property assessed clean energy, a financing structure that allows for a loan to be paid back via the property tax bill. This allows for lower monthly payments and longer-term financing. The province can finally pass PACE-enabling legislation to make this another tool available to building owners and managers. We encourage the province to continue investing in incentive programs to tackle existing barriers to costly deep energy retrofits.

Second, labour. Like many sectors, the commercial real estate sector is facing an acute labour shortage. To manage existing properties, oversee crucial building retrofit programs and manage the expected boom of commercial development across the province, we need to address this shortage. We’re not seeing sufficient capacity in property management and building operations to sustain our industry. In fact, the province itself has noted these two roles as high-opportunity occupations in its latest labour market outlook.

Commercial real estate employees are crucial to the economic growth of the province. Infrastructure, development and office construction can’t occur without them. The province has to work closely with industry to ensure that there are opportunities to bring more people into this sector.

[10:45 a.m.]

We have been working closely with the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training to develop a labour market strategy, and we encourage the province to continue funding investments in these areas for all sectors, not just our sector.

Finally, tax policy. In this province, there is a small subset of commercial tenants paying disproportionately high property taxes because of the highest and best use valuation of the properties they are in. BOMA B.C. has worked with the province during consultations to review the property assessment system, and we would like to continue. We recommend targeted solutions to directly support this specific subset of tenants. Broad actions could unintentionally impact B.C.’s commercial real estate industry.

The province could support this issue by issuing grants, rebates or direct payments to those impacted tenants. For example, the province of New Brunswick has allocated $14 million to rebate disproportionately high property tax bills. Additionally, implementing the split assessment system, which taxes unbuilt development potential at a lower rate, could provide relief to these small businesses. We encourage the province to develop targeted solutions rather than broad solutions.

Thank you for the time, and I’m open to questions.

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

Who has the first question? Renee.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the presentation. I love the idea of the split assessment. Definitely something that we need to work on and push forward on, because you’re right, it does disproportionately hurt, especially, smaller businesses.

Just to your comment on the workforce and your labour market strategy request of advanced ed. Were you looking for specific to commercial real estate, or were you looking for a labour market strategy overall?

D. Stathonikos: I think both. Like many sectors, labour is in short supply, and we need to ensure that…. Our members also rely on mechanical contractors, construction industry…. We really want the province to invest in helping all sectors of the economy.

B. Bailey: Thank you, Damian, for the presentation. I was interested in the energy retrofit tax suggestions that you made, and I thank you for bringing innovative solutions to the table. I wonder if you could just let me know what’s been shared so far by your contacts at government in regards to the possibility of using property tax bill as a way to pay back loans. I hadn’t heard that suggestion prior, and it’s ringing with some clarity to me. I wondered if you could share with me how those discussions have gone so far.

D. Stathonikos: Yes. Over the last few years, we’ve been talking with Minister Ralston and others around the legislation that’s required to be put in place. We’re part of a broader advocacy group called PACE B.C. that’s been talking to the province as well.

We’re not quite sure what the holdup is. There have been indications from the ministry that it’s a good idea. They’re looking at putting this in place. It’s already in place in provinces like Alberta, but it needs to be in place at a provincial level before any municipalities are able to implement it.

That’s our recommendation. It’s really calling on the province to implement that legislation so that municipalities can then start undertaking the work.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Damian. With respect to retrofits, what do most commercial buildings find as the most impactful and lowest-hanging fruit, in terms of a retrofit?

D. Stathonikos: It starts from everything as simple as swapping out lights for LEDs, but most buildings nowadays have gone through that process. Then you start looking at the more expensive work, like electrifying your building, installing heat pumps, for example. Then all the way to the most expensive, which is looking at building envelope retrofits, which is quite expensive and has a very long payback time.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. Just curious, in regard to…. I know this is a bit out of the park, but we just had a conversation with the refugee community, talking about how all kinds of refugees settle in different areas. Obviously, there’s a labour shortage. Is there any kind of discussion regarding what we can do to, maybe, create a combo package to support refugee settlement and, at the same time, provide labour opportunities or employment opportunities so they can transition quickly into our society?

D. Stathonikos: Yes. The project I mentioned with Advanced Education and Skills Training is around building increasing participation from equity-seeking groups, including Indigenous communities, new immigrants to Canada, refugees.

[10:50 a.m.]

We’re hoping to partner with some organizations like Immigrants Services Society and MOSAIC in order to create a channel for those refugees and new immigrants who have some skill to get into the industry. Then, as they spend time in the industry, they become more skilled and can then move on to other jobs and free up those entry-level positions.

R. Merrifield: Thanks so much, Chair. Thanks for round 2. Much appreciated.

You mentioned that you’ve been meeting with Minister Ralston. Have you met with Minister Heyman at all, in terms of the Ministry of Environment and Climate?

D. Stathonikos: Yes, previously we have. Our understanding is that Minister Ralston’s ministry is the one responsible for drafting the legislation.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Damian. We are out of time, but thank you for coming and making your presentation.

Thank you for your association embracing our vision of tackling climate change, creating more and better jobs for British Columbians and affordability. Thank you for your innovative suggestions and commitments to be a partner in that.

Our next presenter is Ian Thomson, Advanced Biofuels Canada.

ADVANCED BIOFUELS CANADA

I. Thomson: Good morning. I have lousy hearing, so if you have questions, you may have to yell at me, which you may want to do anyway.

Thank you very much, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to provide our recommendation. We presented to the committee in years previous. I’m the president of a national trade group called Advanced Biofuels Canada. It’s headquartered here in British Columbia. We’ve supported the establishment and growth of clean fuel markets in B.C. since 2005.

Our goal is to expand the production and use of sustainable, non-fossil clean fuels by supporting climate action and energy policies such as fuel regulations, carbon pricing and other complementary policies and programs. Clear, stable climate action policies are the hallmark for attracting global investors, creating resilient jobs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in B.C.

In our submission, we outlined the basis for three recommendations for Budget 2023. I’m going to focus on our top priority and give time to that. You can read the other two offline.

That recommendation is really straightforward, but it’s really significant. We would like the B.C. government to eliminate the carbon tax on non-fossil clean fuels. When I say eliminate, we’re essentially suggesting the province do what we, in the province, know needs to happen.

To address high consumer fuel costs, this measure should be implemented immediately, but there are more principled and fundamental reasons for all parties to support this amendment to the B.C. carbon tax design. Carbon taxes are intended to tax carbon. B.C.’s carbon tax incorrectly taxes carbon-neutral fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel, or renewable diesel. These are the fuels that Parkland refinery and Tidewater and others in the province will produce or are currently producing. They treat them as fossil fuels.

As a result of an administrative design change to the Carbon Tax Act in 2010, B.C.’s carbon tax system now increases consumer fuel costs and lowers demand for clean fuels. It improperly applies to biomass-based fuels, and this goes against the province’s own greenhouse gas accounting rules and the IPCC’s. It subsidizes gasoline and diesel use, interestingly, by discounting the carbon tax on fossil fuels, and it eliminates the price differentiation between high-carbon fossil fuels and low-carbon or zero-carbon fuels.

The tax revisions in 2010 were, in a word, wrong. This tax is exacerbating record-high prices at the pump for B.C. consumers. The current carbon tax on ethanol is 11 cents a litre. The tax on biodiesel and renewable diesel is 13 cents a litre. B.C. consumers use more than 750 million litres of these fuels, according to the 2020 EMLI low-carbon fuel standard annual report.

[10:55 a.m.]

The result is that since 2010, B.C. drivers have paid over $600 million because of the improper application of carbon taxes on biofuel content. That’s over $400 per B.C. household over the decade and $64 per household this year — more than half of the amount of the recent ICBC fuel relief rebates, which, to quote the Minister of Public Safety and the Solicitor General, are “going to help a lot of people in the province.”

Eliminating the carbon tax on clean fuel that’s used in B.C. will immediately reduce high costs at the pump for all fuel consumers and relieve pressure on high-cost fossil fuel imports from Washington state and Alberta.

As the carbon taxes increase this decade, the impact grows. By 2030, the carbon tax will cost motorists between $1.42 — that will be on gasoline — and $1.73 on diesel. Under a plausible 2030 LCFS scenario, which we’ve been deeply involved in, we would essentially double the biofuel content in both fuel pools, which is probably undercounting what will happen. That will be $2.4 billion a year of windfall gain for the province from taxpayers’ wallets.

Adopting this amendment would align B.C.’s carbon tax with the treatment under the federal carbon charge and the Quebec cap-and-trade system, both of which support a full exemption from the tax.

Our other recommendations focus on broad issues related to tax fairness for clean transportation and support for resourcing the Energy and Mines low-carbon innovation team to oversee the LCFS.

I’ll stop there for questions. I really appreciate the opportunity to appear before you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Questions?

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Ian. I appreciate your presentation. How do I know as a consumer that I am using low-carbon, or, essentially, these fuels, when I go to the pumps? I guess, really, how do we differentiate, if I want to support what you’re producing?

I. Thomson: You can’t. There may be a little sticker on the pump that says “may contain up to,” but there’s no indication of what content. You will have either the cardlock for diesel or at a gasoline station for a light-duty vehicle.

The people who sell the fuels know what the content is. The rack — the wholesale rack — set in Burnaby and elsewhere…. They know what the content is. But a consumer…. It kind of disappears into the fuel. It’s gone.

B. Stewart: I guess if…. Can you run a vehicle on 100 percent biofuels and low-carbon?

You can. Okay. So this is part of motivating the industry to producing more of that. Thank you.

I. Thomson: I could add: to motivate municipalities and others to adopt them. The city of Vancouver, for instance. If you see a city of Vancouver heavy-duty truck driving by on the street, it will have 100 percent renewable content in that truck, and they pay taxes.

H. Yao: Speaking of the city of Vancouver, how many municipalities — of course, for me, specifically asking for the city of Richmond — are participating in this biofuel project so that all the fuels they use are biofuels?

I. Thomson: I worked on that project with the city of Richmond and five other municipalities in Whistler in 2004. So there’s a long history of municipalities adopting. I think that was for a 20 percent biodiesel blend in city of Richmond trucks.

It’s long been adopted. The fuels work. As I said, they really functionally disappear into the fuels. Municipalities would like to adopt more of these fuels. Ethanol is cheaper than gasoline. Diesel alternatives tend to be more expensive. That will come down over time, as their volumes increase.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. You use the term “clean fuels.” I’m not really sure if I’m really liking the term “clean fuels,” because we end up burning it anyways. I don’t have an issue with renewable.

Coming from Surrey, with the biofuel plant that’s there, they are actually creating renewable natural gas, and they’re fueling their vehicles with renewable natural gas. But you don’t make any mention of natural gas in here. It is one or the other. Is there a reason why?

I. Thomson: I believe natural gas fuels are exempted from the carbon tax. So that renewable natural gas that the city of Surrey makes with municipal organic waste collected in the region would be exempt from the tax.

It’s a very…. As I said, it was an error, actually. It took us a couple of years to understand there was an error. It took us a couple of years to convince EMLI, EMPR at the time, and Finance that there was actually an error. We all now agree it was an error, and we’re now working to find a solution, which is not technical, by the way. We have tax lawyer reports on two different ways you can implement it. Political will is what’s needed.

[11:00 a.m.]

H. Yao: Just one final question, if you don’t mind.

For biofuel production…. Obviously, you create a lot of by-products. We just had a similar presentation earlier.

Are those products able to be used as topsoil or fertilizer, returned back to the earth, or is the product actually just done?

I. Thomson: I think you’re asking about what it’s made from. The members that I represent make biofuel and synthetic low-carbon fuels from everything from canola oil to waste from rendering to forest residues — in the case of a plant in Prince George — to, literally, flue stacks coming off steel mills. So the fuels are becoming very diverse.

The fuels in the province are probably largely vegetable oil–based or waste oils from rendering.

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

Thank you for taking the time to come and make the presentation. You’ve certainly intrigued me with the whole notion of a carbon tax on non-carbon fuels. I will follow up with my own constituents, Parkland, who are in Burnaby North, and find out more from them. They have shared with me how I can find out which fuels are carbon free.

Our next presenter is Doug Slater, with FortisBC.

I bet we’ll hear more about renewable gas.

FORTISBC

D. Slater: Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to present today.

I’m also thankful to be gathered on the traditional, unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-​Waututh people.

My name is Doug Slater. I’m the vice-president of external and Indigenous relations at FortisBC.

There is an urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions here in B.C. and globally. FortisBC delivers more energy to consumers than any other entity in the province and will be critical to ensuring B.C. can efficiently, reliably and affordably achieve the goals of CleanBC. We are both a gas and an electric utility serving 1.2 million and growing customers in the province, and we are committed to playing a critical role by investing in the projects that will ensure ongoing economic prosperity in a low-carbon future for our province.

When developing the 2023 budget…. FortisBC advocates for the B.C. government to consider the following two items.

First, support increased investment in renewable gas development.

We are pleased with the province’s CleanBC roadmap in that it recognizes FortisBC’s leadership in enabling a transition to lower emissions and reaffirms FortisBC’s essential role in the transition toward a decarbonized economy. FortisBC has made significant progress in investments toward our own 2030 emissions reduction targets supporting CleanBC, including investing in the rapid expansion of renewable energy. For example, we anticipate that we will meet and exceed the 15 percent renewable gas target of CleanBC before 2030.

I want to emphasize this point with you. In the same way that the electric grid allows for increased low-carbon electrons to be transported, so, too, does the gas system. It should be viewed as a way to enable low-carbon molecules to be transported. In other words, our collective challenge is with changing what goes in the pipe but not the pipe itself. To that end, by 2025, 10 percent of our gas system throughput will have come from renewable sources equivalent to more energy than will be generated by Site C and reducing GHG emissions by 1.2 million tonnes, the single-largest reduction by any company in the province.

Where is all this renewable energy coming from? FortisBC is working with renewable gas suppliers across the province. For example, we have landfills in Kelowna and Salmon Arm and are actively working with the city of Vancouver’s facility in Delta. We have agriculture and food waste facilities in Abbotsford and Surrey and wastewater facilities in Richmond and plans to expand to Vancouver Island, partnering with the capital regional district. We’re also developing numerous hydrogen projects across the province, including efforts to enable hydrogen hubs in key areas of our service territory, such as in Vancouver.

[11:05 a.m.]

Looking ahead, we see a future where more than three-quarters of the gas in our system is from renewable and low-carbon sources by 2050, helping B.C. meet its legislated climate targets. We’re confident in the supply, and we’re confident that we will get there. But the effort needs more focus and support from government.

Moving to the second recommendation, it’s to leverage both gas and electric infrastructure to support the decarbonization of B.C.’s economy.

This past winter’s record-breaking cold temperatures showed that both energy systems remain critical to ensuring that B.C.’s energy needs are met. For example, on December 27, 2021, B.C. Hydro announced a new peak capacity record of 10,902 megawatts, while FortisBC’s gas system reached near-peak levels, delivering nearly double this amount at the equivalent of 20,120 megawatts of energy. This demonstrates the critical nature of B.C.’s integrated energy system and that robust, fully utilized gas and electric systems support B.C.’s ability to take climate action while maintaining reliability, resiliency and affordability.

Looking ahead, this will become even more important as upstream oil and gas activity and the transportation sectors are electrified. B.C. is going to need both systems. That’s why we’re making such aggressive investments to decarbonize the gas system.

We’re also focused on the demand side. Recently a new proposal put forward by FortisBC to the British Columbia Utilities Commission will see every newly constructed home connected to the gas system allocated with 100 percent renewable gas for the lifespan of the building. The approval of this proposal would mark a new era in the evolution of the company’s renewable energy programs and mark the beginning of the gas utility of the future.

Achieving B.C.’s long-term GHG reduction targets will require significant investment, which will drive increased energy costs. But as we all know, there are costs associated with inaction on climate change, as recent events have shown us. FortisBC has the existing infrastructure in place, ready to deliver clean energy solutions. Let’s leverage what’s in place.

In conclusion, I want to thank you for this opportunity. I’m happy to answer any of the committee’s questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. Already I’m seeing hands.

Henry and then Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I’m going to ask the same question I asked earlier, pretty quickly. Regarding renewable gas development, will that be creating any kinds of by-products that could be returned back to the soil or dirt? That way we could have increased topsoil production for our province.

D. Slater: Similar to the question earlier, it really depends on what the feedstock for the renewable natural gas is. I would say that the…. Renewable gas projects that use agricultural feedstock, so farm waste or municipal waste, produce a digestate which can be used as fertilizer for farming and other activities.

H. Yao: Can I just quickly follow up?

My question around that, for FortisBC, is: will there be a greater emphasis following to ensure that the infrastructure can continuously focus on producing topsoils for British Columbia, if possible?

D. Slater: I think our primary focus is on changing the energy that goes into the pipe as opposed to, say, producing a by-product out of the process. There are many different feedstocks, as I was talking about — for example, wastewater. There is a by-product there, which cities and regional districts take care of, of course.

Our main focus is on displacing fossil fuels in our system with cleaner, lower-carbon and renewable resources.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Doug. In my community, municipalities are talking about new building codes which are going to require…. New construction after 2030 is not attached to gas. There’s no connection.

What kinds of concerns…? Is that something you think we’re going to see across municipalities?

D. Slater: That’s, obviously, a very large concern for us. When we stand back and look at the energy balance in British Columbia, we see the need for both gas and electric infrastructure. We also see a very large challenge. For example, if we were to stop utilizing what’s already been built in B.C., that would increase our challenge to take climate action and increase the amount of investment.

I think we’re at a time where more education is required around the value of renewable gaseous fuels. They have a role. One of the best things about renewable natural gas is that it can be a drop-in replacement, meaning that no changes are required in the customer’s home in order to utilize that fuel. That is a significant advantage.

[11:10 a.m.]

Again, our challenge is really opening pathways, because it’s not an either-or when it comes to climate change. It’s a both-and or an all-of-the-above approach that’s required, where we have to take advantage of all the renewable and low-carbon fuels that we have at our disposal in order to maximize our climate action here in B.C.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned working with municipalities in terms of building up the capacity for renewables. Are there more opportunities that could be taken that require additional funding, etc., or is that basically tapped out?

D. Slater: As per my request of the committee, there are more opportunities to help support development. Across B.C., those are projects that deal with agricultural waste, landfill facilities, forestry waste. There are a number of different sources. A challenge is in developing those.

We are working with several First Nation communities around the province who are also interested in either partnering with us or having FortisBC as an offtaker for their renewable gas projects. We’re really excited about that, but I think that more can be done around helping fund development so that we can see those projects be successful and we can take that gas onto our system and displace fossil fuels.

R. Merrifield: Fantastic. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have time for maybe one quick question and one quick answer.

B. Stewart: Doug, thank you. Has the government given any recognition…? The methane that’s produced by the agricultural waste, the landfills and those types of things — where you’re taking that, putting it through a digester or something like that, a filter….

I guess the question really is…. The fact is that these emissions would occur naturally if they were just left where they are. You’re essentially bringing them in and using them to, I guess, repurpose gas that would be normally emitted. Has there been any recognition for what the industry has attempted to do?

D. Slater: I would say you’re precisely right that renewable natural gas is basically making use of carbon that’s already in the natural carbon cycle, so it doesn’t add carbon to the atmosphere, but we get to make productive use out of that and use the energy. Some of those farm projects can be highly carbon-negative as well, because we’re preventing methane emissions from being emitted into the atmosphere at the same time.

In terms of recognition, our renewable gas projects have been accepted into the B.C. low-carbon fuel standard — I’m not going to get the right word — registry. They have been recognized, but I think more can be done in terms of recognizing the role of the gas system to deliver these gases and be part of that energy mix in the future.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Doug. We are out of time, but I want to thank you for coming and engaging with us about the innovative work that Fortis is doing. I’m struck by your comment that the focus is to change what goes in the pipes. As an MLA for what is sometimes referred to as ground zero of the pipeline battles, it’s an important reminder that it’s not the pipe. It’s what goes in the pipe.

D. Slater: Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Michael Bissonnette with West Coast Environmental Law.

Welcome.

WEST COAST ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

M. Bissonnette: Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. My name is Michael Bissonnette. I’m a staff lawyer at West Coast Environmental Law, which is a public interest, non-profit legal organization in British Columbia that has existed for almost 50 years now. I wish to make two recommendations on behalf of West Coast Environmental Law for the upcoming budget.

[11:15 a.m.]

The first one is to specifically allocate funding for the implementation of the new B.C. coastal marine strategy, which is expected to be finalized in early 2023. Second is to allocate funding for the development of a new B.C. biodiversity law and policy, which is expected to begin development in 2023. In both cases, we really wish to recommend and stress that it will be really crucial that this funding include funding to ensure that Indigenous nations can be fully involved in both of these processes.

I also submitted written recommendations in advance that support these recommendations as well. With the few minutes I have left, I just want to briefly explain why these two initiatives are so important.

For a long time, B.C.’s management of lands and waters hasn’t adequately addressed two really important issues in this province. The first one is ensuring the proper role of Indigenous nations in management decisions. The second one is the cumulative impacts of resource development on the lands and waters of B.C., which is leading to some concerning losses of biodiversity in our province and really having real effects on British Columbians and their livelihoods.

On the water side, we’ve seen some really concerning declines in salmon populations, loss of coastal habitat and local economies in coastal communities that, in a lot of cases, are really struggling right now. On the land side, we’ve seen battles over old-growth forests and successful lawsuits against the province for violating treaty rights. In that case, I’m thinking, in particular, of the Blueberry River First Nations’ case. However, there are solutions to these predicaments and to these problems. I think these two initiatives are really core to changing that management regime and addressing these issues.

In April, British Columbia welcomed a new ministry, the Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship. This ministry has effectively been tasked with finding and developing a path forward, with Indigenous nations, to build a co-managed land and resource management regime here in British Columbia, one that’s going to sustain our natural resources and ensure that they’re managed effectively in the future.

These two initiatives are some of the first responsibilities that have been tasked to this new ministry. Really, they could prove, if successful, as models of how co-management can happen in British Columbia successfully and how we can properly steward natural resources for the benefit of everyone.

Just very quickly, the coastal strategy right now is being co-developed, as we speak, with Indigenous nations, with the timeline for completion in early 2023. This is very welcomed news, from our perspective.

B.C. is one of the only coastal jurisdictions in North America that doesn’t already have some kind of strategy to tie together its coastal management. If you look elsewhere, you can see that the coastal strategy can really be something that leads to coastal areas that are sustainably managed, coastal communities that feel and are safe and prosperous and, also, a sustainable blue economy. So an economy based on the ocean that can be sustainable for the future of our province.

On the land side, in keeping with the recommendation of the independent old-growth strategic review panel, the Minister of LWRS is going to be co-developing, with Indigenous nations, a new law to essentially prioritize ecosystem health and biodiversity in resource management decisions.

Both of these initiatives…. If they’re going to be successful, it’s really, really important that they be committed to with proper funding and, in particular, funding so that Indigenous nations have the capacity to be co-partners in these processes throughout. If we do this, we can have a really successful management regime in this province. We can have communities, ecosystems and businesses that are thriving for generations. We just need to make sure that we properly invest in the governance and management of our lands and waters.

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Michael. When I was at the B.C. Real Estate Foundation, we did some funding with you, and you guys did great projects.

My question is on the legislation on biodiversity protection and ecosystem health. What is that legislation? What are you envisioning with that, and is that something that you’re working with government on, in a process, at this point?

M. Bissonnette: We intend to do so, absolutely. The timeline that we understand right now for the co-development with Indigenous nations, of this new law, is to begin in 2023, which is why we’re bringing it up now — to make sure that this is something that’s not an afterthought in that budget.

[11:20 a.m.]

Obviously, we want to be involved and support that process as much as possible, because we think it’s a very important process. It’s also very important to reconciliation. What we see, essentially, is that right now, biodiversity isn’t an overarching priority when we make resource decisions, and it needs to be. The courts have, in fact, told us that we cannot keep allowing cumulative impacts on lands and waters without thinking about these issues and biodiversity.

We would like to see a consolidated biodiversity law, but it may also require amendments to existing resource laws as well.

H. Yao: I have a quick question. Thank you so much for your presentation.

Are the Métis nations part of this co-development conversation you’re suggesting, or specifically just First Nations?

M. Bissonnette: The two different processes that are co-developed…. For the biodiversity law that we were just speaking about, the process hasn’t started yet, so I can’t speak to that. But with respect to the coastal marine strategy, I’m not aware of the involvement of Métis nations at this time. I think a lot of the co-development work right now is being facilitated through some of the existing Indigenous organizations, such as the First Nations Fisheries Council. But I’m not aware of any specific consultation or process with the Métis nations on that.

H. Yao: I would love to just encourage them. Métis Nation just came earlier, talking about how it often slips through the cracks. I’d just love to encourage fellow organizations to really consider incorporating Métis nations whenever possible to be a part of the consultation process.

M. Bissonnette: Good point.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Michael. Just in terms of this biodiversity health discussion, it seems to me that when we’re talking about marine issues, we’ve got the federal government that has to be at the table on this, because so much is controlled by them. Where are they at in terms of this discussion? Have they agreed, or are they part of this?

In getting the two governments to work together…. We’ve got governments. We’ve got First Nations, the other users of the space. I’m just wondering. Is it realistic to think that we’re going to be able to get this going in ’23, or is it just a hope?

M. Bissonnette: Thank you for the question. I completely agree with you that the role of the federal government on the ocean front is important, very important, in particular because the constitution assigns them jurisdiction for fisheries, which, when you talk about biodiversity in the ocean, is an incredibly important aspect of that.

That being said, there are a lot of things that affect biodiversity in the ocean to which the province has control. I’m thinking about, for example, protecting coastal habitat. Forestry that can impact salmon streams is a huge issue. The sites of aquaculture operations are something that the province does have some jurisdiction on. But I agree that in a perfect world, what we should be striving for is a full partnership on the coastal strategy with the federal government, Indigenous nations and the province.

Right now, I understand that the coastal strategy is going forward as a full, co-developed process with Indigenous nations, and the federal government is being kept informed of the process. But at this point, the coastal strategy is focused on things within provincial jurisdiction, and there isn’t yet a full partnership with the federal government.

Sorry. Just very briefly. I agree that the end goal should be having full inclusion of the federal government because of important issues like fisheries. The concern is the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can get started on some kind of integration of governance with Indigenous nations and a successful partnership with the province, I think that makes it a lot easier for the federal government to become involved at some point as well.

[11:25 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michael. We are out of time, but I want to thank you for your presentation.

I wrote down “change of management regime.” That’s how you’re characterizing the initiatives that the government is trying to take and that you support. Yes, I think, by looking at it in that frame, you’re reminding us that we need to absolutely and fundamentally rethink how we manage resources and manage our environment. Thank you for the big picture thinking.

M. Bissonnette: Thank you for your questions and for hosting me today. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Aryanna Chartrand, representing Alliance of B.C. Students.

Welcome. You have five minutes for your presentation and recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions for a total of ten minutes.

ALLIANCE OF B.C. STUDENTS

A. Chartrand: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having me. What I’m here to talk to you today about is a really important issue that’s affecting post-secondary students throughout the province.

As you said, my name is Aryana Chartrand. I’m the chairperson of the Alliance of B.C. Students, here today on behalf of the alliance members, which are the Kwantlen Student Association, the Royal Roads University Student Association, the Capilano Student Union and the University of British Columbia Graduate Student Society, among the many other organizations, communities and individuals who are impacted by the sexualized and gender-based violence crisis that’s happening in our post-secondary spaces.

The recommendations that I’m going to propose are reflective of the many folks who recognize this as a priority and are shaped by the collective efforts of the students across the province, in addition to the dedicated support workers in the field.

Although there were some time limitations with us this year with formally partnering with other organizations, which we did do last year, we did go through some thorough consultation processes. Last year, my colleague Joshua Millard stood here to present about the recommendations of increased and continuous funding for sexualized and gender-based violence prevention. That was in partnership with the AMS of UBC and the University of Victoria Students Society. That collectively represented over 155,000 students across the province who all agreed that these were some really critical issues.

It’s really fantastic, because our recommendations last year were recommended to the provincial government. However, I’m here again asking for the exact same thing. What that means is that our recommendations, although very thorough, were not actually taken up or funded.

I would like to give a brief content warning, just about some of the language used throughout this research and this advocacy — namely, sexual assault, date rape, some really important, necessary language to speak to the severity of this crisis.

Sexualized and gender-based violence has been and continues to be prevalent throughout the country and the province. Though we must remember that those who experience this violence are far more than just statistics, the numbers here really do illustrate the severity of this crisis and, I think, emphasize the urgency that’s needed to take action.

One in five women will be sexually assaulted while attending university, and one in four will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, though roughly 90 percent of sexual assault incidents are not reported, so these numbers are probably much higher. For an example, roughly 2 percent of date rape incidents are reported, and these statistics also don’t consider the many nuances with gender identity and sexual orientation, so that suggests that these numbers could be much, much higher.

As representatives of students, it is important to mention that at universities, two-thirds of these sexual assault incidents occur within the first eight weeks of the semester. This is recognizing that the care that’s required to support survivors generally lasts lifetimes.

These alarming numbers have yet to account for the increase of sexualized and gender-based violence throughout the pandemic. These are people that we all know. They’re our friends, our families, our neighbours, our peers. It’s the only violent crime that has not been reduced since 1999. It is one of the most serious issues impacting our students, and there’s just currently not enough being done about it.

This does impact more than students. Behind each sexual assault support centre and advocacy organization are hundreds of individuals who are working tirelessly to support survivors, many of whom are survivors themselves, and it is through consulting these people — workers, staff, student survivors, members of community across the province — that we’ve heard this unified demand for more funding, and urgently.

[11:30 a.m.]

In addition to these alarming statistics, the voices and stories of those doing this work really insist on continuous funding as a starting point. Much more does need to be done to address this.

I will say that in 2019, the B.C. provincial government did allocate $760,000 towards funding sexual violence prevention, education and response in post-secondary institutions. Since then, these funds have gone towards forums to educate on sexual violence resources. This funding has been used to start some incredible projects, but it’s simply not enough. Last year, there was another, I believe, $20 million allocated for existing sexual assault support centres. Again, none of these are specifically for on-campus initiatives.

One of our specific recommendations is for this funding to be put towards implementing 11 minimum standards outlined by Students for Consent Culture. An example of these standards is that although all post-secondary institutions are required to have a policy in place, it’s not required that these policies define consent. How effective can a policy be if its not defining what consent is and how it’s going to be approached?

We do really need to do better to support our survivors, who are dedicating a lot of time and labour into this work. We’ve really heard a unified call for increased and continuous funding. One-time funding is great for starting projects, but it’s really important that there are continuous mechanisms in place. Like I said, for people who are impacted by sexualized violence, it’s a lifelong commitment to supporting them, especially in our post-secondary spaces.

Our recommendation is to allocate at least $5 million annually to address the sexualized and gender-based violence in post-secondary spaces.

Thank you for your time.

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

We do have questions. I’ll start with Brenda, then Karin and then Renee.

B. Bailey: First, I really just want to thank you for your presentation and your work on this really important issue. I’ve worked in the sector myself, and I have many stories that come to mind. I think we all do. The long-term impacts of experiencing sexualized violence really can’t be understated, so thank you very kindly for your work.

I’m wondering about models that exist. I’ve not heard — it doesn’t mean it’s not there — of a sexual assault centre being actually on campus, an on-campus presence. Is that something that you’ve seen in your work anywhere? Does that model work? Is there a reason that hasn’t happened? What do you think about that?

A. Chartrand: One of the really well-resourced and successful support centres right now is SASC at UBC. They have a really good team, and they have quite a bit of funding that goes into them. In consultation with them, they actually said a sort of needs-based assessment should be there, because even though they know that they need more funding, they recognize that there are smaller post-secondary institutions who have people doing this work off the side of their desk.

So I think some of the larger institutions absolutely have a model to follow. Yes, some sort of needs-based assessment would signal exactly who might need the funding most.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Nice to see you again. You’re everywhere.

I’ve actually heard that this issue is increasing in high schools now. Similar to what you’ve spoken to us about, do we need more support at that level, as well, in order to be able to try and kind of quell the behaviours as young people move into post-secondary?

Just to tack on to that, are the post-secondary institutions themselves providing enough funding and support for this?

A. Chartrand: I mean, I can speak on behalf of post-secondary specifically.

Personally, I think if there is an issue in high school, we should absolutely be addressing that. I do know a lot of it has to go with the shift from the harmful thinking that, as just a society, we’ve adopted for sexualized and gender-based violence.

I think the post-secondary institutions — at least the individual workers that I’ve worked with — are putting everything they have into the work. Again, they’re just not being properly funded. You have one person running an entire department in addition to their job. It’s not the case everywhere, but the reality is that no matter which institution a student goes to, they need to be met with the same trauma-informed and survivor-centred approach, which is why a standard across the board, I think, is really, really important.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation and for your advocacy work.

My question is along the lines of stigma. I mean, it’s been a long time since I’ve been inside of a post-secondary program. I know stigma has something to do with some of the reporting aspects and some of the getting help.

[11:35 a.m.]

Would it be appropriate to marry mental health supports on campus along with sexual trauma support, or does it need to be something that’s stand-alone and funded separately?

A. Chartrand: I absolutely think there are overlaps. But given the sensitive nature and that many who are the best suited to support this are often survivors themselves, I do think it requires specific, separate funding.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry, a quick question?

H. Yao: I’ll be quick.

The stats that you have provided are definitely very concerning. Thank you so much for your advocacy.

My question — I’ll make it as quick as I can — is: is there anything we can also do to support individuals suffering in silence who are too afraid to come out, but we know that they are also unfortunate victims of gender-based violence?

A. Chartrand: Sorry. Could you repeat the last part of the question? I just want to make sure I answer it properly.

H. Yao: My apology. People who are suffering in silence — obviously, a lot of people have not been reporting, but they are the victims of gender-based violence too. What can we do as a society? Where can we invest to support individuals who are going through these challenges as well?

A. Chartrand: Well, one of the things we’ve heard through our consultations is that the process of reporting can be quite traumatizing and difficult, so some of the funding that has been previously allocated went towards a plain-language assessment. Not only is someone facing something extremely traumatic; they’re now navigating a really jargon-dense, difficult process. So any way to make that process a little more relational…. I think that’s why it’s so important to have the dedicated workers be supported to help through that.

I’m definitely not the expert here, but I think we need to support those experts who are going to make that process a lot better. Then hopefully, long term, people would be more comfortable coming forward. Unfortunately, that’s just not the reality right now.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Aryanna. The stats that you shared with us are truly shocking and disturbing.

What I wrote down for myself is that it’s a much bigger problem than the funding would imply and that there has to be long-term, sustainable funding to, as you said, shift from harmful thinking. So thank you for sharing this with us.

A. Chartrand: Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Tashia Kootenayoo, B.C. Federation of Students.

You have a total of ten minutes — five minutes to make your presentation and describe your recommendations, and then five minutes for questions and answers.

B.C. FEDERATION OF STUDENTS

T. Kootenayoo: Good morning, committee members. My name is Tashia Kootenayoo. I am the secretary-treasurer for the B.C. Federation of Students.

Today I’d like to acknowledge that we’re gathered on the unceded and traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

For those of you who are unaware, the B.C. Federation of Students represents over 170,000 different members at 15 institutions in all regions across the province.

As we engage in these important discussions today, I just wanted to recognize that over the last several years, the committee has put forward many of our recommendations that made it into the provincial budget. We thank you for continuing to listen to us and share our unique experiences as students in the post-secondary system. It is our continued hope to work together to ensure that post-secondary education in B.C. is accessible and affordable for all.

I always think it’s really important when we engage in these conversations to not only just acknowledge the land that we’re gathered on and acknowledge the work that we’ve done, but I want to challenge us to think about what it would mean to place the knowledge of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples and their unique relationship to the land at the forefront of our work in spaces. The COVID pandemic not only illuminated the pre-existing gaps in our system; as we move forward towards an economic recovery, we have the ability to continuously shift our approaches and make changes that will help those who really need it most.

International students come to Canada for an opportunity to learn in one of the top-ranked countries for higher education, globally. I’m a student at UBC Okanagan, so I definitely see that as one of the top 40 institutions in Canada. However, due to underfunding at our colleges and universities, institutions are reliant on international students to make up that short funding. For example, in 2017 international students made up 20 percent of enrolment, but their fees made up 49 percent of all tuition revenue.

[11:40 a.m.]

Overall, since 1991, tuition fees for international students have risen over 674 percent. This is not only unfair to international students but a completely risky way of funding our education system. COVID-19 showed us just how risky it is to depend on these international students.

In the past, international institutions have increased the fees, completely unregulated, at whatever percentage they’d like. There’s no transparency for what their educational expenses will be year after year. Not knowing how much your tuition is going to increase the following year is a big barrier. Annually, your fees as an international student could go up as much as 20 percent, which results in students struggling to continue to study in Canada.

International students cannot work more than 20 hours off campus, so when these big increases happen, many of them are completely stuck. This, coupled with the increase in the cost of living in every part of this province, is making education harder and harder for international students to achieve, even after they begin their studies.

Only a small percentage of financial assistance is actually available for international students. We see reports of these students being forced to live in precarious, unsafe living situations. They are exploited the most under the Residential Tenancy Act, using community food banks at a higher percentage and working unregulated jobs just to finish their degrees.

We think it’s time to think ahead and invest in education to ensure institutions are able to be stable for years to come. We acknowledge that international students are not immune to negative financial impacts due to the global pandemic, and that British Columbia benefits greatly from international students that choose to stay and join our workforce.

This is why our first recommendation is that the government amend the current tuition fee policy and add a cap on fee increases for international students. However, we know this will not change the systemic problems that we have. There is a funding shortfall. Currently the government makes up 43.6 percent, on average, of total operational revenue for tuition, and we, as students, actually contribute around 47.6 percent of revenue for operations of institutions. This means that the fees paid by students have now surpassed the government funding that an institution receives.

The post-secondary model was funded and established on the principle that we, as students, the institution and the government are each stakeholders. Right now we’re seeing that we’re not getting our fair share. Even with domestic tuition being capped at 2 percent, students have to deal with programs being cut, classes being cut, week-long waitlists happening and also exorbitant auxiliary fees. Our recommendation — we know there is a provincial audit going on, but we still think that the problem does need more funding — is that an infusion of $200 million annually into the institutional operational grants be added.

After that, we believe that the government should freeze tuition fees and develop a plan to progressively reduce tuition fees at public institutions to lessen the financial burden on students.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much. I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask you some questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for that impressive presentation. With respect to tuition caps, would you make an exception for some of the professional programs — MBAs and those different kinds of programs — not just for international tuition revenue, but as something that can help to offset some of the quality and other services that students can…?

T. Kootenayoo: I really don’t have the specific information necessary to make a recommendation based on those graduate-specific programs. The tuition policy needs to be amended. A policy is only effective and successful if it represents what the people who need it. Right now it’s showing a shortfall to students. I think the whole policy should just get a review.

H. Yao: Obviously, this topic has been brought to our attention quite a few times already, and it’s definitely something that’s worth paying attention to. I guess my question right now…. International students are paying an unstable fee in regard to tuition.

What do you believe is the best way for us to be sure that all universities that depend upon the international student tuition fee…? At the same time, what an international tuition fee brings in can be allocated — maybe for capital projects or something about that project — so that it doesn’t become a part of operational expectations.

T. Kootenayoo: I guess I have two responses to that, because there are two parts to that question. As a student, specifically at UBC, we were asked this year, in the consultative process on tuition fees, to rate what was important to us. As an Indigenous student, I was asked: should I rate the importance of Indigenization efforts, sustainability, international students? Those were some of the examples.

[11:45 a.m.]

What you’re seeing is that even though institutions are depending on international student fees, they are still coming up at a loss. Then they’re asking students to be put in a very unfair position of saying what they think is better. Is it my experience as an Indigenous student, or do I put this on the back of international students?

All in all, I think, at UBC they’ve done a decent job of creating their policy around the 4 percent tuition increase that they do, based on the first year of your tuition as international students and that original cost. Whereas it’s still an unequal balance, it allows people to plan more heavily than some of the smaller institutions that will raise it up to 10 percent.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation and for your advocacy work. You partly answered some of my question with Henry’s question: how do you suggest that we freeze that? I think that what you said was very apropos in terms of setting it on the first year, knowing exactly what that’s going to be for the duration of the program. I think that’s very appropriate. I won’t ask you to repeat that.

My other question or query is this. Obviously, we’re talking about how much tax-funded money goes into our education system, and asking for more. How do we — not justify, I guess — explain to the taxpayer how we should pay for an international student at the same level as their own children?

T. Kootenayoo: I think something I commonly see, and I’ve seen specifically in my work as a student leader, is that there is a conversation always had between government institutions, where you describe a domestic student as someone…. Like Kelowna — why don’t we build up the Okanagan campus so that Kelowna students stay? Then they’ll be successful contributors to our economy and build up the municipality.

I think you need to start viewing international students in that same light. I would push us to rethink what a student is and for the public to rethink that, because domestic students stay, and so do international students. If we create a system where they’re able to plan for their education, then we’re able to have more of them stay and contribute.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tashia, for your presentation. Thank you for your leadership on this.

I hope you find it reassuring that you are not the first one this year to alert us to these issues and to make recommendations. We’ve heard from many organizations, not just student unions, who’ve identified the same problem. We will be taking that very seriously.

Our next presenter is Violeta Fabiani, representing Graduate Student Societies of British Columbia.

Welcome.

GRADUATE STUDENT SOCIETIES OF B.C.

V. Fabiani: Hon. Members of the British Columbia Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, my name is Violeta Fabiani. I’m here today representing the Graduate Student Societies of British Columbia, also known as GSSBC.

GSSBC advocates for the interests of almost 20,000 graduate students of the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Victoria and University of Northern British Columbia. We highly appreciate the invitation to this hearing, and we’re grateful for this opportunity to express how our most concerning financial issues can be addressed in the 2023 B.C. budget.

First, we would like to highlight the importance of graduate education. Graduate students are active members of society, whose reach goes beyond the classroom, serving our province in many ways. As a result of our extensive years of training beyond the bachelor’s degree, we go on to become highly skilled professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs and technical experts in different fields. In addition, graduate students play a key role in helping British Columbia address many of the pressing challenges we face today.

Our recommendations focus on ways to enhance the provincial government’s contribution by developing existing programs and directing support through scholarships, investment in research and innovation, and needs-based grants. The Graduate Student Societies of British Columbia ask for the implementation of the following recommendations by the province.

To begin with, unlike other provinces, B.C. did not have a provincial scholarship program for graduate education until 2018. The impact of this fact is evident in B.C. graduate student enrolment as compared to other provinces.

[11:50 a.m.]

From 2005 to 2015, graduate student enrolment in Ontario, Quebec and Alberta increased, on average, by roughly 50 percent, while B.C.’s share of increase was only 15 percent. To address this issue, in 2018, the province introduced the first B.C. graduate scholarship fund. While this scholarship has been a massive success, its funding period extension ends in 2023. Without this scholarship, British Columbia stands alone among comparable prov­inces which have programs to support graduate student enrolment.

Mostly, we fear what might happen to graduate students at the end of this two-year period if the scholarship is not renewed. Hence, our first recommendation is to make the B.C. graduate scholarship a permanent funding program and to expand its eligibility criteria. This action would ensure that B.C. continues to invest in the future of its experts, researchers and instructors.

Secondly, B.C. plays a key role in supporting research and innovation. The quick mobilization of research programs in response to COVID-19 is a clear example of how early investments in research can result in significant contributions.

Industry and research professionals are needed to tackle serious problems. We need to ensure that we retain a talent pool of current graduate students in B.C. that are solving rights and challenges in our local communities. Therefore, our second recommendation is for the province to increase investment in the research and innovation sector in order to retain highly skilled graduate students in B.C., maintain job prospects and evolve our future economy.

Lastly, the GSSBC believes that graduate education should accessible and affordable as our economy develops a higher number of positions requiring a minimum of master’s or PhD degrees. Large investments of time and money are required to complete any degree. This is particularly true for graduate students. Graduate students face increased financial pressures due to the greater burden of student debt as a result of their continuing education, since there are currently no needs-based grants for graduate education.

By providing more needs-based grants, the province can help alleviate the financial stress that graduates experience every day. Consequently, our third recommendation is for the province to implement needs-based awards for graduate students in B.C. We believe that the most effective way to do this is by expanding the eligibility for the B.C. access grant to include graduate students.

We’re convinced that graduate education plays an increasing political role and that we, as graduate students, add immense value to the province. This is why I stand here today representing all the students and asking you to please consider our recommendations. Thank you for your support and for investing in the future of British Columbians.

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

I’ll ask Renee to ask the first question, followed by Henry.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciated it.

I love your second recommendation in terms of marrying industry, innovation and really capturing our graduate students. I’m wondering if there is an opportunity to have industry pay for some of those grants or pay for some of those scholarship opportunities and research. Do you see that as being an opportunity — where an industry partner could apply for a research grant and employ a student?

V. Fabiani: Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. I’m actually, at the time, advocating for that, since I think, especially for international students that are here to do their master’s degrees or PhDs and then end up working at Starbucks…. Not that it’s bad thing working at Starbucks, but of course, we want people working in their fields. We’re experts. We’re professionals. We’ve done our undergrads already.

Absolutely. That’s definitely something we can work on.

R. Merrifield: Okay, I like that.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. Obviously, our graduate students are a huge asset, especially when we have a huge labour shortage. Do you have any data to help us to appreciate how many graduate students, after they complete their master’s or PhD, stay and work in the province of British Columbia for the next five or ten years to showcase that our investment has a return on investment coming back to our province, in our economy?

V. Fabiani: Absolutely. I would have liked to extend this presentation. I only just have five minutes, but absolutely.

Right now it’s not that high. I think it’s probably because there’s almost 20 percent of students that have to drop their studies because of financial issues, so that’s something, definitely, to look at. I think that of the students that complete their degrees, 40 percent stay in the province, currently.

H. Yao: So 40 percent stay. Okay.

V. Fabiani: We should aim to increase that number too. That’s definitely something.

[11:55 a.m.]

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. My question goes back to the very first recommendation about making it permanent.

You say that in 2018, the graduate student scholarship fund was created, and it ends in 2023. So my question is: how many students access it, and what’s the value of it?

V. Fabiani: It is a very valuable resource, but again, most of the programs, especially PhD programs, last for five years. So then having funding that’s only two years, you cannot…. People decide to go to a different province instead to pursue their degree, because they’re not sure if their research will be covered for the entire part.

I’m not sure if I’m answering your question.

M. Starchuk: No. If it became permanent, how many people would be accessing it?

V. Fabiani: I’m sorry. I don’t have the answer for that right now.

But I believe that with the extension, it was 200 students that got $15,000 — with the two-year extension.

B. Bailey: Thanks very much for that presentation. I’m also interested in that sort of rub that happens between public investment and folks who may or may not stay in the province. I share your goal that we’d like that number to be higher than 40 percent.

I’ve heard a suggestion — perhaps a model where there’s loan forgiveness for students who stay in British Columbia for five years or something like that. Does a model like that make sense to you? Do you want to quickly share any pros and cons in thinking that way?

V. Fabiani: I’m not sure if I got your question. So if they stay…. You’re suggesting incentives for them staying five years?

B. Bailey: And the incentive would be student loan forgiveness.

V. Fabiani: Absolutely. I think people would definitely stay in the province if that were the case.

I also want to stress how important research is. Even if the student is no longer in the province, that research does stay here. If it’s a B.C. university that has carried it out, then they basically own that research. So that talent….

B. Bailey: Depending on the university.

V. Fabiani: Yes, depending, but the talent does stay.

J. Routledge (Chair): Not seeing any other questions, I want to thank you, Violeta, for taking the time to make your presentation and to engage with us and to put the issue of grad students in the bigger context of research and innovation and what we need as a province. Thank you very much.

V. Fabiani: Thank you so much for listening today.

J. Routledge (Chair): We will recess for lunch.

The committee recessed from 11:57 a.m. to 12:59 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Erin Co, with the Alma Mater Society.

Erin, to help you with the timing, you have five minutes to give the presentation. Then we have up to five minutes, following that, to ask questions and for you to answer. It’s a total of ten minutes.

E. Co: Thank you. That’s very helpful — the clock especially.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay, whenever you’re ready.

[1:00 p.m.]

ALMA MATER SOCIETY OF UBC

E. Co: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. My name is Erin Co, and I serve as the vice-president, external affairs, of the Alma Mater Society of UBC, representing 57,000 students.

I’m situated on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam people that I’m privileged to work and study on.

It’s great to be able to present in person this year. We thank the government for their $41 million investment to the B.C. access grant, which started in 2020, to help over 40,000 low- and middle-income students start and finish their post-secondary education. With this in mind, the AMS is advocating for an expansion to the B.C. access grant to continue lowering financial barriers to accessing quality education.

The province continues to encourage more university enrolment and graduation, citing the importance of advanced education credentials for labour force growth and promoting upward income mobility. There is no doubt that post-secondary education is a public good, so providing aid to be able to attain that education is a direct economic investment.

According to StatsCan, in 2015, 81 percent of graduates had debt, and 48 percent had debt equal or over $25,000. Keeping that and the lingering effects of the pandemic in mind, investing more in the B.C. access grant has been more pertinent than ever.

To be more specific, we believe the government can do this in two ways — the first being increasing the maximum amount that the grant is given out to students. As it stands, applicants in programs under two years can receive up to $4,000 a year, while those in two-or-more year programs can receive only up to $1,000.

The average annual tuition for a UBC domestic undergraduate student is $5,795 on top of an average textbook fee of $550, which totals $6,345. This means that even in the best, but most unlikely, scenario of full grant attainment, with low tuition and no textbook fees, only 15.7 percent of those total costs would be covered. This isn’t the case for most students, which is why there needs to be an increase to the maximum grant amount.

The second part of our ask is to expand the income eligibility threshold and the grant cutoff. Right now for a full-time student in a program of two or more years — keeping in mind a bachelor’s degree takes four years, on average, to complete — the grant cutoff is $42,606. If you earn over that amount annually, you’re automatically ineligible, which is inherently inequitable, as the B.C. annual salary average is around $55,000 in 2021.

Our second recommendation is on the student living allowance, which helps post-secondary students cover expenses such as housing, food and transportation. While the program was established by the federal government, it’s administered by StudentAid B.C. However, the MSOL program formula used to calculate the allowance is based on B.C. as a whole and doesn’t consider geographic locations by region and their severely different living costs.

For example, Metro Vancouver’s 2021 living wage is $20.52, while Fraser Valley’s is $16.75. These living wages consider the same factors as the MSOL formula.

Allow me to illustrate. The 2022 StudentAid B.C. policy manual allocates $934 to shelter. However, the average Metro Vancouver rent for a one bedroom is $2,200. Using the same example, the Fraser Valley is $1,400. This demonstrates a need for the student living allowance to be more nuanced to each individual region.

Therefore, we ask that the provincial government provide an additional living allowance in conjunction with the federal one. The current program is calculated by the federal government, but there’s also an increasing need for students to receive region-specific support, especially since 11 out of 30 post-secondary institutions are located in Metro Vancouver. This can be done through an increase to the shelter allowance allocation.

Our third recommendation centres around student employment. In 2021 to 2022, the government invested a one-time fund of $5.5 million in expanding co-op and work-integrated learning programs, creating approximately 3,000 new opportunities, as they recognized the need to support student employment. As the government previously invested $9 million in 2019, we’re calling for a permanent increase to that same amount. This is much needed due to the loss of almost 2,500 co-op positions, a 14.8 percent decrease from 2019 to 2020.

Even as we move out of the pandemic, B.C. is projected to have the highest labour shortage in the nation. Co-op placements continue to play an important role. In 2021, there were 14,318 placements that paid over $174 million in student wages. This benefits our economy and supports students in their professional endeavours.

According to the 2021 B.C. Labour Market Outlook, nearly 80 percent of projected job openings will need some form of post-secondary education or training, and 58 percent of those will be filled by youth. By increasing and permanently funding these programs, more work experience will better situate our students to get jobs directly after graduation, support long-term economic recovery and create a more sustainable workforce.

We’d also like to recommend to include international students in this fund. Though this, the government can attract even more high-performing students.

Thank you all very much for your time.

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

We have questions. We’ll start with Renee and then Henry.

[1:05 p.m.]

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for this presentation. Excellently done. At one point, I was like: “She can talk faster than my brain can think.” I really appreciate that you’re trying to stay to the time.

On your third recommendation, which is co-op funding of $19 million…. Was that one-time funding? Was that over a certain period of time? I take it, from some of the statistics that you used after that, that that wasn’t for wages for students. That was actually to run the program of connecting students with industry. Is that correct?

E. Co: Most definitely. I can help clarify. Apologies for that.

R. Merrifield: No, it was perfect.

E. Co: There was $9 million in 2019. That was a one-time thing from the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training. Then in 2021, they had additional one-time funding of $5.5 million. This was to create more co-op opportunities for students — to help employers train on how to mentor and train these young students, and a bunch of other system supports — and also to create more job opportunities for students.

R. Merrifield: Awesome. Thank you.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I thought I talked fast. You, obviously, have better pronunciation than I do.

Going back to the same question as…. Renee was talking about co-ops. Obviously, co-ops are a fairly popular program for a student to be able to pick up job experience in between semesters.

My question right now is if you can give me a number. How many co-op students registered for a co-op, participated but couldn’t find a job within the field of their choice? Do you have any percentage on that? Maybe we can use that information to really talk to our governments and see what we can do to maximize the probability of students getting a co-op and getting into the field of their choice and a job of their preference.

E. Co: Yeah. Most definitely. I can follow up to your email about more specific numbers for UBC.

To my personal knowledge, also speaking as a student who is in the co-op program…. We typically pay fees to UBC to enter the co-op program. Should we not be able to find a job — for example, this summer — we’re able to choose to pursue more job opportunities in the fall or next summer. If after, I think, about three times where we are unable to find a job in these work terms, then we would either get refunded a partial amount or we’d meet with an adviser to speak more specifically on it.

Happy to follow up with your office on the more specific numbers around UBC students.

H. Yao: Obviously, our goal is to get you guys jobs.

E. Co: Sorry?

H. Yao: Our goal is to get you guys into those positions, not simply get you refunds.

If you can follow up with the number, what I’m really looking for…. Is a student who wants to be part of a co-op able to access the co-op opportunities? Any student who actually struggles, who cannot get into a co-op right away…. Can you provide us numbers to say: “We need to work with the private sector to make sure those jobs are available for students to apply to”?

E. Co: Most definitely. I think I can speak a little bit to it, but I’m happy to follow up, again, with more numbers.

I know that the co-op program has an application process. Students are then able to be accepted or rejected from that program. I know a couple of students personally who were unable to find jobs, especially during the pandemic, even now. It still feels weird to say that we’re out of the pandemic. There are a lot of students still struggling. While we are moving out of the pandemic, these jobs did not come back in full force, as they were before COVID.

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

Erin, I’d like to thank you for making your presentation on behalf of the Alma Mater Society. I hope you’re encouraged when I tell you that there are other organizations like yours that are making very similar recommendations. The amplification of those recommendations really matters.

E. Co: That’s amazing to hear. Thank you so much for having me, everyone. I know it’s been a long day for everyone.

J. Routledge (Chair): It’s our pleasure.

E. Co: Thank you so much. Have a great day, everyone.

J. Routledge (Chair): You too. You did a great job.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): You did, yes.

E. Co: I’m still a little nervous.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Darren Danyluk, B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association.

Welcome.

B.C. PRINCIPALS AND
VICE-PRINCIPALS ASSOCIATION

D. Danyluk: Thank you once again, of course, for this opportunity.

I feel very blessed to be once more speaking before this committee on the ancestral and traditional territories, unceded by the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish Coast Salish peoples.

My name is Darren Danyluk. I’m the president of the B.C. Principals and Vice-Principals Association.

[1:10 p.m.]

Very, very briefly, we are a voluntary organization. We have about 2,600 members, men and women who are working in the public schools of British Columbia. That number, 2,600, captures about 96 percent of the principals and vice-principals in the public sector in schools and district offices in B.C.

Nearly half of our membership are between 40 and 50 years of age. I share that simply to underscore that there are a lot of years left in many of our members, and we hope that they can conduct those future years in a state of wellness.

Seventy-five percent of our vice-principals are in the first five years of their working life as a school leader, so they’re very green in that experience. As many as 20 percent of our principals teach half-time, up to 50 percent, so they’re not just school leaders. They are also educators in the classrooms with students. And an interesting point — 60 percent of our members are women.

I want to begin by sharing with you a couple of quotes that establish a bit of a theme, if you will, for our requests for the committee.

In February of 2021, the Wallace Foundation, a philanthropic organization — out of, I think, New York — with a mission to foster equity and improvement in learning and enrichment for the youth, conducted a synthesis of research around principals and vice-principals, albeit in the States. I think there is transference to the experience in our Canadian and British Columbian leaders as well.

A couple of quotes I want to share from that…. “Given not just the magnitude but the scope of principal effects which are felt across a potentially large student body and faculty in a school, it is difficult to envision an investment with a higher ceiling on its potential return than a successful effort to improve principal leadership.” The impact of effective principals is even larger than previously reported, benefiting student learning and attendance and teacher satisfaction and retention.

I want to couch our requests in those quotes, because two of them speak specifically to improving the mental health and well-being and the capacity of our school leaders.

Our first request is that the government invest $6 million over a three-year period into the leadership development of British Columbia’s principals and vice-principals. B.C. is a very high-performing jurisdiction with respect to the public education sector, and despite that, it is also the jurisdiction that does not have a formalized leadership development strategy.

That’s not to say there is not excellent leadership development going around the province. Our own organization offers a great many opportunities to build the capacity of our leaders, and some districts have exceptional programs. There isn’t anything systemic and provincial so that we have a fulsome and consistent development of leadership in every corner of this province.

Our second recommendation — or request, rather — is for an investment of $1 million into the BCPVPA in the development of a member health and wellness strategy. Our members were at the front lines in their communities, not to dismiss or diminish the impacts of the pandemic upon everybody working in the public sector. However, our members were the front lines in terms of engaging with communities, helping navigate not simply the pandemic but, of course, the natural tragedies and fires and floods, and working tirelessly to help coordinate support and relocation of students’ families and just managing the anxieties of communities.

We’re tired. We would like to take $800,000 of that $1 million and establish a mental health triage pilot program. Although there are employee assistance plans across the districts, they are not proving to be particularly impactful, and there is a lesser degree of satisfaction among staff and district staff with them.

Healthy schools need healthy principals and vice-principals. With this investment, we would execute a research pilot to investigate the positive effect of a triage method of addressing the needs. We would like to do so with five districts and approximately 1,500 of our members to demonstrate how a triage model could impact absenteeism, long-term disability claims, WorkSafe claims as well and other investigations.

We have a partnership with WelTel, which is an SMS strategy to connect and provoke conversation and reflection with our members, and we would use this as our means to engage with membership and determine what the best course of action is to triage their needs.

[1:15 p.m.]

Our final request, a bit of a departure from the theme…. Within the umbrella of organization, we foster and host Student Voice, which is an opportunity for the youth in B.C. to engage with partners in our sector — the ministry being, of course, one of those. Most recently we brought together voices from students across B.C. to inform and provide some feedback to the ministry on the new Indigenous-based course requirement.

Although it’s a feature that we are very proud of, it is something that is in jeopardy for the future of our organization, in terms of support, so we’re requesting an investment of $150,000 per year over a three-year period to maintain that structure. I’ll stop there.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much, Darren.

We will now turn to questions. Megan has the first one.

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

D. Danyluk: You as well.

M. Dykeman: Thanks for the presentation. I assume you’ll be putting one in, in writing.

D. Danyluk: Absolutely, with a bit more fulsome detail. Five minutes is very brief.

M. Dykeman: Awesome. Now, I know that you’ve asked in the past…. I know when I was on the school board, we received presentations about the interest in leadership development. Have you had any investment in that, or has it been entirely self-funded to this point? Over the three years, what would you be looking to achieve in that period of time?

D. Danyluk: Actually, we’ve submitted an application to a project team. I actually sit on a project team with the Ministry of Education around developing leadership standards — actually, management standards — and training for school leaders. So we’re seeking investment through that avenue as well — the project team. It is targeted at developing capacity with respect, particularly, to managerial aspects of the work.

I think I formerly used the example of…. Again, I have a literature degree. I can manage my household budget, but a budget of $4 million is a bit of a challenge. My training was pretty much: “Here’s the Excel spreadsheet. Give me a call if you have any questions.” So we would seek to, again, develop a strategic and provincial strategy to upskill our school leaders. Although they come to the job with many, many skills, sometimes there’s a need to develop some finer points on some of the management.

I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question. I hope so.

M. Dykeman: Absolutely. I know that likely would benefit. Historically, that would have been great, too.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation. This might be a silly question. I understand what a triage model is with respect to mental health, but I’m not sure what you mean by the pilot project for a triage model.

D. Danyluk: With WelTel, we engage with about 100 of our members at this time, on a schedule that they determine with our supports in our offices, through WelTel. They are prompted with a question. In my case, it’s once a week. I get a question saying: how are you? It actually literally forces me to pause for a moment and consider that — how am I? — and respond. I’m like, “I’m doing all right,” or: “I could use some help.”

Now, the vision of the triage model would be, again, to sort of expand that out beyond 100 members and to look at how best to serve that individual — you know, “I’m not great. I need a little bit of direction on how I can help myself,” so I can triage that to some self-help. There’s much in the way of resources for that kind of thing.

Maybe I need a little bit more support than that. We also are partnered with humanworks, which is a counselling service. Again, if that were the case, then we could triage and direct the member to that kind of support. If it’s more extreme than that, then we could help facilitate, perhaps, a medical treatment, diagnosis, etc., for the more extreme cases.

I guess that’s why we chose the word “triage.” It’s to distribute or send our members or those participating in the best direction. We currently work with about 100. We’d like to go up to about 1,500 of our members.

J. Routledge (Chair): A final question from Henry.

H. Yao: I just want to make sure I double-check correctly. You mentioned you had about 2,600 members, and you’re asking for $1 million for mental health triage. But $800,000 is going to be used for your membership. That’s only about, approximately, $300 per person.

D. Danyluk: Well, that is…. Again, the pilot of this would be to take what we currently do with 100 to about 1,500. We realize that this isn’t going to serve all of the membership necessarily, but we want to prove the effectiveness of the model and how it may impact the effectiveness and improve it by sending people to what they need sooner than later.

H. Yao: Perfect. Thank you for the clarification, and thank you again for your great work.

[1:20 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Darren, for your presentation and for engaging with the committee. I guess I would just like to summarize by saying that school leadership has been tested in unbelievable ways in the last couple of years. We don’t want you to have to go through that experience again. Certainly, speaking for myself, having attended a few graduations already, the obvious warmth between students and the school leadership was unique and apparent.

Thank you for holding it together.

D. Danyluk: It was a team effort. We were all very intensely tested.

Thanks for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): For sure. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Teri Mooring, representing the B.C. Teachers Federation.

B.C. TEACHERS FEDERATION

T. Mooring: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for having me.

I wanted to acknowledge that I am providing this presentation to you on the unceded and ancestral territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

I feel privileged to be here today and to give this presentation. The BCTF represents all the public school teachers in B.C. That’s 49,000 members.

I know that you have a copy of our written report. I’m just going to highlight some things in the time that I have, and then I’m happy, obviously, to take questions.

I guess I’ll just start by saying…. I think we’ve all seen the headlines around districts struggling to balance budgets over the last number of months. Certainly, COVID-19 brought awareness to the issues around education funding, but the challenges that we’re facing in B.C. in terms of funding have nothing to do with the pandemic. In fact, B.C. education is experiencing a cumulative effect of decades of underfunding.

I just wanted to, in particular, focus on inclusive education. Inclusive education is in crisis. I don’t use that word lightly. What is happening is that students who are arguably the most vulnerable in our system — students with disabilities and disabled students — just aren’t receiving the education that they should. In part, this is due to the underfunding of inclusive education. For every $9 a school district spends on special education, they only receive $6 of government funding. That underfunding is a trend that has happened over the years.

The second, of course, is the chronic and pervasive teacher shortage. One of our recommendations is that there be data collected on the teacher shortage. To our knowledge, that hasn’t happened, and that would be very helpful.

It impacts on inclusive education, in particular, vulnerable students, when what we call non-enrolling teachers — so teachers who are resource teachers, learning support teachers, counsellors — who don’t actually enrol students in a class, get pulled from their work to cover for teachers when they are away due to illness, usually. That also impacts programming for students who are diverse-learning or disabled students.

We have three recommendations for you. We’ve taken a lot of concerns and kind of boiled them down into three themes.

One is to address the chronic underfunding in the system as a whole.

The other is to provide dedicated funding for teacher recruitment and retention initiatives. I would just note that, in 2017, we participated in a government task force on recruitment and retention, and many of those recommendations were not enacted.

The recruitment and retention issue is a crisis across the province, but it’s even more intense in more rural areas of the province. I’m thinking of places like the Peace region, north coast, Kitimat. Not only is it hard to attract teachers to these parts of the province, but when you do, there are often housing issues as well. So to begin to address that, we think there ought to be data collected.

Lastly, we are calling on the Ministry of Education and government as a whole to abandon any consideration of a prevalence-based model for special education or inclusive education funding. From what I understand, there hasn’t been a decision made around this funding model.

[1:25 p.m.]

We are very concerned that moving from a needs-based model to a statistical model is not going to address the underfunding issues that we see in inclusive education. It is also going to make it much more difficult to track the funding itself.

We have those three recommendations.

Maybe I’ll just say…. One of the primary ways that we track underfunding is as a percentage of provincial GDP. What we see is that B.C. is falling behind other provinces in terms of education funding. Again, this is not new. This has been happening for decades.

When new programs are introduced — one which comes to mind is the seamless child care, which we are in full support of — those programs need to be fully funded. Otherwise, they add to the cumulative underfunding of education. That has been a concern of ours for…. The downloaded costs have been a concern for some time as well.

Maybe I’ll just stop there.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thanks, Teri.

Renee, then Henry and then Megan.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Teri, for all of your work and advocacy. I really appreciate it, as does the rest of B.C.

I just wanted some clarification on the second recommendation, on funding recruitment and retention. Then you went to specifics on data collected. Is the funding just for the data collection, or is the funding to actually fund recruitment and retention?

T. Mooring: Thanks for the clarification. We think that there needs to be data collected. The funding would in no way be around data collection. It’s to fund actual programs to recruit teachers. Part of the answer to that is more spaces in post-secondary education in teacher education programs. Also, retain teachers in the occupation. We lose a lot of teachers in their first five years, of course.

We think that data collection is important to actually underline the extent of the problem. The current data that’s available…. One example of data that’s available is letters of permission issued by the teacher certification branch. That does not paint a picture in any way. In fact, the number there of LOPs in public education is a shockingly small number. I can anecdotally account for the number that we see there in three school districts in the Peace and the North.

What we think is happening is…. Districts don’t have to apply for letters of permission, unless the person is going to be employed for longer than a month. It also can be a time-consuming and a lengthy process to get the LOPs. So we think that districts just aren’t applying for LOPs. That doesn’t paint a picture of the extent of districts who are advertising for teacher positions that cannot be filled or are losing teachers from their districts for various reasons.

There are some school districts that are doing a great job of enticing teachers to come to their districts. Cariboo-Chilcotin, for example, is offering a lump sum dollar amount when teachers sign on there. Other districts support teachers to find housing. Housing is a big issue in parts, especially in the North.

There are lots of solutions to these problems, but they do need to be addressed. As I said, the students that suffer the most in these situations are the most vulnerable students, but there are other consequences as well.

Of course, one of our concerns is teachers not staying home when they ought to, especially given the pandemic, because there isn’t someone to replace them. If I’m a secondary teacher in Kitimat, for example…. If I am ill and can’t go to work, I know that my colleagues are going to have to take their preparation time and cover my class.

That’s just a couple of examples of the depth of the issues that the teacher shortage brings.

R. Merrifield: Excellent. Thank you so much.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Teri. It’s always nice seeing you again. Thank you so much for your advocacy.

I’m going to piggyback on Renee’s question earlier about addressing teacher recruitment and retention. I think one of the challenges we have heard from a lot of the Peace River area already is the teacher recruitment at this point. Obviously, we would love to see a way we can increase the advanced education seats so that we can increase our teachers, encourage teachers to go to the North to teach, as well to alleviate some of the barriers.

I guess my question right now is: if we want to address the immediate teacher shortage, is there any kind of strategy we can utilize to actually support the current teacher needs in order for us to draw more teachers?

Obviously, we don’t want districts to compete against one another. We also don’t want to be getting to a point that we start stealing teachers from other provinces just to cover our shortfall. We’re going to end up creating a negative cycle.

[1:30 p.m.]

I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions in that area.

T. Mooring: Well, I think part of the issue around immediate solutions…. Teachers graduate from teacher education programs and don’t actually go into public education, or education. I think incentivizing those teachers to actually go into teaching…. A lot of them graduate from teacher education programs and just go into other occupations. They don’t actually teach. I think gathering information around that and working with universities around how we incentivize those graduates to enter into education is part of it.

The other is addressing the issues that are preventing people from going to different parts of the province. In the Metro area, for example, the shortage shows up mainly because of a TTOC, or teacher teaching on call, shortage — in other words, a shortage of teachers to replace those who are ill. In larger areas, it’s not so much that they can’t get teachers into contract positions, but it’s that they don’t have people to fill in when teachers are ill.

It’s a completely different story outside of the Lower Mainland. Housing is a big issue. Supporting people to move could help that, and supporting teachers around professional development opportunities, because when you are in the North, you do not have access to professional development activities like you do in the larger centres. There are a lot of solutions. Some of them are contained in the 2017 recruitment and retention taskforce report that could really support this.

There was also a pot of money, at one point, that the B.C. public sector employers’ association had access to, and we worked with them around supporting rural districts to recruit teachers a little bit more effectively, including them working together a little bit. That money is long gone now.

Certainly, money to support relocating teachers or for recruitment and retention initiatives — for the rural parts of the province, in particular — would certainly be helpful as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Teri. We do have other questions, but we’ve run way out of time.

We want to thank you for engaging with us on this really important issue and for reminding us that the funding shortage is long-term and has cumulative effects. For those of us that may have been thinking that the problem is COVID-related, we know that it was long before that and that it’s going to take some serious, long-term solutions as well.

T. Mooring: Thank you so much, and thank you to the committee members as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’re just having a little discussion about how we can help each other stick to the time frame. We’re going to try and make sure that the timer is available so that the presenters can see it.

Just so you know, the way it’s set up is that for your presentation, for the five minutes of presentation, it counts down. As soon as it gets to the question and answer, it counts up, if you can just keep that in mind.

What we’ll try to do is, maybe, with a minute to go, either…. The real issue is the question and answer period. When we’re closing in on, say, the last minute, I’ve asked Jennifer if she’ll just hold up the piece of paper so you know you’ve got a…. That’s for the questioners too.

Okay, our next presenter is Sandra Nixon, representing the school district of Richmond, No. 38.

Welcome.

[1:35 p.m.]

SCHOOL DISTRICT 38, RICHMOND

S. Nixon: Well, members of the committee, good afternoon. I’m here today along with our district’s superintendent, Scott Robinson, and secretary treasurer, Cindy Wang. I do hope they would be allowed to help me answer any questions you have. They carry a lot of the details of some of the things we’ll be talking about today.

I would also like to just say that we’re pleased to be joining you here on the traditional and unceded territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

The school district in Richmond is privileged to teach, learn and live on the territories of the Hul’q’umi’num’ language group–speaking peoples.

On behalf of the Richmond board of education and our partner groups, I’d like to thank you for this opportunity today to present on what we see as priorities for public education funding in the coming year.

The first priority we’ve identified — and one that we have presented on in the past, with similar themes to our previous speaker — is sustainable operating grants for our operating budget. As you will know, school districts rely heavily on government funding for the majority of our operations. While we appreciate the provincial focus on public education, operating grants annually are simply not adequate to support our districts in maintaining appropriate levels of service to our students and to support our educators in their work.

As an example, for this coming school year, Richmond school district was facing a $3.9 million structural shortfall, and that’s necessitated both staffing and supply reductions to be taken across the district. This is the second year we find ourselves in a position of having to reduce staffing at a time when the needs of our student population are greater than ever as we deal with the effects of the pandemic on student learning and also on mental health.

The budget shortfall is caused by a combination of chronic underfunding and also the impact of the pandemic on some of our costs and on some of our revenues, such as our international student program. Those are not forecast to recover fully for a number of years.

Within this context, it is disappointing that there have not been increases to the per-student grant rates in our funding structure, especially with inflation rising to 6 percent. We have a lot of unfunded inflationary pressures, benefit increases and staffing increments. Those are anticipated, collectively, to be over $1 million for this next school year, that are unfunded.

Additionally, the recent Employment Standards Act change regarding paid sick days is introducing a new and as yet unfunded cost pressure on school districts. Therefore, our district strongly recommends that the province prioritize an increase in the per-student funding to keep pace, at minimum, with rising inflation.

Our second recommendation is for the government to continue its investment in the school seismic mitigation program and in major capital projects. Again, we are grateful for the support of the ministry and of this government in prioritizing student safety in the program.

In Richmond, currently, given our unique geographical circumstances, we still have 22 schools that have been identified as high risk for a seismic event that are still as yet unsupported by the ministry. There is great concern in our community that the goal we had set a few years ago of having all those upgrades finished by 2030 — that that goal will not be met. We had two years without any projects supported, and we’ve just been grateful to receive news of two new projects being supported.

We’ve also identified a number of major capital projects to do with the expansion in Richmond City Centre, the need for additional seats. We are already feeling enrolment pressures in a number of our schools. They’re affecting our families in the community. To date, none of the capital projects that we’ve submitted in our capital plans for expansion of seats have been supported.

We would, therefore, respectfully ask that consideration also be given in the budget to prioritizing funding for both seismic mitigation and capital projects. We know we’re not the only district with enrolment pressures and looking for some expansions.

Our third priority is school facility life-cycle funding. This has become an increasingly urgent issue as continued underfunding has steadily increased the deferred maintenance in our schools. We appreciate the support we do receive through the facility maintenance and renewal funding, annual facilities grant and the school enhancement program.

[1:40 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Sandra, can you wrap it up?

S. Nixon: Sure.

We have $11 million to $14 million of deferred maintenance a year. We receive about $4 million with the AFG funding, so the situation is getting worse.

We appreciate this opportunity to present to you. You’ve got our submissions. So I’ll leave the rest of that for you and would just also like to thank you for your time. You can see the theme running through our presentation today.

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

The first hand I see is Henry’s.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Sandra. It’s nice to see you here.

I do want to ask you something, but I really want to emphasize that when you were talking about a city centre area where the population is increasing, that’s where transitional families, immigrant families usually settle — down there. Yet we’re not keeping up with the seats. Therefore, a lot of students and families, even though they are the vulnerable population, are struggling to receive equal, equitable service compared to the other counterpart in Richmond. Is my assumption correct based on that?

S. Nixon: I would say that’s an accurate statement. That’s often where newer families would move into — the city centre area. We have some schools where enrolment has been capped, where we’re having to send students further away, out of their community, to attend. We’ve had some portables installed, as well, to deal with the expansion issues we have.

H. Yao: I am going to put it back away for the second round to ask.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I want to go to your first recommendation in terms of increasing the sustainable operating grant that’s given, to date. Has it always plateaued and then gone up? Has it ever been tied to inflation? Is this exacerbated with the current inflationary pressures? Or is it just because it’s so far behind that it desperately needs to catch up?

S. Nixon: That’s the operating grant you’re asking for? I can’t remember the last time the operating grant went up. I’m just looking for….

C. Wang: We actually had three years. The Minister of Education provided three years of increases — in the past three years. This is the first year there is no grant increase on operating grants.

R. Merrifield: Okay. Was the last three years specific to any pandemic funding? Or was it just that it went up, and now it didn’t go up?

C. Wang: Over the last three years, there was one year that we received additional pandemic funding, in 2020-21. But of course, with the program being stopped by the provincial government, the support is not there anymore.

H. Yao: Another question I would like to ask about is international students. Obviously, now it seems like not just the post-secondary. Even the secondary schools and schools in the school district, are dependent on international students to balance their budget. Of course, the fallout of the pandemic has shown to us that it’s actually not a realistic thing, sometimes inappropriately placing pressure on international students.

If we somehow find a way to remove international students from our formula and be able to just focus on local students, what kind of percentage increases are we thinking about per student? Funding does require, from the Minister of Education, for us to provide a proper, healthy, balanced budget for local school districts.

S. Nixon: I’m not entirely sure what your question is. It’s around the operating grant, the per-student funding and what would happen if….

H. Yao: If we can remove the international student from the formula and focus on the local students so that we don’t become overly dependent on international students as a source of funding.

C. Wang: I can provide a little bit of information on that. The international education program will receive anywhere between $7 million to $9 million per year. That’s a sizeable amount of revenue. That represents about 4 to 5 percent of our total budget. That’s a lot of money, right? So if we’re going to remove the whole international education revenue from our budget, we’re short by that much.

In terms of looking at the percentage increase on the per-student grant rate, I would say we’re looking at inflation, which is anywhere between 2 percent in the lower years and 6 percent right now, so 2 to 6 percent based on inflation.

J. Routledge (Chair): Ben has a quick question for clarification, and then we’ll be out of time.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Sandra. Under recommendation 2, you identify that 37 schools were originally seismically identified. Thirteen have been dealt with. Two were announced for 2023. What’s it going to cost to do the other 20-some schools? How much money are we talking about?

[1:45 p.m.]

S. Nixon: Oh, that’s a great question. It’s a lot.

C. Wang: Every seismic project is averaging about $10 million to $12 million. We’re looking at 22 more schools times $10 million to $12 million.

S. Nixon: Of course, the further we get into the future, the higher the costs.

B. Stewart: The order of magnitude. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much. Thank you for coming and presenting to us today and making it really clear what you’re facing in Richmond and the consequences of not addressing it.

S. Nixon: Thank you very much for that. This is an important part of the process — the consultation. I think that most districts are facing similar issues.

J. Routledge (Chair): For sure.

Okay, our next presenter is Maggie Milne Martens, representing Artist in Residence Studio Program.

Welcome Maggie. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we have five minutes to ask and answer questions.

ARTIST IN RESIDENCE STUDIO PROGRAM

M. Milne Martens: Hon. Members of the select standing committee, my name is Maggie Milne Martens. I’m an artist, an educator and the founder and former director of the Artist in Residence Studio Program, or AIRS, which is an innovative arts education program developed between the Vancouver school board and community partners.

This program began seven years ago as a strategic intervention to address the evacuation of the arts from elementary public schools that has occurred through systemic and cumulative loss of teacher expertise and dedicated space.

Children need the arts. Our world is in crisis — global conflict, systemic injustices, economic disparities and environmental degradation. The pandemic has only exacerbated these problems, increasing the precarity of families most vulnerable, and the toll on our students, who are ever more immersed in profit-driven social media and gaming platforms…. They’re struggling with depression, anxiety, addiction and the loss of hope and purpose.

In response, the Ministry of Education and Child Care has drafted a strong educational mandate in its service plan. This mandate places student success and well-being at the centre and calls attention to the capacities most needed for tending to a broken world: creative thought and expression and compassionate and empathetic world views that include diversity, equity and inclusion.

Education needs the arts. It is through the arts that students are able to express their feelings, to discover their authentic selves without judgment. It is through the arts that students develop empathy and compassion for the feelings of others and an ethic of care for the natural world. It is through the arts that students celebrate cultural diversity within community and experience the value of inclusion.

The arts give students voice and agency and the capacity to imagine a more just and sustainable world. However, even though the arts are a core curricular in public elementary schools from K to 7, they do not have the teaching expertise nor the funding resources to provide meaningful, sustained, knowledge-based experiences in the arts for all children.

While, in many schools, specialized music instruction has been preserved through prep-time staffing, specialized education in the visual and other performing arts has all but disappeared. Further to this, area standards policy that determines space allocations and enrolment capacities for schools does not recognize the need for non-enrolling spaces in music and art, leading to their systematic elimination. If gymnasiums are essential to support student physical health, why do we not provide music and art spaces to support students’ mental health?

[1:50 p.m.]

Funding for the arts in schools falls in the gap between the Ministry of Education and Child Care and the ministry of sports, culture and tourism, with neither taking responsibility. Funding through the B.C. council for the arts is able to provide artist-in-classroom experiences for only 2½ percent of B.C.’s K-to-12 student population, which includes students in private and independent schools. Public elementary schools are then reliant on parent fundraising and volunteerism to fill the gap, creating unacceptable inequities in educational opportunity based on financial means.

There are possible solutions. AIRS is a cost-effective, high-impact and scalable model and example that partners with community-engaged artists to develop high-quality, socially relevant arts programming for students across the school. This program currently serves 16 out of 90 elementary schools, with demonstrated impact on creativity, confidence, resilience, sense of belonging, community and meaningful inclusion. But it cannot be sustained or expanded without dedicated public funds.

Therefore, we recommend the government create a strategic, supplemental incentive fund, by application, to enable school districts to develop and maintain innovative, high-quality arts programming to bridge the gap in access to the arts for all elementary students. We also call on government to revise the Ministry of Education and Child Care area standards policy to protect dedicated space for music and visual art within all elementary public schools. We call on government to create an independent review on the status of arts education in public schools to better inform and direct funding resources to support and protect equitable access to the arts for all students.

Without the arts, we wither the imagination of children and limit their capacity to hope and live into the renewal of their world. We must ensure that the education in the arts is funded and restored to the core of educational experience for the well-being of students and our future society.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Henry has his hand up, and Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. We understand, after the pandemic, that mental health comes through arts and music. It’s been quite phenomenal.

We just heard another teacher talk about teacher shortages. I just want to comprehend, in my head, around your AIRS program. You’re talking about having an artist-in-residence studio program, so basically an artist would be in a school teaching different classes in different time frames — art classes. I guess I could almost say it would be adding an additional teaching, functioning body. Would the artist actually be coming with a teaching certificate and maybe could actually complement the teacher shortage?

M. Milne Martens: These are community-engaged artists. They’re teaching artists, and they become an embedded resident in the school. They work out of the studio, and then they collaborate with teachers to provide the programming for students. The programming emerges within the community, for the community. The teachers bring their classes and remain in the classroom. So it is both a service to the students but also professional development for teachers as well.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I love this model. It’s really interesting.

You did reference K to 7 specifically. Is that because that is where your program is designed at this point? Does it need to expand, or is 8 to 12 looked after?

M. Milne Martens: In 8 to 12, we have specialized art teachers. What has happened, though, is with the evacuation of the arts from elementary school, you have students entering grade 8, taking a fine arts rotation and having no capacity for visual art expression or dance or theatre. Sometimes they do have music.

To begin to learn a literacy at the age of 13 is too late, right? Elementary school is where the deficits are. The teachers need more support. So building from the ground up, so to speak.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

[1:55 p.m.]

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Maggie. I’m just trying to think back to the days of going through school and what was available and what wasn’t. What’s the supplemental funding that you mentioned? What type of amount? Do you have a number?

M. Milne Martens: I can give you an example from our program. Currently, with an operational budget of $160,000, we’re serving 16 out of 90 elementary schools. We’re focusing on the more under-served schools that don’t have the capacity to use parent fundraising money.

In order to cover all elementary schools within the district, you would need an operational budget of around $1 million. But considering that you reach every student in the entire district in elementary school, it’s a big bang for small money. I know it’s not small money, but it’s a viable model.

The idea of having an incentive fund is that then districts could actually conceive of the kinds of programming and local needs that they have, draw on the resources that they have within their communities, present a case and then have funding to support that, which would bring a great deal of accountability to that as well.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Maggie. We are now out of time for your presentation, but thank you for drawing to our attention the implications of some hard choices that school districts have had to make. It is tragic that some of the choices they’ve had to make have resulted in less arts programming.

You very eloquently described what it means for our society, for civilization — the difference between having you training young people to think creatively and think outside of the box. It creates empathy, which we definitely need. Thank you very much for that.

Our next presenter is Trevor Davies with CUPE B.C.

You know the drill here. You’ve got five minutes to make your presentation, and then five minutes for Q and A.

CUPE, B.C. DIVISION

T. Davies: My name is Trevor Davies. I am the secretary-treasurer of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE B.C.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, on whose lands I am presenting today.

It is my pleasure to present to you today on behalf of our over 104,000 members, who deliver public services in pretty much every corner of our province. Our members work in education, local government, health care, child care, community social services, transit, libraries and emergency services. We’re pretty much everywhere.

CUPE B.C. will be making a full written budget submission in the coming weeks. This will have a series of recommendations for the budget that will speak to our experience and knowledge across many sectors. But for today, I want to focus on two important elements of our submission: the importance of investing in public services and the creation of child care spaces in public schools.

Looking towards 2023, as we slowly move past the worst of the pandemic, hopefully, and the lifting of restrictions and the return to normal, we all have reasons to be optimistic. Yet there are also some reasons for concerns.

We cannot go more than five minutes watching the news without hearing about inflation rates that we haven’t seen in at least two generations — with more rates to come, as we know. We see this in rising fuel and food costs every time we leave the house, and we have a volatile housing market that was already super fuelled by speculation. Even if the prices adjust as predicted, the market will likely remain permanently out of reach for many British Columbians.

At times of economic uncertainty, public services are critical resources to avoid negative social and economic outcomes — outcomes that devastate the lives of citizens and create financial and social crisis. This budget, a budget for 2023, must recognize the realities in front of us and already start investing in the services British Columbia is going to be relying on.

[2:00 p.m.]

As foreshadowed by current market volatility, many economists predict a recession, and economic science calls for responding increase in government spending. The circumstances we face and the need for prevention strategy transcend political parties.

Accordingly, our first recommendation is that the budget increase financial support for public services by increasing funding to school districts, health care, post-secondary education and by providing better support for local governments and emergency services in particular. Not only will an investment bolster these vital services and attract employees, which have also long been underfunded, but it will support citizens through economic uncertainty.

The second priority that addresses affordability for families is child care. Integrating child care with the existing public education system is a natural fit for the creation of a world-class system of child care, one that education indicates will strengthen the existing education system. This is also a model for child care, calling for the wildly supported $10-a-day plan.

Building on the success of the popular seamless day pilot projects in schools, the province can pave the way for increased integration between child care and our K-to-12 system and could open new spaces quickly by piloting school-age care programs and partnerships with school districts.

Now, there are many barriers that can slow the pace of overall child care creation. The most significant are the lack of physical space — land and buildings — and qualified staff. School districts have available space and a highly qualified workforce seeking additional hours.

We have already heard from many school districts directly that many of them would be already running programs in schools if they had the seed funding necessary to open new spaces without impacting the existing mandate to deliver the K-to-12 curriculum.

Publicly delivered school-age care on school grounds is an area where the province can make a profound impact on child care and do so with a relatively small investment.

I want to recognize that government has made significant investments, and that work has increased the number and reduced the cost of child care spaces in the province. However, many of these spaces continue to be delivered by a patchwork of private or not-for-profit centres.

Now, I can speak from a bit of experience, mindful of time. I’ve got two daughters, 3½ and 1½. A patchwork system doesn’t reduce the stress and anxiety of finding spaces. Parents have to coordinate different waiting lists. We were on eight, some with non-refundable deposits, managing different monthly costs, various locations, various hours of operation, and then we have to do it all over again for after-school care.

What a seamless day model does and what a patchwork system doesn’t is provide certainty for parents and children. If a public system makes sense for education, it makes sense for child care.

Our second recommendation is to invest in school-age child care spaces by funding the pilot projects that provide funding to school districts to create licensed school-age child care spaces on school grounds and have these be operated publicly by the school district and their employees.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to questions.

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

Our first question is from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Trevor. You had mentioned that there are school boards that have additional space, and there’s capacity with staffing. I’ve heard from a number of school boards that are worried about costs being downloaded. They’re enthusiastic about having the seamless daycare; that’s not the issue. But will their capital budgets be impacted by having to add additional space, and is it going to end up in portables, those kinds of things?

You’ve maybe answered that a little bit, but do you have anything else to make them feel better?

T. Davies: I think that’s one of the important benefits of the pilot project model. It’s easy to describe the school system by using one example or one district, but as I’m sure you’ve heard, the realities in school districts are as different as the communities that we involve. So the pilot projects give some of the administrators the grounds to make some of those initial decisions, and the rollout makes sense for the communities. That may look a little different.

As much as I wish I could be asking for a simple flip of the switch to roll out a system, I think it’s reasonable to say that this is an evolutionary type of request. I think the pilot project model gives the flexibility for the administrators and those involved in the community, in the school district, to roll it out in a way that kind of addresses those various issues that you raised.

Sorry. That’s maybe not a direct answer, but….

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): No. That’s good. I do like the seamless model.

T. Davies: I appreciate that. Thank you.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Trevor. Good luck with the 1½ and 3½.

T. Davies: That’s why I look so well rested in front of you today.

[2:05 p.m.]

M. Starchuk: Absolutely.

I agree with the seamless beginning and end for child care. I think you mentioned being operated by the staff that are there today, but we also know that there are some organizations that are running right now that are privately done. What is the vision?

T. Davies: I don’t think it would be a good idea for any government to go out and immediately start closing schools. I don’t think that would be a wise…. As somebody who is relying on one of those institutions, I would appreciate the compassion on that.

Again, this probably works into a bit of an evolution. For some of the school districts, we have EAs. In many cases, we probably would expect, if you said, “Okay. What’s a full-time job? I think there are probably some common grounds….” We’d say: “Oh, the 40 hours. That’s seems to be full time.” Well, often it would mean that the school district’s full-time EA can be classified as someone at 25 hours.

When we talk about some of the capacity in the school districts, to a certain degree, there is…. Sometimes the facilities may be only being used during school hours, and the before-and-after is where we describe that. But in some case, it’s some of the EA hours that can be expanded. When we talk about integration, that can also facilitate who is providing the care, who is providing guidance for programing, knowing what is happening in the school.

There has been a number of pilot projects. If you’re interested, Campbell River is probably one of the ones that we’ve been hearing a bit more breakthrough excitement from. Some of these cases, you hear that the individual, the EA, knows what they’re going through at the school. They know what maybe the students are struggling with. Part of the before, part of the after…. They are able to do a bit of customization to better support the student and better help them, maybe, in those areas that they’re not grasping quite as quickly as others.

A bit of that is kind of how that works. I hope that answers your question.

M. Starchuk: Yes. Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for being here today and for the presentation.

The only model that I really studied at all extensively would be the Quebec model, in which private care providers still provide for about 45 percent of all child care spaces. But it’s been hailed as wildly successful in terms of accessibility and affordability for the Quebeckers.

Is there a model that you could point me to for what you’re describing, which is basically all through the schools?

T. Davies: The Quebec model is actually probably a really good starting point, as you referenced those numbers. That’s why I talk about that kind of evolution. We think the Quebec model works. It’s a large part of where the seamless day and this is based off of. It’s kind of asking to expand and grow on that one.

That’s probably a good starting point. If we could get to that 65 percent…. You’d probably still see me in future years, but that would be a great advocacy point.

Sorry. I just saw the time, so I’ll stop there, because I think there’s another question.

R. Merrifield: I appreciate your advocacy on this.

J. Routledge (Chair): I think we are out of time for more questions. But Trevor, I want to thank you for coming and presenting and making a case for strong public services — child care being one of them, a new one — and reminding us that as we feel, perhaps, worried and insecure about the future of the economy, public service is a big part of helping us get through it.

T. Davies: I appreciate that. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Eli Morris, representing Women in Film and Television Vancouver.

Welcome.

WOMEN IN FILM AND
TELEVISION VANCOUVER

E. Morris: Thank you so much for having me. My name is Eli Morris. My pronouns are they/them.

I’m thankful to be here speaking to you today on the beautiful Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh territories.

I’m the executive director of Women in Film and Television Vancouver. We’re a member-based non-profit, founded in 1989. I’m presenting three recommendations for you today, which are distilled from decades of advocacy work from my colleagues and predecessors.

The first recommendation is to enact an equity requirement for B.C.’s motion picture labour-based tax credits. This equity requirement would advance work opportunities for people who are persistently marginalized or excluded from good-paying jobs in B.C.’s thriving film industry. That includes people who are Indigenous, racialized, disabled, 2SLGBTQ+ and women.

The second recommendation is to implement a record and report requirement on the demographic distribution of funds disbursed through the tax credits. This reporting of data-driven evidence fulfils multiple functions.

[2:10 p.m.]

Activists use the data to present strategic and actionable insights to industry stakeholders, organizations, funders and broadcasters, and then policy-makers and funders are able to be held accountable.

The third recommendation is to invite WIFT Vancouver and other advocacy groups to participate in the annual Finance Committee review of the film industry tax credits. To our knowledge, no underrepresented workers in the film industry have ever been invited to that meeting.

A little bit of background on these recommendations. In 2020, the B.C. film and television industry attracted $3.4 billion in direct spending to the provincial economy. The province supports this film production through the Film Incentive B.C. and production services tax credit programs. These programs have propelled and maintained B.C. as the third-largest centre in North America for film production.

It’s a really great success story, but only for a very small demographic of workers. These programs have been in place since the last 1990s, so they’re ripe for modernization. For the last 17 years — that’s right, 17 years — advocacy groups have released many, many studies, which all point to the same issue. In spite of being heavily subsidized by tax credits, the labour force in the Canadian film industry is not representative of the demographics of Canadian society.

A 2021 report issued by our allies at the Racial Equity Media Collective states: “Provincial and federal tax credits make up the largest single source of all funding going to the industry: 28 percent of $3 billion. Within that amount, provincial tax credits make up 38 percent of all public funds. However, they are not subject to any equity-related standards, incentives or eligibility, making them the biggest equity omission in the system. This ultimately means that BIPOC Canadians who pay taxes are financing their own exclusion.” Yikes.

The good news is that we’re in a really good position to fix this. If you take a look at Creative B.C.’s 2019 labour market information study of the film industry, you will, once again, see huge inequities in hiring and representation of women and racialized workers — but also the fact that the industry is rapidly expanding in a time when the workforce is aging out due to retirements. With the current increase in demand for workers, we have a really unique opportunity to correct these historic wrongs.

In 2019, we teamed up with UBCP-ACTRA, which is the union representing film and television performers, and we met with Creative B.C., who administer the B.C. tax credits. We worked on possible models for modernizing these tax credits. The summary is that there’s interest and it’s doable. Our allies, UBCP-ACTRA, also presented on this topic two years ago which led to a recommendation in the Report on the Budget 2021 Consultation, which was to explore measures such as tax credits or hiring incentives to address inequities and barriers for underrepresented groups in the arts, culture and digital media industry.

Over the years, we’ve also met with the current and former Parliamentary Secretaries for Gender Equity, Mitzi Dean and, more recently, Grace Lore — loads of interest there as well, which is why I’m here today. Now more recently there’s also some international precedent for this type of legislation. California has just passed equity tax credit legislation in an effort to make Hollywood reflect California’s diversity. That’s Bill SB 144, if you’re interested.

I’m going to finish with a quote from my colleague, Doreen Manuel, who’s a Secwépemc-Ktunaxa film industry leader, advocate and WIFT board member.

Doreen says: “When you examine the amount of funding equity tax credits would amount to, it is fractions of pennies in comparison to the amount of funds raised for resource extraction on Indigenous territories, particularly in B.C. on unceded territories.” She’s asking you to consider that truth when examining the potential for creating a more equitable tax credit system.

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

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

B. Bailey: First, Eli, thank you very much for your presentation and your advocacy on this issue. I worked for many years in digital media, and I know of what you speak.

I wonder if you have comparison data that would help us understand any movement that has happened over, say, the last decade. I’m aware of a number of different programs. None of them link to money — right? — which is a different level of motivation, obviously. But lots of effort on this file. I’m thinking of some of the incentives through Creative B.C., and so on. Have they moved the dial at all, or are we still really kind of where we started from a decade, two decades ago?

[2:15 p.m.]

E. Morris: When we look at it, there has been progress in what we’re doing internally in the province. The biggest issue, I guess, is specifically with the Film Incentive B.C. tax credit, which is for international service productions. When there are equity requirements in place, they’re very successful, but there are no requirements currently for the tax credits.

B. Stewart: I guess what I kind of immediately wonder…. I always thought the creative industries were relatively inclusive. Anyway, I go to Brenda’s point a little bit: where do we have an example or benchmark? What is the benchmark?

Secondly, rather than just saying, “Okay, we need an equity number or a percentage,” are there qualified applicants that can fill those roles? In my mind, as inclusive as I think most of the industry is — I could be wrong — they’d be hired if they were available, but maybe that’s not the case. How do you get there? That type of thing.

E. Morris: Yeah, I guess there are two parts there to your question. One is: are there eligible applicants for the jobs? And what was the second question? The data around whether…?

B. Stewart: Well, if they are available, I guess, what’s the number? What’s the percentage that we’re looking for?

E. Morris: Yes. There are many, many studies — I can give you a list, if you like — that explain how bad the film industry is in terms of hiring. These are specifically for the good-paying union jobs. There are many barriers to entry for that type of work, which disproportionately affect marginalized folks.

We’ve stumbled across this particular issue a few times, where they’re like: “Are there qualified applicants for the jobs?” Yes. Recent studies came out, specifically focused on women, that show that they have way more qualifications than men. We’ve been focusing, in the last decade, on these training programs, to address that issue. Marginalized folks are very, very well trained, but they’re not getting the jobs.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Eli. I think I’m just going to shake my head right off my shoulders for what you’ve taught me. It’s sad. You said that Creative B.C. in 2019 met with ACTRA…

E. Morris: and with us.

M. Starchuk: Yeah, and you used the word “doable.” So what has been the barrier to doable? Is it just because there’s not an equitable tax credit legislation that’s there?

E. Morris: That’s right, yeah. People don’t want to mess with the legislation that has been in place for 20 years. I don’t know why people don’t want to change it, but it needs an update, for sure.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ve got about a minute.

H. Yao: I’ll make it quick, actually. I guess I will piggyback on some of the comments made earlier. I guess my assumption is that when there is an incentive for the film industry to hire on an equitable, more inclusive basis, then the education sector and the training sector will be more likely to encourage individual people to be willing to participate. It’s almost like a chicken-and-egg scenario we’re talking about here.

I’m just going back to what you were talking about. Will the tax credit itself and the equity mandate be sufficient? Or will more effort be needed from our government and from our community to encourage inclusivity and diversity, allowing more reflection of who British Columbians are?

E. Morris: That’s a great point. I’m thinking about my colleague, Sharon McGowan, who teaches at UBC. She takes photos of the sets of students that she’s teaching. We’re seeing, in the classrooms, loads of diversity in race and in terms of gender. Then you go out to the union sets, and you look at the people who are on set there, and it’s a very small demographic of workers. There is a missing link there between the people who are being trained and the people who are making it into the high-paying jobs in the industry.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we are over time, but thank you very much for your presentation and for the conversation. I am struck by your observation that IBPOC taxpayers are funding their own exclusion. It says a lot. A very crisp presentation.

Our next presenter is Gerard Bremault, representing the Centre for Child Development.

Welcome.

[2:20 p.m.]

CENTRE FOR CHILD DEVELOPMENT

G. Bremault: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the committee for giving us the opportunity to present today. As mentioned, my name is Gerard Bremault. I am the CEO of the Centre for Child Development and have had that pleasure for the last 23 years.

I’d like to begin by respectfully acknowledging the Kwantlen, Musqueam, Katzie, Semiahmoo, Tsawwassen, Qayqayt and Kwikwetlem peoples, within whose traditional territories the Centre for Child Development serves and whose historical relationship with the land continues to this day.

The Centre for Child Development, as Mike well knows — and thank you, Mike; it’s a pleasure to see you, sir — has provided services for children with disabilities since 1953. Next year will be our 70th anniversary. We serve over 3,000 children, zero to 19, annually in 353 locations throughout the South Fraser region. There are 30,000 with disabilities, zero to 19, in the South Fraser region.

We provide comprehensive pediatric medical rehabilitation, mental health, early intervention, inclusive supportive child development services, prototype $10-a-day child care and Sophie’s Place Child and Youth Advocacy Centre for children who experience abuse.

We are seeking ongoing funding increases to eliminate the wait-list for children needing our services. Our three recommendations were provided to you in writing on June 18, but in brief, they are: that we request $5 million per year to eliminate all wait-lists as counted on March 31, 2022.

To review, the centre has a wait-list of 1,265 children for the following services throughout the South Fraser, which is Surrey, White Rock, Langley and Delta. So 585 children waiting for early intervention communication therapy services, 464 children waiting for early intervention occupational therapy, 74 children waiting for early intervention physiotherapy, 142 children waiting for school-age OT/PT and FASD key worker services.

Should the $5 million not be doable, in the absence of that, our prioritization next would be in terms of early intervention communication therapy in the request for $2.34 million per year, where 585 children are waiting, as mentioned above.

In the absence of that, we would next recommend prioritization of early intervention occupational therapy — that wait-list elimination — in the amount of $1.79 million for a year, where 464 children are waiting.

You may ask: “Who is this for?” Many of you know this area, but if you’ll bear with me, we’ve chosen one case example that is public, and that is to provide you Keira’s story.

Keira is one of our young children who was born with a form of arthrogryposis and other complex conditions. Keira’s family was told by hospital physicians that she would never walk and that her parents should pick whether she would forever be sitting or standing. Given those prospects, her mother, Amanda, has often spoken about the life-changing impact for Keira of subsequently receiving services and supports from our centre. She’s spoken publicly about how the centre team became like family partners in their journey of discovery.

Every child is unique in their particular abilities and skills, and Keira is no exception. At the centre, it was never a question of what her limits were or what she couldn’t do. Instead, we joined together in a journey to optimize Keira’s well-being, to find what she was going to be able to do, what her unique abilities and skills are. This was possible because of Keira herself; her willpower; her parents’ care, love and determination; and the support and guidance of the entire multidisciplinary team at the centre.

We are very privileged to join children and families. We serve on these journeys of self-discovery and empowerment, helping children find out what their unique abilities and skills are. The punchline to Keira’s story is that she is today in elementary school. The child who was never supposed to walk, does so.

J. Routledge (Chair): Great story.

G. Bremault: Rest for the questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our first question is from Mike, and then Karin.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Gerard, for what I call a very detailed request that’s here.

My first question is a pretty simple one. If the ministry is able to supply the funding for recommendation 1, are you going to be able to find those 65 people and actually eliminate that wait-list?

[2:25 p.m.]

G. Bremault: The short answer is yes. I say that with some confidence. That may sound a little bit arrogant, but it isn’t. It comes from the experience of my team. My team has done a brilliant job, with recent evidence, where we were fortunate to receive one-time-only funding — we’re asking for ongoing funding; it’s often a challenge in our industry — with a six-month period to eliminate a wait-list for 185 children in supported child development. We did so.

Now that’s [audio interrupted] task: to recruit, bring in all those staff and make that happen within a six-month period. We’re an organization that is all about the can-do. When we set our minds to it, much as in our therapeutic relationships with our families and children, we bring everything to bear. Our entire executive team, our 200 staff — we would all be engaged in making it happen. It’s something that we have been working towards for a very long time.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. The RCY certainly supports your request for shortening those wait-lists.

I’ll try not to make this too convoluted. It’s kind of two questions in one. Do parents use their CYSN dollars to access your services, or are they government…? You’re paid to deliver the program by government? Then, do the children need diagnosis in order to be able to determine if it’s OT, PT, SLP?

G. Bremault: Answer 1 is it’s government, not parents’ direct individualized funding for CYSN purposes, through our centre, which is a charity.

In terms of No.2, if you could repeat the question. Sorry.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Do you require diagnoses in order to be able to determine which supports?

G. Bremault: We prioritize and triage on the basis of diagnosis, but it’s not necessary. It’s an open service where children with presenting needs are attended to. For example, our early years program has recently identified that 95 percent of the children that we serve with no diagnosis whatsoever have suspected autism. Of the children we serve in communication therapy, 60 percent have suspected autism and are diagnosed.

Being an open service, we attend first and primarily to the children’s needs. We focus on outcomes, on the basis of effective interventions to help the child with their goal achievement and their parents’ goal achievement. That’s long been the case with government-funded services like ours.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Great. Thanks very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions. So I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for your presentation and for the work that you do.

I, for one, am struck by the contradiction between the concept of early intervention and the length of wait-lists that you have to deal with and the implications.

G. Bremault: If I may comment to your point, Madam Chair, briefly. I appreciate your being struck by it. It is one of the conundrums in our service area, and to leave the committee with that, which may be obvious to you, Madam Chair, but perhaps not as obvious to everyone, is that….

The highest efficacy occurs in the earliest years. The wait-lists are double-charged in the sense that they equal a wait-list both in person and in time. Some wait-lists for communication therapy, for example, extend to 18 months. Obviously, we lose valuable time to make the greatest impact for the lives of those children. So it’s not just a matter of numbers. It’s a matter of time, and the urgency has been upon us for some time.

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

We are ready to take a recess until 2:40 p.m.

The committee recessed from 2:29 p.m. to 2:43 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Leah Zille, representing the Treehouse Child and Youth Advocacy Centre.

Leah, welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation. We’ve got a timer here for you, and then an additional five minutes for question and answer, so a total of ten minutes.

TREEHOUSE VANCOUVER CHILD
AND YOUTH ADVOCACY CENTRE

L. Zille: Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I am honoured and grateful to be here with you on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish peoples, which includes Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

I am Leah Zille and serve as the executive director of the Treehouse Child and Youth Advocacy Centre in Vancouver. We are one of nine [audio interrupted] child and youth advocacy centres, also known as CYACs, in British Columbia.

Today I am here to compel the provincial government to join us in being part of a solution to address perhaps the most pervasive issue facing our communities — childhood abuse and violence. It can be argued that nearly every social crisis the government is tasked to address is rooted in unresolved trauma that can be attributed to childhood abuse and violence — homelessness, the opioid crisis, complex mental health issues, suicide rates, intimate partner violence, poverty and crime, to name a few.

[2:45 p.m.]

It likely underpins the emerging trends we are seeing in our communities, issues like unprovoked stranger attacks and youth-on-youth violence. These issues are having a profound impact on the lives of all British Columbians. These issues are having a profound impact on the lives of all British Columbians. These issues affect the livability of our cities and neighbourhoods and erode the perception of safety.

Stats Canada data indicates that one in three Canadians report having experienced some type of abuse by the age of 15. While many of our social problems are at a crisis level, and of course require government to invest heavily in immediate solutions to keep our communities safe, imagine the impact and cost savings that would occur if we could get in front of these issues, break cycles of abuse and give children and youth the chance to heal so they can go on to realize healthy, productive, fulfilling futures.

The fact is, for communities in the province where a CYC model is implemented, these outcomes are well on the way to being realized. However, the Treehouse and the other eight CYACs in the province need the government’s investment to make this model financially sustainable.

Responding to abuse isn’t a new concept. Police agencies, child protection agencies, medical professionals and victim services have been doing so for years. However, these responses have historically been independent from one another. Over time, we have learned this fragmented, siloed approach fails to address the needs of the child as a whole and inadvertently inflicts further trauma on the child and family as they bounce from system to system. Dots don’t get connected, and children fall through those gaps.

When parents, often overwhelmed themselves, are left on their own to navigate for their child, much of the necessary follow-up work doesn’t happen. So while the systems independently may have been effective at stopping the abuse, the impact of the trauma continues to manifest, and the longer it goes unresolved, the more difficult and costly it becomes to reverse.

The good news is that when addressed early and when children and their families are supported, children have a remarkable capacity to heal from abuse. It is in this spirit that the child and youth advocacy centre model emerged.

CYACs provide a trauma-informed, culturally safe and child-centred response to abuse. When suspected abuse is reported, children come to a dedicated, child-focused facility which is operated by the CYAC agency. All the professionals like police, child protection and victim services who have a role to play in the response are on site, ready to support that child in a coordinated way when they walk through the door. When that child shares the experience of what happened to them, they only need to do so once.

After the child and family leave their CYAC visit, that multidisciplinary team will continue to support the child and family directly and behind the scenes. They will continue to collaborate, meeting regularly to discuss updates regarding the child’s case and needs, putting plans in place and keeping the family apprised along the way. There is regular and ongoing contact with the child and family. The parents’ capacity to follow through on their child’s supports needs increases exponentially.

CYACs take the investment that government has already made in services like policing, child protection and victim services and leverages that investment. The professionals working in the CYAC model cite time and cost efficiencies and improvements to how they do their jobs due to the collaboration. Children report feeling heard, and families routinely speak of how supported they felt throughout the process.

In any given year, government investment provides a fraction of what CYACs need to operate. At the Treehouse, I will spend most of my time this year working to secure over 60 percent of our operating budget through community support, grants and donations — funding that must be secured to keep the doors open and lights on. Sustainable operational funding would free up time which could better be spent expanding service delivery to communities without CYACs, enhancing service offerings to our existing framework and focusing on crucial education and prevention work in the community.

The collaborative approach of the CYAC model has proven to be the best way to respond to children and youth impacted by abuse. As such, my recommendation is that the provincial government provide ongoing, sustainable operational funding to all CYACs in the province.

Next week in Vernon, the chair of our B.C. Network of CYACs will share with you the specifics regarding the critical need for sustainability across the province.

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

Now we’ll move to questions. Karin, then Henry and then Mike.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): It’s so nice to see you. Thank you. Having a child go to a police station when this happens can be retraumatizing, traumatizing for them, so I just have to commend you on the model and the space that you have to keep that child safe and to feel safe.

With respect to your budgeting, are you saying that 60 percent of your overall budget right now you have to go out and fundraise for?

[2:50 p.m.]

L. Zille: That is correct.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Is that through grant writing, is it through donors, is it through…? Are all of the CYACs funded the same way?

L. Zille: Every model is different, but essentially, yes. None of the CYACs receive any form of ongoing sustainable funding. There is a stream of funding from the civil forfeiture office that provides annual grants to CYACs, but it’s not sustainable, and the amount varies from year to year.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): You partner still with VPD. I don’t know if FSGV is still in there. Do you have any funding from VPD, for example? They’re providing detectives to you.

L. Zille: That’s correct. VPD provides four police detectives and one sergeant that work out of our space. But in terms of any financial contributions, we do not receive any financial contributions from any of our partners. That includes the ministry, Family Services of Greater Vancouver, Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society and the Vancouver police department.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the great work you’re doing for our children, as we’re talking about. One thing I would love to explore a bit more, too, is that obviously a lot of children who are dealing with trauma often come with a parent who might be facing intimate partner violence. How do you work with, of course, gender-based advocacy groups to support a potential parent who often comes with a child dealing with a similar level of trauma as well?

L. Zille: The Treehouse has a case management process. When children come to the centre, it is because of suspected abuse that’s happening directly to the child. I’m speaking on behalf of the Treehouse. That’s how files come to us. So it’s a suspected case of abuse that has been reported by somebody to either police or child protective services. We support that child when they’re in the centre.

However, if there are specific needs for the parent as well, one of the services that we provide is immediate counselling support for parents whose children have been impacted by abuse. They will get up to five sessions with us, and then our victim services team and social work do refer out to other services as well.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. The person that was here prior to you, Gerard, has Sophie’s Place, in Surrey. I’m assuming that it’s a model that’s very similar to what’s there.

L. Zille: Yes. We run a similar…. They’re one of the nine operating child and youth advocacy centres in the province.

M. Starchuk: So can you just expand on two questions: what are the ages that you’re covering, and what are you seeing with the numbers during COVID, if they’ve actually changed?

L. Zille: We see children anywhere from what we would describe as an interviewable age — it’s usually around three or four years old — all the way up until 19 years of age. I would say about 60 percent of children we see are under 12, and about 40 percent are over the age of 12.

M. Starchuk: And as far as numbers?

L. Zille: Certainly, during COVID, we did see a dip and then an immediate increase. The number of files that continue to come to the centre are pretty consistent.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for your work. I look forward to hearing from your counterpart in Vernon, because I’m very curious as to what funding all of these would look like. We are very fortunate in Kelowna to have one. I know the impact that it has made on our community, so I’m very intrigued to hear more about the recommendations.

L. Zille: Wonderful. I know Brooke will share that with you next week.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we’ll draw this part of our day to a close.

Thank you, Leah, for coming, presenting and reinforcing, I think, what a lot of us have suspected. That is the link between shared social problems and tracing them back to childhood abuse and violence and, as you put it, the difference it would make if we could get in front of that. So thank you for that.

L. Zille: Thank you so much for hearing from me today.

[2:55 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Britt Andersen, Canucks Autism Network.

CANUCKS AUTISM NETWORK

B. Andersen: Thank you for having me. Thank you for this wonderful opportunity. My name is Britt Andersen. I’m the CEO of the Canucks Autism Network. We are an organization obviously dedicated to the treatment and support of individuals on the autism spectrum.

To speak a little bit about autism, obviously, it’s very prevalent in the province and across the country. MCFD data, the latest data that’s reported, is one in 32 children — so about 2,100 kids — across the province will be diagnosed this year. In addition to that, there’s probably more than 160,000 adults on the spectrum in this province alone. The Canucks Autism Network believes that each of those individuals should have the same opportunities as everyone else, and our programs are designed to create those same opportunities.

In terms of our successes, this past year we had 7,700 autistic individuals participate in 514 programs that we ran. In addition to that, we delivered a number of life skills training programs for young adults, and we even placed 205 individuals with jobs. That entails working not just with the job seeker but also the employers to ensure that there’s a strong fit and there’s enough support for those individuals to be successful.

Also what we’ve done is focus very heavily on community training and supports for individuals on the spectrum. We’ve had 2,800 people, or slightly more than that, go through specific training programs. That’s across 112 different organizations. That could be educators, sports and recreation coaches. We’ve done a lot of work with police and fire departments across the province. In addition to that, it’s organizations. We’ve had great success this year with YVR, TransLink, Rogers Arena, all aimed at increasing accessibility and inclusion.

What we are here today to ask for is, really, your help in two key areas. First, mental health supports for people on the autism spectrum. What we’re seeking is $870,000 to support a very important program. What we found as we started working more and more, moving from just working with kids to actually young adults and adults on the spectrum, was just a prevalence of mental health issues for everyone on the spectrum.

In fact, last year Dr. Connor Kerns published a report — he’s from UBC — about the incidence of mental health issues in children and adults on the spectrum. The numbers were startling, actually. So 78 percent of children on the spectrum, so under 12, have at least one mental health condition. In addition to that, 86 percent of young adults have at least one mental health condition. A shocking number that was published came out of that. Young adults on the spectrum are seven times more likely to die of suicide than their peers — seven times more likely. It’s a shocking number.

What we did this year was team up with Autism Nova Scotia. We conducted a number of national scoping interviews, working with 117 different mental health providers across the country — 45 clinicians right here in B.C. — to really get a sense of how big that problem is and whether it does exist nationally and here in the province. It absolutely does. In fact, we worked very closely with Foundry B.C. on this project. They absolutely concur that while they’re very good at working with young adults with mental health issues, the autism piece is a bit of a mystery to many of their counsellors and clinicians.

What we are working on, in conjunction with Foundry B.C. and also Circa, which is an organization based out of UBC, is actual training modules, which we intend to deliver to actually help people come up to speed — these would be counsellors and health care providers and clinicians — on how to support autistic youth with mental health issues. This funding would actually secure that for a 2½ [audio interrupted] secure that program and the development of further modules and face-to-face training as well as a navigator position for the next 2½ years.

In addition to that, we are seeking funding — on a completely different note — to expand our services into northern B.C. One of the things we found during COVID, when we actually had to cancel a lot of our face-to-face programs…. We moved to a virtual setting, and the response that we got in terms of registrants from northern B.C. was absolutely shocking. They became 30 to 40 percent of the programs that we ran.

Really, what we did was an environmental scan to see what service providers actually exist — everything from Prince George north. There’s very little that actually provides support around inclusion and accessibility for people on the spectrum. We reached out to a number of health care providers, talked about the services we provide, and there is absolutely a need for it.

[3:00 p.m.]

What we’re seeking on that front is $550,000 to allow us to build a very similar structure to what we have in major cities across the province here. That would be an employee on the ground that can actually recruit front-line staff and volunteers to run programs throughout those small communities in the North, where nothing exists.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much, Britt.

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

B. Stewart: I’m just struck by thinking that you can, with $550,000, cover the North.

B. Andersen: It’s a start. In the meantime, what we would do is, obviously, as we always do, seek support from the community in terms of donors and businesses and the like.

B. Stewart: I don’t quite understand the whole model, in terms of the $870,000 you’re looking at for here, the coast.

What’s the order of magnitude of your entire budget and resources that you have going into all the places that you’re at, over and above these two asks? This seems like a small percentage.

B. Andersen: It is. It absolutely is. It’s a realistic number, I think, for us, to get us going with this program.

Our budget is about…. This year we’ll hit about $7.8 million, which is virtually a doubling of where it was about three years ago. We have really worked on…. We’re grassroots. We have a small staff contingent but a very large volunteer contingent that helps us deliver all of the programs across the province.

This is a small piece, but I’d rather have something manageable that we actually work with. At the same time, what we would do is seek support from the community, because we believe that our success comes when the community is invested in what we do as well.

B. Bailey: Thanks for the presentation, Britt. I’m wondering about the model you described, when during the pandemic you transitioned to an online program. Was that direct service to people with autism?

The reason I ask is that I worked in digital media for a long time. The connection often…. I’m not speaking as an expert in autism, just with meeting people who are autistic who really found that being online was a safe and positive experience for them. I wondered whether that model has legs to maintain outside of the pandemic. I guess it’s too far to say whether we need people on the ground. But is there a way…? Maybe it’s a hybrid model. I wonder if you can comment on that.

B. Andersen: Virtual was very new to us with the start of COVID. We quickly dove into it. You’re right. For some members of the autistic community, it was a very safe and comfortable environment. They absolutely thrived.

It will continue on. We will continue with a virtual component probably indefinitely. But it’s not for every individual. That’s where we really need to find that healthy balance in that mix. It’s also very important for some of the adults. Even though they may feel comfort on screen, they do need to socialize as well. It is an important part of their development.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Britt, for your presentation. I think one number that really shocked me…. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you mentioned they’re seven times more likely to, unfortunately, participate in suicidal ideation or thoughts.

I do want to explore it a bit more. What is it? Is it because of social isolation? Is it because of peer pressure? What can we do as a society to reduce that number?

B. Andersen: Unfortunately, yes. Absolutely, social isolation is typically part of autism. In addition to that, there are a lot of identity and gender issues that are very prevalent in the autistic community.

I think it’s probably safe to say that there’s still a tremendous amount of stigma and bullying that goes on in the school system and the public system. It certainly existed when I was young. I think it still exists today. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still a long way to go.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): You answered my first question. Now I just thought of another question.

Hi, Britt. Nice to see you.

B. Andersen: Nice to see you too.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Your services are free to families. You also can provide some grants for sports programs and various things. How does that work?

B. Andersen: Actually, there’s a $25 membership fee, and then every single program we run is free. In fact, we typically waive that $25 fee for anyone.

[3:05 p.m.]

We are entirely community funded. We simply want kids and adults to participate in programs and have those same experiences that everyone else does. For us, it started with sports and recreation, because that was so absent for people on the spectrum before CAN came along. It’s really evolved and grown, based on the needs and what we hear from our members.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thanks so much, Britt. Thanks for the work that you do.

I say, speaking for myself…. What you’ve reminded me of or impressed upon me is that this is a much more mainstream condition than perhaps we saw before, and we have to provide service to that level. Thank you.

Our next presenter is Leslie Gaudette, representing the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of B.C.

Welcome.

COUNCIL OF SENIOR CITIZENS
ORGANIZATIONS OF B.C.

L. Gaudette: Good afternoon, everyone. It’s really a pleasure to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Our motto is: “Plan with seniors, not for them.” So I’m living the dream here.

I’ve just gone through our recommendations. The first is that the government of British Columbia develop a seniors strategy to address ageism and the needs of an aging population. This will ensure that public resources are used as effectively as possible through coordination of health, housing, transportation and income needs in age- and dementia-friendly communities.

Planning for this strategy must value and respect the voices and contributions of seniors by involving organizations representing the diversity of older adults across British Columbia, adults who wish to age in their own homes. Financial resources must be dedicated for supports in peoples’ homes and in age-friendly communities.

COSCO further strongly supports the proposed UN Convention on the Rights of Older Persons, which will provide a framework for dealing with elder abuse.

Of the one million seniors in B.C., half live on between $1,700 to $2,500 per month. The ability to earn extra money through work declines with age. Pensions may not be indexed, leaving little flexibility for income growth.

Unexpected health care or housing expenses may amount to hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, leaving our lowest-income seniors living in poorly heated and maintained properties without phone or Internet and, further, having to choose between buying proper food or needed medications or, in some cases, incontinence supplies such as Depend. Living in such conditions leads to social isolation and a downward spiral of poor health, thereby creating further demands on our health care system.

A strategy involving well-designed communities along with coordinated health and social services tied to transportation would work to balance the books, I believe, for both government and seniors.

Our second recommendation is that the government of British Columbia fund primary health care networks and support them to manage team-based care, which can best engage the non-profit organizations in each community to ensure that seniors, particularly those with multiple chronic conditions, receive effective, coordinated and longitudinal care through community health centres that are connected with seniors centres.

Communities should be funded to operate robust community health centres and to provide services that parallel those offered for free in hospitals but which now must be paid out of pocket on discharge. Family physicians and other health professionals need incentives to work in interdisciplinary teams. Health care services in communities should include vision, hearing and dental care along with mobility aids. A national pharmacare program would save money in the B.C. economy as a whole.

Putting all these together would allow costs to be levelled out across the whole population rather than wreaking havoc with the tight budgets of our low-income seniors. This model of care will help combat social isolation, which is a determinant of health, and ensure funding is in place for community hubs and seniors centres that employ community navigators to assist seniors to access services.

[3:10 p.m.]

Our third recommendation is that the government of British Columbia work with municipalities to fund more social housing for seniors. We define affordable housing as rents geared to no more than 30 percent of gross income. We also hope that there will be ways found to support what are called naturally occurring retirement communities, or NORCs, in both social housing and other community housing.

Rents generally account for the largest part of a senior renter’s budget. Affordable rents thus contribute to overall economic security and will reduce demands on other parts of the social services sector, including averting homelessness, a growing problem amongst older adults. As you can figure out, an income of $2,500 per month would qualify for a rent of $750, an amount far below the average market rent of $1,400 in Metro Vancouver. Really, you also need places that are $500 to $600 a month, and it’s hard to find.

The high cost of land makes it impossible for the market to provide affordable housing, even with donated land. We’re really concerned about real estate investment trusts, which are buying up any and all housing. That, then, increases the cost of buying housing as well as rents for tenants.

If we look at social housing, along with NORCs, we can look at a perspective such that space can be dedicated for use for health and social services providers — again, supporting aging in place.

Thank you very much for your time in considering these recommendations.

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

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. It was really interesting. I enjoyed listening to the different areas you think would make a measurable difference.

I know that a while ago — it wasn’t very recent — there was a seniors action plan. It was part of the British Columbia government. There was implementation, and that action plan was put out.

Now I’m wondering. Has your organization worked at all with that action plan? Has there been any view to look at the strategies that were in that, or are you envisioning something in a different direction, maybe looking at one specific part? I know, from your written submission…. You talk about age and dementia-friendly communities and ageism and that kind of stuff.

L. Gaudette: What I’m saying is that a lot of the pieces are in place. It’s tying it together. You don’t have somebody building the bathroom over here and the kitchen over there, and then there’s a lot of plumbing to connect them. If you get community hubs in place, I think that’s really important. I know budgets are tight everywhere.

I think that looking at things from…. It was interesting, going up…. Instead of coming in with a laundry list of 15 things, we looked at three major things and tried to tie them together. So that is where this is coming from.

M. Dykeman: All right. Thank you.

L. Gaudette: Thank you, Megan.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there other questions?

B. Bailey: I just was exposed, for the first time, to the term “NORCs.” I was madly taking notes.

I wonder if you could just spell it out a little bit more for me, please.

L. Gaudette: It’s called a naturally occurring retirement community. It’s an apartment building, a manufactured home park, a strata complex, a lot of the gated communities, say, in the valley or even some of our communities on the Island — B.C. has some of the oldest communities, in terms of age distribution, in Canada — where you have a lot of older adults living close together. Then you can kind of bring the services and activities to the complexes as opposed to having something over here.

There’s an offshoot of that called Oasis. That has been implemented in some areas in Ontario. I think Kingston, for example.

B. Bailey: The naturally occurring part is that this isn’t a community that’s moving here for something. It’s aged there.

L. Gaudette: Yes.

B. Bailey: It’s naturally occurring in that way. So different than, say, an example we’ve seen where we see multigenerational communities being built.

L. Gaudette: Right. I suppose that you could look at it that way, yeah.

People move into an apartment, and then they just stay there. Or they move into a manufactured home park. You’ve got a lot of social supports. You’ve got a lot of…. It’s a very good type of environment for people to be in.

B. Bailey: That’s great. I’ll read about it more. Thank you.

L. Gaudette: Thank you, Brenda.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions?

[3:15 p.m.]

Well, it looks like you covered all the bases. We have no further questions for you. We’d like to thank you for coming and making this presentation and for taking such a global view on what needs to happen to support seniors, and that it’s all integrated. That came across very clearly.

Our next presenter is Heidi Worthington, here on behalf of YMCAs of B.C.

Welcome.

YMCAs OF B.C.

H. Worthington: Thanks very much. This is my first time with you all, so it’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for the opportunity.

I am representing all five Ys across the province, from the North to the Interior, including the Island and Greater Vancouver, and I am the president and CEO for Greater Vancouver.

At our Ys, we reach one in 20 British Columbians of all ages, backgrounds and abilities, with programs and services that make a positive impact on some of B.C.’s most pressing social issues, with a focus on children, youth and families. Collectively, pre-pandemic, we employed 2,700 staff and benefited from over 3,000 volunteers.

The YMCA is submitting three recommendations for consideration in B.C.’s Budget 2023 that align well with several of the priorities in your consultation paper: firstly, early learning and child care; second, youth mental health; and third, building stronger communities through supporting the resilience and recovery of the YMCA.

I’ll start with early learning and child care. We’re at a unique moment in B.C., where affordable early learning and child care is prioritized at the federal, provincial and municipal level, and we acknowledge and applaud the province’s leadership here. Child care spaces are growing rapidly across the province, but the labour shortage of child care staff continues to be the most urgent issue, limiting the ability to open all of these spaces, which is especially concerning for school-age facilities.

The YMCA is the largest provider of licensed child care in the province, with 4,000 spaces in early years and school age, and we’re set to open another 900 spaces before the end of 2022. We currently employ over 800 child care staff across the province, and I really hope we can get that number to increase to support those families. We know this issue is well recognized by government.

An immediate action is to boost the wages of all child care professionals. As a part of this, we urge the government to include those that work in school-age care, who are currently not included in the wage enhancements. Additional wages and incentives will improve recruitment and retention of early-years and school-age child care educators and professionals, and ensure a continuum of care from children from birth to 12 years of age.

Our second recommendation is to continue funding for youth mental wellness, including our program called Y Mind. Y Mind is a community-based, youth-informed program that supports youth with mild to moderate mental health issues. Since receiving funding from the province in 2017, Y Mind has extended supports for teens and youths to over 50 communities across the province, and over 3,000 youth have participated.

Mind Medicine is an adaptation of the program, with Indigenous partnerships to better serve rural and Indigenous youth. Twenty-three Indigenous communities have been trained to deliver the Mind Medicine program, and the program has supported nearly 400 youth across the province, yet our funding is ending next year.

We’re seeking $1.5 million per year for the next three years — committed and continuous funding — so that we can build upon that success and expand the program. With this funding, we can reach over 40 communities annually, with 900 youth participants each year. We have demonstrated the YMCA’s ability to create the partnerships, the systems and the reach to be able to scale this program up. With committed funding, we’re very confident we can continue to do so.

Lastly, our third recommendation ties the other two together. The YMCA is asking for support for recovery and resiliency, and funding that perhaps right now is falling through some cracks.

The health, social and economic recovery of our communities relies on both a strong and vibrant not-for-profit sector and private sector. We were pleased to see the government launch the $34 million recovery and resiliency fund. However, the YMCA will not be eligible to access this funding, because we’re too large to qualify. Yet as a charitable organization, the YMCA is also not eligible for business relief funding, even those grants that were specifically designed to support fitness centres.

[3:20 p.m.]

The financial sustainability of the YMCA has been affected through COVID-19, through the provincial requirements to reduce capacity or entirely close our centres over the past two years. These facilities are valued centres of community for many in our communities across the province, and they do help build a stronger society. They are also the single-largest financial contributor to the community programs and services that the Y runs.

The YMCA is at risk of falling through the cracks and is asking for one-time bridge funding to continue to weather the storm and be in a broader, stronger position to support moving forward. The YMCAs in B.C. collectively have seen our revenues decline by 25 percent over the pandemic, and without further financial support from government, we might face the very real possibility of having to permanently close or stop some of the services that we’re providing.

Thank you so much for hearing our recommendations this afternoon. I look forward to your questions.

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

H. Yao: I’m sorry. I apologize. I didn’t hear you. The one-time funding — how much?

H. Worthington: For the one-time funding that we have?

H. Yao: Yes. Maybe I missed it.

H. Worthington: The number is…. Actually, to help us bridge that gap, we’ve been asked to bring it down into smaller pieces, to bring that back.

H. Yao: So you don’t have the total number for us right now.

H. Worthington: I believe the total….

H. Yao: Don’t worry about it. I apologize. I missed that. I just thought I would double-check.

H. Worthington: Sorry. I’m just a few months into this role, so I’m maybe not as well prepared as I’d like to be to face your questions. My apologies, Henry. That’s what happening here.

H. Yao: My official question, actually….

Sorry, Janet.

You’re talking about mental health for youth, which is for people who are suffering from mild-level mental health issues. Do you guys have any kind of program that’s designed to help youth to build mental health resilience — so it’s more preventative work — instead of actually intervening when they’re facing the stress? We’ve learned from, obviously, the pandemic the importance of, actually, prevention and building resilience.

H. Worthington: Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the things about the YMCA is that our programs are mostly centred on children and youth. We offer quite a bit of leadership training for youth and allow them the opportunity to demonstrate their skills and abilities and bring those to life. Those are some of the connections with their peers and with those across different age groups that we think actually really help build that emotional, physical, mental resiliency.

The Y Mind program is a little bit more of a prevention program. It’s really not there to treat critical mental illnesses. That’s beyond the scope. It really is about catching those early stages of mental struggles, and we know that we’ve really seen a significant uptake in that. Because of the pandemic, our youth are really suffering.

H. Yao: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda and then Karin.

B. Bailey: I actually had the same question.

J. Routledge (Chair): Oh, okay.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I had the same question, too, but I’m going to ask another one as well.

Thank you very much, Heidi. You’re doing a great job considering you’re just brand-new into this. You wouldn’t have known.

You are one of the largest providers, with 4,000 spaces. I have two things here. One is…. I’m wondering how many of those 4,000 spaces are currently participating in the $10 pilot sites.

The second was just a comment. I’m happy to hear the recommendation for that wage enhancement to be expanded to those in education. I think that’s been difficult. This all may be replaced with a wage grid coming next year. But a good recommendation. Thank you.

H. Worthington: The number of centres that participate in that program — I’ll also have to follow up with you to be able to answer that. I’m feeling woefully inadequate at the moment.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Okay. Don’t worry about it. Thank you.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. You were talking about the large expansion coming forward. You’re looking to open more spaces. Are these mostly child care and before- and after-school spaces in the schools, or are you looking to expand in all areas? I didn’t quite catch that.

H. Worthington: It is in all areas, yes. We have a particular strength with before- and after-school care, but it is across all areas.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Perfect.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. You guys are expanding in my local riding — that’s great — partnering with KF Aerospace. I’m very excited about those additional spaces.

My question is: are those spaces…? Are the 4,900, at the end of the year…? That’s the number, by the end of 2022, I think you said. Are those spaces part of what’s at risk with the revenue drop or decline from the overall memberships, etc., or would it be other services that would be at risk?

[3:25 p.m.]

H. Worthington: It would be other services. The child care programming, for us…. The limitation factor there is really staffing. That’s what would constrict that number — actually being able to attract and retain the staff.

The revenue challenges that we have…. The revenue that we gain from those membership centres, which people see in community, is actually the economic engine that helps fund a lot of the other community programming that we do. When we do get community program funding, it covers the direct expenses but not all of the expenses that it takes to really run the program. When our membership revenues are down, it actually constricts all of the programming that we run.

R. Merrifield: Okay. I’d be interested to know what that number is, if possible.

H. Worthington: The topline revenue number is across all…? I have that.

R. Merrifield: The decrease in what you’re looking for.

H. Worthington: Yes. So across all five organizations, which includes greater Vancouver, we went from $94 million in topline revenue down to $70 million. So that’s the 25 percent dip.

J. Routledge (Chair): If you have a quick question, Ben.

B. Stewart: Just in recommendation 1, you talk about how wages must increase to attract and retain child care professionals. I’m just wondering what that number is, because it’s referred to in the recommendation about wage enhancements. Give us a number. What’s the percentage that wages have to go up? Is it $20 and it has to go up to $25, or…?

H. Worthington: That is another great question, and I would love to follow up with you on that. We’re talking about both ECE as well as the support staff, because it takes a whole team to be able to deliver the care in-facility. So those numbers would be different depending on the role.

B. Stewart: I think it would be helpful.

H. Worthington: Yes, we’d be happy to provide that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Heidi. We’ll draw this part of our afternoon to a close.

Thank you for your presentation, and we wish you well in this position. It’s a very important one, one that our community really relies on. So thank you for alerting us to the challenges that the Y faces. I think we take it for granted, and we shouldn’t be doing that.

H. Worthington: Thanks very much for your time and for your questions.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Susan Sanderson, representing the Realistic Success Recovery Society.

REALISTIC SUCCESS RECOVERY SOCIETY

S. Sanderson: Hello, I’m back again. This, I think, is my seventh year doing this.

H. Yao: Welcome back.

B. Stewart: We’re not counting.

S. Sanderson: Yes, welcome back. It’s really…. I look forward to it every year. It’s my highlight. It’s quite great.

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you, and again, I want to applaud the government for the many and significant improvements you’ve made for the people of B.C. since 2017. But I’m here to speak, of course, about supportive recovery that is lagging behind, as is….

Today — 37 manor clients in the Trilogy Houses. Six have more than one year in residency. Five are working full-time. Just to give you a little bit of perspective of our own organization. We’ve been operating for 14 years, improving the quality of life for our clients and their families, friends and community. We’re home to 40 homeless men with substance use disorder in bed-based, long-term facilities, sometimes for a month or for years.

Substance use disorders affect thousands of people every year, causing motor vehicle crashes, crimes, injuries, reduced quality of life, impaired health and death. The local need for high-quality recovery services is extremely urgent. About 17 percent British Columbians, somewhere around 800,000 people, experience substance use or mental health issues.

Our first recommendation is to increase the per diem for registered supportive recovery facilities to $60 per day. Increasing the per diem is a positive economic investment in those requiring assistance from a generational disease. This investment is similar to the investments in schools, affordable housing, bridges and roads that pay dividends for years to come.

The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction pays $35.90 per day to ALR-registered support recovery facilities. An increase of $5 per day was instituted in 2019, after tenacious advocacy. This increase was the first in ten years. The $35.90 brought us halfway to making ends meet. It does not cover all the costs required for an ALR-registered facility. As I’m sure you all know, the requirements increased in 2019, as well, so it’s more expensive to do the same thing in order to provide better services for our clients.

[3:30 p.m.]

The per diem is 30 to 40 percent of the revenue required to operate before 2020. I’m not touching the…. More and more time and energy is spent on finding additional revenue sources.

Support recovery facilities require the financial consideration they deserve in helping to save people from the health crisis caused by the poisoned illegal drug supply. Due to the drug overdose, the life expectancy for males in Canada has gone down 2.3 years, the first time in decades life expectancy has not continued to rise. Increasing the per diem is an economic investment similar to investments in schools, affordable housing, bridges and roads, which pay dividends for years to come.

Compared with other facilities frequented by this population, $60 per day is a real bargain. Daily comparisons…. It’s $64.40 approximately for shelter beds, which provide only the bed — no support, no programming. Often the operators of shelter facilities don’t have to pay rent on the building, so the $64.40 they receive goes straight into wages and other operating…. They don’t do the full cost of what it costs to run the facility the way that we have to do. And it’s $144.43 a day in a provincial jail or $363 in a hospital bed.

Community-based supportive recovery facilities change the trajectory of people’s lives from addiction, homelessness and poverty to independent living and employment, which also creates safer communities. Our sector continues to be underfunded. We should be funded and recognized for the positive contribution we make in the lives of our clients and our communities.

The Trilogy Houses have been home to 1,988, or close to 2,000, men since 2007. The Realistic Success Recovery Society and its residents contribute approximately $650,000 per year to the economy of Surrey through purchasing groceries, personal hygiene supplies, office supplies, household maintenance repairs and rent for the three of our four houses.

Recommendation 2 is a yearly built inflation. Once we’ve got the $60, great. Thank you very much. Now, in the next year or the year after, we need inflationary increases to keep up, because if you look at what $30.90 would be in today’s…. It should be $42.02. So yearly built-in inflationary increases to the per diem for registered supportive recovery would bring predictability, improve outcomes for our clients and fulfil the statement in The Path Forward that will help us all build enduring pathways to healing and hope.

J. Routledge (Chair): Can you wrap it up, Susan?

S. Sanderson: Oh, okay. Sorry. I have so much to say.

Recommendation 3 is just that the increase to gaming grants should also be inflationary. It’s been $100,000 for the last umpteen years. In today’s dollars, that would be $136,000. So you’re expecting organizations that receive the $100,000 to do what they now have to do…. I mean, they’ve got to find the other $36,000 that they should’ve had.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, already members of the committee are indicating they want to ask questions. So some of the things that you haven’t been able to say, you can work into the answers.

S. Sanderson: Sure. I will do that.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Susan. I’m very in tune with the organization that’s there and the per-diem funding. I simply cannot believe that we are able to do the programming that we are able to do in there.

I’m really more about…. The $60 a day, as you put it, is a bargain. Have you looked at it in provincial numbers — so the number of people that are on a per-diem basis within the ALR — as to how this would really work out provincially?

S. Sanderson: I did that work with the deputy minister of Social Development in 2019, when I was working with the committee to increase to $35.90. I have not asked for current numbers. David Galbraith can get those for you. They can give you the count of beds, because they pay for them.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. You mentioned the gaming grants, which definitely feels like, sometimes, to have an increase is like pulling teeth, and yearly, after all, you do repeat the exact same thing over and over again.

If you had an opportunity to remanufacture the gaming grant application process, could you maybe give a few recommendations that we can bring in, too, to see how we can ensure gaming grants provide a fair expectation for the non-profit sector when they apply for those opportunities?

[3:35 p.m.]

S. Sanderson: Well, I can only speak to my little piece of the non-profit. So the inequity is those organizations — recovery facilities that received the gaming grant before 2009. The per diem came in, in 2009, and once the per diem came in, if you applied for a gaming grant after that, they said you were double-dipping. It had to do with the ratios.

I can never receive $100,000 because of the per diem that we receive. Those organizations that received a gaming grant before 2009 are treated differently, so there’s some inequity there. But I also don’t want to…. I mean, they need the amount they’re receiving, so I don’t want them to lose anything. They should treat us the same way.

Does that make sense? Do you understand the complexity of that?

H. Yao: Yes.

S. Sanderson: It’s a very little niche thing.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Susan. When you say how much you do on your per diem, per day that you receive, you do heroic work for that.

You’ve costed this out. Your cost to provide these services is $60. How are you making up that funding shortfall, and what are the wait-lists for your services right now?

S. Sanderson: Today there are eight men in jail waiting for a bed. We’re full. I don’t know how many in the community. We don’t keep them on a wait-list, because we can’t keep track of them.

I was very fortunate in getting a Reaching Home grant. It took me three tries, but I finally got it and received a Reaching Home grant. They are two-year grants, so that was great. That helped. Then I also was able to get the grant through the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions. There were 14 organizations, bed-based organizations, that got three-year grants.

Without those two grants, I have no idea how we would manage. Our cash flow is such that myself and my bookkeeper can’t cash our cheques from June 1, because there isn’t enough. Even though I increased the line of credit, the wait to get paid…. Anyways, it’s kind of a nightmare. It is problematic.

During COVID, we did really well financially. We received an extra $110,000. That’s what we need every year; then we’ll be okay.

The repercussions of COVID are still with us. A box of chicken that was $9 is now $33. We have four a week that we have to buy. We can’t go home and say: “Oh sorry, there’s no meat tonight. We’re going to do another dinner of Kraft Dinner.”

We’re not allowed to do that. We cannot do that. We have to buy that chicken. So I don’t get to cash my cheque. That’s the reality.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you for sharing the reality of what you do, which clearly is largely a labour of love. The cost comparison of a bed that you provide and a bed in jail or a bed in the hospital is quite stark. This is….

Thank you. Thank you for what you do.

S. Sanderson: I really hope to see it in the recommendations. Every year I look. Every year the first thing I look to is the back page, the recommendations. It’s never there. I’m really hopeful this year that it will be in the recommendations.

Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Amy FitzGerald has joined us, representing the B.C. Society of Transition Houses.

We’re ready to hear your presentation, if you’re ready. You have five minutes, and we have a timer here to help you keep track of the time. So five minutes for your presentation, and then an additional five minutes for questions and your answers to those questions.

[3:40 p.m.]

B.C. SOCIETY OF TRANSITION HOUSES

A. FitzGerald: Thank you for this opportunity to testify to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services Budget 2023 consultation. I am Amy FitzGerald, the executive director of the B.C. Society of Transition Houses.

I would like to acknowledge that our office is in Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, shared by the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, whose history is tied to this ancestral land. We are grateful to be on these lands and grateful to be in your company today.

Our society was founded in 1978 with six members, now has 122 members, and is a member-based provincial umbrella organization that trains, supports and advocates on behalf of the women’s transition housing and supports program, the PEACE programs and the violence is preventable programs across B.C.

On average, annually, our members provide safe housing to 13,000 women, children and youth across B.C., and the PEACE programs support thousands across the province. We have psychoeducational counselling and also prevention services in school. You will hear from many of my members as part of this budget engagement process. Sincere thanks for your consideration of their submissions and wisdom, as they are the experts, and they have been doing this life-saving work for decades. As a provincial umbrella organization, our mandate is to amplify the concerns and voices of the front-line membership.

We submitted a written submission that details our funding requests, and this is an overview of those three requests. Our three requests are asking the province to invest in the future of B.C. women, children and youth by investing in existing B.C. programs that are successful in breaking the cycle of violence for women, children and youth and providing safety.

We are requesting, first, that Budget 2023 provide increased funding for the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General’s PEACE programs, so that women, children and youth responding to violence receive timely services everywhere in B.C., instead of the existing underfunded system that has created multi-year wait-lists, representing a denial of life-saving support services for children and youth who are B.C.’s future.

The second request we have for Budget 2023 is to increase the homelessness prevention program, or HPP funding, to B.C. Housing’s women’s transition housing and supports program to expand the program to all eligible transition housing programs across the province to prevent homelessness and increase safety for women and children fleeing violence. Presently, only 27 of our member programs receive HPP funding annually, costing approximately $4 million. If you increased that to $20 million, then all of our eligible programs would be eligible for homeless prevention program grants.

These are flexible funding supports that prevent homelessness for women, and that are paid directly to the landlord or service provider. They provide critical resources for women to secure market rental housing. We acknowledge that the province has committed to the women’s transition housing fund, through a building fund, as part of the 30-point plan for housing affordability in 2018, but only two of those projects have opened. HPP funding, in the interim, could provide an essential stop-gap measure for women, children and youth fleeing violence.

The third request is to establish a province-wide emergency preparedness fund for non-profit transitional housing and social service programs, particularly in rural and remote communities, to address the ongoing extreme climate emergencies. We’re requesting that this budget be comparable to the community emergency preparedness fund that was allocated to local governments in Budget 2022.

Our member programs have been drastically impacted by fires — I’m noting the Cariboo region and Lytton, as we have members in both, and our house in Lytton actually burned; flooding in the Fraser Valley, Princeton, Hope and Merritt; and extreme weather in the Kootenays and the Okanagan. For some of these programs, families are still displaced. Our members are front-line services supporting women, children and youth fleeing violence and at risk of violence. Their work becomes significantly more challenging during extreme climate events. Members and their staff also are evacuated often and oftentimes can’t even get to their worksites in these circumstances.

Emergency preparedness is one of the highest priorities for our 122 members, particularly in rural and remote communities. Budget 2022 recognized the need for new funding and provided it to the Union of B.C. Municipalities. That went to municipalities, but that funding was not available for non-profits or for the transitional housing support services. We’re asking for a comparable fund to be developed for non-profits in the social services sector so that they can weather the changing climate, to ensure vulnerable people are not left behind.

Thank you very much for your consideration of these three investments on behalf of my membership and the women, children and youth they support, on a daily basis, to collectively build futures with dignity and hope.

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

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

[3:45 p.m.]

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. By way of background, I used to work in bc211. I think one thing that hurts a call-taker, like myself in the past, the most is when a woman is ready to escape gender-based violence and we can’t find them a shelter to go to.

I’m assuming you’re representing both primary and secondary transition houses for women escaping gender-based violence. I guess my question right now is: how much tertiary housing do we actually have in B.C.? Obviously, we need to put in place long-term housing. I know a lot of people talk about a sort of linear continuation — where, once we have a tertiary transition house, we can start moving people. That way, we can actually start opening up our primary transition houses for different individuals trying to escape violence. I’d love to hear that number, if possible.

A. FitzGerald: Our portfolio consists of 25 safe homes, which are in rural, remote and isolated communities. They tend to be independent apartments, or they can be a room in a private residence. We have 25 safe homes, and on average, people stay there between ten and 20 days. There’s a 24-7 access to those services. Those are definitely transition services, in the sense that they’re in spots where there’s nothing else available.

Then we have 66 transition houses across the province. They provide wraparound, 24-7 services on site. These are communal living settings, with shared bathrooms, living rooms and dining rooms. Then finally, we have 20 second-stage houses. The continuum of services right now in British Columbia is that second stage is still receiving the wraparound services, but it’s more independent living. Then we have a very small handful of third-stage housing. Typically, people in second-stage houses stay up to two years. Then in third-stage houses, they stay anywhere between three and five.

It’s not enough. When we did our 24-hour census report in December of 2021, there were 109 folks within that 24-hour setting time frame that we could not provide support services for. It’s absolutely an ongoing need, and we welcome the commitment by the province in terms of the affordable housing. That is focused right now on building second-stage and long-term housing.

What I will say about our portfolio is that women are not transitioning — in the sense that they’re coming to the shelter, but they’re not able to access safe and affordable housing after they come into shelter. So they’re staying longer and longer in all of those settings — safe home, transition houses, second-stage — because they can’t access market. That’s part of the reason why we think the homeless prevention funding that we asked for today would be critical to access that market housing in places where it’s available.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): With your current PEACE funding — you’re looking for multi-year, increased funding — are you on annual contracts right now, and you’re no longer getting multi-year contracts?

A. FitzGerald: Yes.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are your current PEACE programs fully funded by MPSSG, or are you expected to make up any deficit in that program?

A. FitzGerald: The programs are funded by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. At a minimum, they are funded at 17.5 hours, so there are a number of programs that are part-time. What happens with some of our organizations is they fundraise privately or look for donations to supplement those hours to make it a full-time employment job. It is absolutely a full-time employment job.

When we did our 24-hour census report, there were 798 children and youth waiting for services in British Columbia in December 2021. In 24 hours, 450 were supported in that time frame, with those limited services, but 798 folks were going without, after they had reached out for help. That’s the thing: when someone reaches out for help, you want to have timely support services in place.

This portfolio is a really wonderful portfolio. The PEACE program counsellors used to be children who witnessed abuse. It has been in existence since 1992. They love their jobs. They’re really struggling to make ends meet. It has been identified, federally, by Women and Gender Equality Canada, as a promising practice. We’re presently training shelters across Canada about the PEACE program approach, but we don’t have sufficient funding here in B.C. to meet the needs for the children and youth, which really are the future of B.C., as we all know. It really is a way to break the cycle of violence in this programming.

[3:50 p.m.]

M. Dykeman: I just wanted to ask a question or clarification, because I know everybody’s talking so quickly, trying to get the time in. I just want to make sure I understand that in a 24-hour period you had 109 people who needed housing.

A. FitzGerald: People turned away.

M. Dykeman: You just did this census over a one-day period?

A. FitzGerald: Yeah. We do it on annual basis, and we’ve been doing it since 2018.

M. Dykeman: Okay, and you do it once a year?

A. FitzGerald: Correct.

M. Dykeman: That’s for all of British Columbia, or just in certain regions you serve?

A. FitzGerald: We serve all of British Columbia. We have 122 programs, and 80 percent of them participated in our 24-hour census this year. Yes, that would reflect all of British Columbia.

M. Dykeman: And that was emergency housing, not second stage?

A. FitzGerald: That was the transition house portfolio and safe home portfolio — yes.

M. Dykeman: So how many houses?

A. FitzGerald: We had 66 transition houses and 25 safe homes.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for entertaining all of those questions.

A. FitzGerald: Thanks for doing the math.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Amy. Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for the work that you do.

Speaking for myself, I’m stuck on the…. We call them transition houses for a reason, and when you say that because of the circumstances, they’re actually not in a position to transition into a better, safer life, that says a lot.

A. FitzGerald: One statistic that we know, because we just did the research, is that 4 percent of women who go into transition houses are able to leave transition houses for safe and affordable housing, 21 percent transition to housing that’s above their means, and 75 percent do not find housing that’s suitable or return to the abuse. That’s the reality in B.C.

Thank you for your interest. I appreciate it.

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

Our next and final presenter for the day is Meredith Klemmensen, representing Ishtar Women’s Resource Society.

Welcome.

ISHTAR WOMEN’S RESOURCE SOCIETY

M. Klemmensen: Thank you. I’m very pleased to be going right after Amy. I suppose you could just echo everything that she has just said. Thank you for saying it.

I represent Ishtar Women’s Resource Society, and we are one of the member organizations that Amy just spoke about. We serve in Langley and Aldergrove and work with women and children who are fleeing some form of relationship violence.

I’m here to speak on behalf of those needs but certainly to echo those needs that you just heard about, represented around the province.

Our first recommendation is, indeed, in the area of housing, as you’ve been hearing for sure all day. To speak a little bit more broadly, we recommend that you continue and upscale funding for a continuum of social housing, including transitional and short-term housing, but focusing on second-stage and permanent non-market rental housing for women and children experiencing violence that will be accessible at rates that do not tax beyond existing income supplements.

As Amy just told you, women experiencing violence face the tremendous challenge, not only psychologically and emotionally, of making the decision to leave abuse. They also have to ask the question of: “If I leave,” — indeed, typically — “where am I and my children going to go?” As Amy just let you know, about 75 percent of them…. The answer to that question is nowhere. There is nowhere for them to go long term. It is one of the primary reasons that women cite that they are not able to leave abusive situations.

We also know that women are five times as likely to be in poverty if they choose to leave an abusive relationship. So knowing that they have somewhere to go that will be stable and consistent is key. Not knowing this perpetuates the cycle of violence and requires a proportionate fiscal response from government.

While I’ll echo the commendation of the promise of the 114,000 units over 12 years, we know that the pace of development of these units is leaving women and children behind. We ask for an upscale of funding to develop those units more quickly and that they are earmarked. Roughly, we would ask for about 25 percent of those units to be earmarked for women, because that’s about the percentage of the hidden homeless in British Columbia who are unhoused due to violence.

The second recommendation that we have with regards to housing is more oriented towards creative solutions to decreasing costs, particularly for non-profits that are trying to develop non-market housing. That would be to expand the community housing fund or a similar body to act as a land bank in partnership with community land trusts, empowering them to purchase and maintain land or units for affordable and for permanent non-market housing that are at risk of being re-priced or redeveloped into more expensive units.

[3:55 p.m.]

Bold solutions are required to decrease the price to maintain non-market or below-market-price housing. A model that’s being tested around the world — the United States, China, Austria, Denmark and other places — is a partnership of community land banks and land trusts. A land bank is a big buyer. In this case, we would ask the provincial government, who is able to purchase large tracts of land, hold them and disperse through community land trusts — typically grassroots or non-profit organizations that then hold the land in perpetuity — to allow the development of both rental and, indeed, permanent housing that stays below market cost.

This model would be of particular value to Ishtar Women’s Resource Society, as we are in a struggle that has been going on well over a year, despite having a contract with B.C. Housing to develop second-stage housing for women. We have yet to be able to do so, because we’re not able to acquire land at this point.

Our third recommendation is to extend stable and, hopefully, multi-year contract funding from our ministry funding for women’s anti-violence organizations. Ishtar Women’s Resource Society, like the organizations represented by Amy, provide a range of very vital services — basic outreach supports, family law legal advice, criminal law support and peace counselling for children, as well as Stopping the Violence counselling for women, the program that I supervise. However, our contracts have not expanded successively in proportion with population and rising cost-of-living demand.

In Langley, the second-fastest-growing municipality in the province, we are feeling an increasing squeeze of both rise of population and also rise of cost of living that forces people who might otherwise have been able to pay for support services to a non-profit organization for support.

That means we rely on unstable grant funding, cycles of which typically run one to three years, funding only pilot programs that do not allow us to support existing operations budgets or existing staffing. That means that projects live and die with the cycle of the grant, which creates unstable programming, high staff burnout, high staff turnover and unsustainability within these organizations and contributes to just unconscionable wait times for services — up to and over a year for a program like mine, Stopping the Violence women’s counselling.

We ask for expansions to our contracts that are proportionate to our population demand.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. Now we’ll invite questions from the committee.

M. Dykeman: It’s so wonderful to see you. Thank you for coming today and making this presentation. I know how passionate everybody in your team is about second-stage housing for Langley. Now, correct me if I’m wrong. Langley, I believe, and I’ll ask the question at the same time, is the only community in B.C. without second-stage housing.

M. Klemmensen: For women, yes. Correct.

M. Dykeman: What would the need be in order to serve the community for that, exactly?

M. Klemmensen: In terms of units? Ideally, we would like to have at least 100. But that would be below our need, truthfully.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Thank you, and thanks again for the presentation.

B. Bailey: Thanks, Meredith. I was typing like mad trying to take everything in, but I missed a couple of things. So just allow me to dig a little bit further.

You mentioned a model I wasn’t familiar with, with using a land trust. I’m wondering if you can just — sorry, I’m going to ask you to repeat — tell me a little bit more about that. Also, if you might direct me to where I might learn more about that. I think you said that this model was in play in a couple of different communities. Maybe there’s something I could look at to learn more about it.

M. Klemmensen: Absolutely. I’d be happy to submit, if there’s a way to submit, some of the background research. There wasn’t room to put references in this submission, but I can submit those to the committee.

There are different versions of the model between land banking and community land trusts. They can operate independently but work best together. A land bank is, again, a big buyer of some kind. It could be a government funder, or sometimes it’s another organization or investment firm. But in this case, we’d ask it be the provincial government. They have the big dollars to purchase larger tracts of land. That money then goes into the municipality or wherever it’s being purchased from and then a partner organization, a land trust — which, again, operates in a bunch of different ways.

[4:00 p.m.]

It could be a community non-profit. It could be some grassroots organization. But they hold the land in perpetuity. They almost operate like a co-op board, in some ways, and some of the types of properties that are developed are co-ops. They operate on that model to develop housing, whether it’s rental housing or permanent for-purchase housing that rests either at the purchase level or at the rental level, well below market cost.

Yes, I will follow up with whoever sent me that email to send you the background information.

B. Bailey: Thank you so much.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I will try to avoid asking or repeating the same thing I said in the previous presentation.

Here is my question right now. Is there any study to showcase when an individual reached out to needing a transition and wasn’t able to find a transition house or a safe shelter for them to escape with their loved one and would have to be sent back? What kind of negative consequences does that create? So it will be showcasing where we cannot….

We need to avoid sending people back into an environment of danger and violence and try to get them out as soon as possible, especially when they are ready. We want to be there when they are ready.

M. Klemmensen: Yes, absolutely. Again, that’s something I can follow with the background research to send along. I would probably point you back to Amy in terms of the negative consequences outlined.

The old statistic is that it takes at least seven times of trying, and that’s fairly universal, for a woman to leave an abusive situation. Some of those reasons are psychological, but they really are….

Those psychological reasons, for far too long, have been highlighted, as opposed to the material reasons, so the consequences being that women go back into abuse. Because they have already experienced a failure of sorts to be able to stabilize, they’re less likely, and it then takes more effort to be able to make that go again.

Often this also gets worked into the cycle of abuse, where abusers will then say, “See, you won’t be able to survive without me,” or “See, you will be homeless, and I am going to take the kids,” and so on. So, yeah, the harms are very high.

H. Yao: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you for that explanation. That’s an important, dramatic way to conclude this conversation.

Thank you for being very concrete and pointing out, underlining, that while we have a commitment to address and stop domestic violence, there has to be a comparable funding.

You’ve been very specific. You have identified your problem, but you have also identified some very creative solutions, so thank you for that. I look forward to our discussions, as a committee, in terms of how we can address your requests.

M. Klemmensen: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): With that, I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:03 p.m.