The committee met at 8:33 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

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

We are grateful to be meeting today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋin̓əŋ-speaking people, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

Welcome to everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting on Budget 2023 consultation.

Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. British Columbians can share their views by making written comments or by filling out the online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is this Friday, June 24, at 3 p.m.

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

Today’s public hearing is being held virtually, and all presenters will be making individual presentations. Today we will be hearing from individuals and organizations from the communities of Prince George, Campbell River and Cranbrook.

[8:35 a.m.]

Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation. To assist presenters, there is a timer available when in gallery view. Following presentations, there will be time for questions from committee members. I also ask that everyone please put themselves on mute and wait until you are recognized before speaking. All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. Bailey: Good morning. Brenda Bailey, MLA, Vancouver–False Creek.

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

Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Emma Curtis from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger from Hansard Services.

We will now invite our first presenter, Tracy Calogheros with the Exploration Place Museum and Science Centre.

Welcome, Tracy. You can begin your presentation right now.

Budget Consultation Presentations

THE EXPLORATION PLACE MUSEUM
AND SCIENCE CENTRE

T. Calogheros: Good morning. Hadih. Thank you for having me here.

I’m speaking to you today, yes, from the current city of Prince George, on the traditional and unceded territory of my friends, the Lheidli T’enneh Nation.

The arts and culture industry is central to the rebuilding of our community’s resiliency across the province. It’s also key to driving long-haul, in-country and international tourism and immigrancy and, most importantly, it is the entry point for true reconciliation, which is the foundation of our collective futures.

We need to move people throughout the province, from a tourism perspective, get them out of the Lower Mainland and exploring British Columbia. Arts and culture experiences are important decision-making drivers when people are deciding what to do with their leisure time, and they’re also the best way to extend tourist stays in communities.

I have one recommendation on this front, which is to tear apart the B.C. Arts Council funding eligibility. I really think that focusing the bulk of the Arts Council annual operating grants on two or three large organizations in the Lower Mainland is starving the rest of the province. My suggestion would be to do an open call to all arts and culture organizations in the province, starting from scratch, with no prior eligibility guarantees for anyone, and allow the institutions to compete on their own merits.

I know that the B.C. Arts Council is undergoing a major review at the moment, and I would suggest that not only do we need to protect the funding that exists for the B.C. Arts Council but lean into it and consider that we need to extend that funding — broaden it to allow more of B.C.’s arts and culture organizations to find access there.

Protecting our past isn’t cheap or simple or even a straight line. We are re-inventing the museum industry right now, because we can and must do better. This won’t be an easy process, and not everyone will agree with all of the decisions. But we need to have these defining conversations in all of our communities, big and small.

Our museums and galleries are the community spaces best suited to facilitate these discussions, and I applaud the recent closure of the Royal B.C. Museum. It was the right choice, albeit a difficult one, and we will find a new system to celebrate our collective past so long as we’re able to work together.

My second recommendation would be to protect the recent historic funding announcement for arts and culture but to allow for consultations to guide this investment. There are better options, in my view, than focusing that level of funding on one institution in what, by museum standards, is at best a risky geographical location when you’re talking about time the way museums do: in perpetuity.

We are in the midst of a societal transition, and it must be an incredibly difficult time to govern. I don’t envy any of you, quite frankly. Bringing legislation into alignment with contemporary values and then with other legislation is not going to be a simple or straightforward process.

That takes me to my third recommendation today, which is to consider repository space beyond simply a single location within the province. We need to establish repositories throughout the province if we’re going to continue to meet our obligations under UNDRIP and our provincial palaeontological legislation.

Climate change is putting our material culture at risk. Even as we improve our rules and regulations around its handling and preservation, we are not financially supporting institutions — like my own, for example — as we take on the provincial responsibility to house these materials in perpetuity. Simply providing shelf space and properly housing materials is beyond the capacity of most of us outside of the Royal B.C. Museum at this point. Research access, a path to repatriation of archaeological materials and the funding and the time to complete excavations as they should be done aren’t even on the radar screen.

[8:40 a.m.]

The key piece to remember here is that all of the materials that are being excavated, whether we’re talking about palaeontological or archaeological materials, remain the property of the province, so we need to deal with the legislation that really is in conflict with each other right now. And then we need to invest in providing those spaces to allow for those repositories to exist around the province.

It’s as simple as looking at my organization, where we are providing that space for most of the industrial projects that are happening in northern B.C., with no funding to do so, and we’re running out of room.

Those would be my three suggestions. I certainly appreciate your time today and the opportunity to share a little bit of the thinking from the museum community, at least the museum community that I’m in touch with up here in the North.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tracy. We have up to five minutes for questions from the committee and your response.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, Tracy. Thank you very much for that. I hope you’re also going to be submitting a written report of this as well. I’m madly typing all this down, and I didn’t get everything.

My one question…. It’s interesting about the repository space. I hadn’t thought of that before, kind of outside of the Royal B.C. Museum. Currently you act as a repository for other museums and cultural organizations. So you’re looking at something that government would provide or that there would be some kind of cooperative effort to create some of these spaces around B.C., so that local museums would have their own protected space to be able to have these things?

T. Calogheros: Essentially, yes, although it’s actually industrial projects that we are providing repository space to. I do think that there is an opportunity to build that into some of the requirements for the industrial projects as they’re developing.

Essentially, the way it works is that a company comes, wants to build a pipeline. They’re required to do archaeological excavations in preparation for doing that work, but they have to designate a museum with a class A space as that repository before they even go into the ground. We end up being designated because, especially under UNDRIP, the requirement is for any archaeological materials to be housed as close as possible to their communities of origin.

There are a whole bunch of other complications that follow from that, in that most archaeological material is prehistoric — which means, then, that you don’t have a clear line to ownership. It winds up sitting in a class A museum space, which is essentially the starship Enterprise when you’re trying to run the HVAC system through these museums, and we’re all out of room.

It’s great to see the new repository being built in the Lower Mainland, but it doesn’t fit with the UNDRIP legislation, so there are real discussions that need to be had.

B. Bailey: Hi, Tracy. Good morning. Boy, I’m learning a lot from you. I wish we had more time.

I’m familiar with the name of the Exploration Place Museum because I think of the relationship you have with Science World. My understanding is that you work in partnership and do a lot of training in schools as well. Am I understanding that correctly? Could you just tell me a little bit more about what you do in the schools?

T. Calogheros: Absolutely. The Exploration Place has been a long-standing partner with Science World, predominantly around STEM and STEAM learning — science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

Science World has a provincial function, and we basically operate as their northern hub. They train my key interpretive and programming staff, and then we’re delivering coding programming into the classrooms directly. We’re also now working…. My organization works nationally with the Discovery Centre out of Halifax, as well as Science North in Sudbury, too. We’re working on that front, developing climate change and climate action programming.

There’s a real network, Canada-wide, of science centres, and Exploration Place is a very hybrid organization. We do a variety of things. The partnership with Science World really does lean into our science centre side.

B. Bailey: Do you have room for another question? I could look this up, but I’m just asking while you’re with us: what is your funding model? Are you a private organization, a not-for-profit or funded publicly generally?

T. Calogheros: We’re an independent charity. About 40 percent of our annual operating budget comes from the regional district in the form of a service agreement, and then everything else — we earn.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our final question. We have a little more than a minute.

H. Yao: Chair, I will keep my question short.

You’re talking about tearing apart B.C. Arts Council funding to allow competition. That’s definitely a view I’m not very familiar with. Can you give a bit more background information on why you’d choose that kind of a recommendation?

[8:45 a.m.]

T. Calogheros: The B.C. Arts Council is an important piece of funding for all organizations. I’ll take my own. We’re about a $2½ million annual operation. Our contribution annually from B.C. Arts Council is around $95,000 to $105,000, depending on the year. But the Lower Mainland has several key organizations that are taking in millions of dollars on an annual basis. I know that our organization has one of the largest contributions annually outside of the Lower Mainland.

Because the B.C. Arts Council has some of the only unfettered operating money available to arts and culture organizations, it becomes really key when you’re leveraging other dollars. Knowing that I have that $97,000 coming every year from B.C. Arts Council allows me to match that up with other money from corporate sponsors or other levels of government. I know that in the existing situation, outside of the Lower Mainland, access to that operating fund is severely restrictive.

J. Routledge (Chair): With that, Tracy, we will wrap it up. In doing so, I’d like to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for making your presentation and also sharing with us some insights — and what is, perhaps, for many of us, new information about the complexity of museums and on protecting and preserving what is a very complicated past. Thank you very much for your contribution.

Our next presenter is Jessica Lowe, representing B.C. Bereavement Helpline and B.C. Victims of Homicide.

Welcome, Jessica. You have five minutes. Then I’ll invite members of the committee to ask you some questions for up to five minutes.

B.C. BEREAVEMENT HELPLINE

J. Lowe: Hello and thank you. My name is Jessica Lowe, and I am the executive director of the B.C. Bereavement Helpline. Today I have one recommendation to make — that the province consider funding for our organization.

BCBH is a registered charity and non-profit dedicated to facilitating the provision of care and support to the bereaved, caregivers and service providers of B.C. and to increase public understanding of grief as a life process through education, support, advocacy and dissemination of information.

BCBH has been serving British Columbians for over 33 years. We are the only free grief-specific phone and email help line in Canada. Our free and confidential help line is open Monday through Friday, nine to five, and is answered by trained volunteers who can refer to our annually updated provincial grief-support directory that includes information on over 200 grief-support resources located in over 80 communities in the province.

Volunteers listen, validate and normalize caller’s emotions and allow them to feel heard. We can refer to grief-support options based on their specific type of loss, ability to pay and location within British Columbia. In 2021, we received over 4,000 contacts to the help line.

Our organization also specializes in supporting traumatic loss due to homicide and suicide through our online and in-person support groups, where those with lived experience can share and support each other. Our suicide loss support groups are fully subscribed and have a constant waiting list. We have served a total of 175 people through our groups since they started in 2012.

We also provide specialized training on how to support those coping with traumatic loss and have recently been inundated with requests by front-line professionals, including victim court support workers, police victim services and housing advocates on how to cope with the increased complexity of loss exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid crisis and suicide.

According to 2022 research from the B.C. Centre for Palliative Care, COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of life and death. Canada has lost over 40,000 people due to COVID. Research shows that for every COVID death, nine people will become bereaved. That’s 360,000 grieving individuals in Canada and just over 33,000 in B.C.

The BC-CPC analysis on the impact of COVID-19 on bereavement in B.C. demonstrates a more complex grief experienced by British Columbians, grief that includes multiple losses, such as the loss of human life, on top of the loss of jobs, on top of the loss of connections and friends.

The research shows the following three informal supports have helped people in their grief: talking and feeling heard, talking with others with lived experience, and processing emotions away from family and friends.

[8:50 a.m.]

The recommendations listed in this research include: increase grief literacy, including how to educate people on how to support the bereaved; increase the awareness of formal supports, perhaps a hub that includes all grief resources that are available in B.C.; increase access to desired services; reduce the wait-lists; and reduce the financial barriers so that it’s free and affordable for people to seek grief support.

We can provide all three informal supports, as listed by this research, through our help line and support groups. We can also help with all five recommendations. All services at BCBH are scalable. In the advent of COVID-19 restrictions, our help line did not miss a beat and converted seamlessly to 100 percent remote service.

We want to add a support group for those coping with loss by substance use or a support group for LGBTQ members coping with loss. We want to provide more training and education. BCBH can be the single point provincial reference for grief and loss support.

The B.C. Bereavement Helpline is providing a necessary service to British Columbians, but we are very limited by funding. My current budget is $250,000.

We are a small but mighty non-profit run by two full-time employees, including myself. We need more staff to up programming and to scale to meet the demand, to extend the help line — grief doesn’t just happen between the hours of nine to five — and to add more support groups and a loss by drug use system to provide those services at no cost.

We often cannot prevent death. We have all been impacted by tragedies, passings and loss, but there is always the opportunity to step in and come alongside and help people to navigate. This is something we all can do, and I hope you can help.

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

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

Henry has indicated that he’d like to ask a question.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Jessica, for the great work you have been doing in our community.

I do, actually, have a general question to ask. You mentioned a lot about the pandemic. You mentioned a lot about the opioid crisis. Yet if I’m reading your description here…. You focus on B.C. victims of homicides. Do you mind helping us appreciate the scope of your organization? What kind of funding are you really looking for?

J. Lowe: Our B.C. victims of homicide program has allowed us to become experts in traumatic loss. We have been asked, due to that niche experience, by those groups that I mentioned — victim services, police, court support workers and housing advocates…. That education and training can also extend to other stigmatized losses such as drug use and suicide. So we’re becoming the go-to place for that.

H. Yao: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Are there any other questions from the committee?

B. Bailey: Hi, Jessica. Thank you very much for that presentation and for the work that you’re doing around this really important and difficult experience of grief and loss.

I think you mentioned that you have resources — over 80 locations, if I understood correctly — and that you make referrals to folks. Do you feel like the resources are fairly balanced throughout the province, or do you find that most of those resources are concentrated? How are we doing in that regard?

J. Lowe: Those are…. We’ve identified over 200 resources that can help with grief and loss in 80 communities in B.C. No, it is not evenly distributed. The Lower Mainland, for instance, has much more support and options. Rural communities are really suffering.

Affordable options. Right now grief and loss services are being filled…. The gaps are being filled by organizations such as ourselves or hospices, and we all have wait-lists.

B. Bailey: Yeah. Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I just want to commend you on the work being done and acknowledge that mental health supports, especially for grief, do need to be amplified. So I really appreciate your message.

I might have missed this. What exactly was the total ask? It was $200,000, you said. Or did that need to just be augmented?

J. Lowe: Augmented. My current budget is about $250,000. My three-year plan shows that $500,000 could help us gain HR and programming support to meet the need. So an additional $250,000.

R. Merrifield: Okay. Thank you so much.

[8:55 a.m.]

H. Yao: I’ll keep this question short as well. Thank you so much for the great work you’re doing.

Based on your description…. I know there are actually a lot of help lines, and so forth, social services and non-profits that do very similar referral services as well. Do you mind maybe showcasing your uniqueness for why you require a different funding stream than a lot of them — like bc211, more of a social service line, which does provide similar grievance…? They do similar volunteer and staff-paid training to provide empathy and supporting individuals.

Obviously, you provide a unique service, which I would love to hear a bit more about.

J. Lowe: Yes. We provide grief and loss…. Our volunteers are trained to specifically handle calls from those who are bereaved. A lot of times they’re suffering concurrent disorders, additional issues, such as homelessness, poverty or mental health. The help-line workers can also provide compassionate listening, up to 45 minutes. I’m not sure any of those lines that you mentioned can do that at all. It’s free, and they can call often. We have repeat callers, and we are a support option for B.C. It is grief-specific.

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

B. Bailey: Hi, Jessica. Just a follow-up question in regards to the $500K. Is that a one-year funding? Or is it over three years? If I understand correctly that would be to provide staff and also to expand your crisis line so it isn’t just nine to five. Is that correct?

J. Lowe: Yeah. It’s a three-year goal to obtain up to $500,000 for one year. So one year of $500,000 would help me add about three to four employees, increase the program expenses and, yes, extend the help line beyond nine to five, Monday through Friday.

B. Bailey: Then it would be funded at $500,000 every year is what you were hoping?

J. Lowe: Yes.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Jessica. I’d like to conclude this part of our day by thanking you, on behalf of the committee. I also want to say I hope you will find it reassuring to know that you are not the first person who has presented to us about the importance of bereavement support and making the link between loss and mental health and that it is a social service that needs to be legitimized. Thank you very much.

J. Lowe: Thank you so much for all your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Darian Kovacs, representing Jelly Digital Marketing.

Welcome.

JELLY DIGITAL MARKETING

D. Kovacs: Good morning. My name is Darian Kovacs. Thank you for the introduction.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you on a topic I’m very passionate about. As a proud citizen of the Métis Nation of B.C., I’m pleased to advise you that Jelly Marketing is a very successful, 100 percent Indigenous-owned and -operated company based right here in our province — specifically Fort Langley, known for our croissants, Hallmark movies and strolls along the river.

So what is Jelly Academy? Jelly Academy is a B.C.-based digital marketing bootcamp that teaches a foundational understanding of the key sectors, such as search engine optimization, digital ads, social media, PR and Google analytics. We’re currently Canada’s largest and most recognized micro-credentialing school across Canada, which is exciting, providing professional level certification from Google, Facebook and Hootsuite.

But in plain English, we’re in the business of training the workers that are in desperate demand today, tomorrow and, as well, into the coming decade. I sometimes explain that we train new-collar employees. We all know the term blue- and white-collar roles. Well, we’re training future and today roles in the new economy, thus new-collar employees.

Just imagine a world where thousands of jobs exist and go unfulfilled. Now imagine that same world has thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people looking for challenging work in our new digital economy, but for a lack of training, they remain displaced from those economic opportunities.

Now let’s focus for a moment on the Indigenous people of B.C., many of whom, like myself, want to work and contribute to the economic well-being of our people and the provincial economy. Many want to become entrepreneurs and create jobs.

Prior to COVID, the stark reality was that if they lived on reserve or in remote parts of the province, they often could not participate in what I refer to as the “d-economy.” That stands for digital economy. If they wanted to work in a field like digital marketing, they were forced to leave their community, their family, their support networks, their culture, and attend classes in large urban centres, like Vancouver, Victoria or Kelowna.

[9:00 a.m.]

In my opinion, while the pandemic will be remembered for all the tragic loss of life, and illness around the globe, it’ll also be credited as the catalyst and accelerator of digital innovation and for creating new economic opportunities for our Indigenous peoples. No longer does an Indigenous person with access to the Internet need to leave their home community, sometimes permanently, simply to get trained and earn a decent living. Online learning technology, combined with better access to the Internet, has opened up, literally, a world of possibilities for our Indigenous people in B.C.

That’s why I’m here today — to make two key recommendations.

The first one. The government of B.C. could develop a new Indigitization strategy, which aims to assist Indigenous people to have greater ability to learn, work and raise their family within their community.

Second, I’m encouraging the B.C. government to recognize and to develop a strategy to address the new economic reality impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, one that reflects commitments to both workers and employers. I’ve distributed to the Clerk today a more robust version of each of my recommendations for your review.

What is a made-in-B.C. Indigitization strategy? Firstly, I’d like to acknowledge that a strategy like this must recognize that no facet of our economy is immune from the impact of digitization. Secondly, this strategy should be developed by our Indigenous peoples, alongside key representations from the d-economy and government. The Indigitization strategy should also become a roadmap to capitalizing on how our world, our economy has rapidly digitized in the last 36 months and how that new reality can be translated into meaningful jobs, training opportunities and wealth generation for our Indigenous peoples, a commitment that is now enshrined in the B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

The Indigitization strategy should also translate into at least 4,500 new direct training opportunities for Indigenous peoples over the next three years.

Did you know that in the past several years, digital marketing has become one of the most popular career choices among working professionals — the most popular in 2021, to be exact? Today alone on LinkedIn, 3,047 jobs exist in digital marketing just in B.C.

On a personal note, I know of at least ten different small businesses and tech companies that have been hiring all their digital marketing staff from the U.S., U.K., and in some cases, Ontario. Data has shown that over 75 percent of CMOs and small business owners in B.C. have found it more difficult to find digital marketing staff over the last three years, and over 90 percent of small business owners found that those they did find weren’t adequately trained to help them with the needed work.

We can, with the correct investment, become not just a leader in green tech and high tech, but we can do so while becoming a low-carbon economy. We can also become a leader in developing the support roles needed to propel these companies nationally and globally. I believe a proper investment to grow those roles is crucial for our economy and our Indigenous peoples in B.C.

On that note, I wish to conclude my remarks. I’m open to questions from the committee.

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

M. Dykeman: Good morning, Darian. It’s wonderful to see you. Thank you so much for your presentation. It’s always fantastic to see your smiling face. I know you have had some really unique grads, which I had the privilege of attending, from your COVID class. I know that you’ve had some really unique programs that you’ve been doing this year. It has been really exciting to watch your business grow and change through the challenges of COVID.

I was wondering: how many students do you see go through your program each year? How large are the classes? What are you looking at? I know you’re always evolving the programs you have. Do you have anything coming on the horizon, going forward into the next year?

D. Kovacs: We’ve currently at just over 3,000 alumni. We try to put through, when we can, about 400 grads a year. We’re hoping, again, to grow our capacity and to continue do more of that, as every one of our grads…. We had a 98 percent hiring rate for all of our students over the last five years. So the need is there.

Again, it’s so sad when I hear about companies, when they can’t hire one of our grads, that go to another province or another country to hire. We have amazing people here looking for great jobs and opportunities, right across the province, from northern B.C. to Vancouver Island to rural settings as well, and these jobs are available.

M. Dykeman: Wonderful. Thank you.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Darian. You are rad. I just want to say that. You came in with such great energy. I love the background. I love what you’re doing with the jellyfish on your shirt. But enough about what you look like.

[9:05 a.m.]

I love your ideas. I wanted to cheer, but we’re not allowed to. We’re supposed to stay very quiet. The micro-credentialing — absolutely a must. If you could even reach out to employers who have those bright stars inside their organizations, who are like: “How do I get this person trained to do what we desperately need them to…?” The link to employment…. I’m really going to focus in on your second strategy. I love your first one, too, but I’m not going to have enough time.

The second strategy — I want you to flesh that out a little bit more. I just was having a conversation with someone. We’re not going back to where we were. We have a very different normal, and we’re not adjusting to it fast enough. You’ve already submitted a written presentation, so I’ll be sure to read that as well, but I would just love to hear a little bit more about what that looks like — maybe in 30 seconds or so.

D. Kovacs: In education, there’s supply, and there’s demand. Many education facilities — I’ve worked in them, in higher ed — focus on the supply. We flipped it and focused on the demand. We’ve got just over 680 stakeholders that we connect with every quarter to say: “What do you need right now? What are you looking for in employees?” Then we build the curriculum backwards from there.

We build a curriculum based on what the industry is asking for. Because of that, our students get hired before they even graduate. We partner with Google, Facebook and Hootsuite to provide professional certifications. It’s all there. It’s all possible. We’ve even made our syllabus and outline available to other schools as well, to say: “Hey, here’s a model that’s working to get professionals into the marketplace.” We hope to see that grow this year.

R. Merrifield: Awesome. Kudos.

B. Bailey: Morning, Darian. Nice to see you. I’m so glad you got a chance to present with us. I’m at a bit of an advantage, because I’m pretty familiar with the stuff that you do. We’ve had the opportunity to meet a number of times. I just want to pull out a couple of things which my colleagues might also benefit from knowing.

I wonder if you could describe for us, please, some of the credentialing that people get in your training and how that compares to other trainers in the province. Secondly, if you could share, a little bit, some of the amazing work that you’ve done with folks who have trouble funding their education.

D. Kovacs: Two things. One, the credentials we focus on are unbranded. We have a decent brand for Jelly Academy — it has a nice little logo, and it’s Harry Potter–inspired — but we focus on getting them 11 credentials. We say: “Come to our school.” Many schools will give you a certificate, a diploma or a degree, but we say: “Get these 11 credentials, because that’s what the 680 stakeholders are asking for — these professional recognitions.”

Secondly, I think the big thing that we’re finding with our grads is that many of them don’t have access. So my wife and I set up scholarships for them. We’ve just done close to $2 million in scholarships for our students, and we’ve worked with Best Buy to provide hardware as well. Best Buy supplied all of our Indigenous students with brand-new laptops and cell phones so that when they graduate, they not only have the best résumés of anyone, but they’ve got really good, high-quality gear — which has been awesome.

B. Bailey: May I just have a quick follow-up? Those 11 credentials. Compared to other folks in the province, generally how many credentials do they provide for a similar type of program?

D. Kovacs: They provide zero, but they provide a branded degree or a branded piece of paper, a certificate.

B. Bailey: Thanks. I love what you do.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much, Darian. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for not only taking the time to meet with us but to explain and make accessible a pretty exciting concept.

I wrote down, for myself, “new collar,” which says so much to me: blue-collar, white-collar, new collar. It says so much about your vision of where our economy should be going. I also want, in conclusion, to say that implicit in what you’re suggesting is that instead of trying to bring the First Nations population to the new economy, you have a plan for bringing the new economy to First Nations communities. Thank you for that perspective.

Our next presenter is Mayor Lyn Hall, representing the city of Prince George.

Welcome. You have five minutes to tell us your story and make your recommendations. Then we’ll have up to five minutes to ask you some questions.

L. Hall: Good morning.

Excuse me, Chairperson. Is this for Lyn Hall, mayor of Prince George?

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes.

CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE

L. Hall: My apologies I didn’t catch the beginning. Thank you.

I’ve got a couple of submissions that you’ve got in front of you today. One I’ll term recommendation 1, which talks about some housing opportunities.

[9:10 a.m.]

I want to recognize that we’re on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh.

I’ll give you a brief overview of Prince George. We’re a city of about 77,000 people, geographically in the middle of province. We are absolutely a hub city for a number of services, including health, education, the resource sector. That’s really part of the submission that we’re making today.

The first submission is around the work that we’ve been doing on an integrated health model. This integrated health model, I think, is one of a few in the province. We have a memorandum of understanding and a strong partnership with the Northern Health Authority and also with B.C. Housing. I want to thank Minister Eby and his team for that work.

The integrated health model really is an opportunity for us to provide services to folks who suffer from mental illness, who suffer from opioid addiction. It would provide 50 units of supportive housing. The key piece here is that we have the opportunity to provide health care services on site. Those health care services would be provided through Northern Health.

We are no different than any other community in the province. We are, without question, suffering from the homeless issue we see on our streets — mental illness, opioid addiction. That is being exacerbated by the fact that we are a hub city. We provide a tremendous amount of services to people, and we are seeing an influx of people coming to our community to try to get those services.

I want to just talk for a moment about the alignment across the involved ministries, which are Mental Health and Addictions, Housing and Attorney General, Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Municipal Affairs and Health. I think what’s really important about this, everyone, is the fact…. When we deal with B.C. Housing or we deal with the Ministry of Health…. There are a multitude of other ministries that are also coordinated with to be able to provide these services in our community. So I leave you with that.

The integrated health model, I’m understanding, is before the Treasury Board for funding. We’re excited about this. We think it can be used as a model throughout the province for other municipalities.

The other recommendation that I want to bring forward today is one around emergency services and an emergency response centre, if you will.

In 2017 and ’18, we saw exactly what it means to be a community that can provide service. We housed some 10,000 evacuees from the northern part of the province, north of us and also west of us and, more to the point, folks from the Cariboo — 10,000 people.

We’ve been talking with various agencies for a couple of years, even during the pandemic, to just stress the fact…. We’re geographically located in the middle of the province. I know I say that a lot. We are at the intersection of Highway 16 east and west and Highway 97 north and south. We have the third-largest runway, at our airport here in Prince George, in Canada. We have a rail system.

We have the transportation corridors that are required for us, really, to look at an emergency response centre. We have a great working relationship with the Prince George Airport Authority. We have had discussions with emergency management B.C.

We see this emergency response centre here in Prince George as an opportunity for government to provide those disaster relief services for the entire centre of the province and, I would say, probably as far south, for us, as Williams Lake, north to Fort Nelson and the Yukon border and west to Haida Gwaii. We have the ability to do that. We would be in partnership and work with the regional district of Fraser–Fort George as well.

Those are my two recommendations that I’m putting forward today. I can’t stress strongly enough…. We understand and we know that we’re going to see emergency relief required throughout the province on an annual basis. We’re preparing for that now here in Prince George. We know that we will be asked to receive evacuees. We hope we won’t be, but we have a very strong feeling that that will be the occurrence again this year.

I see my time is up. I’ll leave it at that. If there are any questions, I’d be more than pleased to respond.

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

Indeed, there are questions. The first question comes from Karin, followed by Henry.

[9:15 a.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Mayor.

I’ve got a question with respect to the emergency response centre. If you can just explain to me more specifically what that is relative to, if you’re working with E-Comm. Would those calls come in to E-Comm? Or are you talking about the ability, for example, if there’s a disaster, to have a response team that can then go out and deal with that and support people who are impacted?

I don’t know if I was clear in the question.

L. Hall: You were very clear. I think it’s the latter of the two. We have a direct connection, through our dispatch centre here at our Fire Hall No. 1, certainly, with E-Comm, the 911 service.

Yes. Your latter comment is what we’re after. It’s actually being able to deliver those emergency relief programs, emergency relief help, whether it’s fire, flooding, a heat dome, whatever it might be. I’m looking at something that would be all inclusive, housed at the airport. It would include water bombers. It would include on-ground emergency services. That entire package is what I would be looking at.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Your Worship, for your recommendations.

I have a question about your first one, about the integrated care housing units. How is that different from a complex care unit? Maybe you can help enlighten me to understand the difference.

L. Hall: Thanks for bringing that up. I do want to extend my thanks to a multitude of ministries. We have been very fortunate and very lucky, in my opinion, to be dealing with those ministries. They really have come to the table with help for us here in Prince George.

The integrated health model would include a complex care group as well. We’re not suggesting for a moment that we would have complex care in other areas. One of the things that we’ve been looking at is the need for complex care beds in Prince George. The minister, Minister Malcolmson, announced that that would be forthcoming. We’re thinking now that that integrated health model would be the ideal location for those complex care beds.

B. Bailey: Good morning, Mayor Hall. I’d like to ask you to help me understand a little bit more about your proposal for an emergency response centre there. If you could contrast for me how it currently happens.

Am I correct in assuming that it’s based out of Kamloops? What might these changes mean, in terms of pros and cons, on the model that currently exists?

L. Hall: It does currently reside in Kamloops. They provide services in a number of areas to our area. We’re about a six-hour drive, if you will, from Kamloops, maybe an hour, an hour-and-20-minute flight from Kamloops.

I guess, for me, it’s about timing. It’s about our ability to have that emergency response team here in Prince George and to initiate, in a timely manner, out of Prince George. Sometimes that hour, hour and a half can mean the difference between life and death, quite frankly.

That’s really what we’re after. We’re looking at duplicating the services that we’re seeing in Kamloops but not taking away from Kamloops.

For me, it’s the timeline. It’s the emergency response time, which I think would be cut drastically if we had that team here in Prince George.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Mayor Hall, I see no other questions.

With that, on behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to meet with us and for sharing with us your perspective on what the new reality is and what you can be doing, in a coordinated way, to respond to that new reality and to help us get a hold of that new reality. Thank you very much.

L. Hall: Thanks to the committee. Have a nice day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Tim Bennett, representing school district 57, which is Prince George.

Tim, you have five minutes to make your recommendations. Then we’ll ask you some questions.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 57, PRINCE GEORGE

T. Bennett: Sounds great. Good morning, everyone. My name is Tim Bennett. I am a trustee with school district 57.

I’m joining you from the sunny, beautiful and unceded lands of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation.

Today I have the opportunity to represent 13,000-plus students and 2,000 staff stretched over 42,000 square kilometres. Our district is five hours point to point.

Today I’m bringing forward three recommendations for the committee’s consideration.

[9:20 a.m.]

First off, I just want to recognize and thank the committees previously for their priorities of public education. I hope that public education remains a priority as we head into the next budget cycle.

I know you’ve heard from a lot of school districts around inflation and how that is impacting districts. School district 57 is not immune to that. This past year we did pass a balanced budget after making $2.2 million of funding decisions, of cuts that we had to make to our departments.

What we’re asking for government to consider is looking at how we can address some of these inflationary costs. While our district is facing stagnant enrolment and is not seeing significant increases to funding levels, this results in us having additional cost pressures being faced to the district. Some concrete numbers include a 30 percent increase to our transportation. As you can imagine, when our buses put on 13,000 kilometres per day, the cost of transportation to our district is quite significant.

Our district also provides thousands of meals to students each day, and with food costs increasing 10 percent to 15 percent, this is additional increased cost to our district in order to ensure that our students are in a condition that they can learn effectively while at school. We’re also seeing increased costs for utilities, and like everyone, just the cost of operating is significantly increasing.

As we’re also talking about funding, we recognize that our K-to-12 sector provides much more than just the ABCs and one-two-threes to students. We are there to provide complete wraparound supports to students.

As a district that has both urban and rural students, we recognize that there are definitely some complexities of providing quality public education to students living in rural communities. Our schools provide more than just education in these communities. They are an economic hub. They are community centres, and they do so much to help draw and keep people in the community.

We recognize that, again, funding needs to come beyond just the Ministry of Education. There are numerous ministries that have direct impacts on our students each day, and we’re hoping that government can look to bring down some of the silos that exist between ministries and help to look at how we can ensure that we are providing complete wraparound supports, especially to students living in rural communities.

How can we work with the Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, the Ministry of Children and Families, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Education and Child Care to ensure that children living in all parts of our province are getting the support that they need not just in school but around mental health and other supports that they need to be able to thrive?

The last area I quickly wanted to touch on today is around capital. Again, we recognize that you have probably heard from many districts about the need of capital, and again, our district is not immune to that. A high number of our facilities are currently rated as poor by our facilities services maintenance index. Our staff do an incredible job of ensuring that our buildings are clean and well maintained. However, COVID has also put a public expectation that our buildings are in better shape than they ever have been.

Our annual facility grant funding does not meet the full needs of being able to do the maintenance on our buildings, and as we’re seeing that the cost of doing this maintenance is increasing between 25 percent and 33 percent this year, that means our $3.2 million is not going to stretch nearly as far as we anticipated it would.

We are asking government to look at the school enhancement fund, the capital-neutral capital project and the annual facility grant to help districts ensure that we have the support to keep our buildings clean and maintained for our students and our community.

Thank you all for your consideration of today’s recommendations and for taking the time to listen.

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

Some members of the committee have indicated already that they’d like to ask you some questions.

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

T. Bennett: You, as well.

R. Merrifield: And thank you for your advocacy work on behalf of all of those 13,000 kids. I really appreciate it.

I’m going to focus in on your first recommendation, which is the inflationary pressures and the need for more operating dollars. You mentioned that you had difficult decisions to make, and I think the number was $18.2 million.

T. Bennett: No, we were $2.2 million.

R. Merrifield: So $2.2 million.

[9:25 a.m.]

T. Bennett: Sorry. I rushed through that. We had $2.2 million in cuts. Most of that…. We asked all of our departments to take a flat cut across, because we wanted to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as we could. But we know that any impacts to our departments will, in turn, still have a result, an impact on learning for kids.

R. Merrifield: Okay. So that was taken universally across all of the departments. That was going to be my question. How was that allocated or cut?

T. Bennett: Most of it was departments. We did look at things like, you know, software licences that we could cancel. We did look at decisions around some unfilled administrative positions. We are projecting to end this year in a very slight, about $500,000, surplus. So we are using that as well to help balance the budget for next year.

R. Merrifield: Okay. Excellent. Thank you so much for that.

M. Dykeman: Hi, Tim. Nice to see you.

T. Bennett: You as well.

M. Dykeman: Two quick questions. Your enrolment this year and your projections for next year…. What’s the district been doing over the last five years — growing, declining? My second question is: with your meal programs, are those entirely funded through your budget? Are you working with an organization like Breakfast Club of Canada?

T. Bennett: Prior to COVID, our enrolment was significantly growing. We were seeing in and around the ballpark of about 350 to 500 kids, growing per year, which brought us up to our highest of about 13,500. Of course, with COVID, we saw families make decisions around not sending their children. This year we are about 13,000 students. We are projecting a very small increase next year. I think our budget enrolment is, like, 13,100.

However, we also know that our community’s in a stage of growth. Kindergarten registration has been as we’ve predicted, but we also are hearing about a lot of families moving to our community. We are anticipating, optimistically, that we are going to see bigger growth than we had budgeted, but next year we are planned to be fairly static around 13,000 students.

In terms of our breakfast programs, as a result of COVID, we made the decision to centralize our breakfast programs and then deliver our breakfasts to our schools. This has been a bit of a cost saving for the district. About one-third of our breakfast programs are funded, whether it’s through Breakfast Club of Canada, through Rotary or through other community organizations.

Again, we worry a little bit. If this funding dries up, what will that increased cost be to our district to ensure that the children have the breakfasts and lunches that they need to be in a state where they can learn effectively?

B. Bailey: Hi, Tim. Nice to see you. I haven’t seen you in a long time. I hope you and your family are well.

T. Bennett: It’s been a while. I hope you’re well as well.

B. Bailey: I also wanted to ask about the breakfast program that you’re running. Are you taking the approach where it’s an all-student program, or do you only serve a particular group of students? We’ve heard some discussion around providing different programs and that rub between stigma and also cost recovery. I’m just wondering if you can share with us the model that you folks have invoked.

T. Bennett: Our breakfast and lunch programs are, I think, kind of a hybrid. No children are turned away. Anyone who needs a meal gets a meal. We try to eliminate barriers to sign up.

Saying that, we know that some schools have a much higher intake than others. What we call tier 1, our five more inner-city schools, have a much higher percentage of families accessing the meals program than some of our other schools. I would say it’s a bit of a hybrid in terms of who is accessing the programs.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Tim, for taking the time to make your presentation to the committee. I’d like to thank you for that on behalf of the committee.

[9:30 a.m.]

Thank you for reminding us that we’ve come to expect a lot more from K to 12 than basic reading and writing. That, among other things, has created…. Well, dare I say a systemic cost pressure. Thank you for subtly reminding us that some of the things that schools take on these days are in the responsibility of some other ministries. Perhaps you’ve urged us to think creatively about meeting our funding needs. So thank you for that.

T. Bennett: Well, thank you all so much for your time today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Dawn Leroy, representing Wells-Barkerville PAC.

Welcome, Dawn. You have five minutes to make your recommendations, give them some context, and then we have five minutes to ask you questions.

When you’re ready.

WELLS-BARKERVILLE
PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

D. Leroy: Thank you, and good morning, everybody. My name is Dawn Leroy. I live in the remote community of Wells, B.C. We’re located 80 kilometres east of Quesnel.

I’m the president of the Wells-Barkerville school parent advisory committee and an appointed member of the select standing committee for the district of Wells community facility building. Throughout preceding decades, this building was primarily used as a school. The district of Wells purchased the building in 2003, and since then the building has been used as a multipurpose, multiuser centre.

In 2020, an assessment of the building took place and identified the deferred maintenance, health and safety issues and upgrades needed over the next ten years. This amount totalled approximately $2½ million in 2020. The community was at risk of having the building shut down, and we would lose the space for our children to attend school.

We’re in a unique situation where our municipality owns the school building, and this makes us ineligible for any capital expenses through the school district or Ministry of Education, and it usually disqualifies us from most grant sources.

In 2020, the select committee put together a business plan for the Wells-Barkerville culture and recreation centre to reflect and capture the current vision, the plan for the building, and [audio interrupted] the funders and sponsors. This plan was endorsed by the community, mayor and council. It’s currently being updated to reflect priorities and inflation, but I’ve sent in the most recent version for your review.

The newly elected mayor and council have also made the motion to preserve this building, but unfortunately, the district of Wells has not yet been successful in any grant applications, so we’re still facing significant deferred maintenance issues. So I’m requesting financial support from the province to support the upgrades needed for this important community building.

The second request is for the education we have in Wells. At the Wells-Barkerville school, education is provided through school district 28 in Quesnel. We have one classroom, kindergarten to grade 7. The K-to-7 class­room is daunting and challenging for any teacher, and over the years, we’ve had continual challenges due to this. For years, we’ve advocated for a second teacher, but we’re told it’s not financially viable. It all comes down to the number of children in the classroom, and we currently have 18. This formula doesn’t address the challenges of a multigrade classroom.

Once our children reach grade 8, they have to bus over an hour and a half to Quesnel, and as a result, we’re continually losing families. Our numbers don’t have the opportunity to get high enough to reach that magic number for a second teacher.

It’s kind of a catch-22. For example, my son is going into grade 8 next year, and my daughter is going into grade 6. Busing is not an option for us, and as a result, we are going to be relocating to Quesnel, so our numbers at the elementary level will be decreasing by one. There’s another family in a similar situation that has two additional children. We’ll be losing those. So we never really have that opportunity to get up to those numbers because of the lack of grade 8.

I’ve had meetings with the school district and proposed a K-to-4 and a 5-to-9 structure. This would be more manageable for teaching staff and address the community challenge of the grade 8-9 gap, but again, we’re told that we still need those numbers.

[9:35 a.m.]

Osisko Development is a significant gold mining company, and they are anticipating the need for 400 employees in the next couple of years in our community. In order for us to benefit and grow, we need to be able to provide education so those families will choose to live and work in Wells, but right now we can’t attract those families because they don’t want to have to relocate once their children reach middle school age.

There’s an annual small community fund for remote schools in the operating grant manual for school districts, and the school district does receive an additional $252,800 for our school. It’s been explained to me that this money goes directly into the general operating budget and doesn’t go directly to Wells.

The provincial government has included this grant because our school meets the rural small school requirements, yet those funds don’t directly support us. What we really need is to be directly allocated resources for a sustainable school and expanded grades to retain and grow our families in the community.

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

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

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

I’m not sure that I understand the remote schools fund. Were you saying that it goes generally to a group of remote schools? How is that divvied up? Are you asking for there to be specific funds directed to Wells so that you can use that specifically for your needs?

D. Leroy: There’s a guideline online. What is it called? Sorry. It’s the operating grant manual for schools, and it dictates exactly what each school district receives. Under that, there are criteria for the small community remote schools funding.

There are specific requirements under that funding to be eligible for that additional grant. Wells meets those requirements. As a result, school district 28 receives those funds for our school.

I attend the budget review meetings every year with the school district. I’m under the understanding that that money gets pooled into the general operating budget for school district 28. It doesn’t go directly to our school. It gets dispersed. So that’s why I’m suggesting that we need something that’s directly allocated to our community, as opposed to going into the pool. We’re very separate from Quesnel. We have much different needs out here.

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

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

Well, Dawn, it looks like you’ve made your case very clearly and to the point. I must say that it certainly had an impact on me when you talked about the personal choices that families have to make, and the personal choice that your family has to make, as a result of the complexity of trying to operate a school in a remote area. The thought of kids having to be on a bus for an hour and a half is pretty daunting.

Thank you for also framing it in the context of what we all know to be a growing labour shortage. If we’re going to attract labour, we need to make sure that the communities that they live in will sustain them.

Thank you very much for making those links for us.

D. Leroy: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Stewart McGillivray, representing the BCIT Student Association.

Welcome, Stewart. You have five minutes to make your recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions. Whenever you’re ready.

BCIT STUDENT ASSOCIATION

S. McGillivray: Perfect. Thanks, Madam Chair.

My name is Stewart McGillivray. I study non-profit management at BCIT as well as work with the student association doing government relations.

I’m calling in today from the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples — specifically, the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

I’ll be talking about two main issues today: the regulation of tuition for international students and the contribution they make to our overall society, as well as levels of funding for student aid, specifically the B.C. access grant.

In relation to international students, I’ll just state at the outset that, of course, they are not citizens, and many will not be taxpayers. The government has its responsibility to the taxpayers and the citizens of British Columbia, but for student associations, no such distinction exists. All students are our members: domestic, international, you name it. It’s quite important to us that they be treated fairly and not just seen as a line item on a balance sheet or anything like that. They’re part of our communities.

[9:40 a.m.]

When we look at the various immigration plans that the federal government has, international students are a big part of our future of citizenship, based on our growth as an economy and as a society. They’re also part of local communities — certainly in large urban centres, like Burnaby, where I am, but also in many of the smaller rural regions of the province where they might constitute quite a substantial share of the student population in some cases.

In terms of the specific policy ask, we are urging greater regulation of the increases on international tuition. Currently, it’s more or less completely unregulated. We think that’s problematic for a couple of reasons and something the province should look at.

In terms of the overall post-secondary sector, we have seen that enrolments and tuition revenues from international students certainly took a hit during the pandemic. That’s something, I think, all governments and stakeholders are probably interested in correcting so that the revenue streams for post-secondary institutions aren’t as volatile.

In terms of things that we think could make a particular difference, there would be including international tuition under the existing tuition limit policy such that any increases would be subject to an annual cap. That would cover all international tuition effectively.

Another option would be, potentially, more customized — something I think UBC does. For any given student, they would have predictability about the amount of increases they could expect in any given year. Institutions might still have autonomy to raise that tuition rate generally, but not for students who’ve already begun enrolment. They would have the same kind of predictability that I had when I was a student, where I knew my tuition would never go up more than 2 percent per year. It was possible to plan around that.

If international students are going to be part of our society after they graduate, and so many of them do want to stay here, I think we need to make sure that we’re not treating them unfairly. I don’t know about you, but it would certainly leave a bad taste in my mouth if I was studying in another country, thinking of settling there, but was also subject to all sorts of price instability around my education.

I see I don’t have too much time left. I’ll just mention the B.C. access grant as well. I think, as many of you know, that was a new program created in 2020. It is true that prior to that time, we were the only province without such a program of needs-based upfront student aid. My appeal would be to increase the amount of funding — increase the amount of funding that the program receives overall, increase the number of students who might be covered under it and increase the amount that they might receive.

Part of that is…. Looking at the big picture, there’s well over 400,000 students in the B.C. public post-secondary system right now, and the B.C. access grant only covers about 30,000 to 40,000 students in its current form. The most recent mandate letter to Minister Kang does talk about increasing it.

There is also how it interacts with federal student grants. They’ve been temporarily increased due to COVID, but that amount is going to go back down next year. In terms of the last couple years, I mean, federal spending on British Columbians has gone up over $150 million in student aid, whereas B.C. spending is only up about $15 million. So we’re really hoping the province can come to the table and make sure that’s a robust part of student aid.

Of course, I’d be happy to take any questions about any of those. Thanks.

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

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

Henry, and then Harwinder.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Stewart. I just want to…. First of all, thank you so much for bringing the important issue up front. As you probably know, many of the student body has already shared similar concerns, talking about international students and student aid. So I’m not going to repeat some of the questions we asked in the past.

I would love to have a conversation in regard to what we can do to maybe encourage some of the international students trained by B.C. institutions to stick around and really pursue a career and utilize their learning to benefit the B.C. economy.

S. McGillivray: I think that’s a fantastic question, and it certainly is an objective that could be best addressed by a provincial strategy for international education. We did have one that expired a couple years ago. It has been referenced in mandate letters and, I think, recommendations from this committee from time to time.

[9:45 a.m.]

I would also say, I think, something we all know. This is one of the best places in the world you could possibly hope to live, and it’s absolutely a privilege and a unique experience to be able to study here. I’m less sure that that much more needs to be done to persuade international students about sticking around. It does kind of go both ways. My partner did her graduate education overseas and chose to return to Canada, so different people will have different priorities and aspirations.

When I think about the cost of the education while they’re here, I don’t believe it’s a huge disincentive to stay. I think many folks will understand about why the price differential exists. But why it’s unregulated is harder to explain. I think with all the other affordability issues and inflationary issues swirling about, anything we could do to control costs on something as substantial in a young person’s life as their post-secondary education, I think, would be a huge help to individuals. I personally think it’s competitive advantage.

You know, we talk about our Canadian health care and our beautiful mountains as reasons why people would want to study here or immigrate. I think having price stability and predictability — knowing you’ll be treated fairly by public institutions — is it’s own competitive advantage as well.

H. Sandhu: Thank you, Stewart. Harwinder Sandhu from Vernon-Monashee.

I just have a question about, I think, the first problem. You highlighted some of the problem with international students. Many I’ve talked to don’t mind paying the fee when they are recruited. They come here ready, and some of their parents sold every last asset that they had in order to give their kids a better life.

I think the problem is the recruiter agencies or agents are being…. It’s a lack of transparency when they don’t tell them, once they’re in Canada or B.C., how their fees can drastically go up — additional housing costs, and so on and so forth.

The problem that I think we need to…. You’re probably aware about it. Many students are going back home. Their bodies are going back because there is mental health, and then suicide is high.

Also, it shouldn’t be the reputation of our province or country. There is a big competition to recruit international students not only for the revenue that they bring the institutions but also for the skills trade that we need. What’s happening is that they’re dropping out from courses where they could have been helping us with the shortage of skills and trades or the labour market.

What are your thoughts about…? They also have fewer allowable work hours when they’re students. Has there been any discussion or feedback that you received? If there is…. Perhaps we allow them to work a few hours more. Then they can meet their financial needs, and it can keep them away from all the stresses that they deal with. Thank you.

S. McGillivray: You’re welcome, and thank you, Harwinder, for that question.

I think it’s a good one, and it’s a challenging issue overall. We raise this issue predominately with federal decision-makers, when we’re engaging in advocacy. I’ve heard mixed viewpoints from Liberal MPs, from Conservative MPs and even from NDP MPs.

I think part of the attitudes that inform that policy stance is that if you’re here to study, that needs to be your number one priority. Now, everyone’s education and study style will be different. Some are going to be very efficient and have time for a part-time job. I know that I didn’t, and a lot of BCIT students I know don’t have much time for a part-time job while they’re in full-time studies.

So I appreciate that consideration, but I also think we have to be realistic. We all know — the B.C. government knows, the federal government knows — that given how expensive everything is, just having the 20-hour cap does not guarantee that no person works over 20 hours. It just increases the likelihood that where they do it’s, perhaps, under the table or in a situation with an exploitative employer. I think if there was more flexibility or other ways that we could look at that, we could certainly protect people from finding themselves in a vulnerable position.

H. Sandhu: A quick follow-up. Yes. The reason I raise this is there are students having to work under the table — then exploitation of those rules and, again, losing revenue dollars as well. That’s why I raise this question.

[9:50 a.m.]

I think, also, a lot of students come from countries where they’ve lived their childhood and their life in such hardship. Some were even exposed to labour…. They come with a lot of resiliency, and they can do both — work, and balance that, perhaps. That’s why when I talk to these students, they ask…. Even if it’s increased from 20 to 30 hours, that will help them from being exploited by the employers and not having to work under the table.

Thank you so much for the work you do.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Stewart. We are out of time. We do want you to know that you’re not the first one to raise these issues. You have provided a unique perspective and dug deeply into some areas. We really appreciate that.

I think we are becoming increasingly concerned, particularly as a result of the impact that COVID has had not only on international students but on their available ability to come here.

You have joined a chorus of people who are bringing this to our attention, and we’ll take it very seriously.

S. McGillivray: Madam Chair, thank you, of course, to you and the whole committee. This committee has led on these files many, many times, and we appreciate all that support.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

Our next presenter is Kim Menounos, representing Nechako Watershed Roundtable.

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

NECHAKO WATERSHED ROUNDTABLE

K. Menounos: Thanks so much for having me today. I’ll begin by introducing myself.

I’m the regional manager of the Fraser Basin Council in the Prince George office, but my role in speaking to you today is as a core committee member of the Nechako Watershed Roundtable and incoming co-chair, replacing Margot Parkes.

First I’ll just tell you about who we are and why we exist. The NWR, the Nechako Watershed Roundtable, offers a collective voice for communities across a large watershed heavily impacted by industry and resource development. The NWR facilitates collaborative action, identified in our recently completed strategic plan, to ensure the long-term health of the watershed and its communities for future generations. Our members include anyone in the watershed, with a core committee made up of representatives from First Nations, local government, civil society and the public at large, which serve as the decision-making body.

I wanted to share our thoughts about how watershed groups are a budget priority in general and then speak a bit more specifically to NWR’s specific needs. Essentially, interagency gaps in service are being filled by community and grassroots organizations that lack capacity and funds to meet the identified needs. Government services are not addressing the needs identified by communities, residents living in and around the watershed, and those relying on the health of the watershed.

As land and water authorities shift to regional levels, it’s critical that opportunities for collaboration with Indigenous nations are supported, in order to advance real reconciliation through local leadership. With increases in problems related to resource development, climate change and major natural events, government processes and policies cannot respond as quickly as local communities, nor as directed.

More specifically around the Nechako Watershed Roundtable’s needs, there’s an urgent need for resources to support watershed-level leadership in the Nechako — and all over the province in general, but I’m specifically speaking about the Nechako. We have a minimum need of $100,000 per year for coordination of the Nechako Watershed Roundtable, which, as we’ve understood from our partners, is a critical element to convening and collaborating within the watershed.

Funds are needed to support landscape- and watershed-level planning processes. We’re engaged in a specific project right now, and those funds and capacities are being stretched. Additional compensation, for communities affected by Kenney dam, to support restoration and conservation efforts is key to ongoing collaboration across the watershed and recognition of some of those impacts.

[9:55 a.m.]

Additionally, support for the First Nations community to work as stewards and protectors of water resources, like the Yinka Dene ‘uza’hné water surface management policy, can help steward processes like convening and collaborating and working on lakes monitoring together into the next phase.

Briefly my three recommendations are all around supporting the water sustainability fund: to advance specific sustainability goals, identified in the Water Sustainability Act; to return royalties, collected locally, to those working to support watershed sustainability; and to support local reconciliation efforts, through capacity and relationship-building, for the health of the watersheds in B.C.

That last point really is the essence of pretty much every watershed group across the province where territories and resources overlap. On-the-ground efforts to advance reconciliation in support of UNDRIP, I think, are where a lot of gains can be seen and a lot of partnerships can be built.

I’ll close with that. Thanks again for the opportunity to share those thoughts.

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

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

The first hand I see is Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your great work. I really appreciate what you guys have been doing for our watersheds.

You mentioned about $100,000 a year, which is what you’re asking for, to support your organization. Does that $100,000 include any kind of effort or initiative in regard to water security, as well, if we want to intensify our support for water security along the watershed area? Also, for flood prevention, do we need to increase that amount of dollars in order to be supportive?

K. Menounos: Sorry, I missed the first part of the question.

H. Yao: Well, it was the watershed. We were talking about water sustainability too. One of the key things I’m always a big fan of is water security. Obviously, our agriculture community couldn’t do without water sources, and watersheds play a vital role in water security and flood prevention. I’m wondering about the $100,000 you’re asking for. Is this sufficient to tackle those challenges, or do you need additional funding to tackle those challenges as well?

K. Menounos: Thank you for repeating the question. The $100,000 is simply for coordination — so operational. When I say a minimum $100,000, that’s essentially for staff.

In addition to that, we’re looking at different projects across the watershed. Right now we’ve applied for funds for a lakes monitoring strategy. We’re just scratching the surface of the needs within the watershed. Of course, all of those address…. Ultimately, at the planning level, when we talk about flooding and watersheds, they’re deeply intertwined.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I really appreciate it. I’m keenly curious about the protection of our watersheds and what we can do better.

I’m going to piggyback on my colleague Henry’s comment. Have you done a holistic planning process that would actually show how much funding is necessary for the ongoing protection of the watershed, rather than sort of piecemealing through with different grant opportunities and different projects? I hear that what you’re looking for is kind of the core funding to contribute to the success of the round table. Is there a longer-term strategy that we should be looking at, too, as this is a first step?

K. Menounos: I’ll answer your question in parts. Yes, the $100,000 that we’re talking about is the minimum core funding. We have recently completed a strategic plan. We have not attached dollars to all of those goals, mainly because over the years, it has been a matter of scratching together funding for different priorities. As a group that convenes and facilitates collaboration within the watershed, maybe that’s a big exercise that we need to undertake and would need funding to do that as well.

[10:00 a.m.]

Recognizing that across the province, watershed groups all have different priorities, probably similar but different scales…. I’m going to answer your question, as well, with another comment about the size of the Nechako watershed. We’re talking about an area that’s 1½ times the size of Vancouver Island. To attach a dollar amount to the different parts of that watershed in advancing health…. We’re still in the stage of understanding what — and how — we’re going to be able to accomplish, and how those partnerships are going to be able to facilitate the action that’s sought.

In terms of the impact of resource development, we have gone through an exercise examining the ecosystem values to revenues to the province in addition to royalties collected by the province that have not been returned to the watershed. I think it’s a good place to start.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for drawing our attention to this really important matter.

J. Routledge (Chair): I have Brenda next on the list. We don’t have a lot of time, but if it’s a quick question and a quick answer, go for it.

B. Bailey: Sure, I’ll make it very quick. I just wonder if you’re plugged in to the work that’s going on with the watershed fund that has been designed in the province — the work of Fin Donnelly, one of the MLAs.

K. Menounos: We have worked with Fin Donnelly and the Rivershed Society quite closely on different projects. I’m not sure. We’re sort of following what’s being discussed, but I wasn’t aware that he had a fund in the works.

B. Bailey: It’s the B.C. healthy watersheds initiative.

K. Menounos: Oh, the healthy watersheds initiative. Definitely, the NWR did apply for funds through that initiative. We have applied for other funds to the Real Estate Foundation directly but were not successful under the healthy watersheds initiative.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Kim. We are out of time. I do, on behalf of the committee, want to thank you for making your presentation and for impressing upon us the urgency. That is a pretty large area that you’re trying to plan around.

I underline “initiative.” I think five years ago, even, we weren’t even thinking about watershed planning and water security. It’s really important that people like yourself are stepping up and taking leadership on it. We really appreciate it.

Our next presenter is Zita Botelho, representing Watersheds B.C.

Welcome, Zita. You have five minutes to make your recommendations and provide some background on them, and then we have up to five minutes to ask you some questions. Over to you.

WATERSHEDS B.C.

Z. Botelho: Thank you very much for the opportunity to join you today.

Some of my best memories are connected to experiences around fresh water — learning to paddle a canoe on Lake Manitouwadge with my father or watching my children see the salmon run at Goldstream River. I’m sure you’ve had similar memories which connect all of us to the powerful essence of water in our hearts and minds. Water is the most basic need for human and ecosystem health, safety and progress. It inspires celebrations, music, art, stories and poetry. For Indigenous communities, it is sacred.

The B.C. government committed to the creation of a B.C. watershed security fund in 2020 ministerial mandate letters. This commitment has not yet been fulfilled, yet the time for bold investments in our watersheds has never been more important and urgent.

Last year British Columbians experienced severe floods, droughts and forest fires. These disasters impacted people, their livelihoods and the important habitats that wildlife depend on. People feel the impact of climate change most strongly through water. We know that these threats will continue to grow and that proactive investment in our watersheds is the best line of defence against the climate crisis and can save billions of dollars from future climate disasters.

[10:05 a.m.]

Our watersheds are the foundation of our health, security and prosperity in B.C. With healthy and secure watersheds, we have drinking water, healthy fish populations, water to grow our food, thriving local economies with good jobs that allow people to stay in their communities.

A watershed security fund will build on the StrongerBC investments in our watersheds that supported the healthy watersheds initiative, which Watersheds B.C. co-directed alongside the Real Estate Foundation of B.C. HWI supported 61 projects and employed over 800 people across B.C.

The more recent Indigenous watersheds initiative is advancing Indigenous-led visions of watershed security and health. Watersheds B.C. is stewarding this initiative in partnership with MakeWay foundation.

The healthy watersheds initiative demonstrated that investing in watersheds is a triple win. It created jobs and contributed to local economies, supported climate adaptation measures that protect and restore critical habitat, and it’s done with respect and reciprocity, strengthening relationships with First Nations.

The results have been nothing short of remarkable and inspiring: benefits like intergenerational learning on the land with the Stqeeye’ Learning Society and good employment and training in Indigenous communities, such as Hesquiaht, Ahousaht and Tla-o-qui-aht First Nations. I have seen firsthand how this investment has changed people’s lives.

We’ve also supported climate resiliency in the Fraser Valley Peach Creek Hooge wetlands and in North Vancouver’s Mackay Creek, both of which showed remarkable results during November’s atmospheric river.

Our partners and colleagues have been working for decades on fresh water, and this funding from the province for watershed projects over the past two years has been a game-changer and demonstrates a critical turning point. These investments have changed people’s lives and enabled communities to collaborate, create and deliver solutions for their watersheds.

The B.C. government has committed to a watershed security fund which can continue to build on the success we’ve seen to date and allow this important work to continue in perpetuity. We need to see a sustained annual investment of $75 million to catalyze these actions required to build our watersheds and experience the benefits they provide. The fund needs to be sustainable and co-governed with First Nations and independent of government.

This an opportunity to lead the country and develop a made-in-B.C. solution that creates a legacy of healthy watersheds in the present and for future generations, so we can all be proud of the places we call home.

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

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Zita, for the presentation. I had a curious question just about the structure of the fund that you’re suggesting. You’re saying $75 million per year to create sustainability in this particular initiative, but you wanted it independent of government. How do you see that working?

Z. Botelho: There are many examples out there of foundations or of funds that have been established where there’s some kind of a…. You know, there might be a board that’s structured in a way that government has a seat on the board.

Part of the rationale for that recommendation is that we’ve seen, through the experience of the healthy watersheds initiative and now the Indigenous watersheds initiative, where there can be complications from government being involved. In the case of the healthy watersheds initiative, it was simply that there was a government reporting agency that had been a partner in this work. The result was that there had to be some significant changes — changes in decision-making. Having it at arm’s length allows for, I think, more flexibility and an ability to deliver things in a really efficient way.

I think there’s a place for government to be involved, without a doubt. But when you have a governance structure where other parties are involved, it also gives First Nations an ability to make decisions independently without any concern around repercussions of decisions that are made around the table, for example.

There are inequities among First Nations communities in terms of their relationship with the Crown, so it just allows a level of, I think, independence and governance that can be more successful for where we want B.C. to be in the future.

[10:10 a.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, and thank you very much. I was at the Real Estate Foundation, actually, when we started the funding for watersheds, so I know what you’re talking about.

This is just more a comment. Every watershed group that we’ve heard from has asked and supported the call for the B.C. water sustainability fund, so it’s certainly something that has come up as a theme and something that we’ll certainly be putting consideration into.

Thank you very much for the work you do.

Z. Botelho: Thanks, Karin.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions, so Zita, on behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to present to us and to add your voice to the call for funding of sustainable watersheds.

I’m struck by the very clear, simple way you made the connection between climate change and water — that climate change means there’s either too much of it or not enough of it and that what we need to do is rebalance our relationship to water, and that means rebalancing our watershed.

Thank you very much for joining your voice….

Z. Botelho: Thanks. That’s so reassuring to hear that from you. I just want to extend my thanks to the staff, who I know have been working really hard to make all of this happen and these meetings happen — and to all of you for listening to us.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll say goodbye to you now, and we’ll take a recess.

The committee recessed from 10:11 a.m. to 10:25 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Chief Terry Teegee, representing the B.C. Assembly of First Nations.

Welcome, Chief. We’re glad to have you with us. We’ve allotted five minutes for your presentation — you’ll see the big clock there — and then another five minutes for us to ask follow-up questions.

When you’re ready, take it away.

B.C. ASSEMBLY OF FIRST NATIONS

T. Teegee: [Dakelh was spoken.]

I just want to acknowledge the territory that I’m calling from — the Lheidli-T’enneh, the Dene, the Dakelh people in north central British Columbia.

My name is Terry Teegee. I’m the regional chief, and I represent the provincial territorial organization and represent over 204 First Nations communities here in British Columbia.

Our mandate is to advance the rights and interests of the First Nations people here in British Columbia and to restore and enhance relationships with British Columbia and Crown governments.

I’m honoured to make a presentation today. Our first priority is the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, as we know as Bill 41. On March 30, 2022, of this year, history was made in partnership with the provincial government to develop a national action plan. Albeit celebratory, it certainly is a reminder of the importance of accountability and of follow-ups through to the commitments that were made — well over 89 specific actions for every ministry in the provincial government over the next five years.

These actions are meant to address the colonial cycles of discrimination and violence that play out in every aspect of First Nations peoples’ lives here in British Columbia — from health to justice, policing, children and families, education, climate impacts, as we’ve seen in the last year, resource development, how decisions are made, water, housing and transportation.

I’m calling on Budget 2023 to fully provide for implementation on the action plan, including the required capacity and resources for First Nations governments and peoples to be true partners and leaders in this work.

To highlight just one area, housing, we all know the issues of housing in the Downtown Eastside, Prince George and many urban centres. There certainly is a shortage of affordable housing. Costing work estimates that $5.26 billion is required in a one-time capital cost to repair and build enough units to meet the current projected needs, with a further $2.04 billion required to cover operational costs over the next ten years.

The work of reconciliation is fundamentally about justice, healing and new relationships defined by partnership and respect. This includes a new fiscal relationship that encompasses taxation and revenue-sharing.

I want to ensure that budgeted funds are not managed in a colonial way. Funds for First Nations must be managed by First Nations decision-makers and must be consistent, long-term, meaningful and fulsome. This also means being guided by leadership in ongoing work with First Nations people and not being restricted to only working on what was in the action plan. For example, B.C. First Nations recently developed a B.C. First Nations climate strategy and action plan, and we will need to support and implement this plan.

Implementation of the missing and murdered women and girls 2SL+ calls for justice. Well over 131 recommendations in the national action calls for justice. I would like to ensure that B.C.’s work to implement the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls calls for justice is front and centre.

Since the calls for justice were released in 2019, very little progress has been made, and the impacts have certainly not been felt on the ground, especially amongst the most marginalized and vulnerable. In fact, reports continue to indicate that the violent victimization of Indigenous women is on the rise, and the rates of incarceration of Indigenous women are at an all-time high.

There are literally thousands of recommendations that point to how to end this genocide. Many grassroots and front-line organizations are doing amazing and effective work.

The other highlight, if you will, or priority is B.C. First Nations justice strategy and the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act recommendations.

[10:30 a.m.]

A critical component of both the action plan and calls to justice is policing and justice reform, with the report of the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act in hand and the B.C. First Nations justice strategy, which was agreed upon by the provincial government. This area, it’s really certain, needs a fundamental change and also resourcing.

To conclude, thank you for the opportunity to share a few of our priorities with you. I firmly believe that when we each, individually, have the experience of justice and equity, our province will be a better place for everyone. And that’s what the B.C. budget should really exemplify and demonstrate.

Thank you. Mussi cho.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Chief Teegee.

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

The first one is from Karin.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Chief. I appreciate the presentation. Just one question. Has government been providing any funds for capacity-building at this point for any of the consultations on legislation?

T. Teegee: Well, there is some funding in terms of our work that we’re doing as part of the development of the action plan. It’s really piecemeal, depending on what legislation and what policy you’re talking about. There has been some resourcing. I think what we need is an overall look, now that we have 89 recommendations, to properly resource a number of high-priority issues, such as forestry.

Really, I think an environmental assessment needs to live up to current standards of free, prior and informed consent, and child welfare needs to…. These were three of the priorities that we’ve seen as part of the commitment document. That’s just to name a few.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Chief Terry Teegee. Like I said, as a person who was colonialized in British Columbia, I am still starting to grasp the truth and reconciliation, so I’m really looking forward to your guidance and explanation for some of my confusion.

I do have one interesting question. I’m just wondering. As we’re moving towards more government-to-government relationships, I assume — again, this is an assumption on my end — that Indigenous communities would probably prefer to have revenue-sharing and then manage their own money when it comes to implementing funds and services through their own governance structure. Is that something that I can assume correctly?

Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend the importance. Obviously, the government-to-government relationship…. I’m wondering. From your vision for working with the Indigenous community, when it comes to sharing, obviously, the resources and bountifulness of British Columbia, should we be moving towards the direction where Indigenous communities do their own funding and, through revenue-sharing, be able to support their community members directly instead?

T. Teegee: Well, you’ve already done it with the revenue-sharing on gaming revenue. As a matter of fact, as we see more and more reports come out, it really supported First Nations and their priorities that we don’t have funding for. If you look at the funding that they’re getting, many of the First Nations communities, through gaming revenue-sharing, they’re utilizing these funds for cultural practices. Same in their languages, which is a massive, massive issue, because Indigenous languages are a really dire case in this world. We’re losing many by the year.

I think there are other examples, such as the pathway forward agreement with the Carrier-Sekani, which I used to be a part of, their tribal chief. They’re looking at priorities within their communities, bringing them forward. These are examples where they’re making their own decisions.

Now, when we talk about the United Nations declaration, at this point, it is what they’re using — chief and councils. It is an Indigenous governing body. Until we really implement our own Indigenous governing bodies the way we want to do it, this will have to take its place, I suppose, in the meantime. But I think, overall, some of the resources that we’ve seen come from the provincial government have provided an opportunity for our First Nations to make decisions on their priorities. And in many respects, those have been positive, especially with the gaming revenue-sharing.

H. Yao: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing other questions at this point, so I really want to thank you on behalf of the committee for taking the time to meet with us. We’re honoured that you took time to engage with us.

[10:35 a.m.]

Some of the points that I noted down…. You referred to the impact of colonial cycles. That was so important, and I think that a lot of what you were talking about and what others have talked about are about breaking those cycles. I hope you’re reassured when I tell you that so many, almost all of the groups and individuals that have presented to us so far, have talked about wanting to realign their work so that they are respecting the principles of DRIPA and that they are playing a role in making sure that they play a role in breaking the colonial cycle.

Thank you for adding your voice today.

T. Teegee: Thank you. Mussi cho.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Erin McConomy, North Island College Faculty Association.

Welcome, Erin. You have five minutes to make your recommendations, and then we’ll ask questions for five minutes. Over to you.

NORTH ISLAND COLLEGE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION

E. McConomy: Thank you for the opportunity to provide input for the 2023 budget. I’m Erin McConomy, as you said. I’m the current vice-president of the North Island College Faculty Association, which is Local 16 of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators.

I’m honoured to be speaking to you from the traditional and unceded territory of the K’ómoks First Nation in Courtenay, British Columbia, who have been stewards of the land since time immemorial.

North Island College provides learning to students in the traditional territories of 35 First Nations of the mid– to north–Vancouver Island region, from our centre in Ucluelet to our campuses in Port Alberni, Campbell River, Port Hardy and our largest campus in the Comox Valley as well as programming offered in communities, including in the mid-mainland regions of Bella Bella and Bella Coola. These are small communities with one or two major economic and often resource-based sectors.

As a post-secondary educator, I have seen many students trepidatiously come through our doors and confidently leave by either transferring to a degree-granting institution or entering the workforce with their newly honed skills and experiences. I have seen the immense difference post-secondary education has on individuals, many of whom never thought they would or could be successful at the post-secondary level. Their success affects not only themselves but their families and their communities.

I see post-secondary education as the vehicle for community resilience and pandemic and economic recovery, especially in rural and remote communities. Accordingly, I’m asking the committee to support measures for increasing core, ongoing funding for programming to ensure that all learners have access to the educational opportunities they need to fully thrive in their home communities.

NIC has faced much unpredictability in the face of constrained higher-education budgets over many years. The last two years have been particularly difficult. A third of our faculty have been lost since COVID — and further cuts to sections and programs across many areas on top of the already thinned-out programming we had.

Particularly hard hit are our smaller campuses in Port Alberni and Campbell River as well as our small centres, all of which have seen face-to-face courses largely replaced by online courses because of lack of adequate funding. While this may be more cost-effective in the short term, it does not serve the needs of many of our most vulnerable students — students who have very low technology skills, students who learn differently and students who have challenges due to their current or past situations. These students need the in-person connection and support our instructors and college community can provide them in order to be successful.

Limited course offerings mean that some students will feel excluded from post-secondary education altogether. Others will not have the courses they need to transfer and graduate on time. It means that students cannot stay home as long or that they must move their families elsewhere to finish their studies. It means relying on fickle international enrolment. It means losing community members, most of whom are working age, to opportunities elsewhere. It means that employers may struggle to find or attract skilled workers in our area.

[10:40 a.m.]

Reliable, sustainable funding that is specifically directed to programming within smaller communities to provide true access to post-secondary education in the community may not be what generates the most revenue, and may not be in line with the experiences and expectations of larger cities, but it is a make-or-break situation for individuals in our communities.

Ensuring that these institutions have resources to offer both online and face-to-face classes in varied areas of study for all would have two key benefits. It promotes local access to learning. Students can plan and complete their studies on time, in their home community and without disruption if programs are not cancelled due to the unrealistic enrolment metrics. They can also study in a way that is supportive of their learning needs, whether face-to-face or online.

It can also contribute to a broader jobs plan for the region, for learners as well as for workers at the institution. Our graduates can fuel the growing economies of our communities with skilled labour. North Island College is also a major employer in our region, and it can recruit and retain faculty and staff in secure positions with good wages and benefits. Combined, these offer broad community benefits, including opportunities for families, as well as rural development and recovery potential.

I urge the committee to consider the need for true access to post-secondary education in the small communities in our province by increasing the base funding provided to community colleges so that we can serve our communities better.

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

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

B. Bailey: Good morning, Erin. Thanks for your presentation and for drawing our attention to some of the challenges that these small communities on the Island are facing in regards to education. I appreciate that.

In the markets that you’re describing — Ucluelet, Port Hardy, Bella Bella, Comox Valley, Bella Coola, and others — are you finding that often, your institution is the only institution that’s providing opportunities for folks in those communities, or are you one of many?

E. McConomy: We’re definitely one of the only institutions that’s available here. There might be online learning from other institutions — as that’s an opportunity for a lot of people, especially in this environment — but we’re definitely the only institution based in these communities.

J. Routledge (Chair): Other questions?

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. It’s interesting because, the way you presented the material, there seem to be two different factors that continue pushing back and forth. Obviously, you’re talking about the importance of people being able to study locally, to stay connected with their community and to be able to continue their education. You also talked about how technology is also efficient. Some vulnerable communities might fall through the cracks, people who have lower access to technology, people who might have difficulty with technology.

It’s almost like those two factors both somehow challenge one another, yet it seems that they could be solutions for one another. I would love to hear your feedback on whether you have a comprehensive solution. How can we keep students in your community to have access to in-person learning? Then, hopefully, with the larger institutions providing online courses, they can finish their degrees in their hometowns.

E. McConomy: What I see is that those are two things that are definitely in tension. There are a lot of benefits for access in having online courses. I recognize that that’s absolutely a benefit for some of our students, but some of the students that come into our college don’t have the technology know-how, not even knowing how to create a Word document. I have students coming in, in adult basic education courses, who have no experience. It’s hard to then expect those students to become online learners right away.

What I’m saying is that for the most vulnerable students, there needs to be an opportunity to work face-to-face with our instructors to build those skills, either in the first upgrading courses or in the first couple of university transfer courses that they want to do. Hopefully, then, those learners can build enough skills to be able to take the online courses in order to continue and finish their degrees.

[10:45 a.m.]

But there need to be those foundational skills for them in order for them to have any success moving on. What I’m finding is that if we only have online courses, which are much cheaper, we can cover more areas. But if we only have online courses, that excludes a whole demographic of students because they don’t have the skills to start online education.

H. Yao: If I can rephrase what you’re saying right now…. If we do this right, instead of having two tensions, they can actually be complementing one another, making sure students from rural areas have full access to a proper education and stay connected to the support of the local community.

E. McConomy: Some benefit from online education, but some need the face to face. What we’re finding is that we’re replacing face-to-face education with online, and we actually need to offer both in order to provide true access to our communities.

H. Yao: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions, Erin. I’d like to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for taking the time to make your presentation and to engage with us.

As you were speaking, I guess what I was really struck by was how many people I know who come from rich, important communities around the province, but they no longer live there. What you’re proposing is finding ways to make sure that people get to stay in their communities and contribute to the local community and the local economy and the economy of British Columbia.

Thank you for making those connections for us.

E. McConomy: Okay. Thank you. Have a great day.

J. Routledge (Chair): You too. Bye-bye, now.

Our next presenter is Sarah Segal, representing Vancouver Island University Students Union.

Welcome, Sarah. You have five minutes, whenever you’re ready.

VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS UNION

S. Segal: Great. Thank you.

Good morning, committee members. My name is Sarah Segal, and I’m staff at the Vancouver Island University Students Union in our Nanaimo campus. The Vancouver Island University Students Union represents student members at our three campuses — here in Nanaimo, also in Cowichan and in Powell River.

I appreciate this opportunity to present to the committee today on behalf of our members. I want to recognize that annually we take this opportunity to speak to you, and frequently this committee has put forward many of our recommendations into the provincial budget. I want to thank you for continuing to listen to the experience and needs of students in British Columbia. It remains the continued hope of students that we can work together with the province to ensure that post-secondary education in B.C. is accessible and affordable for all.

I know we’re in a unique time for B.C. and for students in post-secondary. The pandemic has highlighted pre-existing funding issues in post-secondary, and the current cost of living makes every aspect of life more unaffordable for many people in B.C. Students juggling tuition costs and exorbitant housing, food and gas costs are telling us regularly how much they’re struggling.

We’re here to ask for your help. I know you will have heard similar asks from other student unions across the province, so I’ll be brief today in sharing our request. We have two recommendations today.

Our first recommendation is that the government amend the current tuition fee limit policy for international tuition fees and add a cap on fee increases for international students. International students come to Canada for the unique learning opportunities we provide them and become valuable members of our communities and our economies. However, due to underfunding of our colleges and our universities, institutions have become reliant on international students to make up those funding shortfalls.

In 2017, international students made up 20 percent of enrolment, but their fees made up 49 percent of all tuition fee revenue. Overall, since 1991, tuition fees for international students have risen over 674 percent. This is not only unfair to international students, but it’s a high-risk approach to funding our education system. COVID-19 showed us just how risky it is to depend so much on international enrolment, as many international students could not enter Canada, and the expected revenue from their fees did not arrive to many institutions.

Because there’s no cap on tuition fee increases for international fees, institutions have increased international student fees completely free of regulation. Not knowing how much your tuition fee will increase the following year is a big barrier for international students to completing their education. Annually the fees of international students may increase by up to 20 percent, which results in students struggling to continue studying in Canada.

[10:50 a.m.]

International students cannot work for more than 20 hours off campus. So when these big increases in tuition fees occur, they are without the means to earn more income to cover the costs. As a result, we see reports of international students being forced to live in unsafe housing, use community food banks and work unregulated jobs just to finish their studies in B.C. We need to think ahead, invest in education and make sure that institutions are stable for years to come.

We need the province to provide international students with more stability too, in the form of a cap on tuition increases similar to the cap on domestic tuition. However, this will not change the systemic problems we have in the post-secondary sector, which is a funding shortfall.

Our second request to you is to increase the funding to post-secondary institutions in B.C. Currently the government funding makes up 43.6 percent of total operational revenue, and tuition fee revenues contribute 47.6 percent of institutions’ revenue, on average. This means that the fees paid by students have now surpassed the government funding that an institution receives.

The funding shortfall doesn’t just impact tuition costs. It limits access to other important services for students, such as adequate and timely counselling, education supports and sufficient access to courses. Our recommendation is that there be a commitment of $200 million annually into the institutional operational grants to post-secondary education and, after that investment, that the government freeze tuition fees and develop a plan to progressively reduce tuition fees at public institutions to lessen the financial burden on students and their families. We need to invest in education, moving forward towards an economic recovery.

We hope that you will take our asks into consideration in the coming months. We appreciate your time and attention to these issues affecting post-secondary students in British Columbia. Thank you for listening to me today.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. Obviously, your presentation, as you mentioned earlier, echoes those of many other student groups. We thank you for your advocacy.

I’m going to ask you a quick, simple question. You talked about the government providing 46 percent, while the student provides 47 percent. So where else is the other additional 7 percent coming from? Does it come from additional fees that are levied on students? Or does it come from other sources of income?

S. Segal: I actually don’t have the answer to that question. These stats are from research that the B.C. Federation of Students has provided.

H. Yao: Okay, no worries. Thank you so much?

J. Routledge (Chair): Other questions?

That is surprising. I’m not seeing other questions from the committee. I think perhaps what does explain it is that we’re into — what? — our third or fourth week of presentations, and there have been a lot of presentations from student associations, from faculty associations and from the institutions themselves that have addressed this very issue. I guess people have asked their questions on this.

Thank you for framing your presentation in the context of making education affordable and accessible to all. The real issue is: how do we do that? You’ve offered us some concrete suggestions for that. Thank you very much for your time.

S. Segal: Thank you very much for listening to me, in consideration of students in B.C. We appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Maurita Prato, representing LUSH Valley Food Action Society and Comox Valley Food Policy Council.

Welcome, Maurita. You have five minutes to explain your recommendations to us, and then we’ll ask you some questions. Over to you.

LUSH VALLEY FOOD ACTION SOCIETY,
COMOX VALLEY FOOD POLICY COUNCIL

M. Prato: I respectfully acknowledge that I am Zooming in from the stolen traditional territory of the Puntledge, the Ieeksun, the Sasitla and the Sahtloot people, now collectively known as the K’ómoks First Nation.

The LUSH Valley has envisioned local food at the heart of community well-being and has worked in our community for 22 years towards this goal, winning our community’s Not-for-Profit Award in 2021 and also representing the Comox Valley Food Policy Council. The goal of that council is to provide a forum for advocacy and policy development that works towards the creation of a food system that is ecologically sustainable, economically viable and socially just.

[10:55 a.m.]

Although food isn’t highlighted in your summary report, it is implied when you highlight affordability, reducing poverty, climate mitigation, reconciliation and agriculture. While we all know it is essential, food and food systems have been systematically devalued, which has become normative in our culture. I encourage you to consider naming food, food security and food systems more prominently in further reports.

I believe that we have a collective opportunity to revalue food and food systems as essential solutions to the complex problems that we face, such as climate change, reconciliation, poverty reduction, health and mental health. I know that the province supports many food initiatives, and I am happy to see more focus on regenerative agriculture initiatives and seeing the value in the way we grow food and the connection to resilient communities.

I have three recommendations today for you. The first is costing out and funding the first phase of a universal healthy school food program for K-to-12 students in B.C. The second is compiling a Vancouver Island baseline survey of food assets, and the third is supporting a provincial network of regional food policy councils.

The rationale for the recommendations — the first, costing out and funding the first phase of a universal healthy school food program for K-to-12 students in B.C. We at LUSH Valley and the Food Policy Council are active members of the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is a growing network of 45-plus non-profit, community-driven organizations from across the prov­ince. We support the coalition’s recommendation to build on existing commitments to create more local school meal programs.

This would involve creating a dedicated multi-year funding stream for school food programs and, in the first year, would mean a commitment to a minimum of $100 million to school communities that are ready to build on existing programs and increase students’ access to healthy food at school. We know that this is already in discussion. In fact, I know this has already been presented to you.

Our headquarters at LUSH Valley were visited by the Minister of Agriculture this spring. We had some discussion, and we believe that we have the infrastructure and interest to support a pilot universal school food program in the Comox Valley, which would expand on the work that we do with Indigenous education and school district 71, where we’re already working in 14 schools. It would bring on a lot of other partners and collaboration in our region.

This would be a great first step towards a provincial-federal program and reduce the $3.3 billion in costs of the treatment and productivity losses due to nutrition-related chronic disease in B.C.

The second recommendation is compiling a Vancouver Island baseline survey of food assets. Vancouver Island is particularly vulnerable from a food security perspective in the case of an emergency. Increased storms, earthquakes and other natural disasters, I’m told from my friends in emergency management, could liquify or damage ports and airports. We don’t have good baseline data of food supply and storage and other assets, including on-farm and non-profit assets. We need a baseline study as a first step to understand and plan for emergencies in terms of food security.

The third recommendation is supporting a provincial network of regional food policy councils. Many regions, such as the Comox Valley, across B.C. have created independent food policy councils. The reason we do this is to work with our elected officials to increase food security, food literacy and local food economies across our regions.

We’ve been very successful in doing this, but there’s no formal provincial network to share resources and support the more provincial-focused food policy changes. The province could invest a small amount to create a provincial network to support decision-makers towards these greater food system schools with an estimated cost of about $80,000 annually.

Those are my recommendations.

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

We have two questions so far. The first is Henry, followed by Megan and then Brenda.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate your advocacy for food security for our community. Actually, I have quite a few questions, but I’m going to try to keep it as simple and quick as I can.

For universal healthy food, I assume you also meant local as well. Is it for breakfast only, or are you talking about breakfast and lunch?

M. Prato: The program is a lunch program that the Coalition for Healthy School Food is advocating for, so a universal lunch program.

[11:00 a.m.]

M. Dykeman: I really appreciated your presentation. Thank you so much for coming today and presenting to the committee.

My question is related to the food assets inventory. Just to clarify, are you looking for that for your area of Courtenay or Vancouver Island? Or are you looking at that for the province?

M. Prato: I think, as far as my understanding, it’s for the province.

Well, okay. Vancouver Island, as a whole island region, is particularly vulnerable. I don’t know, for example, the status of other provincial regions and what their status is on these types of food assets, but I know that we don’t have good baseline data on the Island.

M. Dykeman: Have you looked at the cost? Have you looked at available grants, if it’s for a very specific area? Do you have information on either?

M. Prato: That’s a very good question.

I was reaching out to people to try to understand the budget and what the requirement would be. I don’t have good data on that, what the cost would be.

M. Dykeman: Okay. All right. Well, thank you. I urge you to reach out….

M. Prato: If there’s an interest, I would look into it further. I could get some information back to you.

M. Dykeman: You should reach out to the Ministry of Ag on that, for sure, and look at whether there’s available granting.

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

B. Bailey: Thanks very much, Maurita, for your presentation today. I have a couple of quick questions. One of them is….

I missed the name of the B.C. chapter of…. There’s a group of folks that are working together. I’m really excited to hear that there is a group of folks working together. I think it’s really important to collaborate that way.

I’d like to know a couple of things. As that group, have you had any discussions with the feds at all in regards to funding towards a program in British Columbia? I’m also interested in…. Who makes up that group? Are they all non-profits? Are there any for-profit players that are part of that group? If you could just help me understand that further, I’d appreciate it.

M. Prato: Sure. It’s the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

I believe they’ve already done…. Have they done a presentation for you as well? I was under the understanding that they have also done a presentation.

B. Bailey: I think they have.

M. Prato: They might be better at answering some of the questions.

I know…. In our region, for example, we’ve actually had all of our local governments and our school district sign on as members, as well as non-profits. I know it’s not just non-profit groups, but the way people are members versus endorsing the group may be slightly different. There are also local governments, school districts but primarily non-profits.

It is a federal group. We’re simply the B.C. chapter of what is a national Coalition for Healthy School Food. There has been a lot of advocacy at both the federal and provincial levels to bring funds to this.

Yes, there has been advocacy to provide funding at the federal level, as well, and some movement on that. I, again, would defer to that group for the specific details of amounts and which motions have been passed. But yes, there has been some budget support.

B. Bailey: I appreciate that. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Renee, then if there’s time, we’ll go back to Henry for a second question.

R. Merrifield: My question has been answered. Thank you.

H. Yao: In regard to recommendation No. 3, a provincial food network regional council, I’m wondering if it would be of interest to actually add water security as part of the discussion as well. We often struggle with water and food security together. They seem to be a combo package.

M. Prato: Yeah, definitely. I know that our regional food policy council is really concerned about water and what’s happening with water security. Of course, that is a part of the ability for us to create policy for resilient communities and resilient food systems. So I think it would be a good addition and/or would be embedded within the food policy council to look at water.

Just recognizing that we have been kind of ad hoc, across the province, creating these regional councils…. If there was a way to have those councils connected provincially, I think it would be a good next step — to make sure that we’re sharing the great resources that are being developed.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation, Maurita. We’re out of time.

[11:05 a.m.]

On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for your presentation and for your perspective. I think there have been a number of unthinkable events that have happened in the last couple of years that have really brought our attention to food security. You raising the issue of Vancouver Island, and the implications of being cut off, is really important. So thank you for giving us a heads-up on that. With that, we’ll say goodbye.

Our next presenter is Meaghan Cursons, representing the Cumberland Community Forest Society.

Welcome, Meaghan. You have five minutes to present and explain your recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

Over to you.

CUMBERLAND COMMUNITY FOREST SOCIETY

M. Cursons: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.

My name is Meaghan Cursons. I’m the executive direc­tor of the Cumberland Community Forest Society.

I’m presenting today from the village of Cumberland on eastern Vancouver Island, in the unceded territory of the K’ómoks First Nation.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

Since the year 2000, our organization has been purchasing privately owned forest lands from private timber companies and protecting them with section 219 conservation covenants. We’re returning them to the community as watershed and biodiversity conservation areas as well as for low-impact recreation access.

Our work responds to a 140-year-old legacy of private land ownership on eastern Vancouver Island resulting from the E&N land grant of 1884, which saw two million acres of unceded land transferred to the private ownership of Robert Dunsmuir in exchange for building a railway. These lands cover the entire southeast quadrant of Vancouver Island, from the top of the Vancouver Island mountain range to the coast, and include all lakes, creeks, rivers, surface and subsurface rights. Since then, this legacy of private land ownership has been passed down from mining company to mining company and from timber company to timber company until today.

These lands include the drinking watersheds of communities up and down Vancouver Island, including that of the Comox Valley, where I live, and the village of Cumberland, where I’m presenting from today. It’s a legacy that has made our communities vulnerable to land use decision-making that places private, profit-based resource extraction and operational stability as a priority. While our community has developed working relationships with these landowners, the divergent priorities are undeniable.

I’m here today to express strong support for the proposed B.C. watershed security strategy and fund as well as long-term sustainable funding to support B.C. communities in developing relationships, governance structures and action plans to support drinking water, biodiversity, salmon health, reconciliation, climate adaptation and climate resilience in our communities. I am also here to ask you to consider the unique situation that eastern Vancouver Island finds itself in, in the rollout of that strategy and fund.

The B.C. watershed security strategy and fund must consider the unique context of eastern Vancouver Island in its development and implementation. This means that it must include the resources to support critical processes at the community level towards watershed planning with private land owners on privately managed forest lands.

In our community, this involves working with private land owners to identify sensitive ecosystems, sensitive hydrological systems, carbon sinks and species at risk to help prioritize areas for protection. This is a complex relationship to build, and many communities do not even have formal access to the watershed lands to do this work, nor do they have agreements with landowners for any kind of future land purchases.

We’ve been fortunate in our community to have a positive working relationship with Manulife, one of the landowners, and we’ve begun to acquire lands over the last 20 years. But a small community NGO and a village of 4,500 cannot take on this type of relationship with multinational logging companies alone.

The B.C. watershed security strategy and fund must also consider funds for land acquisition to remove watershed lands from the private timber base. Our organization has raised over $7 million for land acquisition and leveraged considerable partnerships with local government and funders to achieve over 500 acres of watershed protection in our sub-basin, but it’s not enough. Funding is required for land acquisition and long-term land management obligations for small communities on Vancouver Island that don’t have the resources to do this alone.

The environmental non-profit sector has done a great deal of work to protect watershed lands, specifically in our region, but we need the province’s support to expand this protection to a level that will support community climate adaptation and build community climate resilience. Industrial forestry, atmospheric rivers, heat domes, forest fires and increased demands for recreational access, which is significant in the last several years, are putting our watersheds at risk on Vancouver Island.

[11:10 a.m.]

The B.C. watershed security fund and strategy must consider the unique context of eastern Vancouver Island. We stand ready to support that work, to collaborate with the province and to help develop a strategy and fund that reflects the unique reality of our little part of British Columbia.

Thank you for the opportunity to present, and I am very happy to answer any questions that you may have.

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

We have a question from Henry, and then from Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Meaghan, for your advocacy. I really appreciate what you’re doing right now.

I’m going to ask the first simple question, but I think the question is going to be fairly difficult to answer. Do you have a dollar figure associated with your ask?

M. Cursons: A dollar figure associated with our ask. Right now the watershed security fund and strategy is asking for an annual…. I believe it starts with this, $37 million for provincial initiatives.

I know that what we’re dealing with is land acquisition that’s driven by market values, so the ask depends on the scale of the purchase. Right now the subbasin that provides drinking water for the village of Cumberland is 25 hectares. We understand that wholescale purchasing of watershed lands is unlikely possible, which is why we are asking for the resources to do the hydrological and ecological research to prioritize these lands. Otherwise we’re talking about two million acres.

In our community, this is around sustained funding for local government and NGOs to do this work in our watersheds. We currently receive zero of these funds. Anything above and beyond that would be excellent. The key here is that this be part of the watershed security fund and strategy so that when that’s rolled out to smaller communities, we’re in a position to apply based on the budgets we develop for our work.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Meaghan. Just a question on how you currently fund the acquisition of lands — how that’s made up.

Then, are you able to use tax credits for private owners if they’re going to provide anything to you under market value?

M. Cursons: No, we’re not. We have a working…. The purchases we’ve done, to date, have been a very productive relationship with Manulife. We’re dealing with multinational timber companies that are not benefitting from tax credits in the way that we would in a localized land purchase.

Our funding comes from…. We have an incredible community-based and donor-based funding program, from which we’ve leveraged between 50 and 60 percent of the resources. Then we also secure funds from foundations like the Habitat Conservation and Trust Foundation and Sitka. Also, we’ve secured resources from the Fish and Wildlife Compensation Program.

In addition, our local governments have worked with us on these purchases, both the Comox Valley regional district and the village of Cumberland, out of parks acquisition and engineering funds.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for your advocacy work. It’s truly remarkable.

My question is around your covenant 219s that are put onto the lands. Who are those in favour of?

M. Cursons: The covenants are registered in favour of the Comox Valley Land Trust and the Cumberland Community Forest Society. We are both covenant-holding organizations, and we have also named the Comox Valley regional district, which is the water purveyor, as a covenant holder.

We’re very collaborative in the way that we develop these covenants. We’re just ensuring that they are applied to the land in perpetuity so that if politics change and ownership changes, the intention behind that land protection is enshrined and protected.

R. Merrifield: I really appreciate the creative approach and the collaborative approach, so my curiosity was around that.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions. With that, Meaghan, on behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for presenting to us. You’ve created a very interesting context.

I, for one, will be refreshing my memory about B.C. history and the role of Dunsmuir. I’m going to be going away and thinking about the implications of giving away a lot of land and then having to buy it back in order to preserve that land and the people that it supports. So thank you for connecting those dots.

M. Cursons: Wonderful. Thank you so much for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ll take a short recess.

The committee recessed from 11:14 a.m. to 11:20 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Dylan Heerema, representing Ecotrust. Dylan is joining us by phone, so he won’t be able to see the timer.

You’ve got five minutes. If you don’t have your own timer, we’ll let you know when you’ve got two minutes to go. It’s five minutes for your presentation and then five minute for questions. So over to you, Dylan.

ECOTRUST CANADA

D. Heerema: Thanks for having me. My name is Dylan Heerema. I’m a senior policy adviser at Ecotrust Canada on our community energy team. Our work is dedicated to reducing the financial and health burdens for households that are facing energy insecurity, also called energy poverty, due to a combination of poor quality housing, lower incomes and rising energy prices.

It’s becoming all too clear that a lack of stable access to energy for heating and cooling is having profound impacts on British Columbians’ health. This was demonstrated tragically during the 2021 heat dome event, in which over 600 people lost their lives. We know that climate change is bringing more events like these. Many families in communities we work with have also faced disconnections or are forced to choose between paying their utility bills and feeding their families.

We do applaud many of the steps that the B.C. government has taken so far to address energy poverty — in particular, introducing the new CleanBC income qualified rebate program. However, these measures remain insufficient, particularly as inflation puts further pressure on household budgets. It is critically important that all British Columbians are able to access clean, affordable home energy services without hardship. With that in mind, this year our three recommendations focus on bolstering support for these families and individuals.

Firstly, Budget 2023 should introduce and fund an ongoing electricity bill assistance program for those that need it most, replacing B.C. Hydro’s customer crisis fund, which has been ineffective due to a lack of transparency and an outdated regulatory approach by the BCUC. A backstop is badly needed to make sure folks can afford their hydro bills, and the customer crisis fund is not currently doing this effectively.

We believe such a program should be dependent on income and household size, following the example set by Ontario, California and the Atlantic provinces, and be set at approximately $200 to $500 per year for households, depending on those factors I mentioned.

Second, low-income retrofit programs should be helping British Columbians stay safe and comfortable in their homes, not merely saving utilities money. The utility-run energy conservation assistance program, or ECAP, is not achieving meaningful results. Budget 2023 should include the integration of this program into the CleanBC income qualified program.

We know that only around 5 percent of over 300,000 households eligible for ECAP have participated since its inception almost 15 years ago. Of the households that do participate in ECAP, the average bill savings are less than $100 per year. This program simply isn’t making a difference in the lives of families. A major overhaul is needed. Currently the program delivers savings primarily to the utility ratepayers, another consequence of the BCUC’s outdated mandate, which focuses on this economic efficiency almost exclusively.

Programs like these should, rather, be administered by an agency that understands the realities faced by lower-income households and has experience delivering social programs — i.e., government, which we believe should take over this currently ineffective program and merge it with the CleanBC income qualified program.

Finally, third, the CleanBC income qualified program does also need additional funding support in Budget 2023 — it is up for renewal of its budget — in order to fill some existing gaps and make a difference in the lives of lower-income families that are currently paying some of the highest energy bills in the province. We see that that often means over $3,000 or $4,000 every year.

[11:25 a.m.]

Rural customers, in particular, who rely on electric baseboard heating pay the very highest bills and are not able to access the same level of support for more efficient alternatives, like a heat pump. High rebate amounts depend on switching from fossil fuels, which is a worthy goal to be sure, but for the low-income program and that program only, households with baseboard heating shouldn’t be left out of these higher rebate amounts. In fact, they’re the ones that most need full cost coverage for their retrofits.

This is important, because participating in the income-qualified program doesn’t just lower bills. It improves ventilation in the home and provides summer cooling, providing vastly better resistance against extreme heat and wildfire smoke events. A lower burden on our health care system, particularly during extreme weather, will more than pay for a program like this in reduced hospital admissions and health care costs.

I’m going to close and just say that these three recommendations would essentially consolidate and more effectively fund B.C.’s support programs for households facing energy insecurity in a way that helps us to solve some overlapping crises — including climate mitigation and adaptation, health care, housing — creating good jobs and making life more affordable. That’s all I have for you today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Dylan. Now we’ll ask you some questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Hi, Dylan. Thank you for that.

Just a question on replacing the B.C. Hydro customer crisis fund. Now, currently my understanding is that that’s a grant or you’ve got to apply for it. You’re suggesting that, based perhaps on income, there is then a permanent electricity bill assistance program. That is determined based on income, and then that’s across the board on an annual basis. Am I understanding that?

D. Heerema: That’s broadly correct, yeah. The customer crisis fund is a one-time support program, so it’s designed for folks that are facing a one-time emergency. You can only apply for it once in a certain period of time, which I think is important for a lot of folks. But particularly with the communities and families and individuals we work with, it’s more so folks that are now facing chronic hardships paying their bills, and that’s through no fault of a pending emergency or loss of a job or something of that nature.

That is the direction that some other provinces have gone, and yes, it is essentially an income-indexed permanent support. When I say permanent, I don’t think it has to necessarily be in perpetuity, but I do think that while we start to ramp up delivering retrofits to some of these low- and middle-income households so they can lower their energy bills through efficiency, this is essentially something to allow folks to continue keeping the lights on until they’re able to be reached by programs like the CleanBC income qualified program.

B. Bailey: Hi, Dylan. Thank you for your presentation. I’m wondering if you’ve had opportunity to cost out any of the programming that you’re presenting.

The second question, a very quick one, is…. In my notes — I may have written this down incorrectly — when you speaking, I wrote down that less than 5 percent of eligible households participated in the energy conservation assistance program, but in your submission, it says 10 percent. I mean, either way, it’s a small amount and less than, I’m sure, the intention was. I wonder if you can just let me know which one of those is correct.

D. Heerema: Yeah, for sure. Actually, that’s my typo, so my apologies. It was around 5 percent a couple of years ago, and we know that it has since gone up by a couple of percentage points. I don’t have an exact number other than to say that it’s still less than 10 percent.

B. Bailey: It’s in that range then.

D. Heerema: That was a little bit confusing. I apologize for that.

In terms of what this adds up to, what I can give is an example. Ontario’s electricity support program serves about 200,000 recipients per year. That is broadly in the same ballpark as the 300,000 households that are eligible for ECAP here in B.C. That program is about $130 million per year.

As far as the broader picture of what we need to be doing for our housing stock, I think other organizations have probably already pointed out, through the course of your consultations, that transforming our building stock to be zero carbon and to provide cooling to every household…. We are talking about many hundreds of millions of dollars from now until…. Hopefully, we can get it done this decade.

That’s part of a much larger, provincewide initiative, where we really are trying to deliver these health and safety and climate adaptation retrofits. It certainly fits into a bigger picture.

[11:30 a.m.]

I think where we can shift our thinking around the cost there is…. We’ve done a lot of incentivizing the market and a lot of incentivizing higher-income households, at this point, to get a heat pump and to do some efficiency retrofits on their homes. But I think we need to be thinking about redirecting some of those subsidies and those rebates actually towards the folks that just simply can’t afford to do it, even if there is a fairly generous rebate in place. It may be more of a shift than a boost in that sense.

B. Bailey: Thank you, Dylan.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Dylan, for really drawing our attention to the costs of our climate change mitigation. I want to spend just a specific amount of time on your third recommendation in terms of the change over system. In your written submission, it says: “Even with the 95 percent cost coverage, the last-mile cost remains a significant barrier.”

Would remediating or providing for that last 5 percent be what is the tipping point? Or is the tipping point more that it’s located in rural, remote and Indigenous communities where homes are less efficient and where heat pumps might not be as efficient as what they are in other areas?

D. Heerema: Yeah. I think it’s a little bit of both. Certainly, we work on the capacity-building side of things as well. We have a number of projects on the go to increase energy adviser and contractor availability in some of these regions, because that certainly is a barrier.

But we’ve also done quite a bit of work with retrofit financing. What we’ve found is that even with lower- or even zero-interest financing, it’s very difficult for a lot of these households to take on debt. Along those lines, even with 95 percent cost coverage on what could be a $15,000 retrofit, there are just other priorities that take the place in the weekly and the monthly budgets.

I do think that that is a good starting place to try and close that gap for some of these lower-income households that are heating with baseboards still and are paying exorbitant bills because of that. Hopefully that starts to catalyze some activity.

I understand that it’s not possible to provide full cost coverage for every household in the province, but I think that that is where we need to start looking at redirecting. How many folks can we provide full cost coverage for, and can we start with those that need it the very most? Those are the folks that are suffering the most in events like the heat dome last year.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Dylan. We will wrap it up at this point. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to meet with us and share your views and your concrete recommendations.

Thank you for reminding us that while we may want to think that we’re all in this together fighting climate change, protecting the environment right now, for many, is a privilege. If we’re all in this together, we have to find a way to invite a more marginalized population, the less wealthy population, to feel that they can do their bit as well. You’ve given us some very good, concrete suggestions for doing that.

D. Heerema: Much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Shannon Aldinger, representing school district 71 parent advisory council.

Shannon, welcome. You have five minutes to present your recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions for up to another five minutes.

Over to you.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 71, COMOX VALLEY,
DISTRICT PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

S. Aldinger: Thank you very much. Ǥilakas’la, and good morning, everyone.

I want to start by acknowledging that I am speaking to you from the unceded, traditional territories of the K’ómoks, Puntledge, Sahtloot, Sasitla and Ieeksun First Nations. It’s an honour and privilege to live and work here.

The Comox Valley district parent advisory council seeks funding for the necessary resources from the Ministry of Education and Child Care to develop and implement gender-based violence reform in B.C. schools. By gender-based violence, I mean sexual assault and sexual harassment and specifically between students or peers, rather than between an adult and child.

[11:35 a.m.]

This will require sufficient funding to develop and implement policies, draft administrative procedures, for education campaigns, professional development opportunities for staff and the revised curriculum about consent, both the concept of it and the law about it, with the goal of combating gender-based violence among B.C. youth.

Rates of sexual violence in our society remain alarming. Statistics Canada shows that one in four girls and one in eight boys in Canada have been sexually abused by the age of 18. If these statistics are applied to our own district student population of about 9,500 students, this means that over 1,000 of our girl students and over 500 of our boy students will have experienced sexual abuse by the age of 18. If we look only to the graduating class of about 736 students per year and about 92 girls being one in four and 46 boys being one in eight, about 138 students in total will have experienced sexual abuse by that important milestone.

Disturbingly, the most recent McCreary Centre’s report on its B.C. adolescent health survey had, as a key finding, that rates of sexual abuse, dating violence and sexual harassment have all increased from five years earlier. For anyone unfamiliar with it, the B.C. adolescent health survey is described as the most reliable comprehensive survey of youth aged 12 to 19 in B.C. In 2018, over 38,000 young people in 58 of B.C.’s 60 school districts completed the survey.

Girls between the ages of 14 to 24 are the most vulnerable to sexual assault and exploitation, and girls between 15 and 17, while they’re in our high schools, report the highest rates of assault. Girls who are Indigenous, LGBTQ+ or have a disability have experienced even higher rates of sexual violence.

The urgency of this problem was recently highlighted by student protests in Victoria, Kelowna, New Westminster, Langley and Trail. Students there say that schools lack policies to deal with sexual assault and harassment among B.C. students and that mandatory consent education is needed. Their complaints are echoed by findings of a national student survey conducted by CBC in 2014, which found that more than one in seven girls said they’d been sexually assaulted by another student but that schools lacked the policies to help.

Now, I do want to point out that not all of the sexual violence experienced by age 18 will have been peer-driven. Some of it will have been perpetrated by adults. I’m certainly not suggesting that all peer-to-peer violence happens at school. But the connection to the school system is that these students are all spending about a third of their waking hours in school, as they’re required by law to do, and they’re all learning and socializing in our schools. As such, school districts are uniquely positioned to provide leadership in tackling these pervasive problems.

Also, sometimes both the student who is harmed and the student who has done the harming attend the same school. Sometimes they’re in the same grade and sometimes even in the same classes. So schools are confronted with this problem even if the sexual misconduct didn’t happen at school.

Our school district introduced four resolutions at the B.C. Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils annual general meeting on April 30 of this year. Those resolutions together seek widespread systemic change on how our schools approach peer-to-peer sexual misconduct. The resolutions were passed by an overwhelming majority of parent advisory councils and district parent advisory councils, ranging from 94 percent to 99 percent in favour of these resolutions.

The resolutions seek mandatory consent education for all students K to 12; public awareness campaigns about consent, sexual assault, sexual harassment and other efforts to promote consent culture in schools; a mandatory provincewide policy to address sexual harassment in schools, as well as reporting and responding to student complaints of peer-to-peer sexual violence; and a policy about tracking and assessing data concerning reports of sexual violence so that the measures that we’re implementing can be assessed.

The action sought by these resolutions is consistent with the provincial government’s 2016 recognition of sexual violence at the post-secondary level as a problem requiring widespread reform. We’re asking that similar policies be implemented throughout B.C. schools as well.

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

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Shannon. Yeah, this is very troubling. We have heard from a number of the post-secondary student associations about how prevalent this is on campus and how it’s growing. One of the questions we did ask was if is this something that should be deal with within the K-to-12 system so that it doesn’t continue to grow. Thank you very much for this.

[11:40 a.m.]

If I can…. This may be too specific. Are you anticipating that this is a K-to-12 kind of education, or is this something that starts later, as kiddos are going through school?

S. Aldinger: No, our DPAC recommends that this be a K-to-12 initiative. Now, obviously, more education would be needed focused on the middle- and high-school experience, but I think that basic lessons around respectful conduct, understanding personal space and an understanding of being told no, not to hug or be too close to another student in kindergarten…. There’s application at the younger grades, but I think a very specific focus should be made, with the middle schools and high schools, to address sexual harassment, as well as sexual assault.

Of course, they exist on a continuum, and while we’re talking more as a society about sexual assault, we’re not actually tackling the seeds of the problem, which exist within the context of the sexually harassing type of comments and conduct that kids engage with — from a younger and younger age, especially now that they all have cell phones: the influences of social media and, frankly, access to online pornography, 24-7.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. It is definitely something that, as the Finance Committee, we have been hearing a lot of feedback on. We definitely want to do additional work on it. One of the challenges…. I would love to hear your feedback on this. I’ve dealt with constituents, especially when it comes to cross-cultural understanding of gender-based violence.

It is unfortunate, as you mentioned earlier, that a lot of the minor seeds of this kind of inappropriate behaviour often go unreported, unaddressed or unsupported, especially when we talk about people even throwing objects — if they miss somebody, they don’t consider that violence; about somebody being locked away; about somebody having their phone being taken away; or about somebody randomly taking vulnerable pictures, I would even say — vulnerable pictures. A lot of people I’ve addressed this with don’t see that as gender-based violence, even though we understand that those are inappropriate behaviours.

I would love to hear from you how we can deal with, really, cross-cultural, sometimes even cross-religious, considerations in how we can encourage this stronger, broader understanding of the damage or the connotations when it comes to the term “gender-based violence.”

S. Aldinger: I think that’s a really great question. I think part of it lies in what you’ve described: providing more information generally about the prevalence of gender-based violence and the impact. I didn’t touch on that, but we know that sexual assault is one of the ten adverse childhood experiences. It has long-term and profound impact on people in all parts of their lives, from their internal sense of self to their ability to form intimate relationships, trusting relationships, parenting relationships, all of that. So I think part of it is educating more about the prevalence and the impact.

Then in the relationship to different cultural understandings and also, perhaps, religious freedoms, I think it becomes important to set up the framework of this discourse as a rights-based discussion, drawing from our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, drawing from our human rights legislation, and framing it as equality rights. We can’t have equality if we’re not free from gender-based violence. So I think of framing it as a rights-based discussion. One can even draw on the international declarations on the rights of the child, to also support that.

I agree with you that that is definitely one of the obstacles that we face: the idea of it being a matter of personal, cultural or religious choice or customs.

J. Routledge (Chair): Shannon, we’re out of time. I can think of many other questions I would like to ask and pursue with you.

[11:45 a.m.]

I want to thank you for what you referred to as the seeds of the problem. That’s what makes it so important to address this in K to 12. As you were speaking and answering questions, I’m reminding myself that very young children have an incredible capacity to be kind and to be generous. We need to build on that, so that later in school, later in life, they have that rooted connection with each other and that rooted sense of fairness, justice and equality. Thank you for this, and thank you for advocating.

Our next presenter is Tonia Frawley, representing school district 71.

Welcome. You have five minutes to make your recommendations. Then we’ll have five minutes to ask you some questions and dig a bit deeper.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 71, COMOX VALLEY

T. Frawley: Hello, and thank you for your time today.

I’d like to start by acknowledging that I am here on the traditional territories of the K’ómoks First Nation. I am thankful for the privilege of living on their land and the gift of working with their children.

I’m also very thankful to have this opportunity to speak to you about Comox Valley schools. The pandemic has caused serious challenges for us here in our province, and we are grateful for the efforts your government has made to keep students and staff during this time. However, the additional funds provided to support student safety have not continued, and in fact, our sector has had to absorb some very unexpected new, unfunded costs. In effect, it’s a funding reduction for us.

For example, the changes to the Employment Standards Act immediately impacted our financial picture, and $400,000 was a hit to our budget. We have unexpected things that come up all the time. For instance, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve had a flood at Airport Elementary, and we had a fire at Union Bay. We hope that in the future, such changes are fully funded by the government.

The Comox Valley is growing rapidly, and since the start of the pandemic, many families have moved to our area. Our communities of Courtenay, Cumberland and Comox and surrounding areas are all growing, and this is putting a huge pressure on our school infrastructure.

It was only a few years ago that the picture in our district was starkly different, when we were dealing with decreasing enrolments and school closures. Our district has had to make some difficult decisions to ensure that we were operating efficiently and in a cost-effective manner.

Between 2010 and 2015, SD 71 lost over 1,700 students. Things started to change dramatically in 2016. Over the last four years, we have added over 1,200 full-time-equivalent students in our classrooms, and you can count online student growth. Since 2016, Comox Valley schools have grown from 8,196 students to 10,883 students in 2021-2022. This is a growth of over 2,600 students.

Our district has been able to accommodate this growth until now, but we’re nearing a breaking point as far as available spaces in many of our schools. We’re now looking at a situation where we will have to add portables to handle the growth. This creates challenges. We already have 54 portables, which is 14 percent of our students, and portables come out of the operating funds that we use to support our students and a wide variety of programs in our schools.

We are also living in a period of high inflation. Service, supply and utility costs have increased by an average of 30 percent, and these increases come out of the 10 percent of our overall operating budget that is not spent on salaries and benefits. To balance, we are drawing down on our limited reserves to fund much of the much-needed repairs, knowing this is neither sustainable nor prudent. We’ve actually had to defer many projects. With the escalation, the tenders are coming in higher than funding, and we are putting aside critical safety upgrades, fire sprinklers and traffic entrances.

Comox Valley schools is calling on the government to increase capital budgets for schools to meet the current demands we are experiencing, to address our seismic projects and to add funds to support the growth that is projected.

[11:50 a.m.]

The growth in our region has caused pressures in a number of areas. Child care is a serious challenge for families in our region, and 75 percent of families don’t have access to licensed child care. We are working with your government on building new child care facilities at Lake Trail and Cumberland. We have two more in the works, but there’s uncertainty. We don’t know where the financial support is that helps to make this successful. What are our roles?

The reality is that there’s way more demand than these new spaces will fill, and it will be a struggle to ensure we have adequate staffing to support the allotted seats for these projects. We hope the government is prepared to adequately fund not only child care spaces but also the necessary human resources that are needed to ensure that early childhood educators are available to hire once there are new facilities open.

There are many questions around child care that we need to have clarity on. Where will the staff come from? Are school districts to use K-to-12 operating funds to support the new child care centres? We’re asking you for an initial start-up that will help school districts absorb child care into our purview.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tonia. I will now invite members of the committee to ask you some follow-up questions.

T. Frawley: I will try to answer.

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda, then Karin, then Henry.

B. Bailey: Hi, Tonia. Thank you very much for your presentation to us today. One of the things we’ve heard as a suggestion from some other school districts that are looking at bringing in child care is the potential to use EAs that aren’t fully subscribed. Is that something your school district has also looked at?

T. Frawley: Yes, we have, actually, at great length, because EAs only have so many hours that they can be supported by our school district. The challenge is the salary, and who is funding that. Where does that funding come from? Is it coming now through Child Care, or does it come through our district?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Actually, Brenda has just asked my question, so I’m fine.

Thank you for the presentation.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. It just helped me to appreciate the complexity of the situation. You’re talking about a change to the Employment Standards Act, obviously, if you’re talking about five days of sick leave provided for employees.

Would you mind maybe helping me to appreciate…? Before the legislation was introduced, how many sick days did a teacher have, usually, with the district, though the union?

T. Frawley: This was based on the TTOCs and casuals. So it was not actually sick days that were already accounted for. This is new, since the Employment Standards Act change, because of the five days they had to add.

The rest of it is addressed in the collective agreements. This has put us a little off kilter, because someone else is…. Basically, it’s like rewriting our collective agreements for us.

H. Yao: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Tonia. I don’t see any other questions. With that, I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for taking the time to present to us and for giving us some insights into what the day-to-day struggles are in your school district.

You used the phase “breaking point.” You’re at a breaking point. You’re in, dare I say, good company. We’ve had other presentations that have outlined the disconnect between what you’re expected to do and the funding that you have to do it with. Thank you very much for bringing that to our attention.

T. Frawley: Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our final presentation before lunch is Dennis Evans.

Dennis, you have five minutes to make your recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions for up to five minutes. Over to you.

[11:55 a.m.]

DENNIS EVANS

D. Evans: I’ve been a criminal defence lawyer for 25 years. For a large part of that, I have represented youth in care, which means that I also get their friends as clients. I also represent adults but only on legal aid. So basically, I deal with entirely marginalized people, economically disadvantaged, usually survivors of abuse and other trauma.

At the beginning of my career when my clients went missing, I would call the hospital and the psych ward to see if they’d been admitted. Now I check with the RCMP first to see if they’ve died. That happens more frequently now than finding them in the hospital or finding them in the psych ward.

My topic for today is youth mental health and specifically secure care. We’ve considered this in B.C. in 2001 and 2015, and it’s been rejected both times. I think it’s time that we did look at this issue. That’s going to involve both legislative and infrastructure changes.

The mental health system, as I’m sure you’ve heard today probably, has been underfunded for decades. The administrators, by now, are too much in the habit of being gatekeepers, which means that when a youth is putting him or herself at risk and a parent or guardian tries to have the medical system help, bizarre behaviours, delusions, all of those, are diagnosed often as drug-induced psychoses, if there’s any drug use component to it, and the youth is released after 24 to 72 hours or not even admitted in the first place.

In the Comox Valley, our new hospital is built and the number of beds in the psych ward reduced from 22 to 15, and none are dedicated to youth.

The longest I’ve seen…. The longest detention for youth in psychosis has been three days, and that young woman, after she was released, stole a car. She was convinced that her aunt was at risk because the cat was transmitting data to the Serbian military. She had a high-speed car accident, totalled the car, ran to her aunt’s place and eviscerated the cat in front of three toddlers. She was finally held and treated under the criminal system, which is also inadequate.

Another reason the mental health system is not picking it up is because professionals have been reluctant to diagnose young people with mental disorders for two reasons. One is they don’t want to label them for life, and the other is because the expression of mental health disorders changes and can abate even as a young person matures. It’s not set up or equipped to deal with youth in crisis, so it falls to the youth criminal justice system.

This puts prosecutors, defence lawyers and judges in charge of determining how to deal with behaviours that might be criminal in name but are stemming from trauma, addiction and mental health. A determinate sentence, which is the way we deal with it if we are incarcerating somebody…. Often that is the only way to break the chain, and it bears no relation to how the youth is actually progressing. We get to guess whether six months is going to help things or not.

There used to be various programs that were aimed at Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth. There was Camp Trapping in Prince George. There was Coastline Challenges on Vancouver Island. There was Oasis, Daughters and Sisters and Headstart — all dealing with mental health addictions and life skills. They’re all gone.

We only have two youth custody centres in B.C. One is Burnaby, and one is Prince George. The whole system is based on the adult system, so we’re not skilled with this. We impute all kinds of motives and intent to actions that are just reflexes out of trauma. Basically, we criminalize temper tantrums if somebody is over 12. It’s never been an effective system to help troubled youth, and it’s less effective than it ever was.

If a young person is only putting themselves at risk by prostituting themselves, using drugs or otherwise engaging in risky behaviours, there’s no system that can catch them before they hurt themselves or die.

There are valid concerns with secured care, and those are liberties. I know the Civil Liberties Association has intervened a couple of times when we’ve considered it in B.C.

Alberta has a system…. I never thought I’d say this in B.C., but they have a system that has some court oversight and protections. I can’t say how well it works, but it at least gives an option that isn’t incarceration and doesn’t require a mental health diagnosis.

I’ll leave it with a quote from the 2015 consideration of this.

[12:00 p.m.]

This is from a MCFD, Ministry of Children and Family Development, spokesperson, who said that going beyond currently available options would require the enactment of specialized legislation authorizing the involuntary detainment of youth. This would require establishing specialized and expensive new facilities and programs. The potential costs and benefits of such an approach must be carefully considered.

I would submit that it is time. Damaged children turn into damaged adults, if they survive. Damaged adults are costing us more money year after year. The longer an individual lives with trauma and the behaviours that we use to cope with it, the harder it is to fix.

That, I think, was my five minutes. I hope I didn’t go over. If there are any questions, I’m happy to answer them.

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

We have a question from Renee, followed by Henry.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Dennis, for this alarm bell that really is signalling that we need to shift how we are dealing with things. I could echo that with many an email coming into my constituency inbox and many a phone call with absolutely frantic parents trying to help their kids, and without a system that is really coming around them. Thank you for this presentation.

If you were to design the perfect system, what would it look like, being one who is really trying desperately to help those children in care?

D. Evans: I think, for a start, a temporary…. I think it would be court and medical oversight, first off, and, perhaps, a multidisciplinary panel, including social workers and youth psychologists, as well as lawyers/judges, arbitrators of some method, with regular reviews and a system of various degrees of freedom, much like under the detention of the Mental Health Act.

That now allows for community supervision, as well, so that somebody can have the sword of Damocles over their head yet still be out and learning to…. Particularly for youth, it’s important. They need life skills. They can’t be just warehoused. But sometimes they need a break on addiction and just enough time to stop them harming themselves and maybe get at the root of it.

That would be the sort of system. We would have degrees of restriction on liberty and a lot of oversight by multidisciplinary groups.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for that.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I’m going to echo my colleague Renee that it is a…. Thank you for raising an alarm bell for us as well. I do want to ask a question…. Actually, I have two questions.

My first one is: you list a bunch of mental health supports for youth that all disappeared. Do you mind providing a little background on why and when so we can better appreciate the support of that?

The second question I have is: when you talk about youth in care, how many of them are actually part of connecting with the family members? We had a presenter talking about the importance of kinship. Connecting with family members reduced a child’s…. Unfortunately, youth in care often result in additional challenges. We want to keep them as connected to the community and family as possible.

So I would love to hear your feedback and personal experiences about those two.

D. Evans: Well, firstly I can say that we used to have a youth detention centre on the north Island. Coastline Challenges was attached to that. I think that one closed down in about 2009, and the entire youth detention centre closed down. Then kids were sent to Victoria youth custody, which causes problems for rural children, especially girls who are victims of sexual abuse, because then they pick up what they think is exercising autonomy, it feels like it to them — prostitution. To them, then they get to….

That got worse when Victoria shut down, and the girls’ unit shut down first. Girls got sent to Burnaby. Now they’re interacting with kids from the Downtown Eastside. I can tell you that girls are expressing this as a glamourous lifestyle is not…. I mean, it isn’t now, because they feel like they’ve got some control over their own abuse. That’s been a problem.

Camp Treffing just shut down last year. That was a First Nations–focused program — an outdoor sort of vision quest, land-based healing. That shut down, I think, last year or the year before, in Prince George — I believe funding, again. It might also have been staffing problems for that.

Oasis, Daughters and Sisters and Head Start — those were all north Island programs that were aiming towards both addiction and recovery, and life skills as well.

[12:05 p.m.]

Those shut down…. I think Oasis would’ve been 2012 to 2014. Head Start, I think, was just around the end of that time period. Head Start was, I think…. Oasis and Daughters and Sisters were both for girls. Head Start was…. I’m not sure if it was entirely for boys or if they moved girls into it when they shut down Oasis, because they shut down Oasis first. That went before 2015. I remember that.

With kids in care, one of the…. In fact, I’ve got a case right now that’s a problem. He would be a good candidate for secure care. It’s not addiction. It’s self-harming behaviour and harming others. It’s basically criminalizing temper tantrums, in his case.

His family is in Alberta. Well, his parents are dead, and the rest of his band and family are Alberta Cree. His mom was adopted out to a white family. Nominally, his family is, legally speaking, in B.C. The problem with getting things transferred for him is…. One of the roadblocks has been secure care. MCFD has a policy against restraint.

As I said, obviously, we don’t want to be locking kids in a room and throwing away the key, but it’s caused a problem with getting him reconciled with his nation as well. That is the one thing that, at this point, is really resonating with me. We’re dealing with Zoom and video conferencing and that sort of thing to try and build that connection, and then, maybe, we can actually manage to move him out there without violating one policy or another.

It’s been a system that has been building, basically, since 2009, as there were fewer youth in trouble. We were moving away from incarcerating youth, which is wonderful. Then fewer youth are using the resources, and they get shut down and shut down. Now we’re down to, basically, Burnaby, Prince George and the response of just jailing and criminalizing.

That’s the other problem. It does nothing for their self-esteem. We criminalize these kids. If they commit an offence over the age of 18, their entire youth record becomes an adult record. So we hamper them for life. The odds of a kid suddenly, at 18…. I mean, if they were conscious…. I probably had a couple in my career who went: “I’m an adult now. I’m going to be treated as an adult. I better stop mucking about.”

Those are not the traumatized kids. Those are not the kids who are hurting themselves. Those kids just wind up…. By the time they get through the whole thing, if they survive, to 25….

J. Routledge (Chair): Dennis, we’re out of time, but we have one more question. One more quick question.

H. Yao: Thank you so much.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Dennis, you had referenced Alberta, I just wondered what legislation that was under. Is it the Youth Justice Act, or is there something else I can look at?

D. Evans: No, there actually is…. Oh, my computer decided to reboot with updates.

There is, actually, legislation. There’s a wonderful paper written by somebody at McGill University about secure care, and they reference the various models and things like that. I can email the site. I’ve got it up on my computer, but it rebooted itself.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Okay. That would be great. Thank you so much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much, Dennis. I do want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for your presentation and for the work that you do, the passionate advocacy.

A lot of what you’ve told us…. Some of the examples were really hard to hear. They must have been a lot harder to experience. I, for one, have written down: “Damaged children become damaged adults, if they survive.” I think that’s an important thought for us to be left with, in terms of where we go from here. Thank you so much.

D. Evans: Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): We will now recess.

The committee recessed from 12:09 p.m. to 1:04 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Hello, Margaret. Thanks for joining us.

Our next presenter this afternoon is Margaret Little, and she is representing Save Our Northern Seniors.

Margaret, you have five minutes to make your recommendations and give any background or further explanations you’d like to do in those five minutes. Then we have up to five minutes to ask you questions.

Over to you.

SAVE OUR NORTHERN SENIORS

M. Little: Thank you. My name is Margaret Little. I’m the president of Save Our Northern Seniors. Save Our Northern Seniors has been operating in Fort St. John in an unofficial position since 1998. Today we are still advocating for three different areas.

Recommendation No. 1, more facilities for Fort St. John and area. Number 2, supports for people so they can remain in their own homes. Number 3, educational opportunities and incentives for recruitment and retention of staff at all levels.

I’ll go back to recommendation No. 1. Peace Villa opened in 2012. We were told it would be full with a waiting list, and that waiting list still continues today. It has been opened up to the province, and anybody from across the province that puts Peace Villa on their required list can come to Fort St. John, which increases our waiting list.

A third house at Peace Villa is in the works, but we’re hoping we can get it started this summer. It has been designated as a dementia village and assisted living. Both of those areas are extremely important for the people in our community. The population of Fort St. John is increasing steadily as former residents are realizing they want to be with their families and are moving back. There are many things that we would like to have at Peace Villa. We’ll go back to that if I have time.

I want to talk about recommendation No. 2, supports for people so they can remain in their own homes. We need more staffing and more training. We need funding for home support. The adult day program needs to be enhanced. Programs such as Better at Home need to have more funding as well. It would be really helpful to uncomplicate the CSIL program — that’s the choice in supports for independent living. It is absolutely phenomenal, the amount of paperwork you have to go through.

We need to also support accessible and reliable Internet service. Our Internet service is unreliable, and I could cut out at any time — not because I want to.

Recommendation No. 3 is extremely important right now. We have waiting lists to get into our emergency, waiting lists for our specialists who come here. We need to have more support for the people in our community. That goes along with training. We have had a lot of training opportunities for our loved ones — Northern Health is working on it — however, it’s still not enough. Many people in our community are young mothers and fathers who wish to go back to work. We would like to see more incentives put into opportunities for those people to do so.

As I said, I could go on for a long time. One of the things that’s really important is that in 2019, 3.36 hours were allotted per resident in residential care homes. That hasn’t changed, and it’s time that the government looks at the amount of funding that is given per resident. That goes straight to staffing and encouraging our young people to become part of the health profession.

I can’t say any more than that because I’m just about out of time. However, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to present this. I have sent in a written statement as well. I’m available for any questions.

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

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

[1:10 p.m.]

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I’m not familiar with Peace Villa. I just looked it up here. Were you saying — there’s Gardens and Meadows — that just one of these is open and that it’s also open for people from across the province to apply? It’s not geographically limited to Fort St. John and area.

M. Little: That’s correct. When Peace Villa was built, it included the people that are there now. It was first come, first served with people in our community. If there were any empty spaces, which there never have been, then other people from across the province were allowed to come.

The system seems to be working not too badly right now, but we still have a major waiting list. That’s why the third house at Peace Villa is so important. We have one assisted living, which is full and has a waiting list. Our independent living also has a waiting list.

R. Merrifield: I’m curious, Margaret, about the order here. You have so eloquently presented these three different priorities. Would you consider those the order of priority, or is there one that you’d like us, as a committee, to focus on over another?

M. Little: After 22 years of waiting for a third house at Peace Villa…. I’d have to say I would focus on more facilities. Then I would focus on educational opportunities. Those two are together.

We need the facilities, but we need the staff. We need staff that can have training in our local area — or have incentives to bring people here. We have a shortage of doctors, nurses. All over we have shortages.

B. Bailey: Hi, Margaret. That last statement really ties into what my question is. I heard you speaking about the need for education and the opportunity, perhaps, for some moms coming back to work or dads coming back to work.

Is it your opinion that, were there education opportunities available, there might be enough bodies to fill those opportunities? Or do you think it’s a question of having to attract people from elsewhere? Or perhaps a combo?

M. Little: I believe it’s both. We have a recruitment and retention person that has been hired by Northern Health, and that seems to be really successful.

I believe, as a teacher, that you begin early and you encourage children to be involved in the different professions that we have in our community. In our community, Byron has been going around to the different schools, talking to the children about opportunities in health.

I believe it’s a two-pronged approach.

B. Bailey: Mm-hmm. That makes a lot of sense.

Thank you for your presentation, Margaret.

M. Little: I would just like to conclude by saying…. To make a difference, the government of the day, no matter what government is in power, has to understand that facilities, staffing and support systems are of utmost importance to our people.

J. Routledge (Chair): We have another question for you.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Margaret. You mentioned something about support for staying at home, the Better at Home program. Obviously, government funding can be limited from time to time.

I guess my question for you is: which service do you think is the priority? If the government should have additional funding to support Better at Home, which one would you like to see? Is it helping seniors take a bath? Is it cooking? Is it cleaning? What do you think is actually the priority, in your opinion?

M. Little: It’s a combination of everything. Our Better at Home has at least 180 to 190 clients every month. Just so you know, Save Our Northern Seniors has kept data over the years. The numbers are not changing. In fact, they’re increasing.

All of the supports that you can have for your families at home — housekeeping, bathing, getting food, helping them — are extremely important. Our Better at Home is really great. More funding is needed for them.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you for your time and willingness to make a presentation to this committee, Margaret.

I think that your recommendations, your overall message, reinforce what we’ve been hearing a lot. That is the resiliency of communities and the opportunity for seniors to be able to stay in their own communities.

That means connecting them, through skills training, with young families, young people who can stay in their own communities by supporting seniors at home or in assisted living or in long-term care.

Thank you for connecting those dots for us. We will add this to the mix. Bye-bye, now.

M. Little: Thank you. Goodbye.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. We’re going to take a short recess now while our next presenter comes online. We’re in recess now.

The committee recessed from 1:15 p.m. to 1:20 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Brodie Guy, North Island–Coast Development Initiative Trust, Island Coastal Economic Trust.

Welcome, Brodie. You have five minutes to present your recommendations and elaborate on them, and then we’ll follow up with up to five minutes of questions from the committee.

Over to you, Brodie. Whenever you’re ready, just start your presentation.

ISLAND COASTAL ECONOMIC TRUST

B. Guy: Thank you very much. I very much appreciate the opportunity.

My name is Brodie Guy, and I’m the CEO of Island Coastal Economic Trust. Thank you very much for inviting me to the committee today.

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you from the traditional and unceded territories of the K’ómoks First Nation, spanning the lands and seas of the Puntledge, Ieeksun, Sahtloot and Sasitla peoples.

Founded by the province in 2006, the Island Coastal Trust works to build a diverse, innovative and sustainable Island coastal economy in reciprocal relationships with First Nations and local governments across Vancouver Island, the Sunshine Coast and Island inlet communities from the Salish Sea to Cape Caution, serving over 500,000 residents, the trust partners in the development and financing of community infrastructure and diversification efforts through a unique structure that is led by and accountable to communities.

Since inception, the trust has approved more than $55 million to economic development initiatives that have attracted over $270 million in new investment to the region. These investments have created over 2,750 permanent jobs directly and countless positive impacts across the coast. The trust plays a key role in regional economic development. Island Coastal Trust provides local level intelligence to economic development investments that are a valuable supplement to work done by the provincial government, individual or collective local government organizations, and individual or collective First Nations government organizations.

I’m here today on behalf of the trust board to ask the province to make a generational investment in the sole economic trust serving the Island coastal region of British Columbia and to renew and transform it as a sustainable and permanent fund through a one-time investment of at least $150 million.

After 15 years, the time has come for the provincial government to make a meaningful investment in recapitalizing the trust. Based on the trust’s track record of leveraging and attracting investment to the region and my prior experience as CEO of Coast Funds, where we grew a $56 million permanent fund to a $99 million fund today, we are confident the province’s renewal of Island Coastal Economic Trust will be a catalyst for more than $1 billion in total investment into Island and coastal communities every 20 years for generations to come.

We recommend the province prioritize the one-time investment in the trust and engage leadership in the region in a dialogue about a model that reflects equity with other regions of British Columbia based on the numbers of First Nations, the local governments, rural and remote communities and the regional and rural population base that the trust serves.

A one-time investment of $150 million, which equates to $280 per resident, is still far less than the province has invested in economic trusts in other rural regions of B.C. In the southern interior, investments equate to $567 per resident, and in central northern B.C., investments equate to $855 per resident.

[1:25 p.m.]

With no provincial investment in Budget 2023, the trust will initiate its dissolution in 2023, announcing its last call for proposals based on the windup provisions within its legislation. This will mean the end of the sole economic trust serving the Island coastal region and no funding source governed by and for the communities operating in the region that can strategically partner with provincial investments.

As the province considers renewing the trust as a permanent intergenerational fund, we are also asking the province to work with First Nations in the region we serve, pursuant to section 3 of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, to align the Island Coastal Economic Trust legislation with UNDRIP and provide First Nations governments with a defined role in trust governance.

Earlier this year, an independent legislative review conducted in accordance with the act governing the trust made key recommendations to the province with respect to the governance and sustainability of the trust. In addition to recommending significant investment in the trust, the review committee noted that it’s past time that First Nations governments have a defined role in trust governance.

Reconciliation calls for greater engagement by First Nations in regional economic decision-making and in charting a sustainable economic future for their communities as well as influencing economic development throughout their traditional territories. There is an opportunity to combine a generational investment of the trust with a renewed vision that sees it as a three-way partnership between First Nations governments, local governments and the provincial government.

An effective approach needs to provide an appropriate balance between the 48 First Nations governments and the 35 local governments in the trust area and the interests of the provincial government. This requires an inclusive decision-making process that achieves buy-in from each of the three partners and First Nations prior consent before being put to the legislative committee.

In closing, on behalf of the board of directors, our dedicated staff and the communities that Island Coastal Economic Trust serves, I thank you for your time today and for your consideration of our recommendations to make a strategic one-time investment in Island Coastal Trust of at least $150 million and provide First Nations governments with a defined role in the trust’s governance.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Brodie. We now have some questions for you.

The first question is from Karin, followed by Renee.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Brodie. I’ll ask one question. If I’ve got time, I’ll go to a second one.

You’re saying that there would be a dissolution of the trust this year if there’s not an additional investment. How much money is left in the trust? And it wasn’t set up as an annuity fund. It was set up so that you paid out those trust funds in grants until they were gone. Is that how it was…? Okay.

B. Guy: That’s right. Similar to the Coast Sustainability Trust or the Coast Funds economic fund, it was set up as a sinking fund with $50 million. The current balance sheet is $9 million, of which a few million are committed to projects that have been approved recently, and we’re a patient investor for communities.

Currently, we have $4.5 million uncommitted remaining. Our budget is $2 million a year, and that’s why, before the start of next fiscal or at the start of next fiscal, we would need to say that this is the last year where communities can make proposals to the trust, and then all of the final dollars would be committed in ’23-24.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for the presentation, Brodie. I really appreciate it. I have a question. I’ll try and keep it brief.

Have any of the other investment trusts had the same or a similar top-up? Or was the inequity of the $280 per resident and the $567 per resident…? Was that from the initial get-go, or has it been rejigged? My piggyback question is: are all of the trusts that were set up together run the same? I know that Southern Interior Development Trust has had quite a shift in their focus and how they’ve been running over the course of their last year — their new strategic plan.

B. Guy: Thank you for those questions. Very much appreciate it. I had an opportunity to work on the start of the Northern Development Initiative Trust, for a number of years, so I know that trust well. I’ve worked with Southern Interior since it started, as well as ICE-T, before joining it earlier this year.

Each of the trusts works uniquely around the needs of its region. The province creates the good governance structure around it through the act. Then the board is accountable and able to work in a good way for the region, determining how to best employ the capital.

In terms of the over $800 investment in central and northern B.C., that accounts for a fabric of trusts. The Northern Development Initiative Trust was capitalized with $185 million. Originally, it was $150 million. It was topped up when ICE-T, the Island Coastal Trust, and the Southern Interior Trust were established, one year after the Northern Development was established. Additionally, you have the Gwaii Trust, a $91 million fund for Haida Gwaii overlapping with the Northern Development. You have Coast Funds — $60 million from government into that fund; and the Coast Sustainability Trust for the central and north coasts as well.

[1:30 p.m.]

You have the Nechako-Kitimat development fund. I’m trying to think if I’ve forgotten any of those. But there’s a fabric of those trusts in the North that do work uniquely in good ways to move the economy forward.

In the southern Interior, you have our sister trust, now termed ETSI B.C. It has invested mostly in private sector loans throughout its history and has been pivoting and shifting and looking at new ways of working. You also have the Columbia Basin Trust. Those two do overlap in that region.

Then when you look at the Vancouver Island coastal region, especially the rural part of the Island, there’s only one trust in existence. Our policy question may be: what is the regional economic development strategy for the Island coastal region if there isn’t a trust in existence? Or how can the trust evolve to meet the needs of today and look at the legislation and an opportunity to move forward in a good way, including our interest in having Indigenous co-governance within the trust law?

R. Merrifield: Thank you for that answer. Very, very thorough.

B. Bailey: Hi, Brodie. I’m just trying to understand if you’re distinct from the Islands Trust and, if so, how that happens. Is there some overlap? I see on your website that there’s some information about the Hornby Island arts centre. I know they also fall under Islands Trust. So if you could just help me understand how these two organizations interface.

B. Guy: Thank you very much for that question. It’s valuable to work through that.

The Island Coastal Trust was established in 2006, with a $50 million contribution from the provincial government, and works as a granting and financing organization serving all of the communities outside of the core capital regional district. Last year, in 2021, the province amended our legislation, the regulation — our legislation governs us — to add the southern Gulf Islands and the Juan de Fuca area to the trust’s region.

We work in a way where…. Communities come forward with proposals and develop projects where they need to have any kind of funding but, specifically, the unique funding of the trust, which is non-government funding. Whereas the Islands Trust is a governing body that’s tied to the sustainable land use of the Gulf Islands and other islands. That is different than ours, which is the economic development and financing purpose.

It’s very complementary. That’s another way to put it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Brodie, we are out of time. On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to put together the presentation and to present it to us today and to make it clear to us the role of economic trusts in general but also your particular economic trust.

Thank you so much for consistently, throughout your presentation, linking it to our commitment to partnerships with First Nations.

B. Guy: I very much appreciate your comments. Thank you for allowing me to join you today.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Sheli Dattani, representing the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada.

Welcome, Sheli. You have five minutes to present your recommendations, elaborate on them. Then we’ll follow with up to five minutes for questions from the committee.

Over to you.

NEIGHBOURHOOD PHARMACY
ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

S. Dattani: Thank you very much. I think that’s me. I wanted to say hello first. Thank you for the opportunity to meet today.

My name is Shelita Dattani. I’m known by Sheli. That’s my more familiar name. I’m the vice-president of pharmacy affairs for the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada. I’m also a practising pharmacist. I’ve had over 20 years of experience in the sector, working in lots of different environments.

I know I only have a few minutes, so I’ll try to be brief.

I’d love to be in British Columbia with you today. I’m sure it’s a beautiful day. I’m meeting you virtually from my home office in Ottawa.

I would like to acknowledge that the land that I speak from today is the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation, who have lived on this territory for millennia now.

To make the best use of this time, I’m going to focus on three key points today. One is how neighbourhood pharmacies can help support the province’s health care goals. The second is why we’re well positioned to help expand the province’s immunization strategy. Finally, why allowing pharmacists to assess and prescribe for minor ailments will help improve access to primary care all over the province. Our formal submission will be sent to you in the next few days.

[1:35 p.m.]

First, I’ll just give you an overview of the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada. We’re the respected voice and advocate for the business of pharmacy across the country. We represent the delivery of community-based care in B.C.’s 1,400 pharmacies, which operate in many settings, including retail, long-term care and specialty care.

Some of our members located in B.C. include companies such as London Drugs, Save-On-Foods, Rexall, Walmart and Costco. We work with other pharmacy stakeholders — including the B.C. Pharmacy Association, the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia and others — to bring forward strategic initiatives and improve B.C.’s pharmacy environment in serving patients.

Our first recommendation is that pharmacies be enabled to play a larger role in the province’s immunization strategy. B.C.’s routine immunization program saw declines of 40 percent in some regions due to COVID, according to research by the BCCDC, and the school-based HPV vaccine program was down 67 percent. As B.C. continues to manage public health and immunizations in physician offices, expanding the routine vaccinations available in pharmacies just makes a lot of sense. Pharmacies in B.C. now deliver the majority of flu shots. We also are now administering many of the province’s COVID vaccinations.

Pharmacists have the scope to administer all routine publicly funded vaccines, but the health system isn’t completely optimized yet to make full use of their ability to do so. We already have robust medication and vaccine distribution systems, and we can leverage and deliver these programs in a very cost-effective way by taking this step together. In that, and by doing that, we can increase health care capacity, we can prevent new disease outbreaks, we can provide equitable vaccine access, and we can increase vaccine uptake.

The second recommendation that I wanted to put forward today is that pharmacists be allowed to assess and prescribe for minor ailments. Minor ailments can be described as things that are fairly self-limiting, but they’re not minor to the people that experience them. They can be simple things like insect bites. They can be diaper rash. They can be indigestion or heartburn. They can be nasal congestion, headaches and urinary tract infections. Basically, these are conditions that don’t require lab tests or blood tests for diagnosis and can often resolve on their own or with either over-the-counter products or even prescription medications.

Pharmacists in B.C. already have the expertise and the training to effectively assess and recommend medications for these relatively short-term and generally self-limiting conditions. All other Canadian provinces — now with Ontario coming as well — allow or will soon allow pharmacists to play this important role in assessing and prescribing for minor ailments.

Based on a suggested fee of $20 and modelling based on utilization in other provinces, it would only cost about $1.2 million a year to deliver this service. By taking this step together, again, we can divert patients from swamped emergency rooms, reduce pressures on doctors’ offices, improve rural access to primary care and provide an accessible option for busy families who are seeking access to basic primary care.

In conclusion, pharmacy, I think and we think, serves as a very core component of B.C.’s health system. Leveraging pharmacies’ expertise and infrastructure will allow the province to increase British Columbians’ access to high-quality health care. We hope that you will recommend to the government that the role of pharmacy in primary care and supporting the needs of primary care can be expanded. We’re accessible. We’re nimble. We’re available to reduce the burden on B.C.’s health care system.

I wanted to thank you all for your time today. It’s greatly appreciated.

I know I’m under five minutes. So I’ll welcome any questions that you might have at this point.

J. Routledge (Chair): We do have questions.

The first hand I saw was Henry and then Karin.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. It’s nice to see you again. I really appreciated your presentation the last time — and this time as well.

I have a question in regard to pharmacies providing diagnoses for minor ailments, as you mentioned earlier. Do you see that being implemented more in an office setting, where the pharmacist will actually have booked appointments accordingly? Or do you think it’s more of an over-the-counter discussion with the patient?

S. Dattani: That’s a really, really good question. Nice to see you again as well.

I think it can happen in a multiple number of settings. Pharmacists will always be conscious about the privacy and the confidentiality of the patient. The majority of pharmacies do have counselling rooms.

We encourage our members and their teams to make appointments. Certainly, if it’s a quiet day, though…. The accessibility is also really valuable. So a person just coming in and saying: “Listen, I think I might have X….” The ability to just have that opportunity, potentially, to have that discussion with that pharmacist at that time can also be realized.

Yes, there are appointments. I think the accessibility lends itself, in certain circumstances, to walk-ins as well.

H. Yao: Awesome. Thank you.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the role you play. I think, looking at all of the resources to support our health care system, pharmacists have such an integral piece to play there. So this is interesting.

[1:40 p.m.]

I want to understand the role of the pharmacist in the immunization programs at this point. You had said HPV. I don’t know if that means that people go to pharmacists for that. Is that something you have to go to a doctor for? What are the things that you aren’t doing or can’t do in B.C. right now?

S. Dattani: That’s a great question, I think. As I said in my remarks, pharmacists actually have the scope to administer vaccines, including HPV. In B.C., they’ve been pretty active and engaged in school-based programs and have done a good job.

I think for maybe a mom like you or myself who wants to be able to leverage a weekend or a Saturday morning, the time in their schedule, for a missed vaccine, there’s the opportunity to get that in a pharmacy. But right now, because these vaccines are not delivered like other vaccines are — COVID and flu — through the wholesalers, the pharmacist would actually have to go down to public health, get the vaccine, bring it back, set an appointment and then give it to that person, which limits the convenience aspect and, potentially, even then affects the uptake.

The other thing, of course, is remunerating pharmacists for these services as well. Really, the wholesale distribution that’s done so well with COVID and flu, in being able to deliver those to pharmacies via wholesale, we think, could be leveraged — an important enabler to getting that access to the vaccine in the pharmacy channel as well.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you. That certainly helps.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much, Sheli. Great to see you again. Thanks for the work you do.

With minor ailments…. I’ve visited lots of pharmacies in my riding in trying to talk about what things that we’re not doing in B.C. and that the other provinces are doing. When it comes to minor ailments — diagnoses or providing that initial treatment which can help us with emergency lineups or free up doctors’ appointments — what is the biggest barrier that you’ve noticed in B.C. when it comes to implementing that, if you can share?

S. Dattani: Thank you. So nice to see you again as well. You’re looking great.

I think the biggest barrier is just the scope of practice, as I said in my remarks. Pharmacists currently do not have the scope in B.C. to be able to assess and prescribe for minor ailments. Now we’ll be the only province, since Ontario will be implementing this in January. It has now gone through.

I think given where we are at this juncture, especially as we go through this pandemic, it’s a really good time to look at this again and say: “Can we leverage pharmacists and their skills to be able to do this?”

H. Sandhu: A quick follow-up, Chair, if I might. When it comes to scope of practice, is it mostly the college that is reluctant? I’m just trying to get the sense of where we as a government can support it and what changes….

S. Dattani: I think supporting the sitting government and building it into legislation is the first key step. Government needs to enable this. Then the College of Pharmacists would write the regulations by which this happens. Engaging government on the value of this at this time — as many of us can do that, I think — is really the most powerful lever we can use.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry has indicated that he had another question, but we’re kind of running out of time.

H. Yao: That’s okay. Don’t worry about it.

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

Thank you so much for your presentation. I can tell you that in my neighbourhood, in my community, the pharmacists play a really important role in health care. I can say, from personal experience and from what I’ve observed when I’m in a pharmacy, that there is a really important dialogue that happens about treating minor illnesses and that makes a really big difference. Thank you for picking up on this and wanting to take it another step or two forward.

Our next presenter is Leslie Molnar, representing the College of the Rockies Faculty Association.

Welcome, Leslie. You have five minutes to tell us about your recommendations, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

COLLEGE OF THE ROCKIES
FACULTY ASSOCIATION

L. Molnar: Good afternoon. My name is Leslie Molnar. I’m an executive member of the College of the Rockies Faculty Association. I teach mathematics here in our university studies department. Locally, our faculty association represents about 200 full- and part-time faculty members on seven campuses in the East Kootenays. Today I’m calling you from Cranbrook.

That's on the beautiful, unceded, traditional territory of the Ktunaxa people.

[1:45 p.m.]

Rural colleges like College of the Rockies play a vital role in our local economies. We are the only bricks-and-mortar institution in the East Kootenays. We’re a key driver of the local economy, and we educate the local workforce. Our communities benefit from this. For example, teachers and nurses who learn here, stay here.

It is of utmost importance that students be able to get the education that they want and they need, here, instead of having to move and to travel. Having to move to the coast to complete their education adds significant costs. Students want to live and learn at home, and we want to support them in this goal with high-quality, affordable, accessible education.

There are three points that I want to put forward. One is our institution needs to be funded more fairly. Small rural institutions have unique funding challenges. Two, online, hybrid and flexible learning are here to stay. We need the funding to invest in and support a number of educational technologies. A one-size-fits-all approach to learning technologies does not work. Three, faculty staff and students are facing more mental health challenges than ever before. We can’t keep asking people to do more with less. Current workloads are not manageable or sustainable.

Regarding the mental health challenges, it was a tremendous amount of work for everyone to do the pivot to online. Faculty members are suffering from burnout. We get thanked for our extraordinary efforts, but we are still being asked to do this extra work. The pivot to online was very quick. The return to normal may never happen. There appears to be a new normal.

One thing we learned very clearly through the pandemic was that many students do not learn well online. Enrolment levels were lower. Drop-out and failure rates were higher. In addition, I’ve never seen so many students, in my 34 years of teaching, that had mental health issues or needed special accommodations for their learning.

About technology, decisions about software and hardware platforms need to be more consultative. Faculty need to work closely with hardware and software specialists, with curriculum developers and with educational technologists. All of this takes money. Providing quality online or hybrid experiences is not a simple matter. The same software configurations don’t work across all programs. Flexible, accessible learning needs to be supported by the appropriate technology.

With regard to our unique funding challenges, our class sizes are small, which is excellent for students, but it brings in less revenue for the institution. We need to offer a variety of courses to be viable and to attract students. This adds to the number of courses we have to offer, with very few students enrolled in them. Seven campuses spread out over a large geographical region which experiences winter results in increased fuel, heating and maintenance costs. Plus, we have to replicate many services and programs at multiple campuses.

It’s difficult to recruit and maintain faculty members, especially our faculties have some of the highest workloads in the B.C. system. Since the government grant only covers about 50 percent of operating costs, other operating revenue must be generated from international and contract education. The pandemic has reduced revenue in these areas, and it shows the precarity of relying on these sources of revenue.

For potential solutions, a different funding formula for rural colleges, recognizing their unique budget challenges and enabling faculty to have more funding to support the extra work that they’re doing and to be able to take on a reasonable or decreased amount of work. We are glad that a review is currently in process.

Better mental health supports for faculties and students. I don’t mean a Zoom meeting on how to control stress — real supports for decreasing stress and for managing students with real needs and for lowering workloads and the ability to disconnect.

Finally, more coordination and communication with the people making the decisions about which learning technologies are adopted and maintained. Online, hybrid and other forms of flexible learning are here to stay.

I would be happy to answer any questions.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. We actually had an earlier presentation also talking about how technology sometimes becomes a barrier for individuals who are more vulnerable in the community as well. Such an individual might not have the technical savviness to access a Word document or the Zoom program. Also, sometimes we don’t know how to unmute ourselves. I think the other thing we are also worried about is that technology does come with a cost, and not every student can afford the technology.

[1:50 p.m.]

I would love to hear your suggestions. If we want to really connect, especially the College of the Rockies with the Lower Mainland universities, and be able to offer different courses, as well, to support our students, how would you suggest we overcome and find a way to equalize and to ensure that all the vulnerable students have proper access to the education that they deserve and they need?

L. Molnar: Well, it is true that all students need to have appropriate technology at their disposal. They need to have access to it at our campuses. A lot of our international students, for example, came armed only with a phone, which is not adequate, and that is a really real challenge.

The other part of it that I was speaking more particularly to was from the instructor point of view, the fact that we need different technologies to be able to effectively interact with the students at a variety of different levels and that a one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work. We need access to a variety of solutions.

The funding for the students, to add that to their cost of tuition, it is very high — to make sure that they have it. So maybe bulk-buy for the students and have that be part of their tuition if they need it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Do we have other questions?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I’m just curious. I know that the workload during the pandemic, with all of the additional work that was required to quickly modify the way that instruction was happening…. That time still hasn’t reduced to the pre-pandemic time. What are those additional activities that teaching staff and other staff are having to do now that they weren’t having to do prior to the pandemic?

L. Molnar: Well, in essence, for every person I teach, I’m teaching it both face-to-face and online. So for an online classroom, the students might be away for two to three weeks because of sickness reasons or quarantine reasons, so every lecture I have has to be posted. Sets of notes need to be made available. I need to communicate with my students face-to-face and also online. Office hours are face-to-face and online.

When I come into work in the morning, I generally have over 50 emails from students from the night before, and that is every single workday. So there is an awful lot of extra work maintaining those online and face-to-face relationships.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): That is significant. Thank you very much. That helps.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry has another question.

H. Yao: I’m actually going to talk about…. You mentioned earlier that instructors also require additional technologies. Obviously, it’s become a challenge when it comes to virtual learning, but I guess this also could be an opportunity for us to invest in innovation and creativity to ensure we come out with designed, B.C.-made technology to support faculty members.

Do you mind helping me appreciate a bit more — other than Zoom, MS Teams and some of typical screen, video and audio technology — what else we could consider to actually enhance or empower faculty members to have a better way to educate the students?

L. Molnar: Well, I mean, most of it is centred around your learning management system. So a college or a university will adopt one learning management system. Then it depends on the capacities that those learning management systems have, whether or not they are easily adaptable.

A lot of colleges like ours have gone from Moodle. That is Creative Commons licensing, and therefore, it’s cheaper to implement. But they don’t have all of the learning supports built in, so they’re harder to add. For instance, I did research on adding gamification into my courses, so having points accumulations, leader boards, adding a quest story to my courses — harder to do with this particular learning system.

So if there are learning management systems that can have you add in more things, then you can take advantage of the different videos that you can add, the different lab software that you can add that is much more flexible to tailor to each different discipline, whereas when you only have the Creative Commons one, which is perfectly adequate as a baseline, it doesn’t really help you do exactly what you were saying, to be able to really make it a meaningful educational experience for the students.

H. Yao: Thank you. I also want to take your class now, for the games.

L. Molnar: Yeah, you could be a pirate and learn about calculus if you want to take my gamified calculus course.

H. Yao: I’m not smart enough. I apologize for that.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Leslie. You packed an awful lot into a very short period of time. You really gave us some insight into the human experience of shifting to more online learning and more Internet communication, and the impact and the stress that can create for teachers and students. Thank you for that. You made it very real.

L. Molnar: Thank you for listening to me. I appreciate the opportunity.

[1:55 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Shannon McGinty, representing MakeWay.

Welcome, Shannon. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we will have up to five minutes to ask you questions. Please take it over.

MAKEWAY

S. McGinty: Thank you for providing me the opportunity to share my ask for the 2023 B.C. budget today. I’m asking that the B.C. government provide a sustained annual investment of $75 million through the creation of a watershed security fund in Budget 2023.

Water has always been important to me. It’s been something that has brought my friends and family together, when we would gather at lakes and rivers for recreation. It has nourished me, teaching me how to grow my own food and about food security and insecurity. It has been a connection point for me to engage with my community by working and volunteering with various watershed organizations. Through these lenses, I see how our government can be stuck in a system that prioritizes development over watershed health without recognizing that the two can be symbiotic.

I’m here today presenting as the water coordinator for MakeWay. MakeWay builds partnerships and solutions to achieve our shared vision of a world where nature and communities thrive together. Over our 22 year history as a public foundation, watershed health has been a central focus for us.

Today we host a collaborative network of freshwater-focused funders who have collectively deployed tens of millions of dollars to watershed governance, stewardship and protection across British Columbia. We have directly supported innovative co-governance and land and water use planning models, including support for various Indigenous-led stewardship and guardian programs, water policy development and cultural revitalization work.

Our shared platform also hosts several projects dedicated to protecting fresh water through pooling knowledge, engaging communities and enabling local capacity.

We have witnessed the success of these initiatives and are pleased to see the initial government commitments to this work through the development of the B.C. watershed security strategy and fund. The government of B.C. has the opportunity to be part of this groundbreaking work being done to restore and protect fresh water in the province.

The work already being done clearly demonstrates that we can restore ecosystems to bring home the salmon. We can have good local jobs that restore and build our natural wealth, and future generations can share in the opportunities that I’ve been fortunate enough to experience with fresh water.

We do need action now, as philanthropic legacy funds leave the region and across the province we continue to see the direct impacts of climate change through heat domes and droughts, to forest fires, to devastating floods. Climate science continues to warn about the increase in these severe weather events, and these disasters aren’t going away. Our watersheds provide natural defences when we have planning and decision-making that support them.

The cost of inaction has been clear, both through the monetary recovery required and the loss of resources, habitat and life. The need for a provincial fund is urgent. I believe a sustained annual investment of $75 million in a watershed security fund, in Budget 2023, can set B.C. on the right path to a sustainable freshwater future.

This is a scale that will have a provincewide impact and that will be sustained over time, rather than most funding pots that end after two to three years, limiting the long-term impact. Indigenous nations, local governments and communities have already started but need the support of the province to continue the work.

This fund would also have other benefits, including advancing provincial UNDRIP commitments by providing Indigenous nations with the capacity to invest in their own watershed management plans, boosting local economies by creating good jobs and leveraging additional funding from other sources of funds, including private and philanthropic sectors. The money the province has already invested shows that our investments in watersheds not only make our communities more resilient; they also attract additional investment.

Thank you, again, for the opportunity to share.

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Shannon. You’ve resolved a mystery for me. You used to be Tides Canada, didn’t you? I was wondering what happened to Tides Canada. So thank you.

We’ve heard from a number of groups about the B.C. water sustainability fund. It’s nice to see that there’s a lot of alignment and consistency on that request.

[2:00 p.m.]

I’m curious about MakeWay and your move to looking at the environmental piece of things. You used to be kind of broader in what you looked at. What is your funding model, and do you receive grant funding or program funding from the provincial government at this point?

S. McGinty: Yeah. In terms of our direction, we’ve just released a new strategic plan that outlines our direction for the next five years, and it focuses on nature and communities, so it has sort of those two broad lenses and then breaks down further from there with seven strategic priorities.

Then in terms of our funding model, we have a few different avenues to MakeWay. In some areas we do receive funding for various projects and initiatives, and some of that does come from the province. We also are a grant-making organization, and we fund out as well.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate your greater emphasis on water sustainability. Obviously, I’m a big fan for water security, as well, especially when it comes to sustaining our community.

Obviously, a lot of discussion around watersheds right now, but we haven’t talked a lot about how watershed protection also provides biodiversity around areas. Do you mind going into a bit more to help us appreciate the biodiversity benefit from watershed protection?

S. McGinty: Sorry. I’m not sure I caught all of the question there. You want…?

H. Yao: Sorry. My apologies. Maybe just even go a bit more in detail talking about the biodiversity benefits from watershed protection. Yeah. That’s it.

S. McGinty: Well, I mean, as you can imagine, water is connected to everything within our landscape, so when we can protect our water and restore various areas, we’ll see those impacts across the whole landscape.

For example, things like wetlands. If we have areas where wetlands have been either disconnected from their water systems or are no longer functioning as they are meant to be, that’s when we start to see increased flooding because there’s not the wetland to be the sponge to hold all that, and the flooding will have direct impacts to all the riparian areas. Then the other side of having a disconnect to wetland, you’re going to lose all of that life that lives in that area.

As you can kind of imagine, water just flows where it flows. It’s touching everything, and everything really relies on it. It’s hard to separate out water, land, animals, plant life and everything. They all need each other.

I don’t know if I answered your question very accurately there.

H. Yao: No. That’s fine. That’s okay. Thank you. I appreciate that.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m not seeing any other questions, Shannon. Thank you very much for your leadership on watersheds. It has become a big theme in our consultations this year. Thank you for adding your voice.

I also want to thank you for…. Early in your presentation, you made the connection between protecting water supply and development — that it actually can be compatible and we have to find a way for it to be compatible. I think that it’s one of the ways we can find some unity around some things that we have to do if people feel that they have a future one way or another. So thank you very much.

S. McGinty: Thank you. Have a good day.

J. Routledge (Chair): You too. Bye-bye.

Our next presenter is Ben Simoni, representing Youth Climate Corps.

Welcome, Ben. You have five minutes to present your recommendations, give us some background, and then we’ll have another up to five minutes for the committee to ask you some questions. Over to you.

YOUTH CLIMATE CORPS

B. Simoni: Great. Thank you, folks, so much, for having me today. My name is Ben.

I am joining you from the traditional lands of the Sinixt, the Syilx and the Ktunaxa people, otherwise known as Nelson, British Columbia.

I am the executive director of Youth Climate Corps. I’m here to talk to you about funding for youth for climate action.

[2:05 p.m.]

We focus on providing paid work and training to young people in climate action work that is community-led. The focus is creating a climate workforce, increasing leadership capacity and rapidly completing climate action projects.

The reason that this project is really important — we’ve seen this in the Kootenays, and we’re planning on expanding, as well — is that, for one, we’re coming close to three-quarters of the way through the critical decade for climate action, and there are many things that need to be done.

On the community level, climate action needs to be tackled immediately and urgently — we see this in terms of adaptation and mitigation — and there’s a future workforce shortage for doing this essential climate work. So we have an opportunity ahead of us to fund climate action training for young people.

Now, there are a couple of things else that we need to address here too. That is, for one, many young people are feeling left behind in this time of the climate crisis. There was a recent international study that found that 75 percent of youth said that the future was frightening, and 65 percent said that they feel that the government is failing them. So this is a way to increase civic engagement and to increase youth leadership in the future. Youth mental health is at a record high, and climate anxiety is, unfortunately, a term that we’ve all become very aware of.

As we move forward and the decade continues, we have the increased risk of automation taking many good jobs, and there’s not really that much government response right now that tackles youth getting involved in paid climate action. There’s funding for the LGCAP from the provincial government towards community-led climate action, which has been very effective. However, in terms of directing it directly to youth organizations — and, especially, Indigenous youth, because LGCAP funding only funds modern treaty nations — this is a gap in the funding as well.

There is also funding for trades and apprenticeships, but again, there’s this huge need for funding the future workforce for doing the tremendous amount of work that needs to be done, in terms of energy retrofits, wildfire mitigation and that type of climate work.

Additionally, there’s going to be an increased need for leadership capacity and future leaders to push government and to be involved in politics to continue to adapt and change our world to be climate-positive.

What I’m suggesting is $50 million towards, specifically, youth being paid in climate action work. This is, I believe, extremely important for moving forward, in terms of achieving CleanBC goals, for workforce readiness and for having an equitable future, because youth are key stakeholders in the future, especially as we see the climate crisis, and we are not, unfortunately, meeting the Paris Agreement goals as a country at the moment.

I’ve got about 20 seconds left, so I’ll open it up to any questions.

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

Our first question is from Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Ben. I really appreciate your greater emphasis on youth and, of course, the environment and fighting the climate change that we are now dealing with.

However, I’m a bit vague regarding…. What do you mean by climate action, and what kind of actual activities would youth employees be engaged in? You talked about leadership. Those are great loaded words, but I really would love to hear what actually the work is that you’ll be doing through this funding.

B. Simoni: Thanks for the question, Henry. That’s a great question.

[2:10 p.m.]

As an organization, we take the strong viewpoint that each community can determine what their own climate action is. Although this is definitely within a sphere of what would be an acceptable climate action, we also believe that for each community, it’s going to be unique.

I live in Nelson, B.C., and climate action here looks like wildfire mitigation, because that is an extreme risk, as deemed by the Nelson Next climate plan; energy retrofits, because that is a major source of carbon emissions; and promoting active transportation. We have a climate ambassador partnership, with the city of Nelson, informing residents of the incentives and work that the city is doing to make this happen. Those are some examples.

We’re also developing a partnership with Ma’amtagila First Nation on Vancouver Island. For them, climate action looks like developing a solar array. It looks like nation rebuilding. It looks like sea-level adaptation. So depending on the community and where they’re located, it looks different. Especially for First Nations in B.C., it’s going to look unique.

I strongly believe that there’s a very tight correlation between reconciliation and climate action. We can, as settlers, learn a lot from the leadership. That’s part of what I was mentioning: that the LGCAP only funds modern treaty nations. For a lot of other nations, they don’t have a way of funding climate action, especially engaging the youth in climate action, and Indigenous youth are one of the largest-growing demographics in B.C.

H. Yao: Perfect. Thank you so much.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Ben, for the presentation. I really appreciated it. I had just a question about how many job openings there are currently. B.C. is having a huge labour shortage, which is probably why you don’t hear a lot said about automation. Automation might be actually one of our saving graces to productivity.

Having said that, I really am curious as to how we incent those clean tech companies further. I know that government has already done a couple of different funds. Are you suggesting that this be almost like a job grant specific to youth employment in the green-tech sector, or how would you see this being enacted?

B. Simoni: Our organization works with communities on the ground, and it’s not necessarily directed specifically to clean tech. It’s creating jobs that are related to climate action. As I mentioned to Henry, the climate action is depending on the community. In some communities, training youth to be contractors in energy retrofits is deemed as climate action. I can tell you, as a homeowner, that there’s a shortage in this area as well.

Currently the organization is employing about 20 youth. For each job opening we got about 50 applicants, some from outside of B.C. Anecdotal evidence — I would say that there are probably also some studies on this, too — is that a lot of young people are looking for jobs that align with their values. Being able to be paid for climate action is important for that as well. It would be funding organizations or First Nations to do this work.

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

I’m afraid we probably do not have time for more questions.

Was it a short question, Harwinder?

H. Sandhu: Yes, just a quick, short comment.

Thank you for your presentation. You have a wonderful MLA, Britney Anderson, there. She is also the Premier’s advisor on youth and a big advocate for climate action. I was just curious if you had the opportunity to meet her and perhaps explore many of the opportunities that you highlighted for youth — which they can be part of, as they are our leaders? I think that she’s a great resource in your neck of the woods.

B. Simoni: I’ve been fortunate enough to have those conversations with her, and she has been a great advocate for this type of work. I appreciate you mentioning that.

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

[2:15 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we’re out of time, Ben. Thank you very much for your presentation. You did a great job.

My big takeaway from what you said and how you engaged the committee is that it’s critical that we provide young people with a hands-on experience of making a difference. It’s good for the climate. It’s good for the economy. It’s good for democracy if we make a point of creating space for social inclusion. Thank you very much for your vision.

Our next presenter is Randal Macnair, representing Wildsight.

Welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation, introduce your recommendations, give us some background on them. Then we have up to five minutes to explore it a bit further and ask you some questions.

WILDSIGHT

R. Macnair: Good afternoon, hon. Chair and members of the Finance Committee. Thank you for allowing me to appear before you today. My name is Randal Macnair.

I’m speaking to you from Ktunaxa ɁamakɁis, the unceded traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation, from the town you may know as Fernie.

I’m before you in my position as conservation coordinator for the Elk Valley, for Wildsight, a conservation organization here in the Kootenays. I’m here to advocate for adequate funding for wildlife conservation. Indeed, I submit that B.C. should reposition ourselves as a world leader in wildlife conservation.

While B.C. is known for our natural beauty and biodiversity, the reality that we face is much different. For decades, a lack of investment in fish, wildlife and habitat management — combined with the impacts of resource extraction — has severely reduced the number of species and is jeopardizing the future of B.C.’s natural legacy. Fish, wildlife and their habitat are valued by First Nations and non–First Nations of B.C. alike for existence, use and enjoyment. Further, the opportunity for future generations to see, use and know fish, wildlife and habitat must be preserved. It provides jobs, revenue, viewing opportunities and sustenance.

Our way of life in British Columbia relies on healthy and abundant ecosystems and biodiversity. Given the current trajectory, this way of life will follow the mountain caribou and steelhead into extinction, costing British Columbia jobs, revenue and our very identity. B.C. needs to prioritize fish, wildlife and habitat and have a plan at the provincial and regional levels, supported by long-term, committed funding, or declines will continue to occur until populations blink out.

The climate disasters that have swept our province underscore the need for greater investment in biological diversity. We at Wildsight join the call for funding for Indigenous-led conservation as part of the solution. The province’s Together for Wildlife initiative and the old-growth strategic review echo the call for B.C. to address ecosystem health and biodiversity as an overarching priority across all sectors. Funding in the 2023 budget for co-development of such legislation and policies in conjunction with Indigenous nations would be a key step in advancing the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem health.

Some of you may be aware of the devastating impacts that highway collisions have had on our wildlife populations. Here in the Kootenays, this was brought into sharp focus with the deaths of bighorn sheep in the vicinity of Radium. At least 19 bighorn sheep in a population of 140 were killed by highway collisions in 2021 alone, a significant impact on this iconic species. The Highway 3 corridor, where I live, through the Elk Valley is faced with a similar situation, with elk, bighorn sheep, grizzly bears and more the victims of collisions.

I’m pleased that MOTI is making some progress in the Elk Valley. The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and Ministry of Environment staff have a clear understanding of the gravity of the situation. Recent successes are a beginning, but there’s a desperate need for more investment in wildlife crossings and fencing for the safety of animals and humans alike. Signage, flashing lights and such have been tried, yet it has been demonstrated in jurisdictions throughout the world that crossings and fencing are the only real solution.

[2:20 p.m.]

Something that’s often overlooked in the discussion of wildlife is the societal importance of adequate funding. As someone who has spent half my life living in rural communities in B.C. and half in the two largest urban centres, I’m acutely aware of the rural-urban divide that exists in our province. An oft-repeated example of this divide, by my friends and neighbours, is the lack of funding for wildlife and habitat conservation. My friends and neighbours truly feel that they are voices in a wilderness.

I submit to you that by increasing funding for wildlife and habitat, it will help bridge this divide and help bring British Columbians closer together. There’s an urgent need for permanent, ongoing funding to ensure the future of British Columbia’s wildlife.

We can be proud of many of the advances that British Columbia has made in recent years on social issues. As a province, we can become a leader when it comes to wildlife and habitat conservation.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, members.

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

I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask some follow-up questions.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for your presentation, Randal. I drove up to Osoyoos this weekend and saw a black bear, a grizzly bear and a cub and some bighorn sheep just this weekend, and it can leave a person with the impression that we’re flush with wildlife everywhere. It sounds like that’s a false impression.

My question for you is…. The grizzly bear, in particular, was about — I don’t know — 50 metres away from the road. I know that there has been a lot of money invested in wildlife corridors, historically. I’ve read different views on the degree of success of those wildlife corridors.

I can’t help but wonder if there are other tools. Has anything come up in regards to technologies that can assist us? Tagging and that type of work that can indicate when bears are coming close to particular areas. Is there any hopeful technology coming down the pike that you’re aware of that might be something we can look to as a future solution? Or am I dreaming?

R. Macnair: I’ve turned to some of my colleagues in the scientific community, and we’ve had numerous, multiple — many, many — conversations about what works and what’s best. There have been discussions around tagging and alerting motorists and those sorts of things. I would say the reality is that alerts aren’t working. We’ve had all kinds of alerts. I’ve got great footage of a bunch of deer in front of what’s supposed to be flashing lights, and the lights aren’t flashing.

Technology can improve, yes, but once jurisdictions have put in those separations — crossings, be they under or over, and the fencing — that’s what has made the difference. In British Columbia and Alberta, for some close cases, we’re talking about a 90-plus percent reduction in collisions. It is clearly demonstrated to be the most effective.

Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s a long-term investment. It’s an investment I think that we need to be making as a matter of course when we invest in our transportation infrastructure. When you make those investments as part of the overall picture, it’s a drop in the bucket as far as the construction of highways is concerned. I know, in British Columbia, that we have a lot of work to do on highways in the coming few years.

I’m sure there will be new technologies coming forward, and I will ask my friend and colleague Clayton Lamb, who is literally a world authority on this issue, about what he’s hearing out there. In the latest conversations and the conversations we’ve had over the last decade, it’s separation of transportation and wildlife.

You’re very, very privileged to have seen a grizzly bear, I must say.

B. Bailey: Yeah, I know. Thanks.

R. Macnair: And we’re privileged to be in a place where that can happen.

B. Bailey: I agree.

J. Routledge (Chair): Renee has a question.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Randal, for the presentation and for your attention to this really important matter.

Your suggestion to us is that there be wildlife corridors and wildlife protection — i.e., fencing and crossings put up, in due course, as we modernize all of our transportation system. Did I hear that correctly?

R. Macnair: You did. In the right places.

R. Merrifield: In the right places.

[2:25 p.m.]

R. Macnair: The data that we’ve collected…. For instance, there was an extensive report done in my part of the world, in the Elk Valley, because it’s one of the most significant corridors in North America. We don’t need to put fencing through the entire valley, but there are specific pinch points where that needs to happen.

I’ve been working on this project and involved with it for many years. The ingenuity that we’ve seen come out of some of the MOTI staff that have been on it recently, as far as converting existing infrastructure, building in the infrastructure as a new bridge is built rather than the more expensive overpasses. For grizzly bears — in particular, females — you need those big pieces of infrastructure, but the efficiency that I’ve seen your staff achieve has been really impressive. It’s little pieces, and there’s a whole bunch more to do, but that’s the way it is.

Sorry, I’m taking too much time.

R. Merrifield: No. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we are almost out of time, Randal. Thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for your detailed answers to the questions. Your passion for this is very apparent, and thank you for reminding us that conserving wildlife has significant societal importance.

I’m left with your comment that you put in there towards the end of your presentation, about being a voice in the wilderness. Let’s hope that that means something positive rather than what one often thinks that means. Thank you so much.

R. Macnair: Absolutely. Thank you very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Rob Gay, representing regional district of East Kootenay.

Welcome, Rob. You have five minutes to present your recommendations. Then we have up to five minutes to ask you some questions. Over to you.

REGIONAL DISTRICT OF EAST KOOTENAY

R. Gay: kiʔsuʔk kyukyit, Chair and committee members.

I’m speaking to you today from Cranbrook, which is the homeland and traditional territory of the Ktunaxa Nation.

I appreciate the opportunity to share the views of the regional district of East Kootenay. My agenda has three focus areas. One is to ask you for some money. The second is to suggest a new funding opportunity for government. And third is a thank-you for a new program, recently announced.

As you will see in my supporting materials, provincial funds for public libraries have remained stagnant for many years. Operational and inflationary costs are increasing. Libraries provide a wide variety of services to all people, young and old, across our province. This fall, the RDEK will ask UBCM members to support a resolution asking the province to immediately provide an increase in funding to support our public libraries.

Many communities in our area of B.C. are designated resort municipalities, with tax funds designated to promote tourism. Kootenay Rockies Tourism mandate also includes promoting the area. Beautiful B.C. in our area is getting some bruises. Many of us are concerned that the growing level of uses in our back country is not sustainable without some help. We would encourage the province to critically examine a Crown land camping fee, similar to our neighbours in Alberta. Revenue generation would support upgrading infrastructure, support conservation and assist in enforcement.

For example, we have a trail in the Fernie area that’s about 16 kilometres. Many people have to camp along the way. There are no areas for toilets. There’s no garbage disposal. This is an area that’s heavily used by grizzly bear and other mammals. So it’s just some extra funding to support these…. We’re loving B.C. to death in parts of our area. Alberta, for example, charges $20 for a three-night stay or $30 for a full season of camping. In my view, it’s a very small fee to pay for camping on Crown land, and we would see day use remaining free.

Finally, I’d like to congratulate the government on the new program we have been promoting for some time, a program for local government on climate change. The government has announced the local government climate action program — LGCAP, as it’s becoming known locally.

[2:30 p.m.]

Our focus, I think, in our regional district, will be on clean transportation and clean buildings, to start with, and many other opportunities.

In a nutshell, Chair, that’s my report. I’m willing to take any questions.

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Rob. Now, I know nothing…. This is terrible, but I’m not a camper, so I don’t really understand how all this works.

Establishing the camping fees on Crown land. Currently people can go into Crown land and camp. How, in other provinces, do they actually collect this? Do people have to pre-register? How does that work?

R. Gay: In terms of Crown land camping, there are a few options. One is B.C. Parks. With B.C. Parks, you register online, or sometimes if that park isn’t busy, you could go there. You are charged a fee, and you are provided some services. Often showers, garbage will be available — nice camping sites — usually on site.

In Crown land, though, it’s free to camp. The limitation is that you can stay no more than 14 days in a given spot, so a nice spot by a creek or by a lake. In some cases, the Ministry of Forests has what they call recreation sites, so they provide some tables and whatnot. Many years ago they tried to implement a fee. It was sort of before computers and tags. But nowadays…. I haven’t really looked at all the details of Alberta, but generally now, I think, just with an electronic tag on your vehicle, it could be monitored that way.

MLA, I’m not sure if you hunt or you fish, but when I get my fishing licence…. I go online, and I get my fishing licence. I don’t even have to carry it anymore. The conservation officer, if I can give my name, he or she can look in their computer and see that, in fact, I have it. So it’s a bit of an honour system. But technology, I think, would be the solution to it, as I say.

The other option may be not to charge B.C. residents. In some states…. Montana, for example, I’ve been there. To use their boat launches and whatnot, if you’re from in the state, if you have a state licence plate, it’s free. If you’re out of state, out of country, you pay $5. So not a huge fee, but it does support the maintenance and the use of that infrastructure in the long term.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): That’s great, thanks. That makes sense.

R. Gay: And come camping.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I’ll do that.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I especially love how you are the first presenter automatically telling us you’re here to ask for money, even though everybody is here asking us for money. So we’re very thankful for that. My apologies. I just found that funny.

Like I said, I’m not a camper myself as well. For me, too, I wish to understand and appreciate it fully — comprehend how the additional money you’re asking for can be so supportive for the camping practice. I know in the parks program, there is actually a lot of…. Through the Ministry of Environment, they’ve been trying to allow parks to be more accessible for campers as well.

I’m wondering: what else can we do to actually ensure that we can provide additional support for campers but also, in reflection of many presenters earlier talking about that, so that we can tread on our natural environment lightly so we don’t leave any unnecessary damage to our camping grounds?

R. Gay: One of the big issues with camping…. Now, camping isn’t people going out with a tent. We’re talking about many thousands of dollars for a fancy truck and usually nice trailers and whatnot. It’s called glamping; it’s glamorous camping. But forest fires are a risk that is presented. People do like to have their campfires. Some of the access roads need improvement.

We do not see the money coming to local government. We see the money staying with the province. The province can set their priorities. I think the province knows which areas are used heavily, and they can put that in.

Part of that money would be for public education, certainly. In the Alberta model, they don’t do the whole province. They just do the west slope of the Rockies, where most of their camping is. I haven’t heard much pushback from it. As I say, their rates are quite reasonable for what they get.

[2:35 p.m.]

Our problem, or I guess problem or benefit, is that we’re located only about three hours from Calgary, which is growing to about 1.3 million people. Many of those folks want to recreate in British Columbia. Again, just seeing the overuse of some of these sites, really, it’s not sustainable.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Rob, it looks like we’re out of time. I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for meeting with us and making your recommendations.

I used to be a camper, and I hope to be a camper again. I can identify with what you’re saying about the overuse of sites and loving B.C. to death. There’s a balance between using the wilderness and exploiting it and leaving it in bad shape. Thank you very much.

R. Gay: I appreciate it. Thanks for keeping it on time. I sure enjoy this.

Good luck with your deliberations. Thanks, everybody.

J. Routledge (Chair): Take care. Bye-bye.

Our next presenter is Gary Eisele, representing Community Connections Society of Southeast B.C.

Welcome, Gary. You have five minutes to make your recommendations and explain them. Then we have up to five minutes to ask you further questions. Over to you.

COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS SOCIETY
OF SOUTHEAST B.C.

G. Eisele: Thank you for the opportunity. In light of the limitations with regard to time, I’ve decided to avoid quoting statistics. Everybody listening is probably going to thank me for that as well. Most of the numbers I’d have been referring to would have been in the various newspapers for the past decade, in any case.

Mental health issues have been increasing over the last few years. The isolation imposed around the COVID pandemic certainly exacerbated that problem. Despite positive movement in our society to combat stigma through programs like Bell’s Let’s Talk, we still have accessibility issues around mental health treatment. Adult mental health with the Interior Health Authority here in the Kootenays is limited to those with serious or significant mental health issues. Private counselling or psychotherapy is often too costly for folks without extended health benefits through their workplace.

Last year at this venue, Dr. Lesley Lutes with UBC Okanagan, and Dr. Ormister, Jonathan Morris with CMHA, and myself — we all presented on the need in our communities for accessible, affordable counselling. Dr. Lutes described her program, which had been funded through a benefactor. Her program was remarkably similar to the one we at Community Connections have been running in the past few years.

I can’t speak for other communities, but there are numerous social service agencies throughout the province that can conceivably provide similar services to those provided by UBC Okanagan and ourselves.

In our situation, we are unable to get funding to maintain our program. We’d love to reopen our doors for single-session brief therapy for people in need in the greater Cranbrook area. In the grand scheme of things, we don’t require much money; $100,000 would be sufficient to reopen our doors for a year. For less that that, we served over 400 people in one year. We have trained staff able to provide counselling services to people in every stage of life, regardless of their demographic traits. This will cover advertising facilities and having counsellors on hand.

It looks like I came in under time, so we have extra time for questions. Thank you for the opportunity.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I was just playing with your numbers a bit. You mentioned $100,000 for a year will allow you to open your doors, and that you serve an average of about 400 people.

G. Eisele: Yeah.

H. Yao: So that’s about a $250 per person investment for mental health wellness, according to you.

[2:40 p.m.]

G. Eisele: Yes, but I mean, conceivably, with a bit of advertising, we could increase those numbers. We had open spaces in between those 400 folks.

H. Yao: If you don’t mind, also, while we’re chatting, I would love to ask…. Often there are a lot of presentations around mental health. Obviously, right now the pandemic has played a vital role in regard to the increase in the number of mental health…. From your current experience and observations, which aspect of mental health right now is the greatest challenge being faced by our province or individual region, and what can we do to coordinate and work with them, other than what you have suggested so far?

G. Eisele: Certainly, stress, anxiety and depression increased. When we don’t get outdoors, those issues become problematic. With the pandemic, everybody was at home. I’ve been in this office here for two years, with very limited face to face. Despite being in the business, I still had an effect.

There are other programs, for sure, these men’s shed organizations that are popping up. They certainly work to the benefit of men. Men talk about their issues while they’re busy cutting wood and building bird houses. They don’t talk to guys over a couch.

Realistically, when I said 400 people, we didn’t have $100,000 funding at that time. It was quite a bit less than that.

H. Yao: Thank you.

B. Bailey: Hi. My question is in regard to the model of counselling. I apologize if I’ve misunderstood. My notes say “single-session brief therapy.” Am I to understand: a single session, literally? Of the 400 people you’re referring to, are they attending one session each? Or am I misunderstanding?

G. Eisele: The model is one session each. For most of those 400 people, it was strictly one session. There were a few people that came back several times. They needed to talk about their issues a little bit further to get clarity.

Some of the statistics show that of the people who go to therapy with the intent of seeing the counsellor for ten or 15 sessions or whatever, very often 40 percent drop out after the first session. When you follow up with them a week, a month or a year later and ask them, “Why did you never come back?” they respond with: “I got clarity with my issues, and I realized I had the ability to deal with it.”

The single-session brief therapy is built around that idea. We’ve had quite a bit of success. I’ve had family members refer their children to me, saying: “You need to go see Gary. He’s great.”

B. Bailey: Thank you.

H. Yao: If you don’t mind, I just want to follow up on what my colleague Brenda was talking about earlier. You’re talking about a single session by year, and we had a conversation about some of the challenges faced by individuals. It revolves around a lot of outdoor activity, physical activity, recreation and socialization.

Is there anything maybe we can do in group sessions, where people can actually have an opportunity to utilize a group network to strengthen their mental health and well-being?

G. Eisele: Certainly. Concurrent with the walk-in counselling clinic, I was offering anger management group sessions for men in the community as well — one of the few in the area. We’re not averse to having groups, for sure. We were also mentoring students. They were providing counselling as part of their practicum for their education.

H. Yao: Perfect. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Gary, for your time. We’ll wrap it up here.

[2:45 p.m.]

On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for the work that you do and for addressing an issue that we’re becoming increasingly aware of — the mental health challenges that so many people in our population are experiencing and the impact that it’s having on them, those around them, our society. Thank you for being part of trying to address this.

G. Eisele: Thanks for the opportunity to talk to you all.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Chris Johns, representing school district No. 5, Southeast Kootenay.

Chris, you’ve got five minutes to make your presentation, and then we’ll ask you some questions.

SCHOOL DISTRICT 5,
SOUTHEAST KOOTENAY

C. Johns: Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to the select standing committee. I’m bringing you greetings from the homelands of the Ktunaxa peoples on the eve of National Indigenous Peoples Day.

School district No. 5, Southeast Kootenay, includes the areas of Cranbrook, Fernie, Elkford and Sparwood, along with Jaffray and South Country. We have two specific recommendations that we’re going forward with to the select standing committee.

The first one is focusing on special education funding. You all have a copy of our presentation, and I’m going to highlight a few of the aspects of it. We’re looking at the need for additional funding required to meet the supports and services to increase our 91 percent, six-year graduation completion rate for all SD 5 students.

Specifically, we’re looking at counselling, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, school psychology and speech-language therapy specialists, as we have a recruitment and retention issue that compounds the issue that we have with the funding for the special education groups.

We have some information in the presentation. The BCTF conducted a study and found that 65 percent of actual special education operating expenses were covered by the grants. In SD 5 — we’ve got the information in there — we received $9.6 million. We spent in excess of $16 million, so we were short $6.327 million. In other words, 60.5 percent of all the expenditures were covered by the basic allocation that we have.

We have approximately 900 students that are in that special education group, and we’ve broken down the levels 1, 2 and 3. Part of the conundrum we have is that we’re unable to provide learning assistance to students that require a minor amount of support, because the funding is insufficient.

One of our biggest concerns coming out of the pandemic is the mental illness that we’re facing with respect to our student population. It has not been identified that that funding is going to be ongoing for 2022-2023. We urgently urge the government to put that funding in place so we can work with those students and address those issues that come out of the pandemic.

The second recommendation has to do with school life-cycle funding. One of our concerns continues to be the fact that we have schools that are badly in need of ongoing maintenance and repairs and significant replacement. The learning environment for students and the health and safety of our employees suffers as a result of our aging facilities.

There is the facility condition index that we’ve included in there for your information as to how they are calculated across the province. Some significant building systems are at the end of their life cycle. Parts may no longer be in stock or exceedingly difficult to obtain, That elevates the risk of failure of some of our systems.

In SD 5, 15 of the 17 schools fall within this unacceptable range, and the average age of our facilities is 49.4 years. Mount Baker, at the other end of the average, is 72 years of age. It was opened in April, 1951. The building repair costs become more and more significant in trying to prolong the life of these buildings.

[2:50 p.m.]

For example, we need a new elevator in the building, $400,000. A dust collection system for the tech ed shops — that’s another $500,000. Fire safety system upgrades, $1½ million, and that’s after we’ve been lobbying to get the school replaced for the last 20 years. Three years ago we asked for specific funding from the then Minister of Education, Mr. Fleming, of $382,000 for repairs to the roof over the band and music rooms. Maintenance is a shortsighted solution to a long-term problem.

On a positive note, we have been approved to submit a business case for a new Fernie middle school. However, this has been deferred, now, until 2023.

The Southeast Kootenay school district requires immediate attention for funding of new schools and also for the replacement of a warrior school that is 72 years old, way past its best before date.

Thank you for your time.

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

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

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Chris. I wanted to clarify two things here. Did you say that it’s a 91 percent six-year graduation completion rate? I’m not completely sure I understand that.

Then I’m curious. If there was a $6 million shortfall in special ed funding, how did you fund that?

C. Johns: The $6 million came out of general operating. That’s why we had to find the money to do that work.

The other, our graduation rate…. Ninety-one percent is our six-year graduation rate for all SD 5 students.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. I just have a quick question based upon a comment you made earlier. You mentioned something about….

A student with — I won’t use the term “minor” — less significant mental health concerns often gets left behind because of a lack of funding. Funding is going straight to…. I assume the funding is going to be supporting more obvious and more individual requests, direct intervention for support in a learning environment. Am I making this correct? Is that what I heard?

C. Johns: I’m not quite sure that I heard your whole question. I was talking about the provision for mental illness. Is that what you’re talking about?

H. Yao: I think, based upon your write-up…. “We are unable to provide learning assistants to students that require a minor amount of support due to this lack of funding. We are already significantly supplementing the special education provided for our students with the highest needs.”

C. Johns: Yes. Now I understand what you’re getting at here.

H. Yao: I do apologize. I should be more clear about that.

Does that mean you are observing a student with minor needs and now it’s slowly progressing into high needs due to the lack of early intervention?

C. Johns: Yes. Basically, we funnel off over $6 million. That’s the difference between what we were funded and then what we had to use.

There has to be a limit to what you can do in terms of other kids. We call them the “grey area kids,” the kids that will need a couple of weeks of tutorial work on math or language arts or that kind of thing. They get left behind in terms of having their specific learning needs, when we’ve already dipped into over $6 million of our basic operating.

H. Yao: When you’re talking about students in this grey area, I assume students…. Are they the ones with different diagnoses, or are they just simply showing different signs of needs that require early intervention?

C. Johns: Correct. They require early intervention. In some cases, when you…. As a former teacher myself, as soon as you are able to address those issues, the bulk of the other issues go by the side.

J. Routledge (Chair): Do we have other questions from the committee?

Well, Chris, it looks like you’ve given us a very full, complete explanation of your recommendations. There are no further questions.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank you for taking the time to make this presentation. We are now — what? — four weeks into hearings. The problem that you’re identifying is not new. Others in other parts of the province have identified the same thing, which needs to be addressed. Thank you for bringing it to our attention so we can grapple with how we can address it.

C. Johns: Thanks very much for the opportunity.

[2:55 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Michelle Bennett, representing CUPE Kootenay district council.

Hi, Michelle. Go ahead. You’ve got five minutes to make your presentation.

CUPE KOOTENAY DISTRICT COUNCIL

M. Bennett: Good afternoon. My name is Michelle Bennett. I’m the president of CUPE Kootenay district council. I’m also the president of CUPE Local 748.

Our district council represents the members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the East and West Kootenays. Our members provide high-quality public services in local governments, libraries, transportation, public schools, child care, colleges, public safety and community social services.

There is a growing connectivity gap between rural and remote communities and the more urban centres due to poor regional access to high-speed Internet and reliable cell phone service. This gap has been widened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which accelerated the movement of many required public services to online operation.

While this can have an effect of making such services more available to some communities, they are less available or not accessible to all those without access to high-speed Internet. A lack of reliable and affordable high-speed Internet is an issue through rural B.C. and especially in the Kootenays.

B.C. is also seeing a growing number of remote employment opportunities that hinge on access to high-speed Internet and reliable cell service. Those economic opportunities could be more equitably shared around the province if there was the technological infrastructure to support them in every community. A lack of access to high-speed Internet means decreased social, educational and economic opportunities for those who live in rural and remote British Columbia. However, the province has the means to prevent the digital divide from growing.

Unreliable cell phone coverage in rural and remote communities is also a significant safety concern, particularly for those who are travelling in isolated parts of our province. This is especially true during the winter months, where conditions are often worse in the areas of our province with the least access to reliable cell phone coverage.

The first of our three recommendations today is that you ensure that rural and remote communities have sufficient access to high-speed Internet and the cell phone connectivity to fully participate in the modern social and economic life of our province.

Public transportation in the Kootenays, particularly transportation between communities, runs too infrequently to be reliable for working people. In most rural parts of British Columbia, people must travel between communities to access the employment, education and health care they require.

With the growing cost of fuel as well as the increased desire to reduce personal-use-vehicle trips to help address the effects of climate change, many would enthusiastically make greater use of public transportation if available and reliable. However, this is simply not an option when service within the B.C. communities is not frequent enough to provide for these trips as required.

If B.C. is going to make the shift away from private vehicles and make more efficient use of our transportation network, it must make public transit reliable and convenient for everyone, including those who live in smaller and more rural communities.

The province can further our progress towards meeting CO₂ emission targets by investing in the electrification of rural public transit infrastructure. The quality and reliability of electric buses are increasing at an incredible rate.

We have an excellent opportunity in British Columbia to not only increase the number of buses moving between rural communities but to also ensure that we make an investment, using technology, which will be sustainable for the climate in the long term. This is why we recommend that you invest in increased public transit services for rural communities and electrify rural transit systems.

[3:00 p.m.]

A lack of affordable housing is not just a problem in the Lower Mainland. The housing prices are felt deeply in smaller communities, and this is especially true in the Kootenays. Working people, like our members, are struggling to find adequate housing that they can afford to rent, and purchasing a home is simply beyond possibility for many.

The cost of purchasing a house and lack of rental units has also put extreme pressure on rents, which continue to inflate at a greater rate than local wages can address. This means that many working people are simply not able to keep up with the out-of-control rise in housing costs and are being pushed out of their existing, often meagre, housing.

Without significant government action and investment, there is no reason to believe that this trend will change. For more than a decade, various levels of government have attempted to tinker with the housing market in fruitless efforts to address the lack of affordable housing. It’s time to realize that there is no market-based solution to the housing crisis gripping this province. The government of British Columbia must take bold action to re-imagine the future of housing for the growing number of citizens who will never own their homes.

There are practical solutions that the province can afford — chiefly, building high-quality, non-market housing that is self-financed through the rents of occupants. CUPE members, like other working people, are struggling to make ends meet, and increasingly, this means that they are precariously housed. The response to this crisis must be on a scale that matches the severity of the problem.

The situation calls on the government to act boldly and swiftly to build housing that the people of this province desperately need. We recommend that the 2023 provincial budget fund and build public, non-market housing through the creation of a Crown corporation or similar entity, with a mandate and the resources required to address the scale of British Columbia’s housing crisis.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

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

Henry, did you have your hand up?

H. Yao: Yes.

J. Routledge (Chair): And then Renee.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Michelle, for your presentation. I couldn’t agree with you more that we need to find a way to gap the connectivity divide between urban and rural, as there are many talented individuals for education to services we could benefit from.

I know that our government recently made an announcement, around March, about a federal-provincial joint funding agreement that will invest $830 million for connectivity. I’m assuming you’re doing this presentation because you see some shortfall within the announcement. Is there anything we can do to improve upon our suggested investment so that we can actually better serve our rural counterparts in British Columbia?

M. Bennett: Well, I think one of the big things is you need to talk to the people and find out what the problem is here, because a lot of times we feel like we’re beyond Hope.

H. Yao: Absolutely. I can definitely feel your challenge and frustration too, and that’s one reason why we are doing our best to ensure that we are doing the proper investment in the connectivity for rural areas too.

M. Bennett: I really appreciate that.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Michelle, for the presentation and for your passion around these topics.

My question is around your second recommendation on better public transit. My question is around whether or not that’s inside of the community or between rural communities. Which are you looking for, for better transit?

M. Bennett: Do you know what? I think it’s both. I know that in Nelson, where I live, they don’t have buses on Sundays anymore, and that’s when a lot of the seniors go to do their groceries or go visit or whatever, and they’re stuck at home now. So that’s adding to the problem.

Also, between Nelson, Castlegar and Trail, there’s a bus, which would be wonderful. My daughter did go to Selkirk College and she wanted to take the bus, but she couldn’t because the times…. She’d have to leave one of her classes right in the middle in order to catch a ride home. It just doesn’t work.

Again, you need to talk to the people who it actually affects. Go to Selkirk and say: “Okay, if we’re going to have a bus, what’s the earliest time we come? What’s the latest time we come?”

R. Merrifield: Excellent. Thank you so much. That helps a lot.

J. Routledge (Chair): Any other questions?

Well, thank you, Michelle. I think your presentation has been very clear, very thorough, so we have no further questions for clarification. We want to thank you for your time.

I guess I’d just leave you with the thought that in some ways, the province is unified by its challenges. A lot of what you’ve highlighted for us is felt in other places in the province as well. So thank you for being part of that.

M. Bennett: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

J. Routledge (Chair): I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3:05 p.m.