The committee met at 11:30 a.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

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

I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, that we’re meeting today in Terrace, which is located on the territory of the Tsimshian peoples.

This takes on special significance today, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, a day to recognize and celebrate the cultures and contributions of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples in Canada. I hope all British Columbians will take some time today and every day to listen and learn, reflect and commit to reconciliation and encourage others to do the same.

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

Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. British Columbians can share their views by making written comments or by filling out the online survey. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is 3 p.m. on Friday, June 24, 2022.

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

For today’s meeting, all presenters will be making individual presentations. Each presenter has five minutes for their presentation, followed by up to five minutes for questions from committee members. To assist presenters, there is a timer here which will count down five minutes, in green, for your presentation time. For the question period, the timer will then count up to five minutes in red.

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

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

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

R. Merrifield: Hi. Renee Merrifield, MLA, Kelowna-Mission.

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

H. Sandhu: Hi, everyone. Harwinder Sandhu, MLA for Vernon-Monashee. As a former resident of Terrace, I’m happy to be back.

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

B. Stewart: My name is Ben Stewart. I represent Kelowna West.

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

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

We’ll now ask our first presenter, Alison Thompson, with the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, to start off with our first presentation.

Budget Consultation Presentations

CANADIAN GEOTHERMAL
ENERGY ASSOCIATION

A. Thompson: Bonjour. Hello. My name is Alison Thompson, and I am a co-founder and chair of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, CanGEA.

I am delighted to be presenting today, on National Indigenous Peoples Day, in Terrace. It’s home to CanGEA member Kitselas Geothermal’s fuel for reconciliation geothermal project.

I am joined by my colleague Dr. David Try, a PhD economist and also the Kitselas First Nation’s senior treaty negotiator. He’ll be on hand with me today for the Q and A after my remarks.

CanGEA would like to elaborate on three recommendations outlined in our written submission.

First, CleanBC can further its objective to reduce greenhouse gases by making use of geothermal district heating systems to complement B.C. Hydro’s demand-side management programs. Second, the Finance Committee must consider allocating CleanBC funding for no-carbon geothermal district heating customer connections for residential, community, commercial and industrial buildings. Third, the Finance Committee should prioritize levelling the playing field for the no-carbon geothermal heating industry by providing the same fiscal and regulatory support shown to its low-carbon hydrogen and natural gas–based counterparts.

Recommendation No. 1. CanGEA believes that the narrow focus on electrification is not necessarily the most effective course of action for the province to meet its energy goals. In many regions of the province — and, we believe, right here in Terrace — geothermal energy is a lower-cost and higher-reliability option than electricity for heating.

[11:35 a.m.]

The basis of our proposal is that the government provide funding to have B.C. Hydro include geothermal district heating solutions to complement its demand-side measures to reduce electricity demand in the province. Presently, B.C. Hydro focuses on voluntary load curtailment as a demand-side measure to encourage its large commercial and industrial customers to reduce peak electricity demand.

Not only will the load curtailment option reduce GDP for the province and industrial output, but it does not consider the detrimental trickle-down effects it will have on employees, who make up the local economy. Instead, load curtailments could be avoided by implementing geothermal instead of electric heating solutions, where geothermal resources exist.

We believe that by working together…. Geothermal heating options would assist B.C. Hydro’s demand-side management, allowing heating customers to use geothermal heat, where available, thus freeing up electricity for non-heating customers. We’ve spoken to B.C. Hydro about this, and while they seem enthusiastic, they have no clear mandate to proceed.

Recommendation No. 2. The diversification of the province’s heating sources is one of the most effective, efficient and economical methods to decarbonize and curb the impending threats of greenhouse gas emissions. However, the significant capital and installation costs and associated expenses required to convert existing emissions-intensive heating systems to no-carbon district heating connections impede families, communities, businesses and industries from making these essential changes without sufficient financial support from the government. These shortcomings became painfully apparent during the scoping out of the village of Valemount’s geothermal district heating system.

CanGEA respectfully submits that a government incentive for geothermal district heating projects, offered through CleanBC, is required to support the transition to no-carbon heating solutions. The financial burdens of converting traditional heating systems to a no-carbon district energy system necessitate bold government action to support and accelerate these efforts.

These incentives will drastically reduce emissions associated with heating, create sustainable jobs locally and facilitate the skills transfer from the oil and gas industry necessary to complement the government’s net-zero carbon economy ambitions. Incentives of this nature align with the village of Valemount’s and other municipal government’s goals to transition to no-carbon heating solutions.

Recommendation No. 3. CanGEA applauds the B.C. government’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the province through fiscal and regulatory incentives for low-carbon energy solutions. However, the geothermal heating industry faces significant barriers to accessing these essential government supports compared to renewable natural gas, hydrogen and electric heating incentives.

For example, last year’s amendments to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Regulation encourages the development of low-carbon energy solutions but inadvertently tilts support in favour of the aforementioned low-carbon energy solutions over giving support to renewable no-carbon solutions like geothermal energy. Respectfully, there is no rational explanation for excluding no-carbon geothermal heat from government support aimed at facilitating a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions when they are available to other carbon-reducing initiatives.

If the government is serious about providing fiscal and regulatory support to demonstrate its commitment to decarbonization, then why isn’t it extending identical support to no-carbon geothermal heat to ensure fair, consistent and effective methods to advance the government’s net-zero objective and to unlock this province’s tremendous geothermal energy potential?

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

B. Bailey: Thank you very much for your presentation, Alison. Very interesting. I appreciated reading your submission.

You mentioned a couple of times an example of the city of Valemount. I think you were using it as an example showing us why government involvement is necessary. I’m wondering if you could just tell me a little bit more about that, please.

A. Thompson: Sure. The village of Valemount is actually the most polluted community in all of B.C., not through heavy industry but through the geographic nature of its three mountain ranges. They experience temperature inversions, which actually keep the wood smoke in.

Why are they on wood, you’d ask, for energy? Because of the B.C. Hydro electricity line. It’s a radial line coming out of the Kamloops area. It basically ends at Valemount. So there’s very little electricity left on the line by the time it gets to Valemount. It’s an unreliable area of the province. So they instead use wood smoke. They actually truck in propane, both from Alberta and from other parts of B.C., because there’s no natural gas.

They have hot springs, and they have geothermal energy. To connect everybody, though, there’s going to be a conversion.

There are incentives for wood stove replacements or for going to heat pumps. That just exacerbates the problem of using more electricity on a very unreliable line to begin with.

[11:40 a.m.]

This is nothing new. As you probably read in the submission, just even during the pandemic alone, during COVID, and in the ten years preceding…. There are 300 district heating systems in Europe. Anyone who’s travelled there knows that that’s not a volcano in every community. We don’t need volcanos to do geothermal energy. We just need a will and a level playing field for the incentives.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation, Alison. Coming from Surrey, I understand the district energy system that they built in the downtown core that’s there. So my question to you is: are there areas of the province that can’t get into a district energy system because of the climate?

A. Thompson: I’m going to speak on behalf of the geothermal resources industry. Certainly, because we’re a resource, it’s better in some places and not as good in others.

I think you get a really big bang for the buck where you have large populations. But what you need, though, is space, and better yet if you have an industrial customer. So the best match to get our industry going, geothermal energy, is to find one or two large industrial customers where you can help either augment or completely replace their natural gas or fossil fuel usage. That’s typically the highest or best use of the heat.

Any heat coming off of that, what we would call waste heat, is basically free. You could then distribute it to things like hospitals or schools. But getting into individual customer connections — that becomes the costly endeavour.

So I think that the tipping point is to allow us to develop in conjunction with an industrial or commercial customer. Let’s get them off natural gas, and then after that any waste heat, if people had customer connections grants like they do for the other energies, they could work one-on-one.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I was actually very fascinated by reading a lot of the information you provided. I’m just wondering: in regard to tapping into British Columbia’s geothermal potential, are we still at infancy stage?

A. Thompson: Absolutely. Of all the provinces and territories in our country, Yukon and B.C. have the best or what I would call world-class resources. You have hot springs exceeding 80 degrees Celsius. For those of you drinking tea or coffee right now — I see many of you are — that’s kind of under 20, 30 degrees Celsius. We have more than double that amount physically coming up out of the earth in abundance.

What we don’t have, really, are mandates or policies to actually use that energy. Our society grew up with coal and natural gas — certainly, hydro. We’re kind of stuck on doing the same old, same old. Now when we have to switch over to something that’s local, that kind of impetus isn’t there. Many people don’t even realize you can use geothermal for heat.

I liken it to your barbecue. When you light your barbecue, you actually end up with far more heat from your propane than you need to cook your food. That’s such a wasteful use of an energy. That’s the same thing that happens in your house with your furnace, or industrial operations. Having geothermal energy, because it’s abundant, it’s free, and it’s non-emitting, you can be wasteful with it and deliver a higher temperature, but there’s no environmental impact.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we’re almost out of time. We have time for maybe one quick question and one quick answer.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I’m a big believer in geothermal. I have installed many a system. Love the district energy systems.

Would this require a full overhaul of what we currently do, or are there specific pieces of legislation that we would have to do like the one that you’ve exemplified in recommendation 3?

A. Thompson: I love this. I’m a chemical engineer, not a policy analyst, but in my read of policy, I call it “the comma.” Literally, most laws are written, and we’re just excluded. They might say: “Electric vehicles, biomass, renewable natural gas” — comma — “geothermal.” We don’t need anything really specific. We just need to be included. We need to be at the table.

R. Merrifield: Perfect. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, we are out of time, Alison, but thank you so much for coming and presenting to us and introducing us to something that, as you say, has been a comma.

I myself have wondered why we’re not talking more about geothermal in terms of CleanBC and where we can be going. I don’t think I have the answers yet, but I have some of the questions, and speaking for myself, you’ve given me incentive to do some more personal research.

A. Thompson: Great. Thank you so much.

[11:45 a.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenters are Gurjeet Parhar and Karla Lindstrom representing Kalum Community School Society.

Welcome. You have five minutes to make your presentation. We’ll have a timer set up to help you count down the five minutes. Then it will start counting up in red, which is the question-and-answer period. You have a total of ten minutes. Without any further ado, over to you.

KALUM COMMUNITY SCHOOL SOCIETY

K. Lindstrom: My name is Karla Lindstrom.

I live, work and play on the traditional Tsimshian territory of the Kitsumkalum and Kitselas people.

I am a board of director for the Kalum Community School Society, and sitting with me is Gurjeet Parhar, who is the program coordinator for KCSS. Our presentation is quite simple, not technical at all. We’re here to state, basically, that KCSS is a member of the universal healthy school food coalition and that we support the B.C. chapter’s recommendations that have come before this committee today.

Our service area for Kalum Community School Society is Terrace, Kitsumkalum, Kitselas, Gitlaxt’aamiks, Gitwinksihlkw, Laxgalts’ap, Gingolx, Kitwanga, Stewart, Iskut, Dease Lake, Telegraph Creek. The Indigenous nations that we serve out into their communities are Tsimshian, Nisg̱a’a, Gitxsan and Tahltan.

The programs and services we offer at KCSS are the Good Food Box, a food share program, farmers market coupon program, fruit registry, community gardens. There are some cooking programs. We do Food Skills for Families, basic chef skills, harvesting and preserving. Our school’s specific programs are the school soup program, food share and farm to schools partnerships.

At one point, KCSS actually operated under LINK funding, as well, and we provided the school food programs in a few of the schools in the Terrace area — Parkside, Suwilaawks and Cassie Hall schools.

In an average school year, KCSS supports three schools and approximately 300 children per week through our school food programs, and 1,200 pounds of fruit, vegetables, legumes and pastries are distributed per year.

We do have an additional recommendation for nutritious food programs for all students — breakfast and lunch. We would like to see it in more than just the three schools. What that does is decreases the stigma if it’s open for all students in the school. We have actually experienced where some students…. Well, there were altercations between students because kids were being made fun of for accessing the programs. If it’s open to all students, that stigma is gone.

It decreases the hunger in our school system and decreases secondary medical, cognitive and psychological issues that come up for children caused by poor nutrition. It increases each child’s ability to focus, learn and retain the information they’re learning in class. It increases their energy, and it increases a child’s knowledge of healthy nutrition for positive, lifelong health. Then it carries into future generations as well.

Obviously, our recommendation is for this committee to approve funding for healthy food programs in schools in the budget of 2023. That’s our presentation.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you so much, and we have questions.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. Of course your presentation echoes many presenters we had earlier. I will ask a fairly quick question.

Do you propose the funding to support breakfast or lunch, or are you talking about both meals? Will your program also be including teaching kids how to prepare their own food through the culturally appropriate method as well?

[11:50 a.m.]

K. Lindstrom: Yeah. We do. We would like to see breakfast and lunch in the school systems. I mean, obviously, if we had to choose, breakfast would be the one we choose.

We already do have programs that go in and teach the life skills around not just preparing food but also around harvesting and preserving foods in our area. We do that for families, and we also do that in the school system.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. I appreciate all the statistics that you brought forward, just in terms of learning outcomes when children are fed. I would agree wholeheartedly.

On your recommendation of approving food programs, is there any order of magnitude of what it would cost just for your area or your school society?

G. Parhar: Not at this point, because the food cost is going very…. Every single day that you go to the grocery store, the prices are up. So how could…?

H. Sandhu: Thank you to the presenters.

Good to see you, Gurjeet.

Just one question. I think I might have missed it. Is there a proposed amount for funding? Will there be a written submission presented to us when we’re doing deliberations? Then we can look back.

The other question is: is there any existing funding that’s available to the program?

K. Lindstrom: At this point, there is the LINK funding that is distributed through the schools now. It’s not our organization, but that does still exist. I don’t think it happens to the same extent that it used to, but I don’t have the complete facts on what the total amount they receive or anything is at this point. I do know that when we had it, the funding was not increased from year to year to account for the cost of living going up or anything like that. I would suspect that it’s similar.

We don’t, at this point, have a proposed budget to put forward. I think we’re really just here to express the need. Whether it’s our society that receives the money or the schools receive the money — whatever that looks like — the need is there for the food.

Being out here in the northwest, we try to support our local farmers. Of course, the food is much healthier when it’s coming from the farm to the table than it is when it’s shipped up. It retains a lot more of its nutrition that way, being fresh. We do support local, and we connect with people in community. Gurjeet goes out, and she has built relationships. She meets people who have fruit trees in their yards and gets them signed into a fruit registry. She works very hard to find every avenue within our community to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to our children.

Then, of course, the food-share program that Agatha had started several years ago continues, with KCSS and Gurjeet and her team taking care of that as well — going into our local stores and getting the foods and bringing it out to community, as well as into the schools, so that children and families can benefit from that instead of it all just going into the garbage.

To answer your question, no, we don’t have a budget. If the opportunity arose, we could put one together.

H. Sandhu: I was wondering if it was possible to do the written submission. However, we’ve taken some notes. Thank you so much. It’s incredible what you are doing.

B. Stewart: You mentioned a long list of communities. When you started there, and you went all the way to Telegraph Creek, Dease Lake and Stewart, I know the route. I did live in Kitimat for a while. The reason I’m just wondering is: have you been delivering — KCSS? Has that been part of the territory that you’ve tried to cover, or have you done a small, once-off type of program?

G. Parhar: We went there to deliver it. Now we have the access to transport to there, and we have built up the community relationship with them and work with those coordinators. We also went ourselves to do it, too.

[11:55 a.m.]

B. Stewart: We’ve had this presentation from Victoria and Vancouver, places where transportation could really be in the back of a pickup or something like that. Up here, we know the difference. I guess the real question is…. We do need to know, if there were the resources, that you could actually get it to those communities. The ones you mentioned — I know how rural and remote they are.

K. Lindstrom: Yeah. Actually, now that Gurjeet has made those relationships up there and they’ve done deliveries for the Good Food Box and food share, those communities are expanding into other communities up there, like Good Hope Lake. The communities up there….

You know, we pay a lot for groceries. They’re paying at least twice as much as what we’re paying. For us to be able to do that is only because the society is looking for funding and writing grants. Second Harvest was a grant that we had secured for that to be able to happen.

B. Stewart: Thank you for sharing that with us.

K. Lindstrom: Yeah. So really just looking and seeing what’s available to support all the communities.

G. Parhar: We got potatoes from Second Harvest.

K. Lindstrom: Oh yeah. Eighteen pallets of potatoes.

G. Parhar: Some 45,000 pounds of potatoes were gone within 1½ days. They came in on Tuesday afternoon and were gone on Wednesday afternoon — 45,000 pounds.

K. Lindstrom: So the need is here.

G. Parhar: Then in three weeks, there is another shipment coming for 20 pallets.

J. Routledge (Chair): We’ve got other people who wanted to ask questions. Unfortunately they’re not going to have time, but this is a discussion to be continued, on many fronts.

I want to wrap up this part of our morning by thanking you for inspiring us in the way you have, and thank you for really putting a deeper meaning of “community” in a community school. There are other groups around the province that have also talked to us about a food program in schools. Because of our renewed interest in food security, it’s very timely to be thinking about this and how to produce food locally and have local access. Thank you so much for adding your voices to this.

Our next presenter is Manon Joice, who is representing the Northern First Nations Alliance health and wellness committee.

Welcome, Manon. You have five minutes to make your presentation, and then we’re conscious of the time that’s allotted to you for questions and answers.

NORTHERN FIRST NATIONS ALLIANCE
HEALTH AND WELLNESS COMMITTEE

M. Joice: Thank you so much, Janet. Thank you so much for all of you who have taken the time out of your day to come and visit with us and to continue with what I know are truly your heartfelt and good works.

I am here on behalf of the Northern First Nations Alliance, and I am sitting here with my good friends who sit on that committee, including Mr. Del Good, Ms. Geneva Mason, Ms. Jerry Inkster and Ms. Charlene Webb. The Northern First Nations Alliance is an alliance of Indigenous nations that have come together to focus on the unique challenges and opportunities faced by Indigenous peoples in northwest B.C. The Northern First Nations Alliance has representation from four First Nations, including the Gitxsan, Haisla, Nisg̱a’a and the Tsimshian, representing nine Indigenous communities.

What I wanted to say is that there is no better time for us to be meeting than today — Indigenous Day. We need to keep this in mind today. This is a heartfelt presentation. We are dealing with people’s lives, as we try to deal with an opioid crisis, ongoing abuse of alcohol. You have visited Terrace, and you undoubtably see what is happening on our streets and what is happening to the finest of people, who deserve lands-based healing. We can do that today. We can end the struggle of motherless daughters and fatherless sons by addressing a crisis that was first initiated and spoken about more than six years ago.

[12:00 p.m.]

The first recommendation is that the provincial government allocate funding from your 2023 budget to put towards the development and capital costs for an Indigenous detox, health and wellness centre in northwest B.C. I am not asking for one centre; I’m asking for two. My background is in population health and nursing. This is a two-tier system to truly address opioid use and other substance abuse.

The first facility will promise to help 438 people to obtain care through a two-week intensive detox treatment, lands-based, within the Kitselas territory. The second facility will provide the ongoing care for continued in-patient support in a 45-day program which offers care to an additional 97 persons annually — not to mention that the family-based, lands-based treatment facility will also be able to provide ongoing out-patient care for our families in a way that is dignified and that is working.

We respectfully ask that you support the First Nations Health Authority — which, too, agrees that lands-based healing is the way to move forward in terms of mitigating and managing what is a crisis that is now beyond control.

We know that in August of 2020, the members of the Northern First Nations Alliance had signed a memorandum. Now, in recommendation 2, we ask that the provincial government, within their budget, not only allocate funding for these facilities but also for ongoing funding, for the continued operations, maintenance and human resources required to support an Indigenous detox and wellness centre in northwest B.C. Please keep in mind that this centre may also be open to non-Indigenous persons. It will have the ability to help 438 people a year.

We also ask that the third recommendation be to immediately address the public health emergency that was declared on April 14, 2016. As stated by Dr. Bonnie Henry: “The COVID-19 pandemic has affected every aspect of our society and has further exacerbated and highlighted the inequities Indigenous communities continue to face in the health care system. The year-over-year increase in overdose deaths amongst First Nations men, women and young people is heartbreaking and speaks to the need for a community approach, led by First Nations, in collaboration with our provincial system….”

I am excited today because I believe you wish to collaborate, and I believe you wish to help address this situation in a manner that will promise to work.

I thank you, and I welcome any questions you may have on behalf of our esteemed committee.

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

Yes, there are questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): I feel your emotion in talking about this. In terms of this specific ask, it’s for funding for the capital for two projects — for 438 people in the two-week program. Then it’s the follow-up support, the in-patient 45-day program.

Are these programs something…? It sounds like they’ve been designed. Are these new programs? Is this a new approach? I understand the land-based piece of it.

M. Joice: Okay, perfect. The role that I hold with this group is that I am actually the feasibility study writer, and I am the person who is doing an exercise that is called community asset-mapping. It is a little bit different.

What is happening with this initiative is that we are taking a look at the community assets which currently exist throughout the northwest, so that we can partner with our external stakeholders, as well as the internal stakeholders, and that we’re able to maximize those opportunities of care. That way, we’re able to really maximize the dollars in use. It’s a little bit unique. It is not working in a silo. It is working with our stakeholders and our allied health care providers.

M. Starchuk: Thank you for your presentation. The passion that you have here is not unnoticed in any way, shape or form, and we are talking about a subject that is near and dear to everybody that’s in this room.

My question is: it sounds like it’s a unique system, but is it based on something elsewhere in the country?

[12:05 p.m.]

M. Joice: It’s a very, very good question. I’ve had the opportunity to go and research an area that is called the Sarah Steele centre. That’s found in Whitehorse, Yukon. It’s a three-tier system up there. It is not completely lands-based. It is not lands-based, but the internal workings of it are very good.

We also have a number of other facilities that we’re able to go and draw upon. However, we have to keep in mind, in terms of the budget…. Whenever I take a look at the Sarah Steele centre…. In 2016, they invested $21 million into that one facility.

It’s not truly working, but it was the idea of having a three-tier system, meaning that you would have immediate detox within the first level. The second level would have been your 45-day, stay-in counselling for in-patient. Then the third level was your out-patient care for things like family care and services and ongoing counselling. We know that the model exists. The issue is that it’s not truly lands-based.

The other good news is…. Those two facilities, which I’m taking a look at now…. The budget for both of those…. To be acquired and/or built, we are looking at between $20 million and $25 million, and that includes operation costs for the first year.

B. Bailey: My question was going to be in regards to the cost, which you have just addressed. So I’ll just elaborate on that a little bit.

First of all, thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for being here.

I wonder if you’ve made an estimate on what the operational costs, annually, might be after that first $20 million to $25 million.

M. Joice: That is a very, very good question. We’re looking at less than $3 million a year, and that would be for both facilities. There would be shared staffing amongst both facilities. I am projecting a needed staff of between 25 and 30 persons.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much for the presentation. Thank you for being here today. I love that you’re coming with this shovel-ready aspect of the project and for such a need.

My question is actually on the tiered system and tiered approach. Do you see this as being voluntary? How do you see this evolving forward? Have you ever costed out that third tier as well, and would you know what that looks like?

M. Joice: The cost of the third tier would actually be shared with our external stakeholders and counsellors within the area, which I’m pretty sure we would be able to go and draw upon, including those internal ones that are now available throughout each one of the health centres that are found in each one of the nations. We’re going to be maximizing those opportunities. So whenever I talk about the operating costs, I am taking into consideration those costs and support.

I’m trying to remember the first part of your question, Renee.

R. Merrifield: I think you’ve answered it.

M. Joice: Was that all of it? Okay.

R. Merrifield: Yeah. It was just if you’ve considered the third tier. Oh, the involuntary and voluntary.

M. Joice: Yeah. That is one of the unique principles that I want to draw upon with the Whitehorse centre. People can self-admit.

We are going to remove the barrier of a 16-page application form for people who are trying to go through a detox. People will be able to self-admit. So we’re going to be able to have a process in place in order to eliminate that particular barrier.

I wanted to share with you folks. We have options. We have an option to purchase facilities which are near turnkey, options to purchase facilities which would need extensive renos and, third, to build. My recommendation is to find those turnkey facilities — I believe we have two outstanding ones in the area — so that we can actually begin, not shovels in the ground, opening doors before 2023.

I will share with you that my feasibility study will be done by the end of October. Now, at this point, we have all of the external community assets marked. I’m just looking to continue with the studies for internal assets. So at the end of October 2022.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Manon. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for not being overwhelmed by what seems to be an overwhelming crisis that touches us all in this province. Your sense of hope and your sense of belief are really inspiring.

Thank you for believing that we want to work with you on this and that this is something that we can do together.

M. Joice: Absolutely. Thank you, folks. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

J. Routledge (Chair): You too.

[12:10 p.m.]

A Voice: Happy first Indigenous Peoples Day.

J. Routledge (Chair): Yes, and happy to you.

M. Joice: Have a good day. God bless y’all.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Floyd Wickie, representing Eliza’s Village.

Welcome, Floyd. You probably, by this point, have seen the drill. You have five minutes, in green, to make your presentation and then five minutes counting up in red for questions and answers.

Whenever you’re ready.

ELIZA’S VILLAGE

F. Wickie: Thank you for letting me appear. As you all know, timing is everything. One of the things that happened to me this morning is I got one of these messages that said: “Whatever you do today, do it with the confidence of a four-year-old that’s wearing his favourite superhero T-shirt.” I didn’t have time to go get the T-shirt, and I didn’t have a time machine to take me back then, but we’re going to give this a shot, here, okay?

Eliza’s Village is a multifaceted housing facility that we want to put in the community of Thornhill. Now, Thornhill is adjacent to the city of Terrace. It’s just across the river on the east side — population of around 4,500 people. It is actually governed through the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine. It is electoral area E, and it is a septic tank community. Most of the septic tanks were put in around the ’70s and ’80s, and a majority of them are starting to fail.

We had our first meeting with the public, when we had public meetings, in Thornhill, and that was in February of 2015. Since then, we’ve had about 12 or 13 public meetings, getting input from the public. We’ve also had meetings out at the Gitaus First Nations, which is Kitselas, and on Kulspai, which is First Nations in Thornhill itself. We’ve met with Northern Health, First Nations Health Authority, Pacific Northwest Division of Family Practice, CMHC, B.C. Housing and different faculties within UBC, UNBC and Simon Fraser.

From the public, we learned that this should be financially sustainable. We want to make it along the lines of a social enterprise. We first pitched: “Let’s do seniors.” Instead of that, from our public meetings, we got: “Let’s make it a village style. Let’s make it so that we can have young families in there. We could have seniors in there.” What happens with that, we then start getting….

Another thing that was brought up was the intergenerational knowledge transfer and, because we’re a diverse country, the intercultural knowledge transfer. We actually start to humanize people as opposed to demonizing them, which we are doing now.

Environmentally, they wanted to still be looking forward — to put a modular sewer treatment plant in there that had discharge to stream water, so you could use it for landscaping and for the toilets within the facility, and an anerobic biodigester so we could make greenhouse gas, because we want to do district heat.

From Northern Health, we learned that there’s a need for memory care or dementia care, and they would work with us to have that put in. The other thing that we learned is that over 25 percent of the acute care beds that are in the hospital are taken up by people that shouldn’t be there. They should be in what are called alternate levels of care. They’re more than willing to work with us to put those in place.

What we did find out when we talked to other people is that the northwest division of family doctors wanted to do something that was called One Door, so that you had a medical doctor. You had nutritionist, a therapist and that. That fits into the alternate levels of care. It fits in there.

[12:15 p.m.]

We found that there should be some pilot projects that we wanted. One of them might be nurses. We bring people over from developing countries that have got a nursing degree, but we don’t recognize it. So maybe we could have a program where we had the nurses here and worked with the regulatory people and the other universities to get them up to a level that we can use them.

What we need is land. We’ve had three shots at land, two that are Crown, one that is fee simple. I don’t have enough time to go into why we don’t have them, but we have another piece of Crown land that we have got.

One thing I want to leave is that Minister Dix said at the start of this year that municipalities are putting blocks up to housing facilities. Well, this is a chance for the province to show leadership, because where we’re at now is that the land, this province…. It’s Crown land. The subdivision would be under the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, which is provincial. Environmental would be the Department of Environment. So this is a perfect chance for the government to show leadership in implementing this.

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

There are questions. I’ve seen Henry, Karin, Brenda. We’ll take it from there.

H. Yao: Just a quick question, actually. Is this a long-term care facility or an affordable housing, complex housing or supportive housing?

F. Wickie: It’s everything.

H. Yao: So it’s everything.

F. Wickie: We started out as seniors, so that’s obviously part of it. But how do we make this as a social enterprise part of funding for it? Northern Health has the operating capital to make this work, but they don’t have the building capital. They would be willing to work with us, and we would work out the agreement. Do we build it and they lease it, or do we build it and run it and they pay?

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much, Floyd. Many questions, but I’ll focus it.

Do you have what you need right now to do a feasibility study? There’s a lot of information here. I love the intergenerational piece of this. But in order to get to a place where you can bring it forward for zoning and you can bring it forward to the province to actually attach funds to it, do you have the resources to do that piece of this?

F. Wickie: We were working with the Abilities Society. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, we’ve lost that connection right now. We have to make it back up.

The resources to…. Once we’ve got land, then we can start looking at what we can put the money into. The package I sent you is the three pieces…. We’ve actually had architectural concept drawings done for the three pieces of land that we identified. So once we know we’ve got the land, it’s not going to take much for the province to say: “Yeah, let’s have this land.” Then we can start those studies.

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

J. Routledge (Chair): Brenda, and then Ben.

B. Bailey: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Wickie. I know we’ve put you in a pinch to give you five minutes to talk about such a big thing.

I wasn’t sure that I understood the connection between the challenges you have with those old septic systems and how you ended up focusing on this village model. Is it just that there’s a lot of change that needs to happen there, or how does that piece fit into the model that you’re working on?

F. Wickie: That’s a great question, because it was something that I could have taken another ten minutes to talk to you about.

B. Bailey: I bet. Yeah.

F. Wickie: We don’t have a reason for sewer in Thornhill. If you want to build the sewer, you have to build it and then connect to it. So if we built a modular system that was expandable, it would allow the different areas of Thornhill….

It’s a fairly spread-out community, and the big cost is not necessarily the sewer treatment plant; the big cost is what they call the PIG, the pipe in the ground. So they have to dig the mains over to that. You’re not going to do it all at once. That’s going to be a ten-to-15-year process — one area of doing it and then another area of doing it. Some areas might not get a connection to the sewer. But it gives a reason for a sewer to go forward.

B. Bailey: That’s the connection. Thank you.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Floyd. I just…. Crown land needs sponsorship, and that’s kind of what you need to do. I think, in order to….

[12:20 p.m.]

My colleague’s question about the feasibility. If there is a plan that can at least look on paper like it can do what you say — be a social enterprise, self-sustaining — I think it would probably be easy enough to find a sponsor in that. I don’t imagine that the land in Thornhill is out of reach, versus downtown Vancouver or something.

F. Wickie: Okay. The first time we applied…. We identified a piece of land, 40 acres, right in the heart of Thornhill. We went to the RD for it, and they said: “We can’t do anything. We’re in the middle of an OCP.” In the middle of the OCP, where no one can do anything, the province then gave that piece of land, along with a lot more of it, to the Kitselas, for approval of the LNG to go forward. So we lost that one.

We applied for another piece that we found. We put it in. They came right back and said: “No. We have to worry about what’s happening with other things.”

The third piece we found was fee simple. We put a full price list on it, with some conditions. It was accepted. Then COVID came along, and we couldn’t get the public meetings for the zoning. We needed an extension. The vendor had someone that gave them a full price offer with no conditions. So he didn’t give us the extension.

We do have another piece of land that is identified.

We’ve asked for a meeting with Minister Dix, through our MLA, and we haven’t heard anything back. Nothing.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, you’ve left us with that thought to follow up on.

Thank you so much not just for your presentation but for your leadership, for your enthusiasm for what is actually quite an exciting model. Thank you for persisting, even though you’ve had these struggles with the land. The idea of a village, as you’ve described it, I think, is something that we would all some day like to live in.

F. Wickie: Yeah. There is so much positive from it.

If you do happen to get us a meeting with Minister Dix and Minister Cullen and help that, you will each get your own superhero T-shirt. I will make sure that happens.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. That’s a good motivation. Thank you, Floyd.

F. Wickie: All right. Thanks so much. I do appreciate your time.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Ken Veldman, representing the Prince Rupert Port Authority.

Welcome, Ken. You have five minutes to make your recommendations and elaborate on them. We have a timer that will count down your five minutes. Then it’ll turn red and count up the next five minutes, which is the time we have to ask our questions and give you time to answer those questions. It’s just a guideline here.

PRINCE RUPERT PORT AUTHORITY

K. Veldman: Fantastic. Well, I’ll not waste any time and jump right into it.

My name is Ken Veldman. I’m the vice-president of public affairs and sustainability for the port authority in Prince Rupert. It’s certainly my pleasure to be here.

Prince Rupert is the third-largest port in Canada, which may come as a surprise to some people. We’ve more than doubled in size over the past decade, offering both bulk and containerized supply chain solutions for imports and exports. We play a critical role in not just market access but enhanced competitiveness and diversification, adding value to many of B.C.’s vital industries, such as forestry, mining, natural gas, agriculture, manufacturing and tourism, from a cruise perspective.

The business of moving international trade is also a key economic driver in and of itself for northern B.C. We compete with other gateways along the west coast.

The almost 4,000 women and men directly employed throughout this region have proven to be amongst the best in North America at what they do. The result has been an expanding high-wage industry that drives indirect and induced economic activity for businesses and communities throughout northern B.C. and provides significant taxation revenues for all levels of government.

[12:25 p.m.]

The past 18 months have emphasized the consequence of supply chain breakdowns. Delays, a lack of product availability and rising prices have all impacted both industries and families. More specific to B.C., infrastructure vulnerability and the lack of recovery capacity have highlighted that even more. An overreliance on a dominant trade gateway — namely, Vancouver — has proven to be a significant risk point for B.C. and for Canada.

Prince Rupert is Canada’s leading edge for the trade solutions that we need. The Port of Prince Rupert has a demonstrated track record of delivering innovative solutions that have positively disrupted supply chains for over a decade. We currently have more than $2½ billion of planned project investments in an advanced or under-construction phase in our port expansion portfolio.

The delivery of these projects will provide significant steps towards providing the capacity and flexibility that intermodal importers and exporters desperately need to add value, increase reliability and decrease costs. Other projects in that portfolio are critical to supporting the green energy transition that B.C. and Canada will need to be successful in, building on our current success already in lower-carbon LPGs and biofuels that are moving to the port and adding capacity for low- and zero-carbon options.

With that as context, PRPA has the following recommendations for the B.C. budget to enable resilient and reliable supply chain gateways, accelerate pathways to sustainable operations and ensure that economic growth is broadly shared.

Number 1: continue targeted public sector investment into critical supply chain solutions. Trade infrastructure projects are big, hairy projects in the public interest. Some aspects can sometimes be outside of the private sector investment business case. Considering case-by-case public investment into future capacity redundancies and, especially, related community infrastructure, in partnership with the federal government, is especially relevant to northern B.C.

The potential for the rapid growth of this industry is a challenge for relevant smaller communities, as they struggle to provide complementary community infrastructure. This is particularly true in Prince Rupert but certainly not limited to Prince Rupert, as we talk about the northern transportation corridor. While this industry bodes well for future economic success, including for municipal taxation bases, short-term financial capacity is a challenge, much like a growing small business struggling for the cash flow needed to facilitate its growth curve. The success of these communities is very much in the provincial and national interests.

Number 2: undertake strategic northern B.C. trade corridor planning in order to coordinate investments and maximize the potential for future export growth. The B.C. government has a unique role to play to bring together communities and stakeholders in a process that ensures the coordination, collaboration and prioritization of related initiatives and solutions through the corridor.

Number 3: prioritize investment and incentives to support labour force growth and development in the trade and transportation industry and their communities. This ties into my previous points about investment into sustainable, livable communities and ensuring that they can continue to grow by recruiting a provincial, national and international labour force. Similarly, finding and filling gaps in complementary skills training for local and Indigenous people and ensuring that it supports both current and future occupation opportunities has been a key ingredient for success and will continue to be in the future.

I’m happy to take any questions.

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

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Ken, for the presentation. We have heard other port presentations, and just the re-emphasis of how important Prince Rupert is was really good to hear.

My question is actually twofold but one. I want to talk about what we learned in this last year and the reliance on Vancouver’s port. Is Prince Rupert’s port at capacity currently? How could we use the capacity to increase redundancy, or is additional capacity necessary?

K. Veldman: Well, the short answer is that additional capacity is necessary. If you look at the split right now of trade on the coast, essentially 85 percent runs through Vancouver. About 15 percent is out of Vancouver, and that’s primarily Prince Rupert.

Obviously, if we have a situation like we did last year, that is not going to be able to be shipped through Prince Rupert. Depending on the line of business, there is some additional capacity that is there. Certainly, that was used during that time — in particular, when it comes to grain and to dry bulk, especially coal.

That being said, we continue to add capacity. There is a container terminal expansion that is just completing. In fact, it should be open within three weeks. It will add some badly needed capacity on the container side, which is great. We’re nearing investment decisions in both liquid bulk as well as complementary intermodal logistics facilities.

[12:30 p.m.]

When we talk about our development portfolio, we’re not talking about years away. We’re talking about projects with incredibly reputable, world-leading proponents that are very much committed to building the type of infrastructure we need. They’re very close to either making investment decisions or, like I said, are actually under construction as we speak. So very much a portfolio that is not aspirational but is very much committed to growing.

B. Stewart: Maybe a little bit of a follow-on to Renee’s question. I want to just better understand: is there overlap between Prince Rupert and Port Metro Vancouver in terms of what they’re offering and where both of them should be focused in on? I mean, Vancouver’s got such huge diversity, and you mention the products that they distribute. What is Prince Rupert best at, and where should the overlap be divided?

K. Veldman: Well, from a commercial perspective, quite frankly, we compete with Vancouver, so we are very much in similar spaces. That being said, both gateways have very unique advantages and play to them, so I don’t think it’s necessarily a matter of dividing it up, from a service perspective. It’s very much a commercial element to that whole thing.

That being said, a lot of cooperation when it comes to how we grow, safety standards, environmental approaches, sustainability programs, etc. So you see a lot of cooperation from that perspective.

Certainly our tenants, in particular, that actually own the terminals are very much competitive. But generally speaking, you know, the single biggest difference is that we’re in a very small community. That gives us a lot of advantages in moving product through without the congestion, land use conflicts, etc., that you see within Vancouver.

The flip side to that is Vancouver has a very large population base that provides both market and labour advantages, as well as, quite frankly, an established brick-and-mortar aspect to the port. I won’t understate how important Vancouver is to the B.C. and national interests and will continue to be. But that aspect of redundancy and ensuring that we’ve got options for our industries, for our province and, quite frankly, for our country, on the west coast, is incredibly important. That was really brought to a head last year.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry, and that’s probably our last question.

H. Yao: I’ll make it quick. I believe you mentioned something about a labour shortage as well. Do you mind giving a bit more specifics on what kind of labour you guys are suggesting regarding port expansion?

K. Veldman: The short answer is everything. You know, I talked about being in a small community and the advantages that brings. One of the things that it does not bring is access to an available labour pool. It’s impacting, certainly, port operators, but even the community as a whole. Obviously, it’s a very high-wage industry from a port perspective, and a relatively low barrier to entry for a lot of those occupations, so the small business community feels that as well.

Our single biggest issue is that we don’t have enough people, period. So that ability to recruit into communities, ensuring we’ve got a livable community and a sustainable community that can manage that growth challenge, is absolutely critical. When you’re talking about a small community — I could be speaking for almost any community in, certainly, northwest B.C. — that had a very significant economic depression through the early 2000s and trying to manage that growth curve coming back up, it’s a good problem to have, but it is going to be a challenge, going forward, in terms of having enough people and being able to train them up for the right jobs.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, thank you, Ken. We are out of time. On behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for your presentation and thank you for touching on, actually, almost all of the major challenges that we are facing as a province right now. Thank you for so clearly and articulately presenting the port of Prince Rupert as one of the solutions.

K. Veldman: Thank you for the opportunity. We’ll be following this up with a submission that gives a little bit more detail.

Certainly our pleasure to be here. Thank you all for coming up to the northwest. It’s great to be in person, is it not?

J. Routledge (Chair): It is.

We’ll take a short recess.

The committee recessed from 12:34 p.m. to 12:52 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): I’ll call us back to order.

I will entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 12:52 p.m.