The committee met at 6:30 p.m.

[J. Routledge in the chair.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Good evening, 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 are meeting today in Williams Lake, which is located on the territory of the Secwépemc peoples, specifically the Williams Lake First Nation.

This takes on a 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 to 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 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.

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 the committee members. We’ll also be keeping a timer to assist presenters. All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website. 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): Hi, there. Welcome this evening. I’m Karin Kirkpatrick. I’m the MLA for West Vancouver–Capilano.

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

B. Stewart: Hi. I’m Ben Stewart, the MLA for Kelowna West.

M. Dykeman: Hi. My name is Megan Dykeman, and I am the MLA for Langley East.

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

R. Merrifield: Good evening. Renee Merrifield, MLA for Kelowna-Mission.

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

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

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.

I will now invite our first presenter, Gail Wallin, to come to the table. Gail represents the Invasive Species Council of B.C.

Welcome, Gail.

Budget Consultation Presentations

INVASIVE SPECIES COUNCIL OF B.C.

G. Wallin: Welcome to the Cariboo. We don’t usually have rain and cool temperatures on this day. Hey, we’ll go with it; you don’t have all the bugs. Thank you for touring British Columbia and coming to towns like this.

I’m with a provincial charity, the largest charity in Canada on invasive species. We’ve been around for about 20 years. We’ve been working in partnership with the provincial government and with many other organizations in B.C.

It was interesting, when I was looking at your backgrounds. You might think of invasive species being those rural issues like knapweed, which ranchers don’t like, or feral pigs. It’s equally an important urban issue, and it’s one that many people aren’t paying attention to and don’t realize it.

When we take a look at climate change, people don’t think about it. If we get the new equivalent of an emerald ash borer or a gypsy moth, our forests will be defoliated, which won’t allow them to cool towns. We’ll lose carbon, and we’ll actually have major impacts. Or the knotweeds, which almost all of you have in your communities, that are ruining your streambanks. When you get a flood, which we tend to be getting, it will actually increase the risk of the flood.

I just did a tour with my board. We were looking at cheatgrass and Scotch broom, and some of you will know that from the Island — major fire hazards. Invasive species are linked to…. We need to reduce invasive species in order to make a difference and to reduce the impacts of climate change. Most people haven’t thought about that. They think about a few things and think: “Oh, that’s an environmental issue.” It’s equally a social and an economic issue.

[6:35 p.m.]

Invasive species cost us millions per year in British Columbia and in Canada. They impact pretty well every natural resource sector we’ve got there and pretty well every urban park, particularly across the Lower Mainland and southern B.C. If Himalayan blackberries take over your park, you can’t use it — a simple example. I’m just trying to choose some of the topical ones that you have.

We’re calling for three actions. One of them is to increase the investments in invasive species. We all know, just like we did with the virus, taking prevention is way easier than responding. We’re calling for, a collective call, $15 million per year, as part of your annual budgeting cycle — not year-end surpluses, not sort of unplanned, “We’ll see if we’ve got money if the new feral pigs come in,” but as part of your annual planning.

Most of the land is provincial land. We need to take action, and we need to make sure others are taking action. For that $15 million, much research shows that investing in prevention will give you a 17-to-1 ratio of return. Right now…. You mentioned Indigenous Day here today. Reducing invasive species is really important for our Indigenous culture and traditional practices, because many of them have displaced traditional food practices.

Really, key on that as part of the core annual budget. That would include funding both within government, including your resources, and increased funding that will go out to partners like us that could leverage your dollars for efficient and rapid response, which we’ve been involved with — and many others.

The second recommendation. You have, right now, four provincial pieces of legislation, and others. You have different lists. Many invasive species fall between the lists. We need to improve our regulatory tools so that the next time we get a call about this spider, that snake, that whatever, we can’t say: “It’s actually not regulated yet. Therefore, we can’t act on it.” We need to have consistent, strong regulation that includes all the invasive species.

An invasive species act is one way to do that, or streng­thening our current regulation — your choice — but we need to act on that. We need it to cover all species, and we need to make sure that the pathways are closed so that we’re not introducing new species that are sold in trade, which many invasive species currently are.

The third recommendation. Since the inception of our council and an invasive species strategy for British Columbia, we’ve called for an outside-of-government trust fund. That’s to enable funding for education, research, emergency response when government is short. We’re calling for a $10 million investment in that. That would then be augmented by what we call an eco-fee surcharge, taking a look at where the cause is — things like a tire tax; tires are major spreaders. Maybe it’s boats or vehicles, etc. There are a number of examples.

Those three are our recommendations on behalf of a major consultative process to identify what’s needed in British Columbia.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Gail. I’ll now invite members of the committee to ask you questions. We have quite a few already.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. Obviously, in Richmond, knotweed and Himalayan blackberry bushes are huge issues that we can’t even deal with at this point, except by using herbicide, which is also something we don’t want to see in our environment.

I have a question about your recommendation No. 3. You talk about [audio interrupted] invasive species trust fund. Are you planning some kind of partnership with local post-secondary institutions to ensure we have more of a comprehensive strategy to deal with that, including research, obviously?

G. Wallin: That trust fund would be funding a range of research. Academic institutions are definitely one of them. It’s multi-directed at partners to guide it. It’s based on the model I see you’ve got of the HCTF and other trust funds that we’ve worked with. So yes, funding going out to partners.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Mine is a little bit along the same lines. The first recommendation, $15 million annually within the core budget — is this for new projects, operating funding? What do you envision that going to?

G. Wallin: The provincial government, right now, depending…. I haven’t got the current years, but generally you’re sitting in the $6 million to $10 million per year. You can’t even tackle many of the species that are there, so you need more government resources in government, and you need the ability to partner with groups like ourselves or other partners who are making a difference.

That $15 million…. You had $8 million or $10 million — $7 million or $8 million — when you were just doing plants. You’re now dealing with all species. All our consultation has shown us that you need to double the five-years-ago funding, to grow it to $15 million, to be able to effectively manage invasive species across the province. The answer is that it’s going to go inside government, and then you’re going to be able to partner outside of government also.

[6:40 p.m.]

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. I was just curious about the consultative process that you talked about for the presentation today. When that was being undertaken — as you know, several of the farms were affected by the flooding recently — was there an agricultural consultation in there? Can you tell me a bit about what you looked at through that consultative process?

G. Wallin: We sought input from government, technical experts and from other organizations like ourselves that are invasive species organizations. They all have agricultural connections, but the need to reduce the flooding risk for communities we’ve heard for years, particularly in the last two years, when you’re seeing the increased floods.

Our consultation process on the strategy involved the agriculture sector, and we’re just starting a new one now. It’s a five-year plan.

B. Bailey: I’m interested in the current funding landscape. What does it look like? I know you’ve done incredible work, and I’ve seen a lot of really great marketing pieces in regards to invasive species. I’m wondering how that’s currently funded and how that compares to the ask that you’ve brought forward.

G. Wallin: Two things. The ask that we’ve put in front of you is for British Columbia. It’s not for our organization specifically. It’s what we’ve heard as an outside-of-government voice for invasive. It’s what the government needs; everybody else needs. That’s what we’ve heard.

How our funding, which is what I think you’re asking…. Our organization funding?

B. Bailey: More just how the funding envelope looks right now in addressing the question of invasive species.

G. Wallin: I haven’t got this year’s funding from government. We’re just in the middle of doing some research to compile all of the funding that was spent in the last five years, actually, from provincial government, federal government, local governments, First Nations, private sector, etc. We’ll have that number.

If I was to take an estimate, I would say you’re probably sitting — as a provincial government, which is the part you care about — at 50 percent to 70 percent of that funding envelope now, at the max, but it varies. Often you use year-end funding to hit that target, so therefore, you’re sitting there on March 29, and government nor us know whether you’ve got any funding available for 2023. It doesn’t enable multi-year planning, which invasive species take.

A lot of your funding comes at fiscal year-end — not an effective way to manage something that’s an ongoing concern.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Gail, for your very impressive and knowledgable explanations, and thank you for being so quick on the answers. It’s getting us lots of questions here. You said that invasive species are sold in trade.

G. Wallin: Correct.

R. Merrifield: Could you detail that a little bit for me, and help me understand how that relates to the regulatory tools?

G. Wallin: If we were sitting here trying to remove yellow flag iris from lakes or purple loosestrife from lakes…. You can buy Eurasian milfoil in pet and aquarium stores and put it in your pet and aquarium tank, and then you may choose to dump it, which is what causes our problem. Or you can see, in the horticultural trade, many species that are invasive species. The lists are outdated, so therefore, they might not be listed yet, or they might be listed, but they’re still in trade.

We’ll get calls. We inform government: “X species, Scotch broom, is being sold in this nursery.” It makes no sense to sell Scotch broom, but that happens, and there’s no enforcement. That’s why whatever regulatory tools — enforce them, because one cannot be without the other.

J. Routledge (Chair): I see that Henry has a second question, but we are running out of time.

With that, Gail, on behalf of the committee, I’d like to thank you for coming and presenting to us. Thank you for making the connection to urban areas. As an urban visitor to your area, I think I can say that we have thought of invasive species as annoying pests, not as something that could be such a serious consequence in terms of climate change.

G. Wallin: They’re your silent forest fire in your communities. That’s the way I’ll leave it.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Michael Fowler, B.C. Wildlife Federation, region 5, Cariboo-Chilcotin.

Welcome.

M. Fowler: And welcome to you all, to the Cariboo. We’re glad to have you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you.

B.C. WILDLIFE FEDERATION

M. Fowler: The B.C. Wildlife Federation, region 5. We’re hunters, fishers and conservationists who strive to ensure the sound, long-term management of the Cariboo region’s fish, wildlife, parks and outdoor recreation resources in the best interest of all residents, using science-based management to ensure that traditional values of hunting, fishing and gathering food from the land are maintained and protected for all. Conservation is at the forefront of it.

[6:45 p.m.]

Now, my first recommendation is dedicated funding for wildlife management. There needs to be sufficient funding that is sustained over time that will provide the requirements to fully manage our wildlife resources to meet the needs of the Indigenous people and the residents of British Columbia. In fisheries, we’ve got a system where fishing licences and that…. All that money goes into fisheries management. We don’t have that for wildlife, and we’d like to see that.

My second recommendation is habitat restoration. More effort is required to restore a habitat after resource extraction. Resource extraction by definition, basically, destroys the natural environment, and we have to restore it to improve wildlife populations. Our First Nations peoples rely on these resources, and so do we. You’re from the city. It’s not as major an issue for you, but we live on our game meat. There needs to be better and independent monitoring of natural resource extraction to an independent natural resources board.

My third recommendation is to implement the recommendations that were made in 2017 by the provincial chief forester for the Quesnel and Prince George districts. Now, we don’t believe they were properly introduced. The AAH should go down. I realize that’s going to hurt everyone, but we have to take this bite, at this time, so that we don’t have to take a major bite in the future.

The professional forester made the recommendations to reduce the cut after the beetle kill was basically defeated. They haven’t really implemented it, so we’re actually overharvesting. That has effects on our rights.

The Yahey decision is the direct result of the provincial government over-allocating resources, and now it affects the Blueberry First Nation. That is what happens when the government doesn’t follow science-based management. The provincial forester…. That’s her job. It’s to advise on what is the best thing to do scientifically, and she said: “For the long term, we have to reduce that.”

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

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Michael, for your presentation. I’m going to drill down a little bit on your first two recommendations.

You talked about dedicating funding for wildlife management specifically and mentioned fisheries. Are you referring to the hunting licensing fees and having that go directly back to wildlife management? My piggyback on that question is: does that also, then, go into the habitat restoration that you were asking for as well?

M. Fowler: Yes. The idea is that we would get an independent board set up, like the freshwater fisheries board that handles the fisheries, and take all the money that comes from hunting licences and tags and guide fees — all that money.

[6:50 p.m.]

Actually, we think that the nonconsumptive users should also be paying some sort of a fee for the bear-viewing opportunities so that all that can be pooled up, managed by an independent committee or board of some sort and funds dispersed to ensure that the wildlife is properly managed and that the restoration moneys are there when they’re required.

Now, for the restoration, we’d like to see…. It can go into that fund, or it can go into a different fund. But the industries that are using our resources should be paying a greater royalty to manage the recovery of the damage that they’re doing.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for that. That makes sense.

B. Bailey: Thank you very much, Mr. Fowler, for your presentation. You actually answered my question, but I’ll just take a moment, if I could, to thank you.

I live in the heart of downtown Vancouver, in Yaletown, and it’s so important for us to hear the priorities that you hold in your community. I will share with you that, surprisingly, I hear from a number of folks that care deeply about these issues, in downtown Vancouver, and I think it’s largely folks who’ve moved there from places like Williams Lake. It is very important to us, even though I’m a city slicker. So thank you.

M. Fowler: Thank you.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate your dedication to our environment and the protection of our environment, restoration.

I would like to ask a question about recommendation No. 3 because, obviously, you have a great emphasis talking about a scientific approach in regard to forestry. I would love to hear — and hope and assume — that you also would welcome Indigenous leadership to step in to have a bilateral, government-to-government decision-making process in hope to address the forestry needs.

M. Fowler: Our position in B.C. Wildlife is we’d like to see…. We’d like a tripartite system. Government is in a conflict of interest because government is supposed to represent the positions of the First Nations and of the residents. So that’s where, somehow, we’d like to set up a tripartite system so that residents are assured their voices are being heard by government.

Government is a decision-maker. They’re the statutory decision–maker, and they make the decision. So it needs to be a tripartite…. Everybody hears what everybody else’s needs are. When you hear what other people’s needs are, you’re much more…. It’s not oppositional. It’s needs-based. It’s not saying: “We need 50 percent of this pie.” It’s: “We need so much of the pie in order to survive” and “How do we work it out?”

The best way to work it out would be to make a larger pie. That’s our position.

B. Stewart: Thank you very much, Michael. I just wanted to touch on the habitat restoration, because that is a big part. Mountain pine beetle did devastating things, and the government, rather than just leave dead timber standing, allowed companies to cut it at cheap and discounted rates.

The magnitude that we have to go at this with is probably not within the realm of the budget you’ve suggested here to get out there. I’m must wondering: as a local — and knowing what the forest looked like around here, the visual quality corridors and all those little pieces that they left behind — what do you think that we have to do in terms of the magnitude of this? How big an undertaking do you see it to be?

M. Fowler: It’s a huge undertaking. The biggest portion that I see, and I’m over my time, is the extensive road network that went in to get the logs to the mills. Those linear features allow predators to access the prey much easier, and they use them.

[6:55 p.m.]

We have to dedicate money to restoring those roads so that they will be less used for the predators to service the prey. It’s going to take 100 years for the forest to recover to the point where the caribou, for instance, will start returning to normal, and we don’t have 100 years to wait for that recovery path. We have to do what we can to recover it now.

Unfortunately, the method of funding wasn’t incorporated in the expense at the time. That means that unfortunately, we’re going to have to take core funding and use it for that. We’re going to have to recover that. You’re probably all aware that the caribou are a major issue. If we don’t do it in this province, the feds will move in, and we have no say in what they do.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Michael. We are out of time, but I want to thank you for your presentation, and I want to thank you for making us feel welcome in your part of the province.

Yes, I do come from the city. My father was a hunter, and game was a big part of my diet, growing up. I think it’s important that people, like some of us around this table, remember our history and feel a responsibility and a sense of relationship to the land. Thank you for that.

M. Fowler: Thank you all very much.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Donna Barnett, representing South Cariboo Chamber of Commerce.

Hi, Donna.

SOUTH CARIBOO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

D. Barnett: Hi, and welcome to the Cariboo-Chilcotin, to the rainy Cariboo-Chilcotin.

I’m going to talk about roads. I have three topics which we were asked to present. For your information, the geographic area of the Cariboo-Chilcotin is 44,512 square kilometres. We have, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, over 1,000 paved roads and 1,700-plus gravel roads. A couple of them are dirt; how long they are, the ministry couldn’t tell me.

I have lived in the Cariboo region since 1967 and have never seen our roads in such poor condition. Highway 97, which used to be called the Cariboo connector, is in pretty good shape, but I can’t say that for the rest. In the last three years, after the fires of 2017, all of our other roads have completely deteriorated. Potholes, believe it or not, are so big that you could probably go fish out of them.

A strong capital maintenance program is needed, and needed now. Cars are bending rims and other issues to vehicles. Damage is high. Is it safe to walk on many of our rural roads? No. Gravel is desperately needed on so many of our rural roads.

Government says there’s no money in the budget — unacceptable. The gas tax was originally, I believe, put there for replacement and maintenance of roads. Much of it now goes to local governments for things like water, sewer and bus stops. This money needs to go back into road capital. Our roads are not safe, and this is the provincial government’s responsibility.

[7:00 p.m.]

I honestly have never seen anything like it. You go on Facebook, and the jokes are of people sitting on the side of the road with their fishing poles. It has got to the point where it is costing people money to repair their cars. It is not safe, and it is certainly not safe for anybody to be walking out there.

The next issue is health care. I have also never seen our health care in such dire straits in this region. Lack of doctors, lack of nurses, lack of lab technicians. The cost of fuel these days…. People in Williams Lake are driving to 100 Mile for a lab test because they don’t have a lab technician. It costs them — an hour down, an hour back — probably $50 in fuel.

We’ve got to quit blaming everything on COVID. More training spaces need to be opened. It is great to announce new programs, new hospitals, but if at first you do not have the staff to fill them, there’s a big problem. Capital for health care is one component and not the most important component. Operating is the other, and it is the most important. But somehow, over the years, the cutting of ribbons seems to be more important.

Mental health. There is none here and nowhere for people to go. Homelessness, substance abuse are all related and create more mental health, yet only small bandages are provided.

Our crime rate is rampant. Most of these people are on substance abuse and have mental health issues. We have no place in the Cariboo-Chilcotin for these people to go. They put them in jail, where they don’t belong, for a couple of days, and they’re back on the street. The cost to our businesses for the crime is unbelievable and almost unbearable. Businesses are paying the brunt.

When I hear it’s a lack of staffing, government or COVID…. Well, no one got laid off from government during COVID, other than emergency workers who would not get vaccinated. I understand that government has hired 130,000 new workers in the last five years, yet we have no help. There are many more places government could redirect the taxpayers’ money or cut taxes.

Please remember. Rural B.C. is where the wealth of this province still comes from, and it is time these needs were addressed.

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

I will ask the committee to ask the questions.

B. Stewart: Good to see you again.

D. Barnett: Thank you.

B. Stewart: Tell us about rural roads. You’ve already told us what they’re not doing. I guess the question is: have you seen this decline slowly, or is it something that is more…? You said the 2017 or 2018….

D. Barnett: Ten fires since then.

B. Stewart: Since then?

D. Barnett: Since then.

To the best of my knowledge, and I know a little bit about the region, the capital — not the maintenance, the capital, the putting new pavement down…. Maintenance is one thing, where they go and put the hot potash in the hole, and ten minutes later it’s gone. We need new pavement, and there is no capital maintenance budget. I have checked it out, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the budget.

R. Merrifield: Thank you so much, Donna. This was eloquently put. I’m going to go to the roads, as well, and just ask: has there been any analysis done on the number that is required just for the Cariboo in terms of capital?

D. Barnett: No, there are no announcements. The only announcements that have been made, which I know of, are for some highway work on Highway 20, out near Tatlayoko Lake in the Chilcotin, and some on Highway 24, down in the South Cariboo.

We need gravel. I’d love to take you all for a ride on our gravel roads. The gravel doesn’t exist. It’s just mud and the odd bit of gravel. They are appalling. If you could hear the residents of this riding…. I feel sorry for the guy that got my job. I can tell you. They still phone me, and I say: “Well, you’ve got to phone him.”

R. Merrifield: Just to clarify, actually, I was asking: do you know how much it would cost?

D. Barnett: I don’t have a clue. I bet if you put $10 million a year, that wouldn’t do it in five years.

R. Merrifield: Okay, so upwards of $10 million.

[7:05 p.m.]

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much, Donna, for your presentation. I have a question regarding health care.

We were in Terrace this morning. I was talking to a nurse who told me that the situation…. We’ve added hundreds of seats for nurses and trained 7,000 care aides. She said having those extra staff really helped. She said working conditions are much better than they used to be. I come from a health care background too — 17 years in B.C. I’ve seen it, too, and witnessed many ups and downs.

Also, the northern retention bonus…. They were mentioning it’s really successful. Even at TRU, here in Kamloops, we have more seats added into all health care professions, for them. I wonder: do we know the sense of…? Why is it that Williams Lake is not attracting under all these programs and extra seats and extra trained health care professionals? Do we know why people…?

D. Barnett: We are not in Northern Health. We are in Interior Health in this region.

H. Sandhu: My apologies. For TRU seats and stuff as well.

D. Barnett: COVID took a lot because of no vaccination. We have lost doctors because….

I’m going to tell you the truth, whether you like it or not. There are major problems within Interior Health. We have more bureaucracy, I believe, than we do some health care workers. The top-down is unbelievable. When I was the MLA, there were weeks when you didn’t know who to call to get help for somebody. They keep changing players at the bureaucracy level. It is something that is creating nothing but problems.

I live and I work with these health care workers. Doctors come here. They take their three years that they have to take when they come from another country, and they’re gone to Ontario. I’ve watched the pattern. They stay here for their three years, and they’re gone. I think it’s an internal problem that is creating more and more problems.

H. Sandhu: Thank you so much for sharing. I appreciate that.

I do come from Northern Health and then, recently, Interior Health. I know there are a lot of questions that are unanswered. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

J. Routledge (Chair): Mike and then Karin.

M. Starchuk: My question was answered.

J. Routledge (Chair): Okay. Karin.

We have a bit of time left.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I’m sorry I haven’t actually had a chance to meet you officially before. I’m glad to see you here.

My question is about mental health. I don’t know what, if any, facilities support detox, addiction recovery in this region. Is there anything?

D. Barnett: There are absolutely none. There’s nothing.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): There’s nothing. Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Donna, we’re out of time. I want to thank you so much for your passionate advocacy and for bringing to our attention what is a very dire situation. Thank you very much.

Our next presenter is Sage Gordon, the Quesnel Cattlemen’s Association.

QUESNEL CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATION

S. Gordon: Good evening, everyone. My name is Sage Gordon, and I am president of the Quesnel Cattlemen’s Association.

I’d like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to present recommendations for Budget 2023. Our three recommendations are fuel, insurance and garbage cleanup on range.

Number one: fuel. We need to lower the cost of fuel so we can afford to do business. We can’t afford to keep doing business with these prices. Our product just is not covering costs. We’re paying to do business.

Having to pay the carbon tax on dyed diesel, as well as higher fuel prices in general, is hurting ranchers. For many of us, fuel bills have doubled or better in the last two months, and it is not even haying season yet. Normally, fuel bills don’t double until haying season. This is making it difficult to afford fuel to hay, which, in turn, is driving up the price of hay, making it difficult to afford to buy hay to feed our cattle if we can’t hay.

[7:10 p.m.]

It has also increased the cost of trucking, which, in turn, has increased the cost of supplies, such as twine and parts, if you can get them. We have also heard rumours that fuel prices might go up higher this summer, which will drive up the cost of hay and haying as well as trucking. The cost of fuel, having already driven up the cost of hay and supplies, has already put some ranchers out of business and made others make drastic cuts to their herds.

Two, insurance. With the fires of 2017-2018, not only has it made it impossible, in some cases, to get house and farm insurance, but it has driven up the cost of it to a point where it is almost unaffordable for some, and for some, it is. They just can’t do it.

We need to bring rates back down. Some ranchers are having to choose between the risk of having no insurance or the cost of having higher premiums. This creates a problem. If you have a mortgage, you run the risk of having the bank or lender recall your mortgage if you have no insurance, which means you have to either lie to your banker or lender, or pay the higher premiums.

Three, garbage on range tenures. The problem of gar­bage on range tenures has been an issue for years. When we report it to the conservation officer, they only take note and suggest that we remove it at our cost because they say there is no money in their budget to remove it.

We would like to see money allocated towards cleaning up garbage on range. We would like to have it set up so that either the conservation officers can be paid to remove the garbage or be able to hire someone to remove the garbage on their behalf. If we are to remove it, we would like to be able to put in a request for reimbursement of our costs to remove it. We would like to see those that dump the garbage be held accountable, whenever possible, for all costs associated with cleanup.

The provincial and federal governments are continually complaining that we are losing many people in our agriculture industry and that no young people are coming into it. With the continually rising costs and taxes and the low return, or zero return, on our products, one might wonder if it is even worth the effort anymore.

As nobody wants to work for free or pay to work — such as we do, in many cases — it is keeping young people out of our industry, as well as pushing out others that are already in our industry. If the government truly wants to help, like they say, we would like to see some relief on operating costs and taxes and better return on our products. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you. We have a number of member of the committee that have indicated they’d like to ask questions — Brenda, then Mike, then Megan, then Henry — and we’ll see what kind of time we have after that.

S. Gordon: Certainly.

B. Bailey: Hi, Mr. Gordon. Thank you very much for your presentation. I really appreciate it. I had the chance to work on a cattle ranch in Kamloops for a summer, and I don’t think there’s anyone that works harder than ranchers, so I understand that.

It’s hard to hear how pinched you folks are at a time when food supply is so important to us. Thank you very much for making us aware of that. I heard what you said.

Where is this garbage coming from?

S. Gordon: Because people don’t want to pay at the dump, they go out and just dump it — because you’ve got to pay by the weight or the truck load. So they just go and dump it on range.

Of course, you’ve got calves and cows. Cows get nails in their feet, or they chew on it. They’re nosey. Calves are really nosey, so they end up eating garbage, plastic and stuff like that, and of course, it plugs them up — or poisons them. We find it can kill cattle that easy, and it costs.

M. Starchuk: Thank you, Sage.

Thank you, Brenda, for stealing my notes.

You know, illegal dumping is a problem in other areas of British Columbia. I know in Metro Vancouver they’ve incentivized the fact that people can actually get access to the landfills or transfer stations at little or no cost.

[7:15 p.m.]

Have they tried that here? As you said, it’s just cheaper to do it on your property than it is to take it to a landfill. Have they looked at this from that lens?

S. Gordon: They have tried different incentives, but for the most part, they just say: “Well, whatever.” There is not really anything…. They just say: “Well, if you see it, take pictures of it, or clean it up.” If somebody is actually caught and you have licence plate numbers, they may go talk to them; they may not.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. It’s great to hear you talking about youth in this, too, because it’s such a concern with succession planning. As a farmer myself, I know we worry about the future of youth entering with so many barriers.

One of the questions I have is related also to the dumping that my colleagues brought up. How prevalent is the problem? Are you talking about piles and piles, or is it just sporadic?

S. Gordon: Sometimes it’s fairly consistent. It depends on the year sometimes. Lots of times, if there’s lots of construction, there are roofing materials and construction materials dumped. If somebody’s doing renovations, lots of people have found piles of roofing materials or construction materials on site, on their range.

You know what that’s like to cattle. The tar shingles and that are toxic. Nails, rusty nails…. I mean, it creates foot rot and other problems.

M. Dykeman: Okay. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Henry, then Ben, then Renee, and we may be cutting it pretty close after that.

H. Yao: I’ll do my best to keep it quite short.

Thank you so much, Sage. B.C. Beef came to our Legislature to explain how ranchers and cattle ranching actually can be proactive in combatting against fire season, and they’re having trouble. Have you guys had that conversation with insurance companies to say how we can utilize cattle and allow the cattle industry…?

S. Gordon: Many times.

H. Yao: And there’s still no consideration of cooperating and allowing you to have a lower insurance rate?

S. Gordon: They’re still looking at it and considering it, but it’s not a real help, even though we’ve proven, in many areas, it is.

H. Yao: Absolutely. Thank you for sharing.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Sage. I just can’t help but think about how difficult it is to manage the fuel costs and all the other inputs while prices are going up.

Tell me. Is the industry…? It’s probably too early in this season to understand what the recovery is going to be like, but I guess, if you had to draw a line in the sand and you just said, “Well, we can’t produce it for that,” what’s happening at the buying end?

S. Gordon: At the buying end, well, calf prices have dropped, if you go by Alberta prices. Last I checked we were at $2.16 a pound for calves, which doesn’t even come close. With fuel prices up, we need at least $3.25, if not higher, to even come close to trying to break even. B.C. is usually lower on their calf prices, by five to ten cents a pound, sometimes even more.

With people…. Hopefully there’s more hay this year, but how many can afford it? I mean, already the market got flooded this spring because nobody can afford it. Grass was slow in coming, and nobody could afford to buy hay.

At one point about a month ago, or a little over a month ago, auctions went from expecting 500 head, here and in Vanderhoof to…. By the end of the auction here, I think it was pushing 1,800 head, and in Vanderhoof, it was over 2,300. People were just dumping their livestock, trying to make something of it.

B. Stewart: Okay. You’ve told us story. A critical mass.

S. Gordon: Yeah, it hurts; believe me.

J. Routledge (Chair): Sage, we’re out of time now, but we really appreciate hearing the lived reality of the people who are on the front line of putting food on our tables. Thank you very much.

S. Gordon: You’re welcome. Thank you.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next presenter is Donna Campbell.

Hi, Donna.

[7:20 p.m.]

DONNA CAMPBELL

D. Campbell: Hello. Welcome to the Cariboo.

Well, mine is a little different vein. It’s a personal matter. I had my 75th birthday yesterday, so I’m probably one of the oldest people here.

I have written this letter, which I’m going to read, to all the MLAs in B.C., and I really didn’t get responses. I got the automatic blurb out saying, “Please contact your MLA,” where I had written, at the beginning of my letter, that I had contacted my MLA. It makes me feel like nobody even reads what we write.

Anyway, I’m going to read my letter, and you can make a decision on that. This I wrote last October.

“I’m writing this letter to all the MLAs in British Columbia.

“I am the mother of eight and a grandmother of 19. I have a 36-year-old son who has primary progressive multiple sclerosis. He was diagnosed in 2017 and went from a strapping 6-foot-3-inch, 285-pound young man who could practically lift a car engine by himself to 150 pounds and in a wheelchair. His legs don’t work, and he can’t really write anymore. He’s almost blind.

“He was a journeyman millwright who worked well for his employers. He was given a lot of responsibility and lived up to his employer’s expectations. He was well liked by all who worked with him.

“Last fall he burnt his leg from hip to knee because he poured boiling water on himself when trying to move a pot. It’s a lonely life when you are a forgotten person, and even the government doesn’t have things in place to be of assistance, especially when you live in a rural area.

“I have written to each of the MLAs hoping some of you will take this seriously and work to make changes. It would be great if, despite party lines, you could all work together to make these changes happen.

“Have you ever felt invisible? Do people see you as a person? When you need to go somewhere, do you need to consider whether you will drink anything before you go, because you may not have access to washroom facilities? If you stumble and fall, do you find you can’t make yourself heard and can’t get up by yourself? What if your speech is garbled and people pass you by because they think you are drunk, and they don’t even consider that you might need assistance?

“When going somewhere, do you sometimes find you have forgotten something and then have to run back into the house and retrieve the item and then rush back to your car, jump in and drive off? A person who has a disability or handicap, through accident or illness, is not able to rush anywhere. They are often very isolated and unable to have a good quality of life.

“I have a list of issues that I feel need to be addressed. When a person is diagnosed with a serious illness, handicap or disability, the doctor’s office should have a social worker fill out all the forms for the patient so they would have access to any services available. Often a person is so ill that they aren’t able to do this on their own and, therefore, don’t get the help they need.

“A person who is disabled should be assessed on their income alone to see if they qualify for the B.C. disability. Often when assessed on their partner’s income, they don’t qualify, and they are just above the level, so that they can’t make it on the wages that they receive.

“If their disability requires them to have a special diet and health supplements, these should be covered. If the handicapped individual requires dental work, glasses or hearing aids, these should also be included in their assistance benefits.

“Often the home needs to be fitted with special equipment to enable the person to remain at home. The home should be checked out, and these renovations should be done. This is still a lot more cost-effective than putting them in a care facility, and they can be with family.

“Services such as acupuncture, chiropractor, physical or massage therapy and visits to a naturopath should be part of their coverage. There should be finances allotted for a person to come into the home for meal preparation, household chores and companionship.

“We never know when a disability will impact our lives, and we should be able to feel included and empowered to be full and equal participants in our society.

“Please put these items on the agenda of things that need positive changes.”

Thank you.

[7:25 p.m.]

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you very much. We have a number of questions.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for sharing that. When you talk about feeling invisible, it really does bring it home — the journey and the frustration. I just wanted to break it down a little more.

We have learned a lot in the last couple of weeks with respect to support payments for people with disabilities and the issue being looked at with the income of a partner and all of the issues that that causes. For you specifically, with your son, the issues that you’ve found in this community — are they also related a lack of professionals for therapy and health care assistance? For your experience specifically, is it those?

D. Campbell: There really is no help. You are absolutely invisible. On our taxes, where we live, we pay for handyDART, but it doesn’t come out to where we live.

For health care providers, like health care workers, when you have to pay them travelling time, if it takes them 45 minutes to get to your home, 45 minutes to get back, and you’re allotted a three-hour session, well, you only have an hour and a half. They don’t lift, they don’t do housework, and they don’t do meal preparation. They do nothing. Well, I can go and sit with my son and talk to him for three hours, and I won’t charge anything. This is very, very costly for people.

K. Kirkpatrick (Deputy Chair): Thank you for that. We have also heard about the need to have other medical supports and things covered under medical. Thank you very much. I’m taking too much of my colleagues’ time, but I do appreciate you.

B. Bailey: I really appreciate you telling us your story, Donna. Thank you very much. It’s a lot, at 75, to be someone responsible in this way. I appreciate you affecting all of us by sharing your story.

I do want to explain a little bit, if I could, that because, as MLAs, we get so much mail, we kind of have to divide it by region. We do have folks that help with particular issues. We’ve got a great parliamentary secretary on disability issues. If you haven’t had a chance to connect up with Dan Coulter, we’d like to take your story forward to him. That’s a person that would really be helpful to you, I think. If you’ll allow us, we’d like to go ahead and do that.

D. Campbell: Oh, yes. That would be fine. I can leave my letter here if you would like to….

B. Bailey: I’d appreciate that.

M. Dykeman: Brenda mentioned what I was going to say to you, which is that when the emails come in, they’re divided up by postal code. But with this letter and your submission today, we do have the ability to take that forward to the ministry.

I do also want to thank you for sharing the story. It’s an incredibly frustrating process to navigate. I know my office has heard from several constituents who have come in with the same types of concerns about income, waiting, and so on. So these are concerns that are shared widely, and definitely, as MLAs, we hear a lot about. I do, though, want to thank you for bringing that forward and echo what Brenda said: that we would love to take this forward to ensure that it gets to the ministry for you.

H. Yao: I really appreciate you sharing your story. It’s a really great reminder that behind every number we look at is a life’s full story that we need to pay attention to.

My question is specifically asking about Better at Home services. Have you accessed Better at Home services, or is there any kind of challenge that you’ve been facing in regard to that?

D. Campbell: We have tried. Also, personally, in our home, we had our son for five weeks, and it was a full-time job, because he needs to be fed — and different things, too — often. We just couldn’t get help. We tried; we applied.

We went and spoke to a doctor. He said: “You could put him in Dunrovin.” I said: “Yeah, but we don’t want to put him in Dunrovin. That’s a seniors home, and a lot of people there don’t have any mental faculties left.” It would kill him to go there. There is no facility available for people in his category. He’s only 36 years old.

[7:30 p.m.]

It has been a five-year process, but it’s very, very quick, bad MS. He’s a shell of himself. He’s still mentally there so far, but he is going blind, so it’s not good. We have tried, and nobody seems to have any help — and not really much concern, either.

J. Routledge (Chair): I’m sorry; there were other people that wanted to ask questions too, but we are out of time.

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you so much for sharing your letter and sharing your son’s story. I am sorry that the system has so failed your family. I guess I just want to conclude by saying one of the things that our Parliamentary Secretary for Accessibility reminds us of all the time: that we are all temporarily able. What is happening to your son could happen to any of us.

Our next presenter is Rick Wittner, representing the Cariboo Mining Association.

Hi, Rick.

CARIBOO MINING ASSOCIATION

R. Wittner: Hello. My name is Rick Wittner. I’m not only the president of the Cariboo Mining Association; I’m the president of the B.C. Placer Miners Association, which is an umbrella group of all the placer associations. I’m also here as a representative from the Quesnel Chamber of Commerce.

Three items I’d like to talk about. The first one is to allocate enough funding for recruitment, training and retention of permitting staff in all of our resource ministries, and to take out any of the fees that are paid to general revenue and put it back into the ministries responsible for permitting.

Permitting for placer mining has gone from 60 days up to 240 days, and even upwards to 20 months, because you can no longer apply for a permit and work in the same year. Agriculture permits, such as water permits, take over three years. Sage Gordon, who spoke earlier…. It took him three years to get his water permit.

A 2016 economic impact study conducted in the Cariboo region showed that placer spends over $122 million in their five-month operating season. This affects most of the small businesses in the Cariboo. The Atlin Placer Miners Association did similar studies, and they spend over $12 million in Atlin, which supports their local businesses. There are widespread placer operations throughout the province, such as the Prince George area, the Mackenzie region, the Okanagan and the Kootenays. There is agriculture throughout the entire province, which is our food source.

Placer, in 2021, paid over $4.274 million in various fees, and this doesn’t include income tax, PST, GST, carbon tax and other applicable taxes. Please increase the budget so that we in small industry can operate with a functioning permitting system.

Two, elimination of the carbon tax on purple fuels for industry and agriculture. Eliminate carbon tax on diesel fuels for transport trucks. Our industries have no option but to use diesel fuels. When the technology does catch up and there’s some sort of electric heavy equipment, the price range will be far too high for us smaller industrial operators and agriculture to purchase. Last year a friend of mine, a local contractor, purchased a mid-size 300S excavator, and it was over half a million dollars. I can just imagine what an electronic vehicle would cost.

The war in Ukraine has driven prices so high that many operations may have to shut down, causing layoffs and less economic revenue being spent. Eliminating the carbon tax may also help keep the doors open for these companies.

The carbon tax not only increases inflation, especially here in the north, where goods need to be freighted up — why should we in the northwest and eastern areas be punished for being rural? — but the carbon tax on transport trucks also increases the cost of all items, which makes it difficult for our local and small businesses. The cost of getting our goods to market puts the cost out of the reach of many consumers, thus seriously hurting small local businesses. Please eliminate the carbon tax for us in the north, so that we can continue to operate and make a living.

Three, upgrading incentives for heating that we use in rural communities, such as wood-burning stoves, oil furnaces and propane heating systems. This will allow us, in the rural communities, to lower our carbon footprint.

[7:35 p.m.]

Most of our province is composed of rural areas. Cache Creek, 100 Mile, Williams Lake, Quesnel and north have less than 50 percent of our population base. Most of it is in outlying rural areas. We do not have natural gas in our outlying communities.

We also have very cold winters. Minus 20 is a normal temperature; we often see minus 30 for weeks. Quite often, it dips down to minus 40. The incentives for heat pumps are not an option for us here. They do not function, even at our lower temperature ranges, during the winter. We either need to use wood, propane or even heating oil.

We need to have incentives to upgrade our heating systems that we can actually use. Newer wood stoves have catalytic converters which make them much more environmentally friendly. New oil furnaces are far more efficient, thereby lowering the carbon footprint. New propane furnaces have the lowest emissions of the three common heating systems. Please, in the upcoming budget, offer us, in the rural communities, incentives that we can actually use to help us become more environmentally friendly and lower our carbon footprint.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. A few weeks ago a group of students was talking about a just transition — you know, where you were forced to move towards environmentally friendlier strategies, but we had to take it by progressive steps, not just jumping from one point to another.

I’m looking at a lot of your heating elements, which you were referring to earlier. Even though I think some of them might be viewed as not as environmentally friendly, it’s better than what we have right now.

If you don’t mind me almost bouncing back, for rural community members…. Finally, we had an opportunity to really appreciate the rural living environment. Heating is actually one of our stronger expenses, a part of our lifestyle. By not having sufficient or adequate support, it could trap somebody into a poverty cycle and not enable a lot of people to prosper where they live.

R. Wittner: That’s right.

H. Yao: So if you wanted to get a…. Thank you.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Rick. I just wanted to go back to your very first point. You started off by talking about training and retention. You talked about this length of time.

Now, the ministry has allocated additional resources, but I just want to better understand this. How did we get to this point, where we’ve gone from 60 days to 20 months, in some cases, for permitting? Is it just a loss of staff, or is it the case that there are other processes that have plugged up the system?

R. Wittner: There are other processes. They actually turned the permitting over to what they call FrontCounter B.C.

Before, especially for placer, they had one person of contact who would do all of our permits. If he was seeing that a permit was being stalled out, he would get on the phone or send an email out and make sure that it was being done correctly. He was really efficient, and we had our permits within 60 days.

Recently government has now just changed…. They’ve taken away FrontCounter. They’re now sending it directly to Mines, but they aren’t ready for it. They need additional people in there, and they need proper training.

Another thing that we see is…. There’s a huge transition, especially from people who work on FrontCounter, or if they work with a First Nations consultant. They’re just a stepping stone. Every six months to a year, you’re seeing a new staff member come in. We’d like to see incentives so that they’d want to stay in those positions.

R. Merrifield: Thank you, Rick, for the presentation. I want to go to your recommendation No. 2 and just talk about eliminating the carbon tax on the purple fuels and diesel. Is that enough to affect what we’re seeing in this region, in terms of what the fuels are costing?

R. Wittner: It would be a start. Pre-pandemic, my partner and I spent about $50,000 a year on diesel fuel. At the time, we were paying about $800 in carbon tax; that was per month. The carbon tax has gone up, and fuel prices have doubled. So we’d be looking at spending probably closer to $150,000 a year on fuel. That’s one of the main reasons we’re not mining this year, my partner and I. We can’t afford the fuel.

B. Stewart: Maybe I’ll ask one more question. We had a presentation earlier today in Terrace on the geothermal heating systems. They were kind of cut out of the incentive system.

[7:40 p.m.]

Is that an option for some of the people that are using wood, oil, propane, etc.? I mean, is it an option? If there were an incentive, do you think they’d consider it?

R. Wittner: It would, if the cost was something that people could afford. I know that involves drilling, and I know drilling isn’t that cheap. It would depend on what the heating system would cost that would be tied to that. But it would be definitely something to look at.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much.

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

With that, Rick, I want to thank you for presenting to us and reminding us that while we may all want to lower our carbon footprint, it isn’t one-size-fits-all. What may work in one part of the province will not work in another part of the province. That’s an important reminder.

R. Wittner: Thank you. Welcome to the Cariboo.

J. Routledge (Chair): Our next and perhaps our last presenter today is Jordan Grier, representing the Cariboo Cattlemen.

CARIBOO CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATION

J. Grier: It’s nice to see you guys all up here in the Cariboo. We sure appreciate it.

I wish I could have rewritten this right now. A lot of different topics have come up. It’s made it, maybe, a little easier to talk about.

I thought I’d paint a little picture for everybody about the beef industry up here. I’m lucky enough to be the president of the Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association. I also have a family ranch. I’m the father of the next generation, and I hope they want to carry it on, in this industry.

We have a lot of small producers out here that work a full-time job on top of also being a rancher. They contribute far beyond their means in this industry. It is just amazing to have those people.

It’s getting really hard to get the young prospects to get into this industry, because they have to do the same thing. They’re working a full-time job. They’re paying tax on that, and they’re trying to get into this at the highest-price land that they can possibly get into — into an industry that, at this point, can barely sustain itself. With the high cost of fuel — it’s been talked about already.

I know this person personally. He works like you would never believe. He has such a passion for the industry, and all he wants to do is contribute. He’s having that thought right now that he doesn’t think that he can keep doing this. He works night and day. Without people like that, it’s going to run its course.

I come from a large family operation. We’ve been there for 30 years now. There are four generations there, on the place, between my grandparents, myself, my mother, my brother and my kids. We are very efficient. We are probably one of the most efficient operations around. I can tell you: if we are having problems and we are struggling with this, I can’t imagine anybody who’s trying to get into this has a chance.

We’ve had to make a lot of decisions as well — you know, wages. We have less people working. We have a lot less money to put into machinery repairs, and we run a lot of state-of-the-art equipment. It’s hard to get everything paid for and get it all working just because of the price of the fuel and everything else.

The BSE, the fire, the flood, the drought — we’ve been able to get through all of it so far. All of us have, anybody who’s still in this industry. At this point, the price of cattle just does not reflect what we’re getting. We are not able to sustain at this current price. We are price-takers, not price-setters. We buy retail, sell wholesale and pay for the transportation of our own product to get there. We take a bit of the brunt of it, for sure.

We take care of a lot of big areas of land, which we try to really, really mitigate properly and to be able to help with the wildfires, with grazing cattle through there. The more forage on the landscape, the more diversity in these forests, the easier a lot of this would be to manage. There are so many long-term benefits to this that we can see. We’re not only sustainable, but we’re very adaptable as an industry.

[7:45 p.m.]

A few of the recommendations that we’ve come up with as an association, for sure…. Ensure the cumulative impacts of inflation on the ranching industry are factored into decisions about fees and tax increases — for example, water pricing, trying to deal with the water registrations, everything else; fuel taxes and rebates; carbon tax offsets. Specifically, reducing the fuel taxes and the carbon tax would make such a benefit to us in this industry.

Maybe put more emphasis on the carbon sequestration payment program. We all sequester carbon in this industry. It just depends how you want to look at it. We are adding to the soil every day, if it’s managed properly.

The Cariboo Cattlemen’s Association has survived by delivering federal and provincial programs. The more funding we can get for that kind of stuff…. We can try to engage our people back into this. We are losing a lot of our people in our own associations.

With the cancellation of the climate action initiative, a lot of the members that put so much work into it…. It kind of just went by the wayside. It’s done now. Without the revenue for the programs and whatnot, it’ll be hard for our association to carry on. Really, the education part of this, for us, is a big piece, to try to get this to go forward.

I can honestly say, from the cattlemen’s perspective and from my own perspective on my own outfit, that it’s really hard to try to be innovative and to be engaged in any of this with just the amount that’s coming down the pipe at us at this point. It’s getting pretty costly.

J. Routledge (Chair): Thank you, Jordan. We have a number of committee members who have already indicated they’d like to ask you some questions.

M. Dykeman: Thank you for your presentation. It really is the only industry…. I know my father regularly says it’s the only one where you’re working all day to feed someone else’s family while taking a second job to feed your own. I think most of us are there because we love it, but the obstacles right now really are becoming quite insurmountable.

The federal and provincial program delivery…. Your organization received funds for program delivery. Are there any past ones that you can provide as an example for the committee that were quite successful in providing revenue, and any thoughts on ones that maybe the government should look at setting up that would even engage youth?

J. Grier: I can’t at this point, but I imagine my colleague could very quickly.

Interjection.

J. Grier: Yeah, I would say the wildlife mitigation program, for sure.

D. Zirnhelt: Climate action and now whatever is taking its place, which is a suite of best management practices under environmental farm planning — any of this which is focused on carbon or lowering footprints.

The problem we have is that if we don’t have industry capacity, government doesn’t have on-the-ground partners to create realism and effectiveness. If you look back on the programs, climate action programs, it has really helped us sustain industry capacity and build it.

M. Dykeman: The second part of my question that I asked, Chair, if it’s okay.

Were there any that really engaged youth in the past that would have brought them forward and allowed youth to become involved in the program delivery?

J. Grier: I can honestly say, maybe, specifically…. Right now my children are in the 4-H part of this. There is nothing better than that for these kids to get into agriculture — nothing.

M. Dykeman: I had two of mine go through. You’re right, spot on.

D. Zirnhelt: We have a made-in-Cariboo, made-in-Interior program at TRU, the applied sustainable ranching program. It runs on a shoestring. It came at the initiative of Cariboo Cattlemen, after looking internally and saying: “We have to engage people.”

Now we’ve put some hundred people through. They are business ready, and they are environmentally ready to go into the business.

M. Dykeman: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

R. Merrifield: Thank you for that presentation and your passion for this industry and cause and, literally, our food security.

My question might be somewhat out of ignorance. I’m having a hard time understanding why there is such a low price for calves yet such a high price in the grocery stores for meat — in particular, beef. Is it just that we haven’t caught up yet for where the supply will be once we don’t have those calves growing into cows? What am I missing?

[7:50 p.m.]

J. Grier: There is quite a bottleneck there when it comes from producing the animal to the packing plants to the consumer. Right now the cost of the feed is astronomical, so you’re not getting the price for those calves because they don’t want to pay that amount for those calves when the cost of the feed is up here and the price of the calf is up here. There is no margin for the next piece, right?

Me as a cow-calf, I sell to the feeders. They are fed to finish, and then from there, they are processed for food consumption. Every piece there…. It’s about feeding them efficiently — cost, again. It just trickles right from the top down.

H. Yao: I’ll make it quick. Thank you so much for your presentation and your fight for food security, and water security too.

I’m going to piggyback on what Renee was asking in the previous question, which I’m concerned about. Who’s setting the price officially? Bear with my ignorance.

J. Grier: I don’t have a good answer for that, because we’re all very confused on this, at this point. Basically, the packers set the price of this. It’s whatever…. The consumer is willing to pay so much. It’s all supply and demand. It’s not just our industry; it’s the same. But there’s quite a gap right now between what the packers are getting and what the price of the beef is, the price the cattle actually is.

I can say it’s not helping right now to put a label on ground beef. That’s not going to do anything for anybody, especially for the right-off-the-gate cow-calf home-raised beef. That will really affect what happens right at ground level.

J. Routledge (Chair): Well, Jordan, we are out of time.

I want to thank you for…. You said in the beginning that you were setting out to paint us a picture. I want to tell you that you painted a very detailed, very clear, picture that gives us some insight into what your industry is going through. It’s a problem.

J. Grier: Thank you all.

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

We have no more presenters tonight, so I’ll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 7:52 p.m.