The committee met at 8:34 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Good morning, everyone. We’ll call the meeting to order.

My name is Mike Starchuk. I am the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

This morning I’d like to acknowledge that we’re meeting today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I ask everyone here to take that time to reflect on the land that we work, live, learn and play on.

[8:35 a.m.]

I would also like to welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting.

Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. Our consultation is based on the Minister of Finance’s budget consultation paper, which we’ll be hearing about shortly.

British Columbians can share their views by making written comments, and details are available on our website, bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is two o’clock, Friday, June 16. We’re also holding a number of public meetings over the next three weeks to hear from British Columbians about their priorities.

All audio from our meeting is broadcast live from our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted.

We will carefully consider all input to make the recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2024. The committee intends to release this report in August.

I’ll now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Tom Shypitka, MLA for Kootenay East.

B. Banman: Bruce Banman, MLA for Abbotsford South.

B. Stewart: Ben Stewart, MLA for Kelowna West.

S. Chant: Susie Chant, MLA, North Vancouver–Seymour.

G. Chow: George Chow, MLA for Vancouver-Fraserview.

R. Leonard: Ronna-Rae Leonard, MLA for Courtenay-Comox.

A. Walker: Adam Walker, MLA for Parksville-Qual­icum.

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Karan Riarh, who’s sitting right next to me; Jianding Bai from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services.

We’re beginning today’s meeting with a presentation from the Minister of Finance on the Budget 2024 consultation paper.

Minister, thank you for taking the time to meet with us today.

Presentation by Minister of Finance

Hon. K. Conroy: Thank you very much, Chair.

I, too, would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on a lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking territory of the Songhees and First Nations peoples.

I really appreciate the opportunity to present to you, and also, I want to thank the people for joining us online. I know it’s an interesting topic for many. Today marks the beginning of an important annual process. The budget consultation is one of the ways we connect with people in B.C. every year. It ensures that the ideas, priorities and concerns of people and families are considered and addressed in the provincial budget.

This time last year we started this process for the budget we released in February. People shared with you their priorities for Budget 2023, and people said they wanted us to address climate change resiliency; improve access to health care; help with the rising cost of living; provide support for people who need it the most, including equity-seeking people; tackle B.C.’s skills shortage; and build our active transportation.

What you heard helped build the budget that continues to work for people in the face of ongoing challenges like inflation, a housing crisis and workforce shortages, that ensures that people, businesses and communities have the help they need now, and that we are continuously building a sustainable, inclusive future for the people of the province. With the launch of the Budget 2024 consultation, we look ahead to B.C.’s plan for the future, a future that includes everyone.

In February, we released Budget 2023, which focuses on priorities like keeping people safe and healthy in their communities, supporting people with the rising cost of living, creating more accessible and affordable housing options and building a strong, clean economy that works for everyone.

Budget 2023 makes choices to address not only the uncertainty ahead of us but also moves on long-standing priorities to strengthen health and mental health care so that people can find and stay connected to the care that they need; to take bold action to make homes more affordable and attainable for people in British Columbia; to ease the stress on household budgets and put money back in people’s pockets to help with everyday costs; to increase services and supports that foster safe and healthy communities; and to set the groundwork for a strong, sustainable economy through B.C.’s greatest resource, our people.

[8:40 a.m.]

We are all better off when there’s a good life that’s in reach for everyone who calls B.C. home.

As people grow older and more people move to B.C., our government is working to make sure everyone has access to health and mental health care in their communities. Strengthening health care continues to be a priority for this government. Budget 2023 delivers a new payment model for family doctors, who play an essential role as people’s gateway to the health care system across the province. We are bolstering B.C.’s health workforce strategy to help recruit and retain staff and train more health care professionals, to redesign and rebalance work, to embed reconciliation and cultural safety into our health care system.

Mental health is health. We are making the most significant improvements to services for people needing mental health and addiction services in B.C.’s history. Combined with our funding for infrastructure, that brings new mental health spending to more than $1 billion. Our focus is on expanding supports across the spectrum of care for people struggling with addiction, with more treatment and recovery beds. We’re making record investments in health and mental health care, nearly $10 billion more per year than since 2017.

Total health care funding will grow to more than $30 billion a year by ’25-26. Strengthening health care is, and will continue to be, a priority for this government.

With housing, even though we’re building more housing than ever, it’s still not enough to meet people’s needs at all ages and stages of life. Our newly released Homes for People plan will deliver more homes that people need in a shorter time frame and build more vibrant communities throughout B.C. Our bold housing action plan is supported with more than $4 billion in new operating and capital funding to build on the work done so far. We have $1.9 billion budgeted for next year alone.

On top of this, another $800 million in capital spending is planned for housing for the next fiscal year, and we are taking actions like lifting strata restrictions, setting new housing targets for communities that need it and creating a rental protection fund to preserve older rental units. We’re also creating more student housing spaces throughout B.C. to help ease pressure on local markets and build on the thousands of student beds already open or underway.

Not only are we building new housing, we’re clearing the way for more housing, with zoning changes and a faster permitting process. I’m sure as you set out to listen to people in B.C., business owners and managers will tell you that finding the right person for the job is one of their top concerns right now. I’m certainly hearing that at every chamber of commerce or board of trade meeting that I go to, it’s needing people to work in their businesses.

Our StrongerBC future-ready action plan paves the way for the most inclusive and talent-driven workforce in Canada. The plan will create good-paying jobs and provide businesses with the talent they need to succeed and the support they need to do it. Our last budget also builds on the cornerstones of our CleanBC Roadmap to 2030 to reduce emissions and move towards a clean, sustainable economic future. A new carbon-pricing framework for industry will help reduce emissions while staying competitive and aligning with the federal benchmark.

We’re building more active transportation networks so we can get people where they need to go, and the CleanBC go electric commercial vehicle pilots program will help B.C. businesses, non-profit organizations and eligible public entities switch to zero-emission vehicles, including medium- and heavy-duty trucks. There’s actually a pilot project with forestry trucks right now, logging trucks, on the Island. It’ll be interesting.

We’re also changing how we work with B.C.’s natural resources. Speeding up natural resource permitting and modernizing B.C.’s permitting service delivery model to help reduce backlogs and move projects forward. Maintaining and upgrading forest service roads to support safe transportation between rural and Indigenous communities. Partnering with First Nations on forest landscape planning to protect more old growth while providing greater certainty on where sustainable harvesting can occur.

We’re launching a new critical minerals strategy to leverage B.C.’s natural resource advantages and continuing to assess the critical minerals value chain potential, and preserving and enhancing outdoor recreational opportunities in B.C.’s parks.

We’re also helping people with costs. It’s difficult for people to think about opportunities when sometimes they are barely getting by. So many people are feeling the bite of inflation. Higher prices are stretching people’s budgets. That’s why we’re focused on helping to reduce costs and offer extra support to those who need it most.

To get money into people’s pockets quickly, we took action with over $2 billion in cost-of-living measures since summer of 2022. Budget 2023 provides new, targeted supports for people hardest hit by increased costs. An increase to B.C.’s climate action tax credit will help people with the cost of a changing climate and increases to the carbon tax.

[8:45 a.m.]

Starting next year, renters in B.C. will be able to claim the new renters tax credit. We’re also permanently increasing the B.C. family benefit. Families with children will see a 10 percent increase to their B.C. family benefit starting in July of this year, and single parents will also receive up to $500 in an annual top-up to make ends meet. All together, these three actions will give $3 billion in support targeted for people with low and moderate incomes.

Addressing cost of living, though, is more than just giving people money back. It also means removing barriers and providing better access to the resources that people need. We’re expanding existing food programs for kids throughout B.C. so no child has to learn on an empty stomach. We made prescription contraception free so cost is not a barrier for people to make choices about their reproductive and sexual health.

We’re also helping students access post-secondary education by doubling student loan maximums, the first increase to student financial aid allowances since 2006. That’s something that’s come to this committee every year since, I think…. For many years, it’s always at the committee.

Also, to help people in B.C. rely on income and disability assistance to make ends meet, we are providing more support, increasing the shelter rate by $125 so people receiving income and disability assistance have a little more support. I’m hoping to hear more ideas, through you, about how the provincial government can help people and families through these very real challenges.

To help people feel safe and secure wherever they live in B.C., we are also stepping up enforcement to keep repeat violent offenders off our streets. We are strengthening intervention service by launching the repeat violent offenders intervention initiative and the new special investigation and targeted enforcement program. This will reduce repeat offending, improve criminal justice response and speed up information shared through justice partners, another thing that this committee heard about again and again over the last few years.

Modernizing police in B.C. through consultation and public engagement to inform new policing and police oversight legislation and hiring over 250 more RCMP officers with a focus on support for rural, remote and Indigenous communities.

We’re creating better access to the justice services that people need by creating more free and culturally safe centres for Indigenous people to seek legal help and help address the overrepresentation of Indigenous peoples in the criminal justice system. By boosting funding for the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal and the Community Legal Assistance Society to remove barriers and help more people access free legal services. By creating virtual and after-hours bail hearings so people can stay supported by their family and communities rather than travelling to a bigger city where they are disconnected from home and without their family supports.

We’re making smart choices for people to help us tackle today’s biggest challenges. That’s why our budget focuses on health and mental health, housing, reducing costs, safe communities and sustainable clean economy. It’s our plan for the hard-working people of B.C.

And now we look ahead to the next budget. What do people need from this government to create a stronger future where they can build a good life?

I encourage everyone to participate in this budget consultation because we are listening. The input we get from this committee every year does go into what helps us to put together the budget. We are listening, and we won’t stop working to build a strong, sustainable economy that works for everyone.

I thank you for the opportunity to present and look forward to the information that you provide back to our ministry once the consultation is finished.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Minister. Very well done without a slide deck in front of everybody that was here.

Hon. K. Conroy: Sorry.

M. Starchuk (Chair): No, that’s fine.

There is a little bit of time set aside for questions if there are any questions and/or comments.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Minister, for the presentation. I visualized it all, so I could see it.

Hon. K. Conroy: Okay, good. I’m glad.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): A whole litany of things that are important to British Columbians here, and you’ve highlighted numerous ones. Is there a priority list at all? Is there, like, a top four? I know it’s hard to put mental health and addiction over housing and affordability over safe communities and things like that, but is there any focus for the ministry that really can drill down to maybe a couple that might assist us in this process?

Hon. K. Conroy: Well, what we’ve heard since 2017 and we continue to focus on are health care, housing, safe communities and sustainable communities. We have continued to focus on those. Those are a lot of the issues that people raise when they present to the Finance Committee, so we’re looking forward to hearing what people have to say.

It’s especially important to make sure that people know that even if they can’t get out to you and present to you in person, they have an opportunity to present online, as the Chair said.

I know you’re travelling for the first time across the province since — what? — 2019. Last year, but did you travel as far? I think that you’re going to even more communities this year.

[8:50 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yeah, it’s definitely a fuller tour.

Hon. K. Conroy: It’s a much fuller tour, which is great, because people across the province are asking. They like to present to the committee, and it’s a really great opportunity to know that they have the ear of government when they present to you guys.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Well, thank you very much for coming back.

I wanted to just echo one thing that we as a committee think about all the time. We get presenters that come forward to us, and the report is written and goes off to your ministry. Often, we’re left in the lurch of wondering whether or not it was listened to or not listened to. Last year’s budget, when it went through, with the B.C. watershed society and the moneys that came out of there…. We heard presenter after presenter come forward and tell us how important it was for our water in the province of British Columbia.

When it comes through, there’s a certain amount of pride that must go back to the organization. But I will tell you, Minister, the pride that comes from this committee when they hear it, present it, package it up and send it your way for you to receive and act on it is an awesome feeling.

We hope that this year’s discussions, the more fulsome ones that take place across the province, will do the exact same thing. Thank you for your time this morning.

Hon. K. Conroy: Thank you, and thank you for your work that you’re going to be doing over the next few weeks, months, taking you away from your families and homes. It’s really important work that you’re doing, so thank you on behalf of all of us.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. We will take about a 30-minute recess, I believe.

The committee recessed from 8:51 a.m. to 9:29 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We’ll bring the meeting back to order. Now we’re going to hear from a number of organizations and individuals about their priorities in the next provincial budget.

Each participant will have five minutes to speak, followed up with five minutes of questions from the committee members. There is a clock that you can see up on the side, and we’d ask you to respect the five minutes so that everybody has an equal opportunity.

The first person that we have up is Corey Burger from Capital Bike.

The floor is yours, Corey.

Budget Consultation Presentations

CAPITAL BIKE

C. Burger: Good morning. Thanks very much. My name is Corey Burger. I’m the policy and infrastructure chair with Capital Bike, here in the capital region.

I’m very excited to present here today, to talk to you. First off, to say thank you for a number of changes in the last couple of years that have made my speech today a little different than I’ve possibly done in the past.

[9:30 a.m.]

The recently announced e-bike subsidy. There’s Bill 23, which recently reached royal assent, and, of course, the new $100 million for active transportation, all of which have been on our asks for the last few years. It’s very exciting to see this government and this Legislature moving forward with those items.

It’s also important to recognize that as you look forward to your new clean transportation action plan. The investments that have been made in the past are fantastic. They’re changing people’s way of being. It’s the first day of GoByBike Week. I came straight from the first celebration station this morning, and you can really see the impact the provincial investments are making. Numerous people were riding with their children and their families, coming to our celebration stations.

It’s important to also recognize that those investments need to advance and increase. There’s been an increased need. As more and more people get on their bikes, more and more people will need more places to bike. There’s also been a change in the way we build for bikes that’s unfortunately made it a little more expensive. We need to build more protected infrastructure, such as is being built around this very building as we speak. That is more expensive. Pouring more concrete does mean more dollars.

There’s also been an increase in construction costs, as I’m sure you’re well aware of in your home communities. The construction costs have spiraled, sometimes up to 100 percent, in the last couple of years. Those provincial dollars are really what’s going to change our communities for the better. They’re the ones that really leverage the local dollars and the federal dollars.

Of course, there’s a very large pool of money that exists already that the province has spent on highway infrastructure and other infrastructure. So it isn’t necessarily finding new dollars. You can shuffle money around. The best part is that when you spend money on things like active transportation and transit, your bang for your buck is much bigger than if you build a highway interchange, for example. So there’s a lot of need for new investment, and we’re hopeful that that $100 million that was announced is just the beginning of even more.

The second runs around what we call, in the biking business, the soft e’s, the encouragement and the education. Here, again, the province has made some great strides in the last few years. There’s the new ERG 4-5, Everyone Rides Grade 4-5, which is fantastic. It’s led by HUB Cycling, our colleagues in Vancouver, where it happened to be the local service delivery. It really builds on programs that both HUB and we have built over the last, really, 20 years.

Getting into schools is the way to change the next generation. That’s amazing. What’s needed now is a focus on a few other places: increasing the adult education, increasing pre-K education and these kinds of places.

That brings us to our second challenge. As you probably know, wages have been increasing in the last few years as the cost of living goes up. It means that we, as a society, have had to look to how we increase our wages and our budget so that we can attract the kind of quality people we need and really keep the quality people we need.

One of the challenges we have is that if we don’t pay enough, we lose people. People get trained and then leave the door, which happens in organizations and companies all across this province. So really, the need is there for additional provincial investment to make sure that we can keep and retain great people and, ultimately, expand our programs to reach more.

The last piece is really about why, and that comes down to equity. We know that newcomers, people who are of lower income, people who might have disabilities and challenges, who aren’t able to drive…. We need to be able to provide them transportation options that get them to the places they need to go, the economic opportunities they need — their housing, their school, whatever it is. Active transportation and transit — again, you get a lot more bang for your buck, for your dollar, when you start looking at investing in these things.

We’re hopeful that as you build forward with your new clean transportation action plan, you know that the next 2024 budget can see a dramatic increase in the amount of money for all of these various programs, both on the infrastructure side and on the investment side.

Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Corey.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Corey, for the presentation. I love what you’ve been saying so far.

Do you have a dollar figure to kind of help us to appreciate that if we have active transportation that reduces the number of cars, allowing people who are maybe front-line workers, people who are providing service to our community…?

If we have a strong active transportation infrastructure, how much costs, then, would be reduced for them, instead of having them buying a car, buying insurance and buying gas?

C. Burger: The Canadian Automobile Association estimates that owning a car costs you about $10,000 a year, so do the math on that. If you can eliminate…. For example, my household is a one-car household, so we don’t need to insure and maintain a vehicle.

[9:35 a.m.]

I just bought my wife an e-bike, actually, a couple of weeks ago. That will reduce our costs as well. An e-bike is incredibly cheap to operate. It’s cents a kilometre or less, compared to a motor vehicle. I don’t have an exact dollar figure. It does change a little bit. E-bikes are a little bit more expensive than a regular bike, but the maintenance of them is pretty similar.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Corey. In a couple of days, we’re going to have a rebate program getting implemented for e-bikes. I think it’s about a $350 to $1,400 rebate, depending on income and all that. It’s for 19 and up; it’s not for under that age.

Now, you talked about equity and climate action, and I wanted to kind of address both of those. Do you think this rebate program should go to 16, where young adults are getting their driver’s licence for the first time and might not necessarily be able to afford it?

Also, should it be not exclusive just to e-bikes but to pure pedal power? A lot of regions in the province don’t have those 12 months of the year that they can use an e-bike. Certainly, sub-zero temperatures aren’t great for e-bikes. If you look at Fort St. John, even at my riding of Kootenay East, you might get six months maximum.

I think that’s the question. Where do you think that program should go? Should it be expanded?

C. Burger: Yeah. I mean, I think 16 is fantastic. If you can get a kid on an e-bike at 16, that’d be amazing. You know, you can build a lifelong bike rider. I am sitting here today because my grandparents were involved in the Greater Victoria Cycling Coalition back in the early nineties.

Then in terms of rural and northern areas, you often have longer trip distances there. An e-bike is really powerful for those. To give you a rough stat, in Vancouver they recently did a survey, and they found that although e-bikes are less than 15 percent of the total bicycle fleet within the city of Vancouver, they were about 60 to 65 percent of all the kilometres travelled by bike within that. It’s a huge difference in terms of usage. That’s really why the e-bikes….

There’s that higher price point as well. I mean, the first bike I bought for my wife was $300. The bike I just bought a couple of weeks ago was $3,500. So there’s an order-of-magnitude difference there.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Corey. I notice there’s an increasing utilization on these bike lanes that have been put in. Last night coming in from the airport, there was a scooter going down on Douglas to turn right on Fort Street, and I thought, “He’s going against the traffic,” because, of course, it’s one-way. Anyway, it’s fine.

I’m just wondering. As technology changes and you see this…. A few years ago, when I was based in Beijing, there were a lot of these electric devices, which are all coming out here — you know, the monocycle-type things you stand on and stuff like that. Is the infrastructure that we have adequate for that type of cohabitation of those different types of devices? Or do you think that there are other, further improvements needed in those different modes of transportation? They’re not all bicycles.

C. Burger: No, absolutely. In fact, there was a monowheel at our celebration station this morning.

Yes, in places; no, in other places. For example, the CRD is looking to widen and separate the Galloping Goose Trail and the Lochside Trail because of usage. That’s going to be a very large, big-ticket item that’s going to need to happen.

I think there are a couple of pieces that need to happen. One is that you need some revisions to the Motor Vehicle Act to make those legal and let people use them in bike lanes. Then the second would be to make sure that there are enough dollars so that we are building big enough, wide enough infrastructure to accommodate all those people as they use them.

It’s not just the monowheels; there are also mobility scooters as well. Where do those go? There are lot of legal questions around that. I think the bike lane is probably the most appropriate as a sort of micromobility lane, but how that looks is up to the future.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your time, Corey. We are up against the clock here. Yes, it is five minutes of talking and five minutes of questioning. Thank you very much for your time. We’ll keep that in mind for our deliberations.

Next up is Paul Nursey, Destination Greater Victoria.

Paul, you know the rules: five minutes.

The floor is yours.

DESTINATION GREATER VICTORIA

P. Nursey: Good morning, everyone. Thank you. I’m grateful to be joining you from a few blocks away here, where our office is.

It’s also on the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking territories. I wanted to give an acknowledgment before diving in here.

[9:40 a.m.]

We are the official tourism board and advocacy organization for the tourism industry in greater Victoria. We operate under the government of B.C.’s MRDT framework and work closely with Destination B.C. We are a not-for-profit and have just about 950 member businesses, and we are the stewards and advocates for the visitor economy in greater Victoria.

We are pleased to have authored a comeback last year of Canada-leading business results from COVID-19. While there’s still work to do, we were very successful in our comeback last year across multiple different channels. When downtowns are struggling, we think that every single leisure traveller, every single cruise passenger and every single conference delegate matters to the vibrancy of small businesses…. As downtowns go through changes as a result of workers not returning to the office and things of that nature.

First of all, before I go into our three recommendations, which I’ll cover very quickly and hope to finish ahead of the clock for your benefit…. It is a $2.3 billion industry, as last measured in 2018, before COVID, employing 22,000 jobs. Two in five Victorians are involved. We’re also grateful for the government of B.C.’s support during COVID-19. There were some very smart programs put forward.

Our first recommendation is in regard to the provincial framework now and specifically the MRDT accommodation taxation system. The tourism system is under review, under the tourism renewal program under Minister Popham’s leadership. We want to signal, as I believe the government of B.C.’s report does, that the system that we have now is a world-leading system. It requires accommodators to agree to an additional hotel room tax; for a five-year business plan to be developed, approved by city council and then on to capital regional district or regional districts; and it requires Indigenous support.

It’s that critical tripartite agreement, where the accommodators first agree that there’s value in pursuing things as a common group, then having city councils agree and industry agree before it goes out for a formal approval through Destination B.C. and Finance. That is that critical piece, that healthy tension in the system.

It’s not entirely rooted in municipal government. It’s not entirely rooted in commercial interests of accommodators. It’s executed, in most cases, by a not-for-profit, which is governed by industry and a blend of municipal appointees. We just want to signal that this is a world-leading system, and it helped lead us back from COVID. We don’t really see a need to tinker with something that has really worked so well.

Our second recommendation, and we do know that substantive work is underway now, is to really get the Belleville International Terminal across the finish line. We know that’s been an active file for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.

We also know that Canada, and by consequence B.C. and all of us, is not compliant with our treaty with the United States. It requires preclearance under our treaty. While the Ministry of Transportation is leading that, they are partnering with the government of Canada and the local ferry operators.

Our ask is that the deal be fair to the ferry operators. They are private sector, including some which are family owned. We know that government capital is patient and can fill in the gaps where the private sector may not be able to.

We know we’re down to the wire in terms of those deals. We’re grateful for the support to date, but we want to make sure that that deal gets done. We don’t want to risk losing U.S. customs capacity in the Inner Harbour. That would have negative impacts on Kenmore Air and/or the Sidney ferry route, which will come back when the new ferry is built. But if we lose those U.S. border patrol agents because they need to go south of the border for other priorities in the United States because we’re not compliant with our treaty, that capacity may be lost forever, and that would be a big, big blow.

Thirdly, as in my written submission, and this is more of a future-oriented piece, we are working very closely with our municipal partners and the industry to work on the circular economy for tourism as part of ongoing sustainability issues efforts. We view the circular economy, which is to reduce waste and to reuse items, as a future. It’s been done a great deal in remote island destinations, but we would like to work with our industry and governments in terms of having a circular economy strategy which reduces and eliminates and upcycles opportunities across the value chain. We believe Victoria, with its sustainable sensibilities, can be a leader in this.

Within CleanBC or other opportunities, we hope there’s some language, which is why we wrote it in our written submission, that would allow for partnership in that area in the future. We’re really starting to innovate in that space, everything from carpets and drapes or using them in different ways or refilling cleaning supplies. There are so many things across the accommodation/hospitality cycle which could benefit from a circular economy.

With that, I’m ten seconds under, so I’ll wrap it up there.

Thanks very much for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Paul. Not quite the screaming halt, but we’re pretty close.

[9:45 a.m.]

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. Good to see you again.

I’ll quickly go on to the question about circular economy. When I read your presentation, your submission, it was like: “Okay that’s not quite exactly the entirety of circular economies around recycling.”

One of the things that we discovered in COVID was around international tourism. Do you see circular economy about including more local tourism like within B.C., within Canada to keep the dollars at home?

P. Nursey: That’s definitely…. That has always been part of our strategy.

So 76 percent of travel is, in fact, domestic and always has been. It’s only about 10 or 12 percent historically. Prior to this role, I was the vice-president of strategy for the national tourism board, so I understand my figures precisely. So 10 to 15 percent of our leisure travel is international and, of course, the conference session.

I want to caution, and I want to be very clear about that. The domestic traveller is not profitable, right? It’s a lower-spending traveller. While it was a great thing to get us through COVID, it is not a long-term, sustainable strategy. We do need international travellers that require more assistance and are more profitable, so a mix of them.

The other reality is that Canadians are voracious outbound travellers, like Germans and Australians. There’s a whole import substitution component as well.

I do agree that when things get tough, we stay close to home. The great thing about Victoria is, in our case, there are about 9,500 hotel rooms here. We can fill mostly with great visitors from the Pacific Northwest. America is our No. 1 strategy, about a 2.5 hour flying radius, so we’re close in, anyways. But other parts of the province — I’m not speaking on behalf of the province — really do rely on those international travellers, so just a polite caution there.

In terms of circular economy, we really view that as our operations as a tourism industry and our self-desired expectations to really improve our operational footprint. We have a very motivated group here. We’ve just been designated to the biosphere certificate program here and have up to 60 businesses this year signing on behind us. We’re really motivated to improve our operations.

R. Leonard: Thank you. I’m glad you’re putting your minds to it and taking action.

P. Nursey: Thank you. Yeah.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah, thanks Paul.

To your second point on developing the international terminal, you mentioned a few things there, but we’re talking about streamlining the process, getting people through, enhancing the facilities, essentially more volume, bringing more people here to British Columbia, essentially. Of course with that comes other issues, such as infrastructure, transportation. Are we ready for that kind of volume? I don’t know what percentage your target is for that.

Also, you mentioned something about labour, which is also the other major factor. Is part of this retention for bringing people in, headhunting, all that kind of stuff?

P. Nursey: No. I wouldn’t go that far.

I mean, the critical issue with Belleville International Terminal, which is right there, is two things. The Coho ferry dock was replaced a few years ago, but where the Clipper comes, the dock was built in 1909, and it’s literally falling into the sea. It really has a few years left.

The other is the guest experience. It’s in ATCO trailers, and that’s always terrible.

The third and most critical one is that we are in violation…. When I say “we,” Canada is in violation of our international treaty. We’re nowhere near back to the 1990s levels. Victoria is still 35 percent below pre-9/11 levels when the border thickened. Volume or over-tourism or things of that nature is nowhere near a concern in this part of the world, because as the border thickened, there was just less travellers.

Our region has grown and developed and become more diversified since then. But what we are focused on is a yield strategy. We attract the higher spenders — particularly in the off-peak season’ conferences from companies like Amazon coming up on the Clipper and filling the Victoria Conference Centre — the best possible customers as our strategy. Of course, on flying up from the Bay Area and things of that nature. That’s our business strategy. Without that terminal, and it is at risk, 675,000 people go through there every year. What would happen?

Mr. Fleming is fully aware of this. They’re working very hard on it, right? I’m taking the opportunity, since I’m presenting, to underline this piece since is at risk, and we want to make sure it gets across the finish line and that we don’t drop the ball at the two-yard line, for those football fans. We don’t want to do a Leon Lett on the Belleville terminal and drop the ball on the goal line.

S. Chant: Just on another tack, how are you doing in terms of accessibility within the groups that you’re managing?

P. Nursey: Accessibility is a big priority. Obviously in Victoria we have unique challenges around our old town. This is where improvements, such as new hotels and things like that are positive. I’m familiar with many new hotels in the development pipeline.

[9:50 a.m.]

S. Chant: Okay.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, great. That concludes our time.

P. Nursey: Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Max Blouw, Research Universities Council of British Columbia. I took a guess on that pronunciation of the last name.

M. Blouw: The pronunciation is Blouw, “blouse” without the “se.” It’s the Dutch word for “blue.”

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Well, Mr. Blouw, Max, the floor is yours.

RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES
COUNCIL OF B.C.

M. Blouw: Thanks very much. It’s a delight to be with you again.

I represent the research universities of the province. We coordinate, and we advocate, and we try to keep them all aligned in some fashion or another.

I’d like to begin by acknowledging, with thanks, the very significant investments the province is making in our students through the future-ready skills program. My purpose today is to urge you to recommend that the province increase yet further its investments in talent and innovation.

I speak to you today with a bit of a sense of urgency. This is because despite recent commitments for more technology seats and investments that will improve access and inclusion in post-secondary education, we remain very far behind where we need to be to be competitive and to prosper through increasing productivity and wealth creation from knowledge.

When we invest in research development innovation, we gain not only an economic advantage…. Look what’s happening in China and Israel and Germany. The U.S.A. has just made massive investments. We also, when we make those investments, gain competitive advantage, because we enable businesses to produce more and superior products and services in global competition. We get improved quality of life. We get the ability to attract talent when we invest more in research and development. And of course, environmental sustainability is very much top of mind. We need new ideas. We need very active innovation to deal with those issues.

However, despite the importance of such investments, Canada’s investment in research and development is low, and it’s been declining, in sharp contrast to the OECD countries, which are accelerating their investments. For example, the U.S. currently invests more than twice as much per capita as Canada does in R and D. It’s projected that B.C.’s GDP growth and that of Canada will be the worst in the OECD group of countries for decades to come, so lack of investment does have consequences. We really do need to invest more in our future.

Unfortunately, B.C. trails Canada in research funding to universities. In fact, British Columbia spends less than half as much as Alberta, for example, in supporting research at its universities. With these comparisons as a backdrop, the research universities have three recommendations.

First, given that B.C. is behind where it needs to be, we underscore the urgency of increasing research funding, especially in areas of provincial priority — that is, those areas where we have real potential to succeed in global competition.

Some of those areas are in advanced digital solutions and agrifood technologies and green and clean technologies and climate adaptation and mitigation and, of course, in life sciences and health innovation. Recent provincial strategies and investments in some of these sectors is most welcome, but to catch up and then try to keep pace with others, we need your support to invest considerably more.

Our second recommendation is because digital advances underpin much of modern prosperity and inclusion. We’ve seen and we applaud major infrastructure investments by the province in schools, in hospitals, in affordable housing, energy projects and transportation. Comparable forward-looking investments should be made in digital infrastructure to provide students and communities the tools they need to foster learning and innovation in all corners of the province.

Investments in ubiquitous and accessible high-speed bandwidth must be coupled with investments in cybersecurity, in sophisticated software, advanced research computing hardware and tools that support digital systems resilience. Provincewide modern and secure connectedness is one of the most potent tools government has to foster inclusive prosperity.

[9:55 a.m.]

Our third and most important recommendation concerns advanced talent. There’s a global shortage of advanced talent, highly educated persons, to drive innovation, competitiveness and productivity. Canada is vulnerable in this regard.

I mentioned the U.S. brain drain that is likely to occur. This is because B.C. continues to lag other provinces in the number of graduate degrees awarded per capita. We have a relatively well educated population, but it’s largely due to importation. That’s a risky approach to ensuring that we have the people we need.

I see my time is up. I am grateful for the opportunity.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Max.

First question, Ben.

B. Stewart: Thank you very much, Max.

You mentioned a statistic about the U.S. investing twice as much per capita. I’m wondering. In the U.S., I don’t know whether the money is coming state-wise or federally. I guess the thing about it is: how do you make certain that you’re…? I mean, throwing money out there is one thing. How do you target it? How do you measure that?

I think that probably…. Based on your presentation, I think some sort of recommendation as to how you would see us differentiating where the money goes would be helpful for this committee, because we recommend to the Finance Minister.

M. Blouw: Thanks very much, Ben. You’re absolutely right. Trying to target and identify the most promising areas for investment is critical.

My own view on that, and I think it’s supported by the presidents of the research-intensive universities, is that the province has natural assets. We have natural opportunities that we really ought to capitalize on. I mentioned some of them. We have a vibrant health, biotechnology, life sciences sector. We need to invest more there, because we already have advantages in certain areas there. We’re also very, very good at some agrifood technologies. We could invest more there.

I think the key is to get business, government and the academy together to make those decisions, to really scope out…. The business community is in the business of making profits. Universities aren’t.

Government is in the business of facilitating benefits for all British Columbians, so government could convene the business community with universities to really scope out which sectors offer the greatest promise. What do we need to do to attract the talent, to develop the talent in those areas and then move forward with investment, not only from government but also from the private sector, to make things happen?

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Max. Nice seeing you again.

I do have a question about your recommendation No. 3. I really appreciate the idea that we want to strengthen our postgraduate training and research and really develop talent here in B.C. and Canada. But you mentioned something about the brain drain, which I obviously understand when there are different jurisdictions that have stronger economics or living-standard attractiveness that would draw people away.

I guess from a layman’s…. Pardon my language, as I do have a limited understanding this area. Shouldn’t we be focusing more on strengthening industry first, focusing on the sector first so that we have an environment where people actually want to stay here to work and want to be part of this community before we increase the number of post-doctoral spaces? I’d just love to hear your feedback on that one.

M. Blouw: I think you’re absolutely right. British Columbia is a wonderful place. I’ve moved back to British Columbia. I’m one of these people who was educated elsewhere. I earned a good living elsewhere, and now I’ve come back, and I’m delighted to be back in British Columbia. But that’s not a good strategy.

Quite frankly, it’s young people, and particularly immigrants, who need really robust opportunities for not only that undergraduate level of education but then the master’s, PhD and post-doctoral, because it is at that level that you have that very advanced, very highly competitive, globally competitive thinking that goes on to advance our modern economies.

It’s not just economies. As I said earlier, it’s climate. It’s sustainability. It’s all the other things that are so important to us.

I would also say that B.C. is very attractive, and lots of people would like to come and live here, but it is getting more expensive. It’s getting a little trickier to live here on a professional salary even, and they tend to be very good.

[10:00 a.m.]

Big companies are situating themselves in Vancouver because we produce wonderful graduate-level trainees. I think we’re being poached, quite frankly. I would love to produce more PhD-level, master’s-level students, and I’d really love to create the opportunities, the research environments, for them to stay and to really prosper in British Columbia and to contribute to our prosperity.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Max. One brief little comment, or maybe it’s a question. Where you talk about the research council in B.C. which represents the interests of B.C. research universities, what’s a qualifier to be a B.C. research university?

M. Blouw: That’s a very good question. We have PhD-awarding institutions — in other words, those institutions that can award the doctoral level of education. They include Royal Roads; Thompson Rivers, which currently doesn’t have the PhD level, but it has research explicitly in its mandate, so it’s part of our group; UNBC; UBC; Simon Fraser; and UVic — so six institutions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation.

M. Blouw: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Have a good day. Thank you for your service.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Ryan Hunt, B.C. Museums Association.

Ryan, I assume you’ve got the ground rules: five minutes to speak, five minutes’ worth of questions, and then we are done. Thank you.

The floor is yours, Ryan.

B.C. MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION

R. Hunt: My name is Ryan Hunt. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Museums Association. We’re a not-for-profit network of more than 450 museums, galleries, Indigenous heritage centres, science centres — things of a museum-like nature. I’m here today to present three recommendations on behalf of our sector.

The first, and most critically, is sustainable funding for arts, culture and heritage organizations. In the past year alone, we’ve seen the closure of two museums in B.C., the Bateman gallery and Point Ellice House museums and gardens, both due to lack of sustainable funding.

As we recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, we risk stumbling at the finish line. The province of B.C. has provided essential supports to our sector during the past three years, but our sector has far from recovered from the ravages of the pandemic. We’re facing higher-than-ever rates of inflation. We’re witnessing sectorwide burnout. We’re witnessing organizations being asked to do more with less. I fear that these two examples of failure recently will be a harbinger of what might be to come, still.

For more than 20 years, B.C. spent less on arts, culture and heritage than any province in the country, and while we’re very appreciative of the investment made by this government, we are at a really critical point in our recovery.

So my recommendation is that B.C. Arts Council funding be increased to $50 million annually. Currently, roughly a tenth of the museums and galleries in the province receive B.C. Arts Council operating funding, and this is such an essential form of support.

My second recommendation is emergency response planning. Also, in the past three years, we’ve witnessed two museums, both in Lytton, burn to the ground due to a forest fire. In addition to the forest fires, we’ve seen atmospheric rivers, record temperatures and snow events. Honestly, it’s a miracle that there hasn’t been more damage done to our irreplaceable cultural heritage. Especially coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, what previously was an unthinkable catastrophe, it shows why we need emergency response, recovery and mitigation plans in place.

My recommendation is that the province of B.C. work with the arts, culture and heritage sector to develop an arts and culture emergency mitigation and response plan covering things like how infrastructure is invested in to prepare for impending emergencies; how, when emergencies happen, funds are equitably distributed to those affected by the emergencies; and working with organizations that are already on the ground, like the B.C. Heritage Emergency Response Network, to leverage their existing knowledge base to create a sectorwide training program so every arts, culture and heritage organization in the province can protect the irreplaceable.

It is clear that the future will just hold more and more disasters and catastrophes, and if we don’t plan now, we are planning to fail in the future.

My last recommendation is the critical need for stable funding for Indigenous arts and culture. I urge the province to do this both because it is the right, moral decision but also due to the province’s obligations under DRIPA.

[10:05 a.m.]

Two examples of what this looks like…. It’s ensuring that organizations like First Peoples Cultural Council has sustainable funding for their arts and funding programs. First Peoples Cultural Council delivers amazing funds to Indigenous communities across the province. Those funds are always oversubscribed, and they need to ensure that they can plan on having sustainable funds tied to inflation.

The second, and oh so critical, is that the province develop an ongoing repatriation/rematriation program. Repatriation or rematriation is the return of stolen Indigenous arts, culture, heritage and even the bodies of ancestors. For hundreds of years during the colonization of Canada, Indigenous cultural heritage was taken and distributed around the world without their consent.

Dan Smith, the founding member of the BCMA Indigenous advisory committee said the following: “True, meaningful and lasting reconciliation must include the return of our ancestors…to the nations where they were taken from. We must work together to realize this and, in doing so, free our children and their children from the sacred obligation…for finding our ancestors and bringing them home.”

The province has offered two repatriation funding programs in 2017 and 2020. But there are no ongoing provincial funds to support this work, which makes planning, for Indigenous communities, nearly impossible.

My recommendation is that the province of B.C. establish a modest annual fund that supports repatriation of around $750,000 annually to ensure that the Indigenous communities who have started the journeys to return their property and ancestors home in 2017 and 2020 can continue to do so.

I have been invited to repatriation and rematriation ceremonies, and it is a life-changing event for those communities to heal those centuries-old wounds and take meaningful steps towards lasting reconciliation.

Those are my three recommendations.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Ryan, for your presentation.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation.

Can you perhaps give rough figures on the percentage of funding that museums get — bigger ones, smaller ones — in terms of government funding, private sources and your own door receipts for fundraising efforts, the three categories?

R. Hunt: There are really big differences between large and small museums in B.C. In the province, roughly two-thirds of museums are small museums with budgets under $250,000 annually. So large museums like, say, Science World, for example…. Around 85 percent of their revenues come from door admission fees. For small museums that don’t have that kind of foot traffic, they rely much more heavily on public funding sources.

Municipal funding can vary wildly from museum to museum. Some, like the Sidney Museum, enjoy 20, 30 percent annual funding from their local government. A museum like Point Ellice House, for example, receives zero dollars in municipal funding.

So it’s very fragmented, and there’s not really a standard level between institutions. Again, some receive fairly strong support from the provincial government, and some receive basically zero funding from the provincial government. So it’s very case by case.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Ryan. I’m not sure whether you were who I spoke to last time, doing the presentation.

I have two quick questions. The first one is…. You mentioned you want to increase funding to $50 million per year. What is the current amount right now?

R. Hunt: I believe it is $39.4 million currently, $39.61 million.

H. Yao: Perfect.

The second question I think I asked last time during our tour, again, for the Finance Committee. It feels like there’s a lot of lack of awareness or appreciation among young students regarding all kinds of museum opportunities for elementary and post-secondary students. Is there any kind of ask coming from the museum sector to really say what we can do to use technology to help students to actually appreciate — so one, increase foot traffic and two, really have an increase in their interest and the desire to protect our heritage?

R. Hunt: Well, that’s a great question. We’ve actually just partnered with a B.C.-based start-up to develop a platform called the VR Voyage Classroom. It is like an Etsy, where museums, galleries and cultural institutions can post online and in-person field trips, and museums can book all of their field trip needs through one unified platform, which allows better discovery — people to have those serendipitous moments where they learn about a new piece of history that they’ve never encountered before.

So working with the start-up, we’ve managed to receive about a quarter million dollars of investment from various sources. The platform is now online, and we’re working to promote it to school districts across the province.

[10:10 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): I have one question, and then we’ll go back to Henry. With regards to the $750,000 a year for the repatriation project that you’re talking about doing, you’ve come up with a specific number that’s there. If the number…. Can you just explain what’s going to happen with that?

R. Hunt: Yeah. In 2020, the B.C. Museums Association worked with the province of B.C. to administer $500,000 to support repatriation. With that $500,000, we were able to reach roughly 50 First Nations communities, but we received $1.1 million in requests for that $500,000.

What’s really challenging is…. Communities start this work and, without sustained funding, can’t finish this work, which is heartbreaking for those communities.

We recommend something in the neighbourhood of $750,000, ongoing, to ensure that this work, which, to be honest, will take decades, most likely, can progress. While we were happy to administer the 2020 repatriation grants, we also recommend that that funding, going forward, be administered by an Indigenous-led organization.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Henry, you had one last question.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I apologize for forgetting about this one.

Obviously, coming from a different cultural background, coming to Canada…. We really appreciate the inclusivity and the diversity we have.

Is there any kind of pushing of the museum sector to really…? Obviously, we have the Chinese Canadian Museum now coming through, thanks to George Chow. We’re really looking for ways to…. What else can we do to actually foster that cultural heritage? It just demonstrates the inclusivity and, of course, captures historical wrongs as a reminder for us not to repeat the same mistake.

R. Hunt: Yeah. To be entirely honest, the museum sector has a tremendous amount of work ahead of it to be more inclusive. In our sector nationally, only around 10 percent of people working in museums are visible minorities, which means that our sector does not represent the diversity of Canada.

There are tremendous examples of organizations making those changes. The establishment of the new Chinese Canadian Museum in Vancouver is another example of how the sector is changing. Increasingly, I talk to Indigenous communities who want to start their own museums.

I think that there is a much more diverse future ahead. We just need to invest in making that change a reality.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great, Ryan. Thank you very much for your presentation.

R. Hunt: Thank you, all, so much for your time today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up we have George Scott.

My apologies. Next up is Nathan from the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

VICTORIA CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC

N. Medd: Good morning. Nathan Medd, CEO for the Victoria Conservatory of Music.

We’re the largest music school in western Canada. A lot of people don’t realize that. We have a mission that includes excellence in music education and performance. In a unique way, wellness is a part of our mandate too. We host one of North America’s most distinguished music therapy clinics. We have three performing arts halls here in downtown Victoria and 75 studios between here and Langford.

I appreciated hearing the comments from my colleague in the museum sector.

I’ll focus this morning on two of my three written recommendations, which I think really reflect a proud arts and culture community. It’s one that’s moving through a time of great change and great financial uncertainty, but it’s the community that is telling the story of this province to itself and to the world.

You’ll be hearing, also, this week from…. My colleague at the Alliance for Arts and Culture, I understand, is here tomorrow.

First, today I want to recommend that next year’s budget continue to support the arts sector recovery by extending the province’s arts and culture resilience supplement for two more years through 2025.

Last month the province announced it was investing $34.5 million into charitable arts and culture organizations to support resiliency and economic recovery for people working in the sector. As one of the organizations that benefited from this action, the Victoria Conservatory extends its sincere appreciation to you for being there when it mattered. This support to our non-profit represented 9 percent of our annual budget, and it’s what’s allowing us to balance this year.

Our peer organizations are facing the same challenge. They would say the same thing if they were up here presenting.

I just want to colour it in for you a little bit. Leaving the cost of business aside…. Last fall a WolfBrown study for the Ontario Arts Council indicated that right now 11 percent of pre-pandemic ticket buyers don’t expect to be returning to in-person performances until the spring of this year. There are questions whether that portion of the audience will ever return.

[10:15 a.m.]

The larger challenge to the long-term recovery of arts and culture seems to lie in attendance frequency. Across all genres, respondents are attending live events less frequently than before the pandemic. Maybe you are one of them.

A different research piece by Nanos and Business for the Arts Canada early this year indicates that culture-goers are slightly likelier to say that they’re going to spend less on arts and culture this year than last year, rather than more.

The good news from the trenches is that arts organizations are indeed on the comeback. It’s just going to continue to be a slow one.

It’s a time of innovation. It’s also a puzzling time, as creators and producers are learning what the public wants to participate in and wants to buy in this new paradigm. It will continue to be quite financially uncertain for our theatres and our orchestras and our festivals for the next two years. So I strongly recommend you maintain the resilience supplement. It really is helping these important community organizations stay open.

My second recommendation reflects another pandemic lesson for our sector. It relates to long-term planning for arts and culture charities.

We heard from the colleague previous about disaster mitigation. Another way to address that would be for the 2024 budget to encourage philanthropic giving and strengthen charities in B.C. by establishing a provincial endowment matching program similar to the endowment incentives program of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

This was a clear takeaway from the pandemic in arts and culture. When our earned revenues dried up because of ticket sales and services, we were still able to utilize our endowments to have an impact in our communities.

In 2020, I was in Alberta. I was working for the Banff Centre for the Arts. This was considered a model enterprising charity in Canada. It was the largest social enterprise of any in Canadian arts, with $30 million in a destination conference business feeding into the programming. That revenue dried up right away. What was left were our endowments, which were dedicated to opera and to visual arts and to music. That’s what allowed us to pivot and continue delivering on our mission. It was the same for the Victoria Conservatory here.

These are funds that are growing, in part, through government matching incentives. The province of B.C. should be encouraging charities to be organizing in this way. Donors who see that their gifts can be leveraged for additions are more likely to give at a higher level.

The funds established in perpetuity are providing that solid foundation for charities like ours to grow steadily. They’ve proven to be absolutely critical during this prolonged interruption. We were able to deliver critical music therapy to autistic and dementia clients. It really was important. So I encourage the province to explore this.

Thank you very much. I see my time is up. It’s too short.

I encourage you to read my written recommendation. I understand it just got to you today. My apologies for that.

I welcome any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Nathan.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I was just thinking: “How do I try to print the recommendation?” I know it’s not in my binder.

I really appreciate, obviously, all the stuff you’re talking about. I’m just curious. Is there any kind of effort by the Victoria Conservatory of Music to focus on how music provides mental wellness? That’s a huge issue that we’re dealing with in our society. We’re struggling with mental health concerns, mental wellness concerns.

Is there a potential consideration to really help us strengthen that social connectedness through music?

N. Medd: It’s a big focus of ours. Thank you for the question. It’s so big that, in fact, we repositioned our mission.

I mentioned wellness off the top. We used to say that we were about music therapy. Wellness, we think, catches a broader — what’s the word? — concept of health and social connection, as you say.

We’re looking at intergenerational music programming to strengthen connections across generations — seniors, young people. We have a memorandum of understanding with one builder of a seniors living facility — it’s yet to be built — here in downtown Victoria, where we will take over the bottom floor. We’ll deliver intergenerational music programming, for a 20-year span, at $1 a year. So this is the kind of thinking.

Our music therapy clinic is one of the very largest in North America. That is an emerging field still. Vancouver is about to host the World Congress of Music Therapy in July at the convention centre. I’ll be attending it. I’m just really eager to learn where the field is going and developing in different ways in different countries.

[10:20 a.m.]

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation. This is why I like public consultations. I learn so much about how vibrant this industry is.

I really appreciated you saying that this is a puzzling time. You made reference to innovation. When we’re looking at what we are funding, I really appreciate the notion of…. I don’t think that we want to be just funding something that used to be, if that’s not what the future is going to look like.

If you’re saying people are not coming back, but there are different interests that are growing, do you see room in the budget requests around supporting that exploration of innovation, or do you see the endowment notion as being the way to be the driver in what new directions you go?

N. Medd: Great question. I used to be a staff officer for the B.C. Arts Council, so I’m well aware of its current strategy. It’s got its action plan to 2024. You see the priorities there all revolving around rethinking, rebuilding, reimagining and redistributing in a more equitable way to fuel emerging artistic practices and audience behaviours.

Your best bet is…. My third recommendation, when you have a chance to read it, is to consider doubling the budget of the B.C. Arts Council’s base over the next three years. They’re grappling with redistribution. The budget has increased quite a bit since 2016, yet the needs and opportunities for innovation, for infrastructure….

The preceding speaker spoke to infrastructure; $4.5 million of that resilience supplement was to go to infrastructure projects. I can say that for my organization alone, and our building alone, the seismic issue alone is more than $4.5 million. That’s just one issue.

The needs are great. I’m getting over into infrastructure now, but in that way, we are also innovating. I see across B.C. novel ways to repurpose buildings. Obviously, the technological uses of those buildings are advancing.

G. Chow: Yes, it’s understandable that people are reluctant to move back into the music hall and the theatres. What is the best optimistic estimate for returning to pre-pandemic level? How many years?

N. Medd: Just last week, we learned that Broadway, which is a bellwether for the whole continent in all genres, is returning, this season, to pre-pandemic attendance. That’s a bellwether. If we take that as a signal, I estimate that in two years, we’ll be back to pre-pandemic attendance through all manner of efforts, but, in some ways, organically.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you, Nathan, for your presentation and your time this morning.

Our next presenter is Kathy MacRae, Unlikely Allies.

Good morning. You know the ground rules. Five minutes of presentation and then five minutes worth of questions.

The floor is yours.

UNLIKELY ALLIES

K. MacRae: Thank you so much for having me. I am one of the board members of Unlikely Allies.

The group has come together specifically to advocate for improved protection and management of wildlife habitat in British Columbia and the betterment of policy and decision-making concerning habitat management in B.C., with the emphasis on accountability, transparency with a quantifiable advancement timeline.

Our mission is to support significant forestry reforms that fish, wildlife, communities and economies can thrive together. Our board of directors is comprised of myself, and I’m the executive director of the Commercial Bear Viewing Association; Chris Genovali, the executive director of Raincoast Conservation; Shannon McPhail, the executive director of the Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition; and Scott Ellis, the executive director of the Guide Outfitters Association of B.C.

I’d like to point that out, because those of you who know us, know that we really are unlikely allies. It is a really big thing for us to come together to talk about what is important for us, which is habitat for wildlife in British Columbia.

[10:25 a.m.]

We feel it’s a very dire thing for us join forces when we are usually enemies. There’s a long history with a couple of us on the board of directors, but we get along when it comes to wildlife and when it comes to habitat management in general.

Our first recommendation is to implement the role of a chief ecologist. We’d like to see a chief ecologist work alongside the chief forester. Their partnership will ensure the setting of targets for biodiversity and ecosystem health and establish a clear path to achieving those targets. We think that in this day and age, with the paradigm shift that is happening in British Columbia, and with the movement away from the way that we have been logging to more of a forest management approach, a chief ecologist is mandatory and essential to ensure that our wildlife and our ecosystems are thriving.

To prioritize biodiversity and ecosystem health, the chief ecologist should be appointed by the Bulkley Valley Research Centre or by members of the old-growth strategic review. This position should report directly to the cabinet and have a degree in ecology or something similar of a relevant discipline.

Why do we need a chief ecologist? Well, as I said, we’re prioritizing biodiversity, finally, in B.C., we feel. So it’s necessary to make sure that the government is acting in the best interests of our ecosystem and the people of B.C. It provides transparency and accountability between corporations, industry and the government.

Recommendation 2 is that we increase the capacity of the environmental enforcement and investigation units within the conservation officer service so that we can appropriately enforce all 11 values within the Forest and Range Practices Act across British Columbia. We are asking that we reprioritize the natural resource officers to enforce corporate infractions, including of the Migratory Birds Convention Act.

It’s one thing to prioritize the change and change policy and legislation, but until we see action on the ground around policy and enforcement, we cannot rely on legislation and policy changes alone. If the government cannot enforce these laws, the corporations will continue to exploit them.

The investigation unit and the natural resource officers should be empowered to observe, record, report and have tools to enforce laws on the ground. These recommendations would also need oversight. This can be achieved through the chief ecologist, the chief forester and all relevant industries working in tandem to regulate and ensure the protection of biodiversity and ecosystem health across the province.

Then our recommendation 3 is to fully implement the 14 recommendations of the old-growth strategic review panel’s report immediately and accelerate the implementation of a framework for biodiversity and ecosystem health. We are asking that we have an implementation plan with measurable outcomes by the end of 2024.

For the sake of our interconnected ecosystems, implementing all 14 of the recommendations of the old-growth strategic review and accelerating the implementation of a framework for biodiversity and ecosystem health will show the B.C. public that their natural resources will benefit, inform and are important to this government. As we understand it, the government is working on implementation of all 14, but what we’re looking for are measurable outcomes.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Thank you very much for your presentation, Kathy.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Kathy. I like what you’re saying here, and I like the chief ecologist position here. Like yourself in Unlikely Allies, I think, one could argue that the Fish, Wildlife and Habitat Coalition is another example. Nothing brings us….

Interjection.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yes, absolutely. There’s nothing that brings people together more than a crisis. That’s what we’re in right now.

Talking about enforcement, I don’t know. Regionally or jurisdiction-wise, in British Columbia, I can understand some of that. But when we look at enforcement outside our jurisdictions and how much teeth we actually have, in enforcing with our COs, with people doing bad things on the land base, that would be, maybe, a question. Maybe you have a solution as to how we’d legislate that.

The other one, on the 14 recommendations. One of those recommendations is, “Establish and fund a more robust monitoring and evaluation system” for updating management and old growth strategies. I’d like to expand that a little bit more to wildlife populations and ecosystem enhancement.

How would you see a sustainable fund…? The Freshwater Fisheries Society has an independent funding model that brings their revenues directly for that management. Would you see something like that as a funding model?

[10:30 a.m.]

K. MacRae: We could, or the increase in fines and actually implementing fines for corporations…. All of that can go towards fish, wildlife and habitat.

There is a possibility…. The conservation officer service is looking to increase their fines. That’s something that has not been increased in a few years. They’re looking to double or, potentially, triple what the personal British Columbian, what you and I, would experience.

What we’re talking about is corporations, what the corporations are doing out there — mining, forestry — and the infractions that they cause. That money is what we’re talking about. That can be given to establishing some kind of fund for fish, wildlife and habitat.

S. Chant: Can you give me sort of an outline — my area of expertise is elsewhere — around what you’re talking about with the migratory bird act and the concerns there, please?

K. MacRae: The migratory bird act, to be honest with you, is just something we’ve put in. It’s an example that can be drawn upon. The migratory bird act is an act that has infractions established within it. We’re looking to duplicate that within other acts.

S. Chant: Around other creatures.

K. MacRae: Other creatures. Correct.

S. Chant: Okay. Very good. Thank you.

A. Walker: Thank you, Kathy. This is really good.

I have two questions. Would the strength of the chief ecologist role be the same if it was appointed by a different body other than the two that you recommended? Then you had talked about measurable outcomes for the old-growth strategic review. We have seen a lot of progress on those. What would it look like, for you, to have measurable outcomes?

K. MacRae: Totally different out there on the land, wouldn’t it? Good question.

We mentioned the Bulkley Valley…. To be honest with you, I’m not 100 percent sure where it was listed. The Bulkley Valley Research Centre is being used in this capacity already, which is why we’re recommending that the chief ecologist come from there or be somebody who the old-growth strategic review is recommending. Obviously, those are just two examples. Somebody with a degree in that or who has experience and could be a chief ecologist for the province is what we’re recommending.

What measurable outcomes look like on the ground…. It would be, from the tourism lens, seeing collaboration with tourism operators, seeing a value understood that’s not just forestry, having collaboration on the land, understanding that forestry isn’t just the be-all and end-all in this province as an extractive industry.

B. Stewart: Kathy, the way that you’ve kind of come across is…. It doesn’t seem like the business interests are at all aligned with the groups that are represented by that.

I’m just wondering. Is there nobody that is doing a good job — they’re on the ground, and they’re resource extraction, whether it’s forestry or mining — that could be a partner or a collaborator?

I guess what I’m looking at is…. Confrontation is a very divisive and very difficult way to find a future forward. What I’m trying to say is…. What you’re saying is important. Without kind of having people join hands, just like the four of you….

What I’m wondering is: what efforts have been made to do that? Why do you feel that it’s not moving in the right direction?

K. MacRae: Really good. There are two examples that I can show you.

In the Commercial Bear Viewing Association, I have one member who has tried to speak to the forest company — this is in the West Kootenays — that is actively logging during bear-viewing season, and they refuse to speak. They refuse to have a conversation. So that’s a negative, where the tourism operator is trying. That’s one negative.

I see that our time is up.

The positive example is in the Discovery Islands. There is the Discovery Islands forest working group, where the forest company, Interfor, and the tourism operators in the area have come together to form a working group.

[10:35 a.m.]

People from the lands branch are a part of it as well as people…. There used to be people from the tourism branch. I would advocate that we have somebody from the Tourism Ministry restart their position at this working table. From firsthand knowledge…. I have seen where that type of collaboration works.

We took the forest companies out on a boat to explain what the cumulative effects are with their cutblocks that they had all up and down Bute Inlet. Because of that day and that consultation and that collaboration, the working group that they have together, the trust that’s there, they managed to talk about not having certain cutblocks in certain areas for tourism. They managed to talk about what was important for the biodiversity and the ecosystem and the salmon in the area.

The forest company shifted what they were doing. The tourism companies worked alongside and changed their kayaking route that they were doing on the way up Bute Inlet. There is a really good back-and-forth.

I absolutely agree with you. Confrontation is not the way to achieve success. Working together is.

M. Starchuk (Chair): I’m trying not to use the word “enemies” again.

We have a cancellation right after this, so what are the wishes of the committee? We have two people that want to ask questions. If it works for Kathy, and she’s willing too, and there’s no opposition to it, we’ll go with the last two.

Okay. Ronna-Rae and then Bruce.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. Speaking of the tensions…. The whole paradigm shift with forestry is around recognizing biodiversity. That’s the landscape-planning process, and there is supposed to be community involvement. I’m just wondering how…. At this point, are you in the areas that have been already identified? Have you been involved with those? If you are, is it working well?

The second question, in the same vein, relates to having a chief forester and a chief ecologist. If the program is being set up to be more protective of biodiversity…. It’s the Ministry of Forests now, not the ministry of forestry. I think that’s a pretty defining change. What are the tensions that could exist between a chief ecologist and a chief forester?

K. MacRae: Oh gosh. Very good. I’m sure a lot of tensions could exist.

With the name change…. I think it should be still noted that one of the main mandates was to advocate for the forest industry when it was under Minister Conroy. Under Minister Ralston, it has changed.

When the Ministry of Forests was established…. When FLNRORD — Forests, Lands, Natural Resources and Rural Development — broke and became the Ministry of Forests, the first mandate was still to be an independent advocate for the forest industry. That’s one issue, right there, where we can see where things are not working for the biodiversity and for the ecosystem. It is still thinking about the forest industry.

Tensions between the two…. I would imagine that they would…. Establishing something new like this, in the paradigm shift that we are experiencing in British Columbia, would only allow for some bumps along the way. We’re experiencing that with a lot of different things in B.C. right now, reconciliation being one of them, where we are having bumps along the way in the back country. Everybody wants reconciliation to happen, and it’s important. There are bumps that are happening.

I think when it comes to a chief ecologist and a chief forester working side by side, there will be bumps. It’s something new, and it’s something different.

I think it’s important to hold the chief forester accountable and to hold the chief ecologist accountable. Having the two work side by side is what we’re looking for. Where would that sit? Potentially in the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. Those two ministries work side by side. That ministry is there to hold the Ministry of Forests a little bit accountable. I think that would be achievable in that sense.

B. Banman: You touched on it just a second ago, which was reconciliation.

[10:40 a.m.]

I guess my question is: as we start to now go through territories, such as the Blueberry agreement that’s happened…. What allies do you have within our Indigenous peoples and First Nations that you’re working together? Are they at the table and part of your Unlikely Allies?

K. MacRae: We’ve reached out to different First Nation communities. We’ve had conversations with different First Nation communities, different Chiefs. Because we are a stakeholder group, we’ve not wanted to tread on that and take away from their voice. They’re not our stories to tell; we’re here to advocate for our specific interests. Because of that, we do collaborate, and we do work, but we haven’t had them as part of our organization.

That being said, we value what different Chiefs and different communities are interested in. One of the interesting stories from the Discovery Islands is Chief Darren Blaney — who, when we went out on that day with Interfor, was there to speak for his nation and their interest in forestry.

His interest in forestry is to have forestry with salmon in mind, so that biodiversity is the most important thing. Cutting down trees, removing everything and replanting pine farms isn’t the solution. The solution is to think about what our biodiversity can withstand and withhold, and how we regrow things so that we are building back proper forests for our wildlife.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Kathy, for sticking around a little bit longer and answering a few of the questions.

That will put us into a recess until 11 o’clock.

The committee recessed from 10:41 a.m. to 11 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. We will call the meeting back to order. Our next presentation is from Tom Hackney, the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association.

Tom, you have five minutes to make your presentation. The committee has five minutes to ask questions.

The floor is yours.

B.C. SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ASSOCIATION

T. Hackney: Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you, all, for holding this committee on such a lovely day and carrying on the business of the province.

My name is Tom Hackney. I’m the policy adviser for the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association. I think you probably have a written version of my presentation. I’m basically going to go over it quickly, I hope.

BCSEA is a member-supported registered charity. Our members are individuals, businesses, practitioners who support a sustainable energy transition in B.C. We deliver education and outreach on sustainable energy. We’re regular interveners at the B.C. Utilities Commission on the energy plans of B.C.’s energy utilities — B.C. Hydro, Fortis and others — so we’re well aware of that aspect of B.C.’s energy situation. We also have grassroots chapter activities and public outreach such as webinars.

For Budget 2024, BCSEA’s three main recommendations are (1) to provide lifeline support for consumers to access clean electricity; (2) to reallocate spending from highway capacity expansions to transit, electric vehicle initiatives, active transportation and heavy freight decarbonization; and, finally, to continue to support a shift to the green economy and reduce the economic reliance on fossil fuels.

Detail on No. 1: provide lifeline support for consumers to access clean electricity.

BCSEA strongly supports the government’s climate action work through CleanBC, the Roadmap to 2030, the carbon tax, the greenhouse gas emissions reduction regulation and other initiatives. We also recognize that this work will likely put upward pressure on energy costs for consumers, and this may cause hardship for some people and may discourage some people from switching off of fossil fuels to renewable electricity. We hope government will address that.

We acknowledge that government has ordered B.C. Hydro to continue its customer crisis fund, but this doesn’t cover the whole picture. That’s a narrowly focused fund to address customers in a particular crisis — that’s not what energy poverty is, which is an ongoing process — and the B.C. Hydro program clearly does not address customers in the FortisBC electric utility service territory.

We’re suggesting the government should take this up and address it. We believe this would probably be in the form of some kind of funding to disadvantaged citizens. Essentially, that’s what we’re recommending.

Point No. 2: reallocate spending from highway capacity expansions to low-carbon transit, active transportation, electric vehicle initiatives and heavy freight decarbonization initiatives.

[11:05 a.m.]

BCSEA strongly supports transit initiatives like the Broadway subway line expansion in Vancouver, but we oppose building general purpose traffic lanes. These induce more traffic, which is contrary to the Roadmap to 2030’s commitments to reduce travel distances for light vehicles and to reduce the energy intensity of goods movement.

The government’s last budget proposed over $11 billion in spending for a whole range of highway expansions, including four-laning Highway 1, and $4 billion to replace the three lanes of the Massey Tunnel with an eight-lane tunnel. This is going in the wrong direction. That spending should be reduced, and more should be allocated for transit to support the electric vehicle acquisition by citizens, the electric-vehicle-charging network to power those vehicles and active transportation initiatives.

We support the continuation and expansion of the government’s initiatives to find zero-carbon solutions to moving heavy freight.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Tom, I’m going to ask you to wrap it up, please.

T. Hackney: Oh, how many…? Am I done?

M. Starchuk (Chair): You’re done.

T. Hackney: Okay. Well, I’m sorry I didn’t get to No. 3. I stand ready to answer questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your presentation, Tom.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Tom, for the presentation. I just want to touch on the crisis fund for a bit. It has always been a fairly contentious one with me.

I understand the idea and the appetite to help those that are in crisis and that are a vulnerable part of our sector and of our people in British Columbia. However, it comes off the backs of taxpayers. So it’s either the other ratepayer pays that price to put into the fund or it comes out of government revenues.

My question is: has your group lobbied government on eliminating the residential conservation rate, which is a two-tiered system?

Actually, you talk about reducing fossil fuels and going electric. Right now the residential conservation rate is at 22 kilowatts per hour per day. Just to charge the average EV is about 11 kilowatt hours per day. For an electric pump, which I’m sure you support — it would get us off natural gas — it’s about 36 kilowatt hours per day. Just with those two there alone…. It has doubled the conservation rate. It makes it impossible for people to do the right thing and get the benefits they should. Essentially, B.C. Hydro is taxing people for doing the right thing.

Instead of putting all this pressure on the taxpayer to fund the crisis fund, wouldn’t it be better for us to eliminate the archaic residential conservation rate? Has your group done any work there?

T. Hackney: I think you’re probably right. Historically, BCSEA supported that rate because it encouraged the conservation of electricity. In the new situation…. We have, yes, a desire to build load and encourage people to move on to using more heat pumps and electric vehicle charging. So I’m inclined to agree with that.

We actually expected B.C. Hydro to file an application to flatten the rate this spring. I understand that has been put on hold due to political considerations.

One problem with that is…. If you flatten the rate, about three-quarters of the B.C. Hydro customers would see a slight increase. Those three-quarters would be the lowest-consuming customers, who also tend to be…. They’re not always the lowest-income people, but they tend to be in the lower end of the income spectrum. The people who benefit most from flattening the two-tier rate are the people who use the most electricity, including people who have great big houses and use a great deal.

It’s a complicated situation. I’m going to say…. Overall, I agree with you. That’s probably the direction we need to go.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Tom. I just wanted to ask you…. A little bit of a conflict in terms of the messaging.

[11:10 a.m.]

You talked about, I guess, the transition to cleaner vehicles, like EVs and things like that, but a reduction in terms of the capacity, in terms of lanes on the highways. You mentioned a couple, like the George Massey Tunnel replacement, things like that. How would you…?

I don’t quite square that in the sense that we’ve got more people living here, more EVs, and if they’re cleaner and they’re running on the roads, we still have to have the capacity if you are trying to drive. In many places, there isn’t the opportunity or the idea of building out the subway or the SkyTrain, for instance. I mean, it exists in Vancouver, but it doesn’t really exist outside of Surrey and Vancouver. It doesn’t exist on the North Shore. It doesn’t exist in the Okanagan or the Lower Mainland here.

I guess I’m just trying to figure out…. It’s contradictory. How do you explain…? Why shouldn’t we be building infrastructure?

T. Hackney: Well, I agree it’s a very complex issue, transportation. I think the simplest way I can answer your question is…. There’s a hierarchy of things one can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and just the environmental impact of our transportation. The first thing you can do is get out of your vehicle and walk instead of driving, and then go on to a bicycle, and then transit is not quite as bad as driving a personal vehicle.

I agree that electric vehicles don’t have the tailpipe emissions of internal combustion engine vehicles, but they still take up road space, and that can cause congestion. I could go into a great deal of length to respond to your question with a lot more complexity than that. But I think that’s probably the best short answer I can give you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Tom, for your presentation and for your answers this morning.

Our next presenter is Janet Morris-Reade, Association of Service Providers for Employability and Career Training, known as ASPECT B.C. That’s what the Legislature needs: another acronym.

You have five minutes for your presentation, and then five minutes for questions.

The floor is yours.

ASSOCIATION OF SERVICE
PROVIDERS FOR EMPLOYABILITY
AND CAREER TRAINING

J. Morris-Reade: Thank you. When I first took this job, it took me, probably, about a month to master the name. I’ve been in the job for seven years, and I still forget which comes first. So yes, we go by ASPECT B.C.

Thank you to the committee for your service to the province by serving on this committee, but also your service to the province by being representatives of your areas.

I speak on behalf of our nearly 100 organizational members that deliver employment services and supports to over 190 communities throughout the province. ASPECT members play an essential role in upskilling individuals and providing them with the best opportunities to find and maintain success in the workplace. They also work with employers within their communities to provide a bridge to a trained workforce and provide training in response to community labour market needs.

ASPECT is a community of organizations such as the Kootenay Employment Services in Creston, the Kelowna Community Resources, YMCA of Metro Vancouver, Langley Community Services Society, Community Futures Okanagan, Archway Community Services Society in Abbotsford and Connections Community Services Society in Richmond. And if some of those names are familiar to you, I’ve chosen ASPECT members that are in each of your ridings.

We have three recommendations for you today. First of all, we would like further investment in provincewide affordable housing. We applaud the government’s efforts in this area to tackle the affordable housing crisis in B.C., and we ask that you don’t stop.

Affordable housing continues to be a challenge across the country, and B.C. continues to be the highest-priced jurisdiction. The lack of affordable housing is a significant barrier to employment and has the potential to shrink our economy. We ask that the provincial government continue to invest in tax rebates and economic supports, especially to those who must pay 40 percent or more of their income on housing.

[11:15 a.m.]

ASPECT members help their clients find jobs, but that’s only part of the picture for sustained employment, personal financial viability and healthy communities. We need your help.

Recommendation 2: further investment in making B.C.’s job market inclusive and targeted for the changing labour market. We applaud the provincial government’s efforts in this area and, among others, its new StrongerBC future-ready action plan to make it easier for newcomers to Canada to find jobs in the field they are trained in and to provide important educational supports for upskilling to new in-demand employment.

We ask that the government invest in mid-career career services, in addition to the pre-employment services they currently offer. Helping people navigate their future jobs through identifying best fits and educational options can be a strong economic driver and is currently minimally funded. The network of experts exists already within communities, but there’s not a financial mechanism in place to fund mid-career changes. Recognizing diversity in the workplace and adapting employment services to meet specific client needs is key to building our economy and making it stronger.

Recommendation 3: increased investment in rural and remote employment services. Employment service providers in rural and remote locations have lived with the inequities of workforce development funding for many years.

In November of last year, ASPECT released its research report called Refocusing the Urban Lens for Rural and Remote Employment Services. The report explores the challenges and successes experienced within the current labour market and services and the funding in rural and remote communities.

We have found that there is a significant inequity in funding needed to provide services compared to what is offered in urban areas. For that reason, we recommend that funding should move away from population-based targets and focus on the realities of delivering services in unique areas.

In conclusion, the world of work is very different than it was before the pandemic. We need your help navigating out of that and meeting the needs of the labour market, moving forward. ASPECT and its members are perfectly poised to help in that respect. We ask that the funding that has been in place continues and is expanded to meet the future labour market needs.

If you have any questions, I am here for you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Janet.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Being a career practitioner before, I appreciate all the good work you’re doing right now.

I have a quick question. It does feel like there’s a stronger push for employment, and I appreciate, honestly, my language here is…. With future-ready, we are really looking at more of a vocational development. Because we have such a labour shortage right now, there are a lot of opportunities, but at the same time, how do we maximize British Columbians’ potential?

May I just ask you, maybe, when it comes to funding support–wise, are we still overly emphasizing employment, or are we shifting direction in supporting vocational development?

J. Morris-Reade: Vocational development, competency development — all of that comes from a well-educated and trained workforce. Eventually, the ultimate goal is employment, so it’s just a different place on the spectrum of employment.

Now, the future-ready plan is really, really good, but the huge miss is that there is no mention, except for those with multibarriers to employment, of how community-based organizations can help people navigate their way into school. I mean, how many of you have heard conversations from people where they have gone, they’ve studied a certain course or a certain trade, and then they go to do the trade, and they don’t really like it, it’s not a good fit for their personalities?

Career development professionals and those that work at ASPECT organizations — or even not ASPECT organizations — employment service providers…. They’re the ones that have the expertise to help people figure out what direction to go and also to help them go into in-demand jobs within their communities. Currently, unless you’re unemployed, those services are not offered. That’s why we’re asking for mid-career services.

[11:20 a.m.]

This is funded through the labour market development agreement. There have been changes to the EI Act that have made it possible to use EI funds for this, and we think that this is an opportunity to use an existing network to meet existing needs and help make the program that was announced an even better outcome. Well, not profitable, but better outcomes for those that are participating in the program.

I mean, a $3,500 tuition grant to go back to school to upskill? That’s fantastic. But choosing which path to take is just as hard as trying to afford school.

Thank you for the question.

A. Walker: Thank you so much for this, and especially with the changing labour market, I think that mid-career career-planning process is so important.

On your first request, with affordable housing. Obviously, there’s a full spectrum of need here. But for those that are seeing barriers to employment because of housing, are there any specific things we should be looking at doing to create housing for that workforce?

J. Morris-Reade: I don’t know, other than what’s already being done. As you know, it’s a very complicated problem. And my request is to keep funding it. Keep going.

I lived in Japan for three years, and I lived in a six mat. Housing there — I mean, some of the problems they had there 30 years ago are some of the problems we’re having here. I think that we have to have a bit of a mind shift into what is acceptable housing and what isn’t. And there needs to be lots of different entry-level housing for people to go into, which doesn’t exist now.

H. Yao: I will just piggyback on another comment. You talked about inclusive employment environment. I remember last year that there was a conversation around sign language and the importance of that.

When you don’t have an education system to develop sign language interpreters, then your system will have no sign language interpreters and, therefore, the chicken-and-egg issue that we keep on dealing with.

In your opinion, when it comes to creating an inclusive employment environment for British Columbians, what kind of challenge are you seeing right now that has become a pattern? What can we do, maybe even from the direction of education, to lay the foundation so that we have the proper employment and proper skill set ready to match those demands?

J. Morris-Reade: That’s a great question. I think that I’d like to draw attention to the organizations that deliver the training that are not directly related to employment. But we call them wraparound services.

What you’ve suggested for ALS skills, for any types of specialized skills that are needed for people to enter into the workforce — those community organizations have been traditionally underfunded and even more so, year after year. For example, the funding model for many of them has turned to project-based funding, where there’s not a lot of money for the actual organization for their viability, so they’re just running from project to project to project.

Some of them are successful, but the funding ends, and what you’re having is like a patchwork of services. Then, in other areas, like in rural and remote areas especially, there’s nothing. There is absolutely nothing. Some development of mental health services, some development of community-based organizations, but it’s not sustainable. And it just keeps deteriorating year after year.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Janet. Thank you for your presentation this morning.

Next up is Lucas Harris, Surfrider Foundation Canada.

Good morning, Lucas. As you know, five minutes for your end and five minutes for our end.

You have the floor.

SURFRIDER FOUNDATION CANADA

L. Harris: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. My name is Lucas Harris. I’m the executive director of Surfrider Foundation Canada.

I’m grateful to be speaking to you today on the territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, the home of the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations.

Surfrider Foundation is a non-profit, grassroots organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of our world’s oceans, waves and beaches for all people through a powerful activist network. Surfrider Foundation Canada is part of a global community of international affiliates located in countries around the world. Surfrider Canada has three volunteer-run chapters, based in the Tofino-Ucluelet area, Victoria and Vancouver, and two student clubs at the University of Victoria and Ucluelet Secondary School.

[11:25 a.m.]

Surfrider focuses on several key environmental issues, including plastics reduction, ocean protection, beach access, coastal preservation and water quality. We have become a key stakeholder with regards to plastics reduction, offering a unique perspective, given our role leading grassroots, volunteer-driven, on-the-ground pollution prevention initiatives in communities across B.C. for over ten years.

In recent years, the province of B.C. has demonstrated major leadership with regards to reducing plastic pollution. The clean coast, clean waters initiative has been a groundbreaking program, removing hundreds of tonnes of marine debris from shorelines across the province. The engagement on preventing single-use and plastic waste in B.C., currently concluding, also demonstrates leadership in addressing plastic pollution.

However, there are several key categories of plastic that also need to be addressed in order for the province to significantly reduce the impact of plastic pollution on the B.C. coast. For the purposes of today’s budget consultation, I’ve prepared two recommendations for the committee to consider.

Recommendation 1 is to develop a program for commercial fishing and aquaculture gear used in B.C. industry that will reduce gear loss, support recovery of gear from the marine environment and enable proper processing and end-of-life management of retrieved materials. Time and time again, abandoned, lost gear from the commercial fishing industry has dominated the results of our beach cleanups. The impact of fishing gear has also been documented in the province’s clean coast, clean waters initiative. So it’s becoming very clear that this is a dominant form of pollution in the province.

Recommendation 2. Develop policies and systems that improve the environmental monitoring, regulation and enforcement of pre-consumer plastic production pellets, also referred to as nurdles. Nurdles are being discharged into B.C. waterways by plastic manufacturing facilities in the Lower Mainland. Surfrider has found direct evidence that these plastic pellets are entering the marine environment from plastic production facilities, particularly along multiple arms of the Fraser River.

Nurdles devastate the environment and marine life. But despite being one of the biggest sources of pollution in our oceans, they are often overlooked. Environmental monitoring and enforcement of this issue has been limited but needs to increase. Mitigation efforts at these facilities also need to switch from a voluntary to a mandatory approach. This would help reduce plastic pellet pollution that is accumulating in rivers and waterways in the province.

Recommendation 3. Develop policies and programs that prioritize the reduction of cigarette butt litter. Year after year, the number one type of plastic pollution found on Canadian shorelines is cigarette butts. These are a pervasive, long-lasting and toxic form of marine debris. They contain thousands of chemicals, many of which are carcinogenic.

When the butts end up in our environment, these chemicals can gradually leach into our waterways and are then absorbed by fish and other marine animals. Surfrider Canada chapters have implemented cigarette butt collection and recycling programs in several B.C. communities, resulting in millions of butts being recycled instead of ending up in waterways. But regardless, cigarette butts continue to plague the marine environment in these and other communities across B.C.

Several options are available to increase the prevention of cigarette butt waste, including developing biodegradable filters, increasing fines and penalties for littering, extended producer responsibility, monetary deposits on filters, increasing the availability of butt receptacles and potentially expanding public education.

The single-use plastic policies that the province has introduced show leadership in addressing plastic pollution, but it’s clear that these materials are only a small component of the plastic pollution found in the B.C. marine environment. More needs to be done that prevents abandoned, lost, derelict fishing gear, nurdles and cigarette butt pollution to really, truly reduce plastic pollution in B.C.

Surfrider Canada takes pride in its collaborative and positive approach to solving environmental problems. We look forward to continuing the strong relationship we have with the province of B.C. Together, we have the opportunity to make the coast a cleaner, safer place for all to enjoy. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation. Before we get into the questions, I have one of my own. With relation to what happens on the west coast and what happens on the east coast, what’s the comparator as to what they’re doing and as to what we’re doing?

L. Harris: I can speak for my organization. We engage with a lot of on-the-ground, grassroots shoreline cleanup activity. This includes citizen science monitoring. So we do a lot of engaging communities to get involved in addressing shoreline litter. That’s the same where we have operations in the Maritimes as well.

I think if we zoom out a little bit and look at how plastics are being addressed in aggregate, in broader geography, I think the province of B.C. has definitely demonstrated leadership with its financial investment in the clean coast, clean waters initiative.

[11:30 a.m.]

I’ve never seen anything like that in other provinces or territories in Canada. It’s definitely a landmark and historical initiative. To me, that really demonstrates the true impact of plastic pollution. I think the data that the province now has in its hands is quite staggering in terms of the volume of commercial gear that is present. I think it’s really shedding light on the fact that all our great work on single-use packaging items is important, but it’s barely scratching the surface.

B. Stewart: Very interesting. I want to know more about the use of these nurdles, or the plastic pellets, etc. What’s it going into in British Columbia along the Fraser River estuary that you mentioned?

L. Harris: The uses of that material are for manufacturing new plastic products. We have quite an advanced collection in processing infrastructure here in the province as a result of the EPR program for packaging. All the packaging and plastic items that we consume are processed in the Lower Mainland. Those are turned into nurdles, which are the raw feedstock for manufacturing new plastic. That’s what they’re used for.

The problem is that when they’re moved from the manufacturing facilities, from the production facilities, they get lost in transportation — falling off railcars or spilling from trucks, etc. That’s when they find their way, like anything else, through the waterways, down through the storm drains and into the rivers.

H. Yao: Lucas, it’s nice to see you again since the last presentation. I really appreciate all the great work that your organization is doing.

I have a quick question for something I think I’ve asked a question about before, but I can’t remember the exact answer. We are talking about the plastic part, which is the filter component. It makes sense as to why shouldn’t we be using a biodegradable filter, as when we drink coffee, we have a paper filter already. What kind of restriction or limitation is discouraging the transition to a biodegradable filter at this point?

L. Harris: I believe one of them is that they’re not necessarily the most environmentally friendly in terms of the fact that they do leach all the carcinogens found in the filter that’s collected from the smoker when inhaling the product. That gets eliminated into the environment much quicker. There’s some research out there that shines a negative light on biodegradable filters from that perspective.

Also, it’s quite a large undertaking to regulate that industry in particular. It would probably have to occur on a federal level. I could see there being quite a few obstacles with particular focus on that as the intervention. I think, as we start to zoom in more on the provincial and the municipal interventions, they become a little bit more feasible, yet they don’t have as broad of an impact.

G. Chow: On the cigarette butts: how do they find themselves in the ocean ways, like in the coast? What’s the major pathway?

L. Harris: Yeah, it’s a fantastic question. I mean, by nature of what they are, they’re small items. They float. They’re discarded at random by people. It’s almost like a socially acceptable form of littering. You don’t see many people throwing their garbage on the street. They would be, I think, persecuted. But cigarette butts, for some reason, we accept that in our communities.

Then, when it rains, they are well designed to travel through our stormwater systems. They float down through the gutters on our streets right into the storm and out into the ocean. Then they float back up onto the shoreline.

R. Leonard: Not so much a question, but thank you very much. I was on this committee years ago, and I remember you coming to present back then. That’s when we were seeing from the tsunami that happened in Japan and all that was coming onto the shores on the west coast. Just kudos to your organization and all the volunteers.

I really appreciate the laser focus that you have on the plastics pollution controls. You’ve raised some really important points, especially around containment for transportation of materials.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Lucas. I don’t know of another presentation that really focuses on something that is just so preventable. Thank you for your morning.

Next, we have Kai Horsfield, Chemistry Industry Association of Canada.

Kai, you have five minutes, and then we have five minutes.

The floor is yours.

[11:35 a.m.]

CHEMISTRY INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION OF CANADA

K. Horsfield: On behalf of the Chemistry Industry Association of Canada, I’d like to thank the committee for giving me the opportunity to provide perspectives on the Budget 2024 consultations.

Our association represents Canada’s chemistry and plastics manufacturers, a sector of the Canadian economy that generates nearly $90 billion per year in economic activity, making us the third-largest manufacturing sector in the country. We serve all North American sectors, including forestry, mining, construction, energy, automotive, agriculture and agrifood.

Here in B.C., the chemistry industry is considerably smaller than the other three major chemical-producing provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. The opportunity does, however, exist to leverage off the province’s low-carbon natural gas value chain and nearly net-zero emissions electricity system to add value to the natural gas and natural gas liquids before they leave the province. With this in mind, I would like to present the committee with three recommendations.

First, we recommend that the government develop an industrial strategy that considers the value-added resource manufacturing sectors of chemistry and plastics as a strategic supply chain sector for the province. Such a strategy should incorporate government objectives related to climate change and the transition to a net-zero economy and the role industry will play. For the chemistry and plastic sectors, products produced improve quality of life, improve the performance of other sectors and help them to lower GHG emissions.

For example, CIAC member companies produce products that represent low-carbon fuel sources, as well as efficient hydrogen carriers, such as ammonia and methanol. Our association acknowledges the positive steps forward that have already been taken with this recommendation, such as modernizing the British Columbia Energy Regulator and expanding its regulatory responsibilities. However, more is needed to be done to encourage investment in the sector.

Our second recommendation is for end-of-life plastics to be considered and treated as a resource that can add economic value to the B.C. economy. B.C. is already a leader in extended producer responsibility, with over 50 percent of plastics introduced to the economy collected and recycled. Although other provinces are starting to catch up, a significant opportunity exists here in B.C. to establish the province as a leading jurisdiction, developing advanced plastics rotation technology and advanced mechanical and chemical recycling technology.

In a recent economic study on plastics in Canada, a high-level assessment of infrastructure needed to achieve net-zero plastics waste by 2030 was done. The study estimated that close to 170 new waste diversion facilities would be required, representing a potential $4.6 billion to $6.5 billion of investment opportunity across the country. Here in B.C., that translates to approximately 15 new facilities, including sortation and advanced mechanical and chemical recycling, worth close to $720 million.

Demand for recycled content is growing in B.C., and the province is uniquely positioned to secure first-mover advantage in developing and deploying these new innovative technologies.

Our third and final recommendation is for the province to put an emphasis on carbon price policy stability and investment supports when designing and implementing a carbon pricing framework for large emitters. Industry is responding to carbon pricing signals and other ESG initiatives, with many companies developing road maps to 2030 and 2050.

However, designing and implementing these road maps and re-engineering processes will take time. The technical feasibility of meeting government GHG emission reduction targets and related economics are material costs for businesses and could have a significant impact on the competitiveness in the global markets that they serve. This is why we believe that a portion of proceeds from the large emitters program should go directly back to individual companies for decarbonization projects, providing an alternative mechanism that could efficiently support reductions in the province through new investment.

In closing, B.C. has taken steps that are necessary to attract future investments in the chemistry and plastic sectors. The implementation of an extended producer responsibility program, regulatory reforms and the development of a provincial output-based pricing system are all potentially positive developments.

However, in order to capitalize on the opportunity for future investment and the growth in our sector, more is needed. With the right policy framework in place, chemistry and plastics can help create new opportunities for British Columbians, build on B.C.’s world-leading status in clean and renewable technology and reaffirm the province’s commitment to being a responsible low-carbon producer of natural resources and manufactured goods.

With that, I welcome any questions.

[11:40 a.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah, thanks a lot. That’s great. I could go on all day on the OBPS and how that’s going to be developed and how I could assist, but that’s a long conversation.

What I’m interested in is realizing our made-in-B.C. potential with hydrogen, LNG and how the chemistry industry can assist in that and, with carbon capture and storage, essentially desensitizing the F-word, which is fracking. I’ll make that clear for the record.

How can chemistry assist in carbon capture and storage and using those hydrogen carriers, such as methane and ammonia, and bringing that so that we can reduce our carbon footprint?

K. Horsfield: I mean, in terms of moving forward with the hydrogen economy, which I think most provinces, if not all provinces, have embraced, I think any chemistry is essential, right? You’re not going to be able to carry hydrogen from point A or across long distances without having it transformed into an ammonia, which is a chemical process.

Lots of our companies across the country are working on that. There are a couple of projects in Alberta that are working towards developing different processes to help move that forward. I mean, in terms of hydrogen, the chemistry is essential to that process.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I’m looking at your recommendation No. 2. I guess my question is sort of twofold.

The first one is: if we invest in B.C., regarding end-of-life plastic resources and stuff, would there be any potential concern of drawing resources and creating waste, potentially, due to the process itself, and how can we manage that?

And two, if can we master that component and maximize our ability to recollect plastics, how do you see B.C. maybe playing more of a vital role and becoming an international leader when it comes to having other jurisdictions in need to be processing plastic, where we can provide the proper technology or services?

K. Horsfield: Like I said in my earlier remarks, B.C. is well ahead of most jurisdictions in North America, actually, with their extended producer responsibility program, so kind of taking that program to the next step to incentivize chemical and advanced recycling technologies would then attract that kind of plastic waste, which could be seen as a resource, to the province to then be recycled into its virgin components, which then can be put back into the manufacturing process to create that circular economy.

I think you need the economies of scale in the recycled plastic in order to make that economically feasible. Like I said, B.C. being kind of the first mover in it, they have the lead in that, and taking that next step for the western region in North America could create a big economic opportunity here.

H. Yao: To follow up on my question, the previous presenter talked about nurdle, about a plastic, previous raw material that’s going to be…. I assume the recycling industry is going to be trying to convert it into…. Would there need to be any additional protocol strategy to ensure that we don’t create additional nurdle into our environment? That way, we can upscale without creating plastic waste into our ecosystem.

K. Horsfield: I mean, our association…. First, I’ll say that plastic does not belong in the landfill, and it definitely does not belong in the environment. We have lots of programs, and I’m happy to provide the committee with some further information on this, committing to zero plastic waste — operation clean sweep, which commits to having zero plastic pellets going into the marine environment. We are on our way to that — so bringing that manufacturing here, creating that economic opportunity but also kind of instilling the province as a leader in that on the sustainability side as well.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. With no other questions, that will wrap it up there.

Okay, sorry. There you go.

H. Yao: Obviously, when it comes to looking after your plastic and recycling, it costs money. How do you see B.C. competing against other jurisdictions when we actually put this plastic product that has an added cost, that’s also for recycling maybe in some other jurisdiction? I hate to say it — ignoring the importance of actually recycling and protecting and caring for plastic. So how can we protect our plastic recycling industry in a way that we can help foster and support our community and thrive?

[11:45 a.m.]

K. Horsfield: I’ll go back quickly. I know we’re out of time. The extended producer responsibility program has already set up the basis for that, where the producer is paying the cost for recycling any plastic content that’s going into the environment. That helps push the burden, so to say, onto the producer.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, then. Now, that concludes the presentation.

Next up, Greg Moy, Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Greg, the floor is yours.

INSURANCE BUREAU OF CANADA

G. Moy: I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Greg Moy. I’m here with the Insurance Bureau of Canada, the national association representing the majority of home and business insurers.

Today I just want to talk about three recommendations that we’ve brought forward, really, to address individuals dealing with tough times and to allow local communities to be more resilient, especially when it comes to more extreme events.

The first recommendation is focused around disaster risk reduction in terms of floods — knowing a risk, increasing the ability to be able to produce better flood maps, and working with the federal government, which recently announced new money to be able to develop a national flood program — that’s something that we think is very positive, and we’d like to continue receiving the provincial government’s support on that — and also to develop a national earthquake strategy. In this country, B.C. likely carries the majority of the burden there.

Recommendation 2 is on strata insurance. For many years now, we’ve seen the rates stabilize. That being said, when former Minister James and Minister Robinson began taking a look at ways to be able to allow strata unit owners, as well as strata corporations, to better improve their risks, recommendations were developed, in terms of draft regulations. We’re looking forward to seeing that get moved forward, at some point, through the House.

Then finally, recommendation 3. Our industry very much supports giving B.C. drivers more choice, more competition, in the auto insurance market here in B.C. Now that we’re in a no-fault system, we can draw on lessons from Quebec. In their system, the only difference there is that any insurer, essentially, is able to help repair your vehicle damage. Then you can certainly see, further slides in, a price comparison, as well as some of the claims costs, which I’ll go over very shortly.

Slide 3, in the booklet that I just passed out, is what elected officials really take notice of. You can see — the industry has been tracking it since 1983 — that insured losses increased substantially since 2011. That’s about $2 billion a year, to $3.1 billion, which was in 2022.

These are significant numbers, if you think of events such as in Abbotsford, Merritt or Princeton during the atmospheric rivers, or what’s happening just outside of Fort St. John today or in Halifax. I understand that as of this morning, individuals were continuing to evacuate from the wildfires that are affecting them. In further flood and wildfire events all across this province, B.C. certainly plays a role in some of the events that we’re seeing play out.

The first recommendation is that we’re asking the B.C. government to continue to fully fund the adaptation strategy, to continue to voice their support for a national flood program, and also to support a national earthquake strategy — something that, surely, British Columbians are most affected by.

I’ll quickly go through recommendation 2. I know that ministry officials have begun work on depreciation report changes to increase transparency, to show individuals what they’re responsible for in claims and how to be able to reduce some of the challenges that stratas face, in terms of claims histories in the medium to long term, and also limits on loss assessments, to be able to provide assurances to strata unit owners on just how much their deductibles will be affected by their strata corporations.

[11:50 a.m.]

Finally, recommendation 3. For us, we do believe that B.C. drivers deserve a choice in the auto insurance market here in B.C. The average premium for Quebec drivers is $901. In B.C., the average premium is $1,382.

Surprisingly, ICBC’s own service plan shows that premiums intend to be increased by 19 percent over three years, in terms of what they bring in. The two-year rate freeze is solely on the basic side. Likely, these increases will be shown on the optional side.

We’ve also seen that claims costs, benefits to drivers…. That number has actually gone down 30 percent in the first year that no-fault has taken place — almost half from when you compare 2019, at $6,483, versus 2021, which was at $3,083. For us, the industry, we’d certainly like to play a role and be able to help provide that choice.

Happy to take any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Greg.

First up, Bruce.

B. Banman: I’m taking a look at recommendation No. 1, and what surprises, actually…. Seeing as how you’re in the insurance business, one would assume that your mapping is probably equal to or better than anything anybody else has, because you’re putting the risk on whether you’re going to accept a claim in some of those areas.

I’m curious. Does this floodplain mapping not exist within the industry already? Have you not done your own private…? And if so, is that being shared with government?

G. Moy: Yeah, that’s a good question. What I’ll say is that each company — they have various models. There are, I think, three major companies that provide some of the flood mapping that those individuals use. I know government is well aware of the options there.

I think, for us, it’s always good to have more publicly accessible data, which is why, I think, the federal government is undertaking…. There was around $15 million that was committed in the last federal budget, over three years, to be able to provide consumers with a better awareness of where they stand in terms of their risk and such.

My last conversation with officials was that some of the mapping that we have here in B.C. hasn’t been fully updated to the latest standards in a few decades. That’s why the opportunity to be able to provide additional flood mapping to the latest lidar standards would be beneficial, not just for the industry but for individuals, as well as companies, to be able to overlay their maps with what they can see and what they don’t know, because there are situations where some companies don’t necessarily have the best resources in terms of those flood maps.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Before I go on to Tom, I just wanted to add on to the flood mapping with regards to fire mapping, because there are also forestry loads where the duff is highest and stuff like that. Is that being done at the same time?

G. Moy: That’s an area that also needs to be improved. I believe government has put some funding towards improving fire fuel mapping, but I think more could be done. I know that’s being contemplated, I believe, in the adaptation strategy. Folks at B.C. Wildfire Service, as well as Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, EMCR, are taking a look at that.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’ll piggyback off all that, even though I’d like to go to bullet 3, on ICBC. Emergency preparedness is critical, and you’ve identified a strategy, floodplain mapping and earthquake resiliency.

Has your bureau…? Do they know or have they used or intend to use resources such as Geoscience B.C., which does critical mapping work? They know geological shifts. They can predict landslides, earthquake possibilities, floodplain mapping. They also do forest fire resiliency work, as the Chair just indicated. Have you worked with Geoscience B.C.? Do you know of their value?

G. Moy: I, personally, have not. There are probably smarter people within my organization to know whether or not we have engaged them. I suspect, though, our companies have engaged with every source of modelling that they can get their hands on to be able to extrapolate and better understand the risks that individuals are facing, and that’s how they also build into their pricing.

[11:55 a.m.]

A. Walker: With the earthquake solution that’s here on slide 4, recognizing that B.C…. Especially here on the coast, we’ve got some significantly higher risks than the rest of the country. Do you see that as a federal or provincial initiative, and what would that look like as far as a solution?

G. Moy: That’s a really good question. I think it involves both, and I know those conversations have been ongoing with the Finance Ministry, as well as EMCR, Public Safety Canada and Finance Canada.

I think…. There are two things. One is takeup, and I know, in your specific part of the province, that takeup on Vancouver Island is roughly 65, 70 percent. There’s been a slight decrease. That’s good, but there’s a lot more work to be done in terms of making sure that…. If we have more than a one-in-500-year event, which is essentially a 9.0 event off the coast of B.C., will the industry be able to take on that risk?

I know that there are concerns within our industry whether or not the financial sector would be able to handle a situation like that. Up to and just over one in 500, no problem. But those conversations are still ongoing, and I think it involves both the federal and provincial governments.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Greg, that ends our time, and we do have other people that were wanting to ask questions. So I guess it gives you an understanding or an idea of how important the topic is. So thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

Our final presentation of the morning is Cliff Haman, Professional Employees Association.

Cliff, you have five minutes, and we have five minutes to respond to you.

The floor is yours.

PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION

C. Haman: Thank you kindly.

Good day. My name is Cliff Haman, and I am a senior academic assistant with the University of Victoria and the second vice-president of the Professional Employees Association, the union representing over 1,200 members at the University of Victoria.

I expect you have heard about the budget cuts and layoffs that have been happening at the University of Victoria and other post-secondary institutions across Vancouver Island. These budget cuts and layoffs are first and foremost devastating to the workers and families who have lost employment. Many of those affected are long-term employees, both highly specialized and difficult to replace.

Our members and the university community should not be punished because of the inherent instability of the current post-secondary funding model. These cuts have reduced the number of classes that can be offered, reduced availability to crucial classroom support and have increased workloads for those of us who are left behind. This all culminates in negative impacts for the student experience.

Colleges and universities in B.C. have become overreliant on tuition fees, particularly from international students, to maintain their financial positions and to deliver what should be consistent high-quality education. This overreliance is not only unfair to students but has predictably created instability in the post-secondary system.

International student enrolment fluctuates over time. Volatility from political, economic and health crises drastically reduce international enrolment. When significant declines in enrolment occur, post-secondary institutions are forced to slash budgets and lay off staff, effectively implementing long-term solutions to short-term problems.

The provincial government needs to intervene and stabilize the post-secondary funding system. We recommend the province move to secure international student enrolment by incentivizing commitment and providing certainty through the immigration process. It would also be beneficial to ease entry requirements so that students may join throughout the year on a rolling administrative basis, and also, on the back end, to guarantee access to postgraduate work and permanent residence options.

On-campus employment needs to be stabilized to limit the impacts of low enrolment. We recommend the provision of bridge funding for UVic and other post-secondary institutions to help mitigate the near- and medium-term impacts of lower enrolments. This will ensure the fiscal sustainability of post-secondary institutions and enable them to continue to make major contributions to B.C.’s economy.

Finally, we recommend the retention of sessional lecturers by supporting their conversion to more secure faculty positions. Sessional positions are precarious and are disproportionately laid off to address short-term budget crises, leading to further difficulties in offering crucial programs in both the short and long term.

From Victoria to Nanaimo to Courtenay and beyond, colleges and universities are major economic drivers for our Island communities. They provide education and employment, partner with and support local health care, develop research opportunities that create new businesses, work with local communities and Indigenous groups and attract students to our region who contribute to local business.

[12:00 p.m.]

Maintaining post-secondary employment and enrolment levels is crucial to maintaining healthy local economies and communities. We understand there are many demands on government funding. However, given the crucial role that the post-secondary sector plays in ensuring that B.C. citizenry is informed about the realities of our current social and political challenges and well trained for opportunities in the future, colleges and universities like UVic need stable funding, not funding reliant on the shifting trends of international enrolment.

A strong government commitment to colleges and universities would ensure our sector has the needed stability to deliver excellent quality education in times of turbulence and prosperity. Thank you for considering our recommendations. I’m happy to field some questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Cliff.

A. Walker: I really appreciate this. Being that we didn’t have this in writing beforehand, I do appreciate hearing all this. The second ask with the bridge funding, I understand that. The third ask with the sessional lecturers, in my previous role with precarious work, that’s definitely something that is on our radar.

I’m hoping you can expand on the first ask. I might have missed some of the details there.

C. Haman: Sure. I think what we’ve seen is that particularly last summer we had an immigration backlog at the national level that was severely impacting the ability for international students to get into the country in time for the fall semester and, in many cases, even the January semester. It’s a pretty competitive market out there, particularly for grad students but undergrads as well.

I’m recognizing that this problem, on one hand, is a federal issue. At the same time that we were trying to get students into Canada into our program, there was this backlog in Immigration Canada. At the same time in the U.K., they just opened the doors for anybody that had an application to their educational system. They just fast-tracked in.

It’s kind of a funny situation because, here we are, the provincial government is responsible for overseeing post-secondary education but the problem that we were encountering was kind of federal in its character. I recognize there’s some tension there.

That’s why we think we could have the government champion getting those students into seats, particularly for the fall semester, enabling them also maybe even to not have to be deadlined to September 1 or January 1 but allow them to actually enrol rolling throughout the year. That would give us the flexibility to probably get the best possible students on their timeline rather than our timeline.

Is that all right? Yeah? Cool.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah, it’s amazing to me. More opportunities now than ever, especially with trades and other highly skilled professions, yet a dropping rate in enrolment. Are tuitions too high? You mentioned something about a rolling enrolment, people coming in. Would that not deliver more of a cost? Also international incentives — don’t we have that already? If tuitions are too high, where does B.C. sit compared to other provinces on average for tuition?

C. Haman: Our tuitions are pretty competitive, actually, still. But we have an incredibly high cost of living in Victoria and particularly in Vancouver. It’s not necessarily just the tuition cost, it’s also just being able to eat. We have students that are living in their vehicles in order to make ends meet because they can’t afford $2,000 a month just to survive in this city. It’s a complex issue. We are having, I think, a little bit of a crisis in terms of just maintaining our student body locally here in Victoria, particularly.

You asked a few good things there, and I’ve lost track of the good things you asked.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just the cost of the rolling enrolment and also international incentives — don’t we already have that?

C. Haman: Yeah, we do. We are a destination university. A lot of that is actually working in our favour. There’s no doubt about that. But what we’ve seen, particularly with what happened last fall, where we had a significant drop in enrolment just in a single instance — that’s going to affect us for four years. Right? Because we’re not going to magically have second-year students just appear and then third year and then fourth year. The university had to respond to that drop in enrolment.

[12:05 p.m.]

I think the problem here is twofold. One, we’re using international enrolment funds to support operational funding, and that’s going to be variable and is problematic. It’s been stable for the past decade when we started doing this, but as soon as we got a hole, suddenly we were left with a large gap in our operational budget forcing the university to do these random layoffs.

We’ve just lost a lot of really talented people. Expensive people, granted, but if it were the private sector, I think you’d never get rid of the people who are sort of top of their game and really experienced with institutional knowledge. Those are the people that we’ve been losing. For the post-secondary sector, that’s problematic, right? It’s a pretty unique climate where you want to retain expertise in that regard.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Henry. The final question, and hopefully brief.

H. Yao: I remember last year we were hearing international student representatives talk about one of the challenges they also face is lack of predictability for a four-year tuition because maybe a year after it will be the increased due to lack of oversight.

Do you have any feedback about that? Is there anything the post-secondary institutions can do to help to make the tuition more predictable for international students when they have to plan out a four-year budget?

C. Haman: The problem with the international…. They don’t get any discount. Right? So they’re paying the entire way. I don’t know. It’s easy to spend money that we don’t have.

I think the model we envisage is that the cost of the education itself should probably just be lower for our international students. They’re the sort of people that we want to come to this country. They’re the sort of people that we want to retain in this country after they get their degrees, right? The way the model is currently working, I think they have a sense that they’re kind of being pickpocketed on the way in. It’s just really, really expensive for them.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, Cliff. Thank you for your presentation this morning.

C. Haman: Thank you. I really appreciate being here. I’m kind of tickled to be able to be in this room with you all.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will recess for lunch and reconvene at one o’clock to be prepared for a 1:05 presentation.

The committee recessed from 12:07 p.m. to 1:07 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will reconvene this afternoon, and our first presentation is Jeff Bray from the Downtown Victoria Business Association.

Jeff, you have five minutes to make your presentation. We will have five minutes to ask questions.

The floor is yours.

DOWNTOWN VICTORIA
BUSINESS ASSOCIATION

J. Bray: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee members.

In a chapter many years ago, I was a member of this committee, so I know the hearings you’re embarking on and the amount of time. I certainly appreciate my opportunity here to present.

I am the CEO of the Downtown Victoria Business Association. Essentially, we are the chief marketers. We’re focused on placemaking and beautification of downtown. We, as the second largest business improvement association in B.C., have over 1,500 members, most of them small and medium-sized businesses — independently owned businesses — but we also have a large national brands, law offices, dentists. Anybody who operates a business within downtown is a member of ours.

The four main priorities that we have as the DVBA are on dealing and helping our members deal with the street disorder and petty crime issues that are occurring; also, on membership engagement, keeping our members engaged and informed; and advocacy. Many of our businesses are small. They’re not necessarily members of the chamber. They’re not necessarily members of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, so we serve a very large advocacy function.

Finally, partnerships. We work closely with non-profits, the chamber, Destination Greater Victoria and others on issues that impact downtown.

One of the main issues that our members have identified that are negatively impacting their business and, in fact, making it a real challenge for them to continue to operate are the street disorder issues, the petty crime and the repeat offenders that really impact our businesses, their customers and their staff. So we have three recommendations focused around this particular issue.

The first recommendation is accelerating the delivery of complex care that was announced by the government in 2022, an announcement that we were very supportive of. But we also feel that it is time for government, as part of that acceleration, to also consider involuntary care. We know there are members of our community that struggle with mental health and addiction issues for whom community-based supports simply are not effective. Complex care was designed to better deliver the array of services these individuals need. However, the rollout has been very slow.

[1:10 p.m.]

This is due in part because the services rely on agencies to provide the housing for these clients, mostly in low-barrier settings with little supports to deal with the behavioural and sometimes criminal actions that these clients, or those around these clients, present. As a result, these services are not delivered.

Involuntary care or secure care, while controversial among some, would offer a chance for services to be delivered effectively. But also, from our members’ perspective, this form of care would also greatly reduce the street disorder and crime issues that are affecting our downtown and main streets.

As a board member for and, in fact, the president now of B.C. Business Improvement Association, this is an issue that impacts commercial business districts and main streets now throughout the province. This is not an urban issue, a Vancouver issue. We’re seeing this in Prince George, Quesnel, Kelowna. So this is an issue that is really, because of the toxic drug supply, affecting all downtowns.

Our second recommendation is to move as expeditiously as possible on ensuring repeat offenders are held longer pending trial, and that the resources are necessarily made available to the courts, corrections, probation and prosecution services.

We know that in our urban cores, a small percentage of individuals are creating the vast majority of issues around broken windows, break and enters, smash and grabs. These actions impact the sense of safety among our members, among their staff and among the public. Remanding this small group of individuals while they pend trial would have a significant and immediate positive impact for our small and medium-sized businesses and our communities as a whole.

In a time of labour shortages, inflation, rising property taxes, etc., these criminal actions and the costs associated are enough now for some businesses to seriously consider whether or not they’re going to continue to operate. These businesses employ members of our communities and collect significant provincial taxes, so their loss would be strongly felt not only within their communities but across the province.

Our third recommendation is to actively decentralize social services out of the downtown Victoria core. Downtown Victoria is the business, cultural and tourist hub for the entire capital region. Having all the social services, especially low-barrier services, concentrated within a five-block radius places an overwhelming burden on our commercial business district. The result that we’re seeing now is that long-standing family businesses that are 30-plus years in downtown are simply considering whether or not to renew their leases or, in fact, whether or not they are going to close up entirely.

I see my time is up. The one final point I’ll make on that is that this is, again, a problem in many urban cores and small towns where all the services are close together. When the province is funding social services, they should look strategically at how these services are placed to ensure that no one community or neighbourhood faces 100 percent of the impact.

I’m happy to take questions, Mr. Chair.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Jeff.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, it’s not just Victoria. Obviously, it’s right across the province — street disorder, safety issues, vandalism, those kind of things. It’s rampant.

With the Victoria Business Association, do you…? Is there a dollar figure? Do you have a figure that would reflect what that’s costing? Everything from surveillance to maintenance to security to replacement to leases being left dry — is there a dollar figure?

J. Bray: We have some dollar figures. For instance, we’ve calculated that in the capital region, graffiti costs about $1 million a year. Just graffiti. That’s on an annualized basis.

We know that in our surveys with our members, last year over 25 percent of them increased their expenditures on security features, whether that’s gates — which nobody wants in your commercial business — security film, security cameras.

The greater impact, I think, is on businesses actually saying, “Although business performance is pretty good, it’s too much to keep my doors open,” and they’re seriously considering moving. That is not just retail. That’s also your commercial, so your law offices, your accounting offices, your dentist. If those individuals decide to move out, all of the clients they draw into downtown also move out as well. That then impacts your retail, your food and beverage.

A. Walker: I thank you for sharing this with us. I’m sure you’re following Bill C-48, the federal bail reform, to ensure that our federal partners are able to address some of the concerns you’ve raised.

[1:15 p.m.]

With the co-location of services…. I mean, that’s something that we hear in different communities. When the services are in one place, it can create some challenges with their neighbours. What solution do you have, though, when we know that some of these vulnerable people need access to services that are co-located? If they’re not to be downtown, would you suggest having these dispersed more broadly, which would obviously be challenging for the individuals, or having them all moved to another location? What do you suggest?

J. Bray: Great question, and it’s a twofold answer.

The first is that moving to a more distributed model, especially as housing gets built throughout an area, you could then have smaller centres providing the needed services. The second is for the province to seriously consider what level of services are provided in a low-barrier setting, where we meet the client wherever they’re at in their life, versus other types of services, where the clients perhaps are not actively using substances and others and where the activity that they draw around them isn’t so significant.

That’s the challenge that we see. We have several services that offer great drop-in services next to a supervised consumption site that has, at any given point in time, 80 people sleeping in tents in front of the supervised consumption site. Yet it’s the other services that get blamed for some of these challenges.

So I think it’s both the mix but, ultimately, a distributed model, for where the housing is going, is what we would suggest. And strategically looking to support the services, but not all in one place.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Jeff, I have a question. A couple of months ago, I guess it was, the growing communities funding was given out to 198 municipalities across the province of British Columbia. Were you able to work with the city of Victoria to take a look at some of that funding to help out with some of the things, the programs that you’re trying to do?

J. Bray: We in Victoria, at the DVBA, didn’t see any of that particular funding, but I will say that the city of Victoria has, in their current budget, earmarked $945,000 for reinvestment into downtown. That’s around some of the issues around extra police patrols, bylaw patrols, beautification events and things of that nature.

We haven’t yet seen some of that other strategic investment money. Certainly, we would be happy to work with the city on that.

As you may know, we are in a municipality of one in Victoria, but we have 13 other municipalities around us. We really feel that part of the challenge is that each municipality has a role to play. As long as one city keeps putting its hand up saying, “We’ll take it on,” it lets everyone else off the hook. That’s no different than in the Lower Mainland, the Okanagan and others.

We really think that the province, as the funder, has a certain amount of sway as to who gets funded and where they operate.

M. Starchuk (Chair): That pretty much takes us to the end of our….

Interjection.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Jeff, thank you for your presentation this afternoon and recognizing, as a person that sat on this committee years ago, that the smiles you see on our face on day 1 might be different on day 22. Thank you for your presentation.

J. Bray: Good luck with the tour.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next we have Jason Arruda from the CSA group.

Jason, you have five minutes, and then five minutes for any questions.

CSA GROUP

J. Arruda: Thank you, members of the committee, for offering us up this time. My name is Jason Arruda from the Canadian Standards Association, which operates as CSA Group. I’ll refer to us as CSA from here on out just to simplify things.

I want to acknowledge today that we are on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, the Songhees and the Esquimalt First Nations, somewhere I’m personally pleased to live, work and play.

CSA was established over 100 years ago and is Canada’s largest accredited standards development organization. We also have a testing inspection certification subsidiary, which tests product safety against certification standards and programs. You might have seen a range of our products at home and at work, and I’m pleased to say that some of these products would have gone through our testing facility in Richmond.

We’re a not-for-profit, independent organization that is member-based, with a portfolio of more than 3,000 published standards and codes in 54 subject areas. We’re a leader in standards development, and our mandate is to hold the future to a higher standard. Some examples where we have developed standards include flood mitigation, accessibility and the circular economy. Many B.C. government departments and agencies utilize our standards, some examples being related to occupational health and safety, health care and pipeline safety.

Standards provide agreed-upon rules and guidelines for specific activities that allow users to verify that a process, task, product or system has been completed or manufactured in an expected manner.

[1:20 p.m.]

Standards developed with our over 10,000-plus expert members help improve safety, health, the environment and economic efficiency in Canada and beyond. We collaborate with all levels of government. Many of our standards are incorporated by reference, regulations and in numerous industry best practices.

We believe, with government support, endorsement, advocacy and reference of our standards, that we can help deliver a stronger, more sustainable and resilient British Columbia and Canada.

CSA standards provide solutions to public policy and regulatory challenges through transparent third-party development, which goes through a process including robust public review. In addition, these standards are updated as technology evolves.

I should also note that CSA standards can support the UN sustainable development goals, and we have found that 80 percent of our standards currently support various UN SDG objectives.

I’ve provided a pretty general look at what the organization does and can do. There is a lot that we think we can help governments with at all levels and something you should take back to your communities when you’re speaking to local towns and councils, which I know have got greater burdens that we might be able to alleviate.

What I want to do is present three areas that we think we can provide particular support in, the first being supporting safer long-term-care homes. A new CSA national standard published in December 2022 provides guidance on safe operating practices and effective infection prevention and control in long-term-care homes. The standard was shaped by the needs and voices of Canada’s long-term-care residents, family members, caregivers and workforce.

CSA has facilitated several research studies and standards to help protect property and infrastructure from floods. These standards provide requirements and guidelines for elements of flood such as flood-resilient design of new communities; identifying flood risks in existing communities; managing stormwater systems; design and construction of bioretention systems; erosion and sediment control; estimation of intensity, duration and frequency of rainfall events; and the use of weather data in infrastructure planning.

I brought it with me today, but I want to draw particular attention to our municipal how-to guide for the CSA community water standards. This is something that can help urban planners, managers and elected municipal officials integrate standards into their strategic and development plans. I can leave that behind and arrange to have copies sent to you, if you wish — through staff, of course. I’d particularly like to point out that the city of Colwood was actually very instrumental in helping us support the development of this guide.

Finally, the CSA standards can support a transition to more sustainable construction practices, supporting the transition of the sector to one of net zero and low carbon by addressing topics such as the design for disassembly and adaptability in buildings, durability in buildings and the deconstruction of buildings.

On behalf of CSA, I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee about our work and how we can support your efforts on behalf of communities and the province at large. I’m pleased to take any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Jason, for your presentation.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I heard you mention Richmond. I would love to have the opportunity to meet you maybe one-on-one later on.

J. Arruda: Sure.

H. Yao: I do have a question, because obviously CSA…. It’s such a great idea to have a Canadian Standards Association. We are protecting Canadian and British Columbian interests. How are we dealing with international or different jurisdictions’ competition for products, also for supplies or services, when they probably have a lesser standard when it comes to safety, environment and health?

As you and I probably both know very well, for us to match that good standard, good health and good environment protection, it costs money. It costs investment. Do you have any recommendations about government and what we can do to allow British Columbia to be compe­titive but, at the same time, not giving up on any important standards that we need to maintain?

J. Arruda: I would be pleased to provide a more fulsome answer to the committee, via staff, after. As I’m four months on the job, I don’t want to pretend like I know everything. Something like 3,000 standards is a lot to get your head around.

Generally speaking, though, standards and regulations help with economic efficiency. I would note that our global testing and inspection certification subsidiary provides expert testing and inspection and certifications, and we’re located in various parts of the world on that side of the organization. Standards, I think, do provide an opportunity to make a safer, more sustainable British Columbia in that way, because they do, insofar as possible, offer you an opportunity to understand whether a product or a process is as safe as possible.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. Your CSA standard. I think it covers lumber too, right?

[1:25 p.m.]

J. Arruda: Yeah, we have, like I said, over 3,000. What with me being new, I can’t…. I hope, a year from now, if I’m sitting in front of this committee, that I can tell you all about every single standard we’ve got. I think that might be a high bar. But we do cover roughly 54 subject areas and 14 different economic sectors, so definitely there are forestry-related standards, and I would be pleased to provide more information through staff.

G. Chow: So this long-term-care home standard is basically based on controlling flood, preventing flooding. It’s really just still based on the physical or…?

J. Arruda: No. Sorry. Perhaps I rushed my speaking notes here.

The flood mitigation areas I was speaking about are a separate area from the long-term-care standards. The long-term-care standards were developed with focusing on ensuring long-term-care facilities are safe, particularly with the pandemic in mind, of course, and how they can be challenging.

Published in January 2023, CAN/HSO 21001:2023, Long-­Term Care Services, provides guidance on the safe and reliable delivery of high-quality, long-term-care services enabled by a healthy and competent workforce. It’s divided into six sections: promoting good governance, upholding resident-centred care, enabling meaningful quality of life for residents, ensuring high-quality and safe care, fostering a healthy and competent workforce and promoting a culture of quality improvement and learning across long-term-care homes.

G. Chow: Okay. So it’s not just a physical standard. You’re getting into more of operational standards.

J. Arruda: Yes. Management systems as well.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): That just perfectly segues. I was going to ask about long-term-care safety and what makes it unsafe. You highlighted about five or six different things there.

Is anything in there…? Operationally, our auditing process to deliver those long-term-care hours per resident…. I can’t remember. It’s 3.36 hours a day or something like that, is the standard right now, which we just upped from about 2.8, or something like that, a couple of years ago.

You might not be able to answer this, but maybe look into it. Is that auditing process flawed right now? There doesn’t seem to be enough oversight to keep private long-term-care facilities accountable. There’s a private versus public kind of a thing here, and I’m just wondering if you had any insight on that.

J. Arruda: I hate to defer to the same answer about being new, but I don’t have the full scope of knowing that. I don’t know that we could provide a reasonable answer as to the state of the system itself and delivery of care.

What I can say is one of the other long-term-care standards that we have developed, CSA Z8004:22, long-term-care home operations and infection control, is intended to provide guidance on safe operating practices and effective infection and control practices in these homes.

So there are standards built around that part of that, the sort of safety side of things, when it comes to infection prevention and control.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Only 13 seconds.

Could I get that report? Is that something…?

J. Arruda: Yeah. I’m happy to provide any of this information via the committee staff.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): If they could supply it to the committee, that would be great.

J. Arruda: Absolutely. Happy to.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Jason, that concludes our time here. Just to take note, there were two other MLAs that had questions that we didn’t have time for. So obviously, the topic of CSA standards is very intriguing to us. Thank you very much for your time here this afternoon.

The next speaker is Angela Marie MacDougall, Battered Women’s Support Services.

Angela, as you’re sitting down, it’s five minutes of you and then five minutes of us.

You have the floor.

BATTERED WOMEN’S SUPPORT SERVICES

A. MacDougall: Good afternoon and thank you to the committee for this opportunity to meet with you this afternoon, and also for the staff for their work behind the scenes.

My name is Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director, Battered Women’s Support Services, an organization that, for the last 44 years, has worked to end gender-based violence through services, prevention, legal advocacy and working for social change.

I am speaking to recommendations derived through four years of working on a national action plan on gender-based violence, with an eye to the provincial action plan on GBV that is currently under development, and that will be undertaken, funded in part, by the federal Ministry of Women and Gender Equality.

When we travel around British Columbia, we see a beautiful landscape, modern cities and progressive infrastructure. However, when we take a closer look, we see expanding impacts of regional and global environmental degradation and economic and social impacts of inequity, discrimination, along with some previous troubling policy priorities. We see an epidemic of gender-based violence that includes femicide.

[1:30 p.m.]

A fully funded and implemented gender-based violence action plan will establish a foundation for transformational change all across British Columbia to eliminate femicide, to eliminate gender-based violence, ensuring that victims become survivors and are able to access trauma- and violence-informed responses to their unique needs, with specialized supports for underserved populations that include Black, Indigenous, racialized, immigrants, refugees, victims and survivors — also, victims and survivors in rural communities.

We are hopeful that the province of British Columbia will negotiate the very best deal that you can with the federal government. That will take a combined federal and provincial investment, we believe, that will be no less than $900 million over the period of the four years of the action plan, 2014 to 2028.

The promise of an action plan on gender-based violence to is redress and to address the root causes of violence, which is to expand the prevention of gender-based violence initiatives; to advance Indigenous-led interventions, working toward an elimination of disappearances and killings of Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people; to expand the definition of justice and legal system supports; and to establish robust accountability for law enforcement, with profound expansion of funding for supports for victims and survivors of intimate-partner, domestic and sexualized violence.

A couple of examples. I have a prepared document that goes into more detail that I would like to share.

A lump sum payment for people fleeing violence to help them get established — that would be outside of social assistance and subject, of course, to appropriate income tests. Allowing women, girls and gender-diverse individuals to apply for subsidized housing options while they’re still living in violence — this would be a key part of a safety plan.

Improving mental health services. In particular, expanding, profoundly, gendered responsive substance use and addiction supports, as well as mental health supports focused on trauma- and violence-informed care.

We really want to see an additional $900 million established over the next four years for a minimum of 2,500 units of housing, to include transitional housing that includes safe homes and long-term housing, with a special emphasis on second-stage housing, which is a vitally important service that is delivered around the province and that has proven to be effective in supporting survivors to transition.

We also want to see a more responsive legal system. There are a number of pilot initiatives where we see survivor advocates that are helping victims navigate the legal system — family law, immigration law, child protection and criminal law.

We would want to see a 50 percent increase to the existing Stopping the Violence counselling program, combined with prevention work, which should be community based, where local organizations have an expansion of resources to provide prevention. The PEACE program has proven to be effective, and our colleagues at the B.C. Society of Transition Houses will speak to that.

This all goes toward a $1.8 billion investment over the next four years that will bring us as close as we’ve ever been to an inclusive British Columbia that is free of intimate-partner, domestic and sexualized violence; where people are safe, respected and receive the services that are high quality.

We know that gender-based violence is a human rights violation rooted in historic inequity, and this is an opportunity for us to do something that has never happened yet. The gender-based action plan needs to be fully funded and resourced, and we are looking forward to seeing that happen.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Angela. It is to the point, and I’m not sure where we’re going to start with the questions.

My question that I’ve written down is…. You talked about the pilot initiatives. How much say is your group having with the results, and how much say is your group having in creating the pilot initiatives that are out there?

A. MacDougall: Well, we have our own services that are similar. When we’re talking about the legal advocacy, we have a justice centre that is providing support services — not funded from the province; funded through other sources. We’re also working with our colleagues at the B.C. Society of Transition Houses on specific second-stage initiatives. Definitely, we want to see a broadening of addiction supports for survivors of violence.

[1:35 p.m.]

This is upstream intervention that goes a long way to addressing some of the concerns that you’ve heard here today and you’ve probably been hearing and will likely hear over the course of your consultations. We know that for many of the social problems that we have, we can look to problems in the home, including violence — domestic violence, intimate-partner violence, sexualized violence as playing a key contributing factor. With this kind of investment, we’re reaching folks at the beginning, at the middle and, hopefully, the end.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate it. You mentioned…. Again, correct me if I’m wrong, because it was happening so fast. I want to capture as much information as I can. You mentioned at one point $1.8 billion for four years. That’s about $450 million per year to fully eradicate gender-based violence or aggression. That’s a term I use because some culturally sensitive people see violence in different ways.

But you only asked for 25 secondary transition houses. I would assume, with that much ask…. I would say 2,500 or…. You know what I mean? Please.

A. MacDougall: Housing is expensive to build, apparently, so I’m told. I thought I was being modest in the sense of what I thought could be possible, because we’re also talking about the building, but it’s also operational funding. It’s one thing to get the units built. It’s another thing to provide the supports that victims and survivors will need.

Those numbers are numbers that we’ve been working with. I have it in a document that I’d like to show that breaks it down in the sense of what it costs to run a second-stage house, for example, and also what it means to have the full complement of services that would…. Transition houses are not only dealing with the violence that survivors are navigating in terms of supporting survivors but also the impacts, which includes substance use. It includes ill mental health.

I talk about the expanding challenges that we have as people right now in the province, and this investment is actually to help address those concerns now in a meaningful way. If I have shot too low, I would be happy to add more to the budget, but I thought it would be realistic in the sense of what might be compelling for you and recognize you have other committee priorities that cost money.

H. Yao: Thank you.

A. Walker: You’d mentioned the PEACE program. I’m unfamiliar with this, but looking it up online, I’m wondering if you can just quickly, in a few seconds, sort of sum that up, just for the record here.

A. MacDougall: Absolutely. The PEACE program is innovative, and it’s been around since the 1990s, completely underfunded and overlooked, sadly. It is services for children who have witnessed abuse in the home, which we recognize is also a form of child abuse. It is also prevention initiatives in schools — grade schools, high schools — and this is upstream intervention that helps prevent future violence.

It has been so deeply underfunded, historically. To expand that significantly, to have it in every region, fully funded in ways that we’ve never seen before…. This is upstream intervention, which…. Obviously, it’s hard to quantify what that means because we’re going to see the results 15 years later, but it matters, and it means that we are unlikely to see the femicide if we are providing supports to youth and children today.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’ll make it quick. Thanks for the presentation. It’s absolutely critical that we address this. I mean, it’s…. Unfortunately, I hear it. What I’m thinking here is that your program highlights a lot of resources that are needed to resolve or to mitigate what we’ve got going on right now.

What I’m interested in is…. What I see in my own constituency office is, in getting the person the help they need…. They don’t always want to do it, right? They’re stuck in this situation where they don’t want to leave the toxic relationship they’re in right now. What is in your program that could assist that to get them…? To be helped, you need to help yourself first.

A. MacDougall: Right, yes. Staying, leaving and returning is an inevitable cycle, a pattern that many victims and survivors will have, because the victim doesn’t want the relationship to end but wants the abuse to stop. That journey takes a while.

[1:40 p.m.]

One of the things that we can do with the resources, the funding that I’ve asked for here today, is public awareness campaigns that are sustaining, that aren’t sort of one-offs, that are using all sources of media — advertising, print, news — so that, then, survivors will get a message over time, and when they’re ready, they will know where to go, who to go to, how to get there and what will be offered. That’s the most important thing.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): That could be a short window.

A. MacDougall: Exactly.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Angela, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

Next up is Echo Wylie.

Echo, you have five minutes to give your presentation and five minutes from us.

The floor is yours.

ECHO WYLIE

E. Wylie: Thank you very much. Firstly, I’d like to thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you today during National AccessAbility Week. I’m here to address the WCB’s, a.k.a. WorkSafe, effects of the tribunal system started on our universal health care program in 1985.

I was involved in an accident with CN Rail, and since my accident I have been unable to fulfil my duties as a taxpaying citizen and have lived on social assistance and disability.

My story is unbelievable but not uncommon. October 3, ’87, as a passenger in a CN crew cab, we collided with a semi truck on 232nd, Langley, B.C. The semi truck and trailer were travelling uphill around a cutback corner, and we were on the downhill slope towards it. As we started to slide, I realized I would not live through this, so I jumped in the back seat with my head towards the passenger door in a fetal position. I was thrown around the back of the crew cab.

The ambulance attendant didn’t understand how I was uninjured in this accident, so he made me sit down for five minutes and assessed what was going on with me. I felt a pinging in my right ear, a slight pain. That has not stopped, to this day, and it’s worsened. As it turns out, the disk stretched in my jaw. It was turned into an unusually elongated meniscus in my TM, temporomandibular joint.

As it turned out, the whole right side of my body was torn, stretched, like my jaw, and I had a bleeding vessel in my left parietal lobe. Eventually, that turned out to be a brain injury, which has still not been properly assessed to this day.

The board’s conduct from the first appointment was adversarial and biased. I entered a convoluted system of time constraints and retaliatory practices. Fiduciary duty to me, or the province of British Columbia, was not met by way of lack of proper representation.

WCB clients are lost, unable to know what is being really medically reported about them. Case managers do not meet the legal standard of investigation or process, and effectively abuse their power by way of administrative law. Medical advisers and legal advisers, who use a practice of deeming something to be so, are overriding doctors’ actual medical information, frustrating doctors’ efforts to treat injuries and turning them against their patients. You would have to inquire to the doctors to heed the extent of that, but I have experienced it with my doctors myself.

The provincial government is creating, and has created, the homeless, opioid and health care crises by a few select individuals working within these agencies by knowingly and intentionally denying legitimate claims. Disabled people are being denied proper imaging, medical treatment, wage loss and pension benefits they are entitled to under the law, by way of bad-faith insurance claim suppression, stolen justice and restitution by the B.C. Investment Management group, a.k.a. BCI.

I believe the work of this committee is significantly important, as it impacts millions of workers and their families across Canada. It is imperative that the issues I have identified to the committee today are reviewed, studied and that any and all possible proactive changes are made to improve the lives and futures of all families who may need to utilize and depend on the service of the WCB board across British Columbia, Canada.

My recommendations are that we need an independent oversight committee for process review to oversee case manager systems, and focus on the entire claims and review process within the WCB, as per the Supreme Court decision Vavilov v. Citizenship and Immigration, a 2019 case, as disabled workers are consistently finding failure to be provided legal assistance.

[1:45 p.m.]

Two, independent investigations into yearly disbursements, financial statements and investments of the WCB board, WorkSafe board. It is paramount in this investigation whether or not case managers, review officers or anyone in the claim-making, decision or review capacity receive a financial award, as was discovered in 2019 and identified by Janet Patterson’s report called New Directions, report of the WCB, 2019, specifically on pages 28, 101, 102 and 313, as well as the Paul Petrie report of 2017 and the Bogyo report of 2018.

My concerns run deep on this topic, as we have taken the no-fault insurance structure and applied it to ICBC. The extrapolation of what happens to disabled people is atrocious and frankly disgusting in this province. I have not been able to be a taxpaying citizen properly since 1987, and it is strictly the fault of WCB.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Echo, thank you very much for your presentation. I might have missed it at the beginning, if you wouldn’t mind, for at least myself, explaining to me how it became…. Because I wasn’t sure where you were in the accident.

E. Wylie: I was sitting in the front seat. I was a passenger of a vehicle in a CN crew cab. We were heading into Fort Langley. We slid down a hill that went like this, and the semi-truck was coming up the hill. It rained for the first time in ten weeks, so as the guy struck the breaks, the truck started to slide. My physics professor friend from Vanderhoof figured it out, and he figured we were doing 78 miles an hour when we hit the truck.

As I was sitting in the front seat, I said: “Ian, we’re going to die.” I jumped in the back seat of the crew cab, as I said, and curled up with my head towards the door. Apparently the dentist at UBC dental clinic felt that I must’ve had my mouth open, and that’s why my meniscus was stretched. But as it turns out, the whole right side of my body…. I had a torn rotator cuff that was undiagnosed, and so on and so forth. It’s pretty explanatory.

M. Starchuk (Chair): No. Thank you very much. I was trying to put the CN vehicle into a pickup on the street.

E. Wylie: Sorry, I have a brain injury. It did turn into a brain injury. I’m just now finally being able to become a functional person in society.

I’m on the accessibility committee for University of Northern British Columbia. They are more than willing to help the board with any studies or information that you may need. I was also a past president of the Northern Association of Injured and Disabled Workers, which was decimated by the Law Society of B.C. and the board.

A. Walker: You’ve mentioned the desire to review the entire claims process, and you mentioned a court case. Can you repeat that again? I didn’t catch it.

E. Wylie: Court case…. I never made it to court. There was no court. What it is, is the administrative tribunals that they utilize. There’s no proper act. No one has access to their medical information. I am still unable to ask my doctor for my medical file. There’s a major issue of not being able to get the information or defend yourself in any way, shape or form over this. It’s like the stroke of a pen in their own lying eyes that people are sent out into the streets.

I’ve been on social services. They know full well that I was injured with WCB. They’re scapegoating all of their costs to the social system, which is funded by taxpayers rather than the war chest, or whatever you want to call it, of WCB. They are not paying and fulfilling their obligations to the citizens of the province.

A. Walker: If I could…. I think you mentioned a court case that was not related to you but happened in 2019.

E. Wylie: Oh, I see. It is the Supreme Court decision of Vavilov v. Citizenship and Immigration in 2019. Apparently it dealt with not being properly legally represented, from my understanding.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for that. When was the accident?

[1:50 p.m.]

E. Wylie: October 3, 1987, so for 36 years, I’ve been sitting here. I didn’t know I had a brain injury until the 17th year after my accident because there was no testing and imaging. They consistently X-rayed me instead of giving me MRIs, CAT scans. I finally got a CAT scan, approximately…. That’s how I found out I had the bleeding vessel in my parietal lobe.

Doctors just don’t want to deal with these people. They are overridden by board doctors and — what are they called? — the law advisers within the board. You have the medical advisers in the board, which, frankly, are not generally doctors. And then you have the legal folks that advise them. The legal adviser — I guess you’d call it that.

Sorry. I get nervous. The left parietal is a speech issue, so sometimes I get things….

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): You’ve had several reports there. Is it possible you could package those up and send them to the committee? Just send the links or something that we could….

E. Wylie: Yeah, I could just copy this out, and then you guys could have that. Is there somewhere in the building that that can be done?

K. Riarh (Committee Clerk): If you want to give it to me.

E. Wylie: Yeah, absolutely. This is my original that I have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Echo. I thank you very much for your presentation.

E. Wylie: Thank you. I appreciate it. Please, please do something about these people. They need to be reined in.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Sarah Erdelyi, from CAMRT-BC.

You have five minutes to present and five minutes for us for questions, if required.

The floor is yours.

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF
MEDICAL RADIATION TECHNOLOGISTS,
B.C. DIVISION

S. Erdelyi: Good afternoon. My name is Sarah Erdelyi, and I’m the provincial manager for British Columbia at the Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists. I’m also an MRT by background, and I work as an MRT educator here in Victoria. The MRT profession includes radiological, nuclear medicine and magnetic resonance imaging technologists, as well as radiation therapists.

I was here last year to speak about the impact of this profession on B.C.’s health care system and why it’s incredibly important to invest in this profession. I’m grateful to be here again to speak on behalf of my MRT colleagues across the province.

British Columbia, like other provinces in Canada, is experiencing increasing demand for medical imaging and radiation therapy services. At the same time as this explosion in demand, the MRT profession is experiencing a critical workforce shortage, and this is affecting the ability of hospitals, clinics and cancer centres across the province to provide timely access to services. It’s also taking a toll on MRTs, who are working tirelessly to get as many patients through as possible.

WorkBC predicts 1,230 job openings for MRTs in the next decade, with 39 percent due to economic growth. Even though B.C. has the capacity to train and graduate up to 140 MRTs this year, based on current enrolment, B.C. will be graduating up to 86 students only, across all of its MRT programs. That’s at least 30 percent short of the expected number of job openings this year. And next year it’s a similar problem, with the total number of MRT graduates falling short of the WorkBC-predicted job openings.

We believe there are several factors contributing to student recruitment and retention challenges. Those include a general lack of awareness about the MRT profession, negative messages in the media about working in health care, a lack of financial supports or earning potential compared to some other professions or career choices and the intensity of the programs. We’re hearing from educators that the current climate is having an impact on students’ perceptions of the profession and, in some cases, causing them to question their career choice.

Of course, to keep up with demand and ensure timely access to medical imaging and radiation therapy, a steady supply of new graduate MRTs is important and essential to long-term sustainability. We’re recommending investments in MRT education and training to help recruit and fill seats in these programs, but also to help support students to complete the programs.

We also want to raise attention to the impact the current circumstances are having on the MRT workforce and the need to support these professionals. They’re taking on heavy workloads, and they’re working increased overtime. Of course, this results in emotional and physical exhaustion.

In one of our recent surveys, approximately one quarter of MRTs took time off in 2021 due to a mental health issue, and more than half due to physical illness or injury.

[1:55 p.m.]

We also surveyed MRTs and found that 35 percent of respondents said they were considering leaving the profession if conditions don’t change.

To prevent a further reduction in workforce, we believe the government needs to show these professionals that they’re valued. We think that, in addition to financial retention incentives and some of the other strategies that are being tried in other provinces, other workplace incentives will also help to retain B.C.’s medical radiation technologists.

The last thing we wanted to focus on is building human resources infrastructure in the profession. Of course, MRTs are critical to the province’s ten-year cancer action plan and other health system priorities. I know that last year, after the consultation, the Ministry of Health shared a progress report on medical imaging. They shared that MRIs had increased 69 percent in the last five years, and CTs had increased 30 percent. To deliver more exams, operating hours were expanded and new scanners were added, but this has led to the workforce wearing thin.

We’re hearing from stakeholders now that current vacancy rates in medical imaging departments could range anywhere from 7 percent to 20 percent, and their forecasting predicts that this could get worse. We already know that the number of graduates coming out of the programs in the next couple of years is insufficient to meet these demands.

I guess to conclude this, B.C.’s recent investments in the health human resources and the plans that are underway are definitely a significant step forward. We know that there’s also a strategic plan coming for allied health specifically which will encompass MRTs, and some actions have already been taken. But we’re hoping that the government will work with medical imaging and radiation therapy departments, as well as other stakeholders, to come up with additional strategies and funding to increase our workforce capacity across all of our different disciplines within the medical radiation technology profession.

Then, of course, in the long term, this will result in improved access to essential services for B.C.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you very much for your presentation, Sarah. Right on the mark, by the way. Right on the mark. If we were to have a trophy for that, you would be winning it today.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I would like to hear a bit more about preparing for the future MRT students. How long does it take for the individual computer programs? Is a two-year diploma, a one-year degree?

S. Erdelyi: For all the medical imaging disciplines — so radiological technology, nuclear medicine and MRI — it’s a two-year diploma program.

Those programs are two years continuous, and they include a significant clinical component. It is technically six semesters of school, back to back. For radiation therapy, it’s a 33-month program. In order to get into that program, you require one year of post-secondary education. So that one takes a little bit longer.

The other important point to note is that the MRI diploma program in B.C. only opened up at the beginning of this year. Previously, to become a professional working in that discipline, you had to complete one of the other MRT programs first. So even though we’ve made this big push to produce more MRI exams, that’s come from a lot of technologists cross-training, so it hasn’t really created a net new number of technologists over a number of years.

H. Yao: I don’t fully understand. I apologize for this. Is there any room for some kind of micro-credential, any one combination to actually increase the speed so that students can go through a certain program, get into the field and maybe pick up additional education as they continue?

As you have both noted, the labour shortage…. We are looking for a potential creative solution to get people into the system earlier rather than later.

S. Erdelyi: Definitely, I think for cross-training in some of the specialty areas like breast imaging, CT, MRI, a lot of that comes from making sure that we have a steady supply of the entry-to-practice programs. I think it would be difficult to make them much shorter than two years just because there’s quite a bit packed into those programs already.

Half of their time is spent in hospitals so that they are workforce ready as soon as they graduate. But I think with cross-training in some of those other specialty areas, there’s probably work that could be done there.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Henry took my question. I was going to ask about that.

As we know, cancer care is critical. It’s just amping up as baby boomers start to get to that age of life. I’m looking at expanding oncology in my region and getting that radiotherapy in Cranbrook and developing it. We’re trying to get the LINAC machine and the bunker and all that other stuff. It’s good to have those things, but if you don’t have the people there to do it, then it doesn’t make any sense.

More specifically to LINAC and those imaging types, what is education like for that, specifically?

S. Erdelyi: That would be a radiation therapist doing those procedures. That’s the three- to four-year undergraduate degree timing.

[2:00 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): I have a question. You were talking at the beginning, Sarah, about the lack of awareness and the perceptions of the program, and that making it hard to recruit. What’s the solution to making that go away, to enhancing it or whatever it is that would combat that lack of awareness or perception?

S. Erdelyi: Well, I think the government has some really good programs, like the WorkBC career track and those sorts of promotion initiatives. I don’t think any of them have any of the MRT disciplines listed. I don’t know if they’re on their radar. Having those professions highlighted to people in B.C. that are seeking careers, whether that be high school students, students who are in university and not quite sure where they’re going to go with their career, or people looking for career changes, I think, would just get the profession in front of them.

I think the schools, over the last year, have been able to increase presence at some of these events that are now starting to pop up again, post-pandemic. That will help, but they’re also competing with all the other health science disciplines. There are limited marketing resources. I think having specialized, targeted messaging for this profession will be really important.

B. Banman: When you were talking about retainment, you mentioned that there would be financial…. What are the non-financial ones?

S. Erdelyi: That’s a really good question. I think part of it is feeling valued in the workplace, having that team-building atmosphere. I’ve heard stories of having recognition awards or things like that, giving leadership opportunities, just to really build the workforce capacity, to make new graduates feel supported, feel like they’re on a career path and that they’re part of the department — so workplace culture. Mental health resources is one of the big things we focused on last year.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Sarah, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

Next up is Tracy Humphreys of BCEdAccess Society.

Tracy, as you’re walking up there, you will get five minutes to give us your presentation, and we will have five minutes to ask questions.

The floor is yours.

BCEDACCESS SOCIETY

T. Humphreys: Thank you so much.

I wanted to say that I’m grateful to be here on the stolen lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən peoples, the Esquimalt and Songhees First Nations.

I live and work on their land and those of the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples — the Tsartlip, Tseycum, Tsawout and Pauquachin First Nations.

I also want to acknowledge the complexity of the Douglas treaties in this discussion of land.

Ultimately, education is a colonial system — and I’m here representing education — and it continues to do harm to Indigenous peoples. BCEdAccess, which is the organization I’m here to represent, is dedicated to supporting and working with government and other organizations to enact all the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — particularly, of course, the education- and child-related ones.

I’m here wearing my hat as BCEdAccess’s executive director, as a person with disabilities and as a parent, as my name tag says, because I’m a parent of three disabled children and adults.

At BCEdAccess, we’re an organization of families of kids with disabilities from all over B.C. Our online community has over 5,200 members now. We serve far more than that provincially, because not everyone is in that community — from the North to the Interior, the islands, the Mainland, pretty much everywhere.

We work collaboratively with anyone and everyone, organizations run by and for people with disabilities of all ages, BCTF and the Representative for Children and Youth. We regularly engage with the Ministry of Education and Child Care and other ministries, and we bring them information. I want to thank you for your work and for giving me this time. As someone mentioned, it is National AccessAbility Week, which is fortuitous.

The main thing I’m here to say, with only five minutes, is that I’m happy to see the mandate letters of the Minister of Education and Child Care — and your mandate, Secretary Chant — specifically addressing working on supports for students with disabilities. I’m hoping that that will translate into a workplan at the ministry that includes some of these things.

[2:05 p.m.]

Today in that group, I wanted to say, we’ve had kids excluded from field trips because of their disability; a racialized single parent who had MCFD called on their family because they didn’t pick up the child when they were called, but they were never actually reached; and many accounts of children attending school one, two or three hours a day, because they need support and parents have been told that’s all the time that’s available to support them.

My three recommendations…. We’re going to submit a written piece, so you can read more details about it. I’m just going to highlight.

Workforce planning is the first one, and I don’t have a figure attached to that. It’s about shortages at crisis levels for EAs and specialist teachers, as well as teachers generally, in rural and remote areas right now. The ministry reports about 80 or so working uncertified in those areas — teachers — and anecdotally, lots more. EAs are not even currently noted in the ministry’s workforce plans.

Education assistants are a really important piece of inclusion. Their recruitment and retention have solutions that are known and shared already by unions, so we just need to take action on those. Then pre-service and in-service training on ableism for that workforce, and accessibility and disability support.

The second piece that we’re interested in as an organization, and we’re starting to coordinate, is something similar to SOGI 123 around disabilities, to bring some curriculum supports to education for teachers to be able to support learning around ableism, accessibility and disabilities to address our obligations under the CRPD, the CRC and UNDRIP. I can tell you what those are, if you want to know.

Then my third piece is an idea. It’s not my own idea. It’s one of the parent advocates who brought up the idea of an advocate for each district, or, perhaps, grouped districts. We ballparked that it would cost about $3 million to have a knowledgeable person to support parents or children when they need to advocate through the system. It’s a complicated system, and they need help.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. It was right on the number.

T. Humphreys: I was just winging it, so thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Are there any comments or questions?

A. Walker: Yeah. I had a constituent I met with a couple of weeks ago who’s got a child in grade 1, two full-time ECEs, so is lucky in a sense. But the child would leave the school property within an hour of school every single day.

It’s interesting as you talk about workforce planning, both pre- and in school, and just having that awareness of what it’s like for parents. I just wanted to say thank you for the work that you’re doing, and I look forward to the written requests with more information. But this is something we hear quite often, so I appreciate this.

T. Humphreys: Education is so complicated that five minutes isn’t nearly enough to express all the issues, but that workforce planning really concerns me, because we’re already in such a crisis. ECEs are in the Ministry of Education’s workforce plan, but education assistants are foundational, so we need to be talking about it. The majority is over 50, and they last about seven years. Then they tend to leave, because, well, lots of reasons.

S. Chant: EAs are where retired nurses go, just so you know. Just saying.

A question to you. Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for your work on behalf of this group of people that are often well under-voiced. You said you’ve got a lot of folks that are not certified in rural areas. Can you tell me what that means?

T. Humphreys: Teacher certification is something that every teacher…. They go to school, and then they get certified by the teacher…. It’s not the college anymore, right? It’s the teacher branch.

There are more and more teachers around the province, actually, who are working uncertified, because they cannot find enough people to fill roles, particularly in rural and remote areas. It’s just common. It’s been years and years and years where they have uncertified teachers working.

[2:10 p.m.]

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate you spending time with us.

You mention, in your third ask, having an advocate per school district, and correct me if my number is incorrect, you mentioned $8 million being able to cover it.

T. Humphreys: I said $3 million.

H. Yao: Oh, three. I didn’t mean to triple your budget.

T. Humphreys: Again, it’s totally a ballpark. Some ideas of what it would cost to administer and to bring in maybe 30 for spreading around.

H. Yao: I think we have about 60 school districts in B.C. right now.

T. Humphreys: Right. But some of them are, you know, smaller. They don’t have as many students, but they are more spread out. So there might be some sharing that could happen.

H. Yao: Okay. Yeah. One reason why I’m asking, because obviously I’m looking back…. I mean, where I’m from in Richmond, we’re looking at about ten, 11 high schools, 40 elementary schools. How do you anticipate one advocate would be able to handle all that casework? I almost feel like you probably need at least one per three schools, one per five schools, at least.

T. Humphreys: Yes. No, you’re totally right. So I work very closely with Inclusion B.C. and Family Support Institute, and I mean, you name it, just any advocacy organization that does this kind of work, we work with them. Inclusion B.C. has about six education and other support advocates. Family Support Institute has about 400 volunteer resource parents who they can deploy across the province. Other organizations have advocates.

It is not enough. They’re inundated. Inclusion B.C. said to me that their calls have doubled since last year, and every year, it’s an increase, and they just can’t handle the capacity. They’re taking appointments now, because they can’t just take a call off the cuff.

So there’s a real need, and an organization to administer it might be something like BCCPAC, for example, who has the connections in those districts already.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you for your presentation, Tracy, and thank you for being the voice for people that don’t necessarily always have a voice.

T. Humphreys: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Ilda Turcotte, Greater Victoria Teachers Association.

Ilda, you will have five minutes to make your presentation and five minutes for us to ask questions, should there be a need to.

The floor is yours.

GREATER VICTORIA TEACHERS ASSOCIATION

I. Turcotte: Great. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

I represent the greater Victoria teachers on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən people.

Just to share with you today that all the challenges we face in terms of meeting the needs of our students, delivering the curriculum, assessing and having meaningful conversations with parents and colleagues stem from a severely underfunded system that has been occurring for close to 30 years, which is most of my teaching career.

In Victoria, the district has had to make many difficult decisions regarding staffing and programs in order to balance a budget that is insufficient. No district should be in a place where they must choose between offering programs for their students and keeping the lights on in the buildings. And that is what is happening.

Our first recommendation is regarding staffing ratios for specialist teachers. Student needs and mental health concerns have greatly increased over the last decade, yet the collective agreement language regarding class size and composition is archaic and does not reflect the reality in our schools. In particular, we need more teacher counsellors, learning support, inclusive education teachers, as well as teacher-librarians. All these specialist teachers support students and enhance the programs classroom teachers provide.

The pandemic showed us how vital schools are in supporting students and their families. Sufficient funds to enable schools to respond to students and their families is sorely needed.

Recommendation 2 is about school builds and seismic upgrades. This must be timely and with their costs fully covered by the province. Schools must be safe and functional. We all want inclusive schools, and there needs to be a financial commitment that goes with it. Schools should be welcoming, safe and able to meet the needs of the students.

The Victoria school district has been working on making schools as safe as they can be within the limitations of their budget. However, students should not be waiting their whole school career for the province to recognize their school needs some dedicated funds to improve it. Provincial funds for new builds and upgrades should be enough to provide the best environmentally sound, modern building without making sacrifices to space and functionality.

[2:15 p.m.]

In addition to this, it is curious that money for new builds will only cover the current student population. This often results in the school being at capacity or overcapacity as soon as it is built. Schools that are built with empty classrooms will see those spaces being used — breakout rooms for student group work, parent group use, additional meeting or assessment space. Empty classrooms will not be wasted space.

Our final recommendation is paid training for mandated initiatives. In the past, there were in-service days for teacher training on curricular initiatives introduced by the province. I remember, as a new teacher in the late ’80s and early ’90s, there being many in-service opportunities for teachers to learn about the new curriculum, the primary program and the province’s plan for dual-entry kindergarten. Those were days filled with learning and opportunities to discuss with colleagues how these programs would work and how to implement them.

Over the course of the years, these opportunities have significantly decreased. We received a few days for the implementation of the current curriculum after a significant amount of lobbying. The government’s announcement of the Indigenous graduation requirement course had, unfortunately, no money attached to it. There is no money for training, nothing for resources. This course is a very welcome announcement, and we are eager to begin. Teachers want to be sure to do this important work well, and we are looking to the province to fund it.

In addition to this initiative, a very significant change in assessment is looming for secondary teachers, with no in-service days. The new reporting order is to be in effect next year, and there has been no training for teachers. Other sectors are given paid time to learn how to use new equipment or to be trained in various matters, such as safety, violence in the workplace and harassment. They have a paid orientation day prior to beginning their new job.

Teachers have not had these opportunities for many years. We are expected to learn new equipment, policies and procedures on our own time. This is leading to burnout. It is disrespectful, and it undervalues the important work we do.

Education is an investment — an investment in our future. We urge you to fully fund public education by providing safe, functional schools with paid training and sufficient staff to support students.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Ilda.

H. Yao: I really appreciate the presentation. If you don’t mind me asking a question. When you were talking about staff ratios earlier, are you able to provide a preferred ratio? And for number two, you talked about school building. Do you have a dollar figure you’re thinking about? I know that our government has been investing already, but what is the preferred direction? How fast are you talking about, so we have something more concrete we can work with?

I. Turcotte: The teacher-counsellor ratio is about 600 students to a counsellor currently, in our language. Depending on the local, they may or may not have any ratios for learning support teachers. In Victoria, we don’t really have case numbers for learning support teachers. We just try to do the best we can with what we’re given.

In terms of the budget, I don’t have a dollar amount for you, but we hear and we appreciate that the government is saying that there has been an increase in funding over the years, yes. We’re not quite sure what that increase means. It looks like it’s just covering the collective agreement language or salaries and wages commitments.

Additional things, we’re not sure — things like hydro and gas and groceries. All of those expenses have gone up tremendously over this past year. I don’t think the government has sent districts a proportionate amount, an increase to help mitigate those increases in their budgets. But I don’t have a dollar amount for you.

B. Stewart: I wanted to ask you a question about the seismic upgrading that you referred to. I guess, really, the question…. I know that this has been a priority for the Ministry of Education for decades in terms of getting that.

[2:20 p.m.]

I’ve been at schools where they’ve been seismically upgraded. What do you think is a reasonable time frame for the capital that’s needed to deal with the schools in the Victoria district?

I. Turcotte: A lot shorter than ten years. Shoreline has been waiting at least ten years for their upgrades. They keep getting bumped down the list. Reynolds Secondary has been told they’re next on the list for a rebuild, at least eight or nine years.

B. Stewart: Where I was going with that…. I wasn’t talking about rebuilds, etc. I was just talking the seismic.

I. Turcotte: The seismic upgrades?

B. Stewart: Yeah. I mean, I’m wondering what you…. What’s a reasonable expectation within the community?

I. Turcotte: We would expect that if a school is identified as needing seismic upgrades, it would be done within a couple of years, not ten.

B. Stewart: Okay, thanks.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Ilda, I have a question with regards to your comments that were there regarding new equipment and training. Could you give a couple of examples of what we’re talking about, those things that are there?

I. Turcotte: With the new reporting order, we’ve moved to…. Well, not just with the reporting order. In the last few years, we’ve been moving to less paper, so more to an online platform, using MyEdBC or a different reporting platform that’s online, computer-driven. There’s no training for that. We just have to figure out how MyEd works during our lunch hours or after school — things like that, where these new programs are introduced, and we just do it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): So with something like that, it would just be a matter of having somebody come out and explain the software?

I. Turcotte: Exactly. To have some time. Perhaps teachers could be released for an afternoon and be in a computer lab and shown how to work through the program, the process involved.

It’s not just that. It’s…. In the past, we had, I think, one session when MyEd was introduced. But any new teacher coming in — they weren’t there when that was introduced to the programs. So now we’re left with: “Well, you just have to figure it out. Go find another teacher that’s going to help you. Sit with them at a lunch hour and try to sort it out.”

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, then. Thank you for your time.

I. Turcotte: Thanks. I just wanted to say that we support BCEdAccess and all of the work that they do.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, then.

Our next presenter is Gina Martin, Diverse Abilities Programs.

Gina, welcome to the committee. As you’ve heard — you’ve been sitting there for a while, smiling; grimacing sometimes — you know you have five minutes. I have instructions to provide you with a one-minute warning, to help you out with that.

G. Martin: That would be nice, please.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The floor is yours.

DIVERSE ABILITIES
PROGRAMS AND TRAINING

G. Martin: Okay. Hi, I’m Gina Martin with Diverse Abilities Programs and Training. I have been presenting to district 61 over…. I’ve been developing a program over the last three years, and I’ve been delivering it in schools. The feedback that I’ve collected from students and from teachers is really positive.

My program talks about diversity, inclusion, accessibility, disabilities, but what does that mean? I talk to the kids, and I have hands-on activities that provide knowledge to the kids about how it is that people with disabilities do things.

We talk about language — the language to use and the language to avoid — because language is a powerful tool, and we all have that. We can either lift people up with our words, or we can knock them down. So when we’re mindful of the words that we choose when we’re talking about ourselves and we’re talking about others, we can create a more inclusive community.

We talk about accessibility and what that means. Accessibility is more than a parking spot, a bathroom and a ramp. It’s a lot of things. I talk to the kids about when you start creating your inventions and building your products and your websites, creating them with accessibility in mind.

[2:25 p.m.]

I am legally blind, and the new technology being developed digitally with cars and appliances…. I’m being left out because I’m no longer able to use those devices. So when we teach kids about accessibility and they start to develop that, they can start including it into their products, so that in the future, as we all age and our abilities change, we’re going to be able to grow into our homes and into our community with our young people’s knowledge on how to be inclusive.

Children learn about disabilities, non-apparent and apparent, and nine out of ten of the disabilities are non-apparent. Kids learn about different types of learning disabilities through simulations and through activities, and this helps them gain a better understanding of what people go through.

It also creates more inclusion in the classrooms, because when children come and say, “I have ADHD,” and we say, “How can your class support you?” they’re like: “Oh, please, only one question at a time.” They are adaptable, and they really want to learn, and they really want to be inclusive, but they need to learn the steps in order to do that.

Lots of times, disabilities are shamed or people are kind of excluded because people are uncomfortable. They don’t know what to say, they don’t know what to do, and they don’t understand.

The aDAPT programs help kids gain a better understanding, which creates a more inclusive community, which creates a more accessible community for the future. So aDAPT is tailored from kindergarten to grade 12. In British Columbia, we have approximately half a million, just over, students, and 78,000 of them are identifying as having a disability. That’s not including the ones that aren’t diagnosed. That’s not including the depression, anxiety, mental health.

We need people with disabilities delivering these programs in schools to bring that awareness to kids about what it’s really like and how we can support each other, because when we can support each other in the classroom, that helps the teachers, helps the EAs, because we’re all working together as a team.

It’s so important that the government is considering of providing these programs so that kids can learn from each other and learn from people who are living it. We all, at any time, could develop a disability through accident, through illness, through the natural process of aging. As we age, our hearing, our vision, our mobility and our cognitive abilities are going to change.

Let’s communicate with each other. Let’s learn from each other. Let’s build a stronger community through education. I recommend that the moneys for disability awareness be something that’s really considered for our future, for all schools, tribal and public and private.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Gina. Despite what Hansard will say in their recordings, when you said, “Words build you up, and words can put you down,” I’m going to ramble on for three seconds to tell you that you’ve nailed five minutes right on the nose.

G. Martin: Perfect.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate you being here with us. I was just listening to you explain a lot, and obviously, at the end, you wrapped it up with your ask, but if you don’t mind me saying, your ask is very generalized.

If you don’t mind me just maybe having a conversation with you. Are you looking for money to maybe actually have a curriculum designed around helping students experience and be aware of the diverse abilities we have in our community and how our society can function in a way to not just adapt but foster and take advantage of other potentials of our diverse society?

Are you looking for more like a curriculum built into our current system, or are you looking for something more as external funding, for an external organization to come to different schools to do presentations?

G. Martin: I think external funding directly to the schools to get this going and then having provincial funding to build this program so that it does get adopted into schools. It becomes part of the curriculum. Learning the alphabet in sign language, learning just some basic extra tools to have in your belt along with language are things that will help create more inclusivity.

[2:30 p.m.]

Definitely money going to the schools to provide this right now and money to build on it so that we can hire people with disabilities, that they are delivering these programs, that we are able to reach further through technology today but being able to also provide the funds to have those simulators, to have those devices that kids can have the experience to gain the knowledge.

Did I answer your question right?

H. Yao: Yes.

G. Martin: Okay.

S. Chant: Thank you very much for your presentation, and thank you so much for the work that you do.

I was just…. When you’re saying with the aDAPT program, does it have a component for, sort of, every grade level so that it’s progressive and increasing, or are the kids exposed to it, say, grade 4, 5 or whatever?

G. Martin: I’ve been delivering from K to 8 in district 61. I’ve presented to over 100 schools over the last couple of weeks. I grabbed 141 teacher’s signatures that are in support of this program.

It is adaptable from the time that it needs, being kindergarten is less and being, obviously, grade 8 is a little bit more. Evaluation forms are collected from students and teachers, which gives us percentages of students with disabilities. So it is adaptable from K to grade 12, just depending on what grade.

S. Chant: Where are you getting your simulation devices?

G. Martin: I’m purchasing them privately myself right now.

S. Chant: Interesting.

G. Martin: But if I have people that are working for me, I need it for those people to…. Everybody needs their own kits if we’re going to different schools.

All of the simulation tools I have provided myself, and I use in the demonstrations for the kids.

H. Yao: One more question to ask.

Last year I remember when, I guess, the ASL organization talked about the sign language issue that we have experienced. One of the discussions we were talking about was the chicken and egg issue. Like, if you don’t have a curriculum inside your schools, you cannot produce that qualified staff to actually train the next generation. Yet, at the same time, without properly qualified staff now, it’s very hard to continue.

The Diverse Ability Program that you are referring to sounds like a very intense, very complex and very in-depth learning opportunity. What kind of qualification do you think is needed if we do have this kind of curriculum incorporated in our schools? What kind of support do you think is needed in order for the educators to be able to fully appreciate the complexity and depth so that they can transfer that knowledge and experience to the students?

G. Martin: I think having knowledge about all different disabilities. Being teachers, even going through a course like my aDAPT for staff program, where you learn about different disabilities, how to interact, how to communicate, how to assist. Having conversation and being able to freely have that conversation without being judged helps with….

I just lost my train of thought. Oh dear.

H. Yao: Take your time. No rush.

G. Martin: Can you give me a little bit more of a…? So that I can finish answering the question.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Absolutely.

S. Chant: Qualifications.

G. Martin: Qualifications.

Lived experience is huge. Having people with lived experience talking about how to best assist and help, do things, and letting people know how it is that they do things. So the qualifications would be lived experience and then going through a training program on delivering for other disabilities.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Gina, thank you so much for your presentation. I think school district 61 is a big benefactor of what it is that you’re doing. I don’t know how we can clone another 60 of you so you’re out in every other school district that’s out there, because your message is strong and profound.

G. Martin: We can.

M. Starchuk (Chair): And we can.

G. Martin: We have technology that can bring this. We have the devices that can be shipped to all the schools. Then the programs could go, if need be. It can be done. Absolutely.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Great. Thank you very much for your presentation and your time here this afternoon.

Our next presenter is Janine Hannis from the Greater Victoria Alliance for Literacy.

You have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for ours.

Thank you. The floor is yours.

[2:35 p.m.]

GREATER VICTORIA
ALLIANCE FOR LITERACY

J. Hannis: Thank you very much for having me here today.

Hello. My name is Janine Hannis, and I’m representing the Greater Victoria Alliance for Literacy. We are a group that represents all the literacy organizations in the south Vancouver Island area, basically Sooke to Salt Spring.

Now, everybody thinks literacy is about reading and writing, but that’s only partially true. Literacy is actually about poverty. Literacy is a poverty issue. This is what I really need to get through to you. Literacy is a poverty issue. Low levels of literacy mean less likelihood for someone to get a job. A low literacy often translates into homelessness, food insecurity. Literacy is foundational for life, and that means being a contributing member to society, having a job, having a roof over your head, having food in your belly. It’s all a contributing factor to a more democratic society.

The shocking stats are that almost 50 percent of adults in B.C. still have low levels of literacy, which make the poverty issues very real. They don’t have strong enough skills to navigate in our increasingly digital world — the high level of literacy needed to fill out complicated government forms, online applications and all those things that would take them out of poverty. Yet literacy is not part of the poverty reduction strategy in B.C., which is quite shocking and dismaying. Even more dismaying is that the government relies on community organizations to pick up the slack and fund almost all the literacy programs through their own means — through donations, grants, etc.

Literacy is a powerful economic powerhouse. A Deloitte Canada report in 2020 stated that just a 1 percent increase in literacy could create an economic benefit of $67 billion in gross domestic product for Canada per year. All those people now have jobs; they’re no longer accessing benefits, buying their own food, etc.

In B.C., literacy is the Rodney Dangerfield of issues. It gets no respect. In B.C., rather than being recognized for the potential economic boom it could be and part of, as I mentioned before, the B.C. poverty reduction strategy, it’s minimally funded by two ministries: Municipal Affairs completely going to Decoda Literacy Solutions to disburse around the province, and about $3 million coming from Post-Secondary and Future Skills, disbursed through the community adult literacy program grants.

Let’s look at what that truly looks like so you really understand what that means. It sounds like, oh, $5 million. But what it really looks like is…. Most CALP grants, the community adult literacy program through Advanced Ed, are about $30,000. That’s enough to pay a part-time coordinator to run a program for a year.

The Decoda funding only goes to the literacy outreach coordinators, who are in every region throughout the province, but it’s often between $15,000 and $25,000. That translates into enough to pay a very part-time coordinator and put on a few small events, maybe a few story walks, a few little events.

Basically what I’m saying is that little sprinkled bits of money throughout the province doesn’t move the needle on literacy. It doesn’t make that much of a difference. It’s only a few small events.

Since this is a huge economic issue, I think it really needs to be funded through the ministries who have a direct economic impact. That’s why one of my recommendations is to…. It needs to be funded through about five different ministries, not just two.

Education and Child Care is an obvious one. Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation, obvious one. Post-secondary and Future Skills — continue on, yes. Then, of course, as I mentioned before, Social Development and Poverty Reduction. It’s really dismaying that it’s not there, because not only should that be funding more community organizations, who are most of the people who are providing literacy services, but again, it needs to be part of the poverty reduction strategy.

All of those ministries should be funding literacy, not just two of them sprinkling it throughout the province in little bits and pieces that don’t move the needle on literacy. For B.C. to truly reap the economic benefits — and I know this is a huge issue — it really needs to pay more attention to literacy and quit just thinking it’s a reading and writing thing for little kids.

Really, it supplements what the schools already do. The schools do a fantastic job. But sometimes the adults are adult newcomers, or lots of adults with a low level of literacy. They need service. Preschool needs service, because of course literacy is stronger when it starts very young.

Those are the things that I recommend. Thank you very much.

[2:40 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Janine. It’s not often that you get to hear Rodney Dangerfield in the same breath as everything else that’s there.

J. Hannis: I had to throw that in.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yeah, you had to. It was perfectly matched within the context of what’s there.

B. Banman: Thank you very much. By the way, I don’t know if you’ve considered it or not, but you should do audiobooks or be on radio. You have one of those voices I could listen to, literally, all day.

J. Hannis: Okay. I’ll start reading the telephone book for you.

B. Banman: Yeah, that’d be great. You’re right. It is a huge area that is often overlooked. Because it’s vast, if you were to pick two of the areas that you would zero in and focus on, what would they be?

J. Hannis: To get into the part of the poverty reduction strategy — absolutely, number one, because it is a poverty issue. That has got to be number one. Then, of course, the other area would be for the other ministries to kind of buck up and add $5 million each to it, quite frankly. I think it should be a $20 million–funded thing, not a $5 million thing, and everybody would add $5 million. That’s where I would come from.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I was just looking around for information for a second. You mentioned $5 million earlier. I’m looking at some press release talking about this last year. The community adult literacy program received $3.4 million in funding, and it’s meant to be a stable annual increase to provide funding. But you’re saying…. Was there no funding for the adult literacy program?

J. Hannis: No. It was two and then it went up to three last year. That’s the one that I told you is sprinkled in $15,000 increments throughout the province.

Oh no, sorry. CALP, the community adult literacy program — that’s the one that hands out the $30,000 grants throughout the province. It’s the other one, the $2 million one, that’s sprinkled in the smaller ones throughout the province.

H. Yao: Based on your recommendation, how high would you like to think would be better, if we could increase the amount?

J. Hannis: As I just mentioned to your colleague here, I think all the ministries that have the economic impact and the poverty reduction should each be contributing five instead of three from one and….

H. Yao: So $25 million total?

J. Hannis: Yes, they should each be contributing $5 million.

A. Walker: From a philosophical perspective, this is very interesting. When you think of literacy, you’ve got technology, you’ve got numbers, and you’ve got just working in society. The financial investment — I can see the need there. You’ve articulated that very well.

The multi-ministry approach makes sense. How do you get someone who’s in those lower percentiles, that’s working a job or two jobs, raising a family, doing all these other things…? How do you get in front of people like that and help them when, maybe, they don’t think they need help, or they don’t know what potential opportunities are out there?

J. Hannis: That is a really good question because there’s a huge amount of shame surrounding literacy. Most people, if they’re successful with low levels of literacy, it’s because they know how to fake it till they make it. It’s really hard, sometimes, identifying people. But what happens increasingly, now, because of our increasingly technological society and all the digital requirements, is people are starting to fall through the cracks. They’re realizing…. There’s not a lot of shame in saying: “I need computer skills.”

What happens is that when they come into the literacy organizations looking for digital literacy training, that’s when we recognize that they actually need literacy training, and we try to grab them there. It’s actually really successful, because then they don’t have to have the shame around coming in. “I’m coming in to learn computers,” is perfectly acceptable. That’s where we identify a lot of people, and that’s how we get a lot of people — through that.

B. Stewart: Just thinking about those questions, how do you…? It’s not a reading and math skills type of thing. You said it’s something more than that. How would you measure that? How would somebody, perhaps, maybe, self assess, or how do you do that?

I realize that’s very subjective. But how does one know whether they are operating at a level that would be considered to be at least above average, or average?

J. Hannis: No one specifically knows. Again, it’s often through government forms. I know that government tries to do a really good job in doing plain language. But often, when somebody is faced with a form they have to fill out for a rental agreement or to get their B.C. driver’s licence or BCID, and they realize it’s beyond them, that’s when they realize that they have an issue.

It’s often through things like that, where they realize they can’t do some of these really important, everyday things that they need to do to become a member of society, to have ID, to rent a place. It’s beyond them, and that’s when they realize…. That’s when they start falling through the cracks, because they can’t fill out the forms.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Janine, thank you for your presentation this afternoon. It’s put a smile on my face, for a number of reasons.

On that note, we will take a brief, ten-minute recess and reconvene at 2:55.

The committee recessed from 2:45 p.m. to 2:56 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will call the meeting back to order. We have Evan James from the Umbrella Society.

You have five minutes to present, and we have five minutes to ask questions.

The floor is yours, Evan.

UMBRELLA SOCIETY

E. James: Thank you for having me. My name is Evan James. I’m a manager with the Umbrella Society here in Victoria, B.C. The Umbrella Society was founded in the year 2000, and we work with anyone with any sort of substance use issues.

Our focus is to help people who want to make changes around their substance use. The biggest barrier we face in doing this work is the challenge in accessing resources for our clients, specifically detox, treatment and recovery house beds. There are often lengthy waits for these life-saving beds. When somebody is ready to make change and wants to get help to stop using, we have to tell them to wait. That window of willingness can be small, and we are losing people every day while they are on wait-lists for beds.

Another barrier we face is the funding issue for treatment and for recovery house beds. Often, people who are ready to get help aren’t at the point where they’re eligible for income assistance, but they certainly cannot afford costly private-pay treatment beds. These people are stuck in between, often with no solution for accessing treatment.

Here in Victoria, specifically, we have so few options for beds that we often have to refer clients to treatment centres on the Mainland, thus uprooting them from their friends, families and other supports they have established at home. This just presents more barriers and challenges for people at such a trying time in their lives.

More than 11,000 British Columbians have now died due to overdose since the public health emergency was declared in the year 2016 — 11,000. These aren’t just numbers. These are children, parents, friends, community members, people with hopes and dreams, people that we love and care about. This needs to be front and centre at every conversation we’re having, and fixing this problem must be the top priority in everything we are doing. If not, it gives the impression that people with addictions aren’t as important or valued as other members of society. It gives the impression that we don’t matter.

I’m one of the lucky ones, thank God. I was able to get sober before this crisis started. Otherwise, I have no doubt I would be part of this grim statistic.

Since this crisis began, the government has invested in and prioritized harm reduction, giving drug users safe spaces to use and safe supply. We’ve seen hotels purchased and decriminalization prioritized. Yet here we are, with people still dying at record rates every day across our province. We’re losing people every day, people that are wanting to get help, people that are ready to make changes.

People are dying while they’re on wait-lists to get into detox. People are dying while they’re waiting for a treatment bed. People are dying while they’re waiting to get into a recovery house. This is simply unacceptable. The wait-lists and gaps in between services are a killer, quite literally.

Now the government is starting to talk about committing to investing in recovery. It is refreshing to hear, finally. I’m hopeful that the government will commit to prioritizing investing in recovery.

[3:00 p.m.]

My three recommendations for the budget are as follows: (1) easily accessed detox beds with no wait times; (2) more government-funded treatment beds across the province, with a variety of different approaches; and (3) long-term recovery house beds for all genders.

I come here today to ask you to please continue to invest in recovery. Recovery saves lives.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Evan. It is good to hear from you, and how you characterize yourself as being here today and getting yourself clean and sober prior to the pandemic and the toxic drug supply.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Evan, for the presentation. It just so happens I was at an event in Cranbrook this last weekend, and that was the adult-teen challenge outreach that’s in the Okanagan right now. A similar type of set-up, I would imagine. I don’t know. I’ll get into that a little bit here.

You mentioned about decriminalization…. You talked about harm reduction strategies, but you talked about the most key points that you said that we’re finally becoming alive to, and that’s the actual treatment portion and prevention portion of it. In your society, is it weighted…? Is there a harm reduction factor in it, or is it abstinence-based, or…?

I think where you’re going with it is more on the beds and the accessibility to those treatments, but maybe you could explain a little bit about your society and how it looks at recovery, with those four pillars in place being harm reduction, treatment, prevention and enforcement.

E. James: We focus on the recovery side of things. We certainly support harm reduction and believe that everyone should have the right to be safe in their use, but where we come in is focusing on people that do want to make changes and stop using. So we offer counselling. We offer outreach services. We offer housing. We have recovery houses here in Victoria. And we offer groups and meetings, and just basically walk alongside people in their journeys and help them into recovery.

I think what we’ve seen is, like I mentioned, a high focus and priority on harm reduction, but we haven’t seen that same attention given to people that do want to make changes, and I think there is kind of a myth out there that people are happy doing what they’re doing, in a hotel, using, and that’s not the truth. If you talk to a lot of these people, they want to make changes around their substance use, but they know the reality of the situation — that there are wait-lists, and there are lack of beds, so they’re often discouraged from taking that step.

So we need to see on the other side of things that same attention and care given to recovery.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. You say that the Umbrella Society has been in operation since the year 2000, and that’s 23 years, so congratulations. It was a different world back then, in 2000. It’s a big, big change.

However, I think that one of the things where we’ve moved forward is around trying to do a better job. This is what we’ve heard from the chief coroner and through public health around being evidence-based in what we support, particularly around treatment, and safer supply is one of those things.

I guess the question that I have for you, because you’ve mentioned housing in all of that…. Our government has actually made sure that we’ve been dealing with that full spectrum of need to address addiction and mental health in this province.

Long before this, for me, I was involved with the issue around housing and affordable housing, and the housing-first model is about making sure that people are housed — that their survival needs are taken care of first, so that they can actually begin to think about making changes in their lives.

So I just was hoping to hear some comment from you on that priority of getting housed so that you can begin to deal with issues, or face them even.

E. James: Yeah, definitely, having a roof over your head and having a solid base to work from is hugely important. Often, what we see, though, is people coming, wanting to go to treatment and wanting to make changes, and they may be housed, but it’s in a situation that’s not safe to return to after getting sober.

[3:05 p.m.]

For instance, people that are at the hotels are considered housed, but they can’t go back there after going to treatment. They’re surrounded with too many temptations and too much risk for them.

That’s where the recovery houses come in. It’s a safe place where people can stay for a length of time where they have accountability, where they have support. They have staff support. They support each other. And they can take those steps towards eventually moving into independent living.

The big thing that we’ve seen, in operating recovery houses for all these years, is that it is not one-size-fits-all. Everyone is different, and some people, you know, after a two-month tune-up, are ready to go and be out on their own. Other people — at a year, they’re just starting to scratch the surface. So it’s really not one-size-fits-all. I think that for a lot of years, we’ve been trying to treat addiction as a one-size-fits-all model.

R. Leonard: We’ll have to agree to disagree with that. I truly believe that we are looking at all aspects of helping people.

E. James: Fair enough.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We are out of time. Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, Evan. Keep up the good work, please.

E. James: Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The next person is Nick Sandor, Men’s Therapy Centre.

Nick, you have the floor for the next five minutes.

MEN’S THERAPY CENTRE

N. Sandor: Excellent. Thank you for your time and attention today while we talk about important things. I’m the director at the Men’s Therapy Centre. My name is Nick Sandor. We’re a trauma counselling centre. We’re an NGO. We support survivors of physical, psychological and sexualized violence, as well as providing services for those that cause harm. Often these are survivors of severe childhood sexualized violence.

We’ve been directly supporting trauma survivors and those that cause harm. It’s our 20th anniversary coming up in September, but in April, because of, just, financial issues, we were presented with the challenge of having to close our doors. We are grateful for short-term solutions with Minister Whiteside and support from PSSG to continue our operations. And many representatives of the government stated that this service is too important to fail.

I’d like to speak a little bit about that and a little bit about a couple of recommendations for struggling non-profits as things get hard in this world. We support about 300 vulnerable community members. That’s about 3,000 therapy sessions a year. We have a team of trauma specialists and a victims services department. We run therapy groups and individual counselling, and we are a site for master of counselling practicum students. So we’re working with trauma but also helping people in the future to be able to support people that have those needs.

Really, when we talk about the recommendations, I think they’re concepts and reflections of how funding hasn’t worked in the past and why we find ourselves in these situations. One thing is that how funding is allocated and accessed is really important to consider. Now, there’s no shortage of program funding. If I want to start a shiny, new program and provide services for 30 people, it’s pretty easy to get that $20,000 grant to make that happen.

We find ourselves in this interesting situation where my program budgets overall for the next fiscal year have a surplus of $33,000, but I’m hundreds of thousands of dollars shy on my operating budget to make us continue to be able to do the work that we do. I have a great team of people that are willing to make sacrifices to make this happen, but we can’t afford things like extended medical benefits for our staff. I can’t afford professional development to make sure they continue to grow their skills to support people well.

I can’t access adequate clinical resources, especially when we have a client accessing our services who dies. How do I support that staff member properly to continue in their work as a therapist? And I can’t even pay staff to attend staff meetings on a regular basis. People have to come just because they care about what they do.

The deficiencies in our operating model versus what’s available in programming — I’d really like to see that come into consideration when funding is allocated. We don’t need more program funding. And then the lateral growth kind of distracts from our ability to focus on what we do well, and that’s individual trauma therapy for men. That’s what we’ve done for 20 years and what we want to continue to do. So just more opportunities for operational funding — it’s hard to find. It’s rare, and it’s necessary.

[3:10 p.m.]

The other thing I’d like to speak to is looking at just opportunities to better relationships between the referring partners that we have, such as B.C. Corrections, Island Health, others in the community that we work with. On a daily basis, we’re getting referrals from the health authority, B.C. Corrections, police services and other institutional service providers asking us to provide therapy for men. Yet there’s actually no money to provide this therapy. Where it’s coming from are private donations, leftovers from grants. And these people need support.

Evan was just here speaking about treatment. Well, Island Health supportive recovery is asking us to support trauma survivors because once you get rid of that coping mechanism of substance use, you’re left with the trauma, and they don’t have the resources to do this.

There need to be opportunities to come together with Island Health, Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions and make sure that there’s some syncopation or synthesis of what we’re all working on and how we can make sure people navigating these different institutions have access to support all the way through their journey, whether it’s substance use recovery or reintegration into the community from Corrections.

The other piece I just want to speak to briefly is investment in upstream approaches to community-based mental health. We work at an important intersection of violence against women, suicide death, overdose deaths, community safety, intergenerational trauma and cycles of violence.

We ask you to look at trauma as a root cause of many of these issues, and look at funding support for these agencies, such as us, that are addressing that root cause. Rather than being intervention-based, we can look at prevention through a trauma-informed lens.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your presentation.

Are there any questions?

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I know, for the non-profit sector, when it comes to charitable organizations, the operational costs or administrative costs tend to be a burden. Especially, the private sector tends not to want to fund it.

I think typically it was 8 to 12 percent by government funding, but obviously that’s not sufficient. Do you have a higher percentage or different percentage recommendation that when government provides funding, there should be increased administrative costs so we can reduce that burden and allow organizations such as yourself to focus more on programming than fundraising?

N. Sandor: If I understand your question correctly…. I mean, that’s a really great point because for a lot of grant opportunities, grant-funded opportunities or funding, it’s quite restrictive in terms of administrative and overhead costs. You have to get pretty creative to be able to run that program and actually provide the program while managing rent, staff wages, bookkeeping, all of those kinds of additional factors.

Then you end up actually writing…. When you want to run two or three programs a year, you end up running five or six so that you can leverage those operation costs against the little amounts that are available in grant funding and other types of contracts.

H. Yao: Also, my question was: do you have a different percentage you would recommend other than 8 to 12 percent?

N. Sandor: Probably at least 20 percent.

R. Leonard: I’m wondering: is this…? Maybe I should do some more research. How many have you got on staff? That’s the question. You say you serve 300 people. What are the qualifications as a counsellor?

N. Sandor: All of our counsellors are registered either as RCCs or CCCs. A lot of them have special designations in trauma therapy. On staff, we have myself as the director, an administrator, a victim services coordinator through our community-based victim services program and a clinical supervisor. We have 14 therapists that work on a contract basis. Most of them are in private practice, working other jobs, and they’re in one or two days a week with a caseload.

We tried a part-time staff model, but we couldn’t afford it. It was a real shame because that gave us a lot of resources, more time to connect, more time to learn, more time to develop, but it’s too prohibitive for us, given the community need and just given the lack of resources that we have.

R. Leonard: Do you do groups as well as individual counselling?

N. Sandor: We do. We do a weekly trauma drop-in group that’s facilitated by one of our senior therapists as well as two peer supporters. The difficulty with trauma survivors is that groups are generally a downstream kind of option for folks. Showing up in a group to talk about disclosures of trauma when they’re still fresh and you haven’t been able to find a place of regulation is quite challenging.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much. The distinction you mentioned about how the funding that you really need is operational. Can you…?

[3:15 p.m.]

Going back over this period, Nick, of the 20 years that it’s been in operation, was there a point in time when you actually had operational funds that weren’t donations and leftover bits and pieces of grants? Was there a time when it was working right, and it’s just not now, or is this an accumulation of problems?

N. Sandor: It’s an accumulation of problems. Thank you for bringing that up. We’ve always been a year-to-year organization.

The challenge is that if you don’t get the funding in to pad the beginning of the fiscal year, we’re in trouble, because we’re such a small organization. We’re not involved in projects like housing, so we don’t have cash securities and credit and things like that. We basically depend on our grants coming in at the beginning of the year to help us as we generate revenues from other sources.

A. Walker: This reminds me, very similar, of an organization in my community called Island Community Counselling. They’re going through a lot of similar challenges — very much dependent on community donations, community gaming grants and things like that. Have you, or has your organization, worked with some of these other non-profit counselling services to try to lobby as a collective? As opposed to…. I mean, it’s a challenge independently, right?

N. Sandor: Absolutely. We haven’t in other regions, but we definitely have advocated and participated in, I guess, advocacy activities with organizations — like the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre and Peers — that also are supporting survivors. We try as much as possible to work together to find solutions and advocate for the people we serve.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, thank you for your presentation this afternoon, Nick. We appreciate the time that you’ve taken out of your day.

Next up is Shaun Lorhan of Victoria Hospice Society.

S. Lorhan: Thank you for having me today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The floor is yours.

VICTORIA HOSPICE SOCIETY

S. Lorhan: My name is Shaun Lorhan, and I’m here on behalf of Victoria Hospice Society as well as the Vancouver Island Federation of Hospices. There are 12 hospices in our Island region, which I’m representing today.

What I’m speaking to is true for our region, but I would suggest that it’s actually true across the province. I will speak to our experience here. Before I speak to our request in our recommendations of the Finance Committee, I’d like to actually just speak a little bit about how loss, death and grief touch us all and how we’ve all experienced extraordinary reminders of that over recent years.

In the not-too-distant past, large numbers of Indigenous children were forcibly sent to residential schools and institutions and never returned home. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation indicates that based on records, approximately 4,100 Indigenous children died at these schools but notes that the true total is likely much higher.

Entire communities continue to grapple with the trauma, pain and grief of those atrocities. We have experienced this in our own backyard. Just earlier this year, the Tseshaht First Nation recently made a public statement about 67 children who died in the custody of the former Alberni Indian Residential School.

Since the beginning of 2016, more than 35,000 Canadians have died from toxic drug deaths. In B.C. last year, there were over 2,200 suspected illicit drug toxicity deaths, the second-largest number of suspected deaths ever recorded in a calendar year. Conservatively, only factoring in parents, that would indicate that we’ve got a minimum of 4,500 newly grieving parents in our communities.

Over 50,000 Canadians and almost seven million people around the world have lost their lives to COVID-19. It is common to use a multiplier of seven people, for every death, who are grieving that loss. So when we consider these recent events, the impact in our communities is significant.

Then we add our aging population. The number of people over 70 will double in most parts of the Island Health region in the next 15 years, resulting in increasing death rates and increasing burden on caregivers and that anticipatory grief as they forecast the loss of their loved ones. Grief is everywhere. We see it in our programs. At Victoria Hospice, the increased requests for bereavement services from the general community have increased 47 percent over the last three years.

What we are requesting is a funding model that supports affordable, equitable and accessible provision of grief and bereavement services across our Island Health communities, supporting clinical practice; peer and volunteer support; and grief literacy education.

[3:20 p.m.]

As I mentioned, there are 12 hospices on the Island who, over the past 40 years, have invested in and developed skilled, confidential, no-cost community hospice grief services. These well-used services vary from community to community and are limited by the resources and funding capacity of an individual hospice. They are almost entirely funded by donor dollars with respect to their grief and bereavement services.

We are asking for sustainable funding so that we are in a position to respond to the change in demands, build upon current resources and programs to keep current using best practice, maintain and train a high level of volunteer skilled support, and develop and deliver education resources to support our grieving communities.

In the field of grief and bereavement, there’s a well-accepted model of understanding the needs of the bereaved, and it’s referred to as the adult bereavement care pyramid. What you see at the lower level of that pyramid are folks who need general information and supports. They need appropriate responses to grief and loss. What we are hearing and experiencing right now is that our communities and organizations are coming to our hospices saying: “Can you help us? Our company has just dealt with five losses in the last year. My staff are struggling. Can you help us?” Our response often is no. We don’t have the capacity. “Where shall I go?” There isn’t a resource to help.

What we’d like to do is use our skilled expertise and develop those resources to support our communities. Then, also, those same resources would support the training of our skilled volunteers, who are dealing with these complexities around toxic death and our residential schools as well as our other deaths that we’re experiencing.

Finally, where we have our biggest gap is in professional counselling. I think only two of our hospices on the Island have professional counselling to support our client population.

We’re asking for sustainable funding across those three areas as we go into the future. We appreciate your consideration.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Shaun.

H. Yao: I do want to ask a quick question. Hopefully you can help me out here. First off, I appreciate all the great work you do in the community. You obviously presented an example of having a company with five staff members experiencing grief, and you couldn’t provide services.

Is there a dollar figure where you can demonstrate that when this kind of trauma is left unaddressed or unsupported, how much financial consequence you will carry as you continue to grow within your community?

S. Lorhan: I wouldn’t be able to speak to the financial cost of that. What I can speak to is the health care cost of that. What we see is that unsupported grief and bereavement does lead to anxiety, depression, substance use, employment issues, relationship issues. There is a tremendous amount of literature in that regard.

What we’re starting to see a prevalence of in society is what’s referred to as prolonged grief disorder. It was just added to the DSM last year, and we are seeing that complexity because of the amount of unresolved grief and unsupported grief in our communities.

G. Chow: Thank you for coming and, basically, educating me on what the hospice organization or society does. I always thought it was actually a physical facility for people facing end-of-life situations, but, of course, you talk about counselling. Wth the increase in bereavement in our communities, it’s actually making quite a demand on your society. So thank you for that info.

S. Lorhan: You’re welcome. To be clear, our organization does also provide…. Victoria Hospice does have an in-patient unit to support those who are dying.

A. Walker: Quickly looking at the presentation that was provided in writing, the ask was $100,000 for each 12 areas. I’m wondering if the intention of that is to actually make that allocation to each area individually or if you would as a central body then administer that?

S. Lorhan: It would be to each society individually.

B. Stewart: I want to just ask the question. Of course, we get presentations about operational funding, sustainable, and it’s across the board.

[3:25 p.m.]

I guess I’m wondering in this particular case whether…. Is there a model where hospices ever charged or have been paid by a health authority for the patients that they care for? I’m fairly familiar with hospice, having been not only somebody that’s used it but donated substantial amounts. I guess I’m kind of looking at it…. There are so many in the province, and they’re really valuable. But how do we make it sustainable?

S. Lorhan: The funding models that are out there typically would support care of the dying through the health authority, right? They support folks who are in their final weeks and months of life, and that’s the model that you would see universally across Canada. In other parts of the world, you would see a different model. Care of the bereaved is right now, across our country, pretty much donor dollars. Where we’re starting to see some change now is based on the sheer volume of folks dealing with grief and loss. We’re starting to see some of those trends change, not as much from the health authority though.

B. Stewart: Okay. So where is it changing? If it’s not changing at the health authority, where is it changing?

S. Lorhan: I think what we’re seeing is…. I’m just trying to think back on some of the funding models that I’ve seen, to look at where that is coming from. Actually, I can’t speak to that right now. Apologies for that.

I think that there are other organizations who are stepping in to provide more sustainable funding, but typically it is donor dollars that we are looking at.

B. Stewart: Okay, thanks very much.

S. Chant: In all of this, the other group of people that need the grief support is the clinicians. I know there is informal work done that way sometimes through the systems, but do you have anything going on that supports clinicians?

S. Lorhan: Most of the societies across our region do not have clinicians. They have staff who support volunteers, which is again where…. We’re looking at some of those gaps. The organizations that do have trained clinicians and the supports available through them would be through any of the employee benefit packages that are available.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Shaun, thank you very much for your time this afternoon, and thank you for the important work that you do and those organizations do for the families that are in need at a time in their life when they most need it. Thank you.

Next up is Geoff Morrison, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Geoff, you have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions from the committee.

The floor is yours.

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION
OF PETROLEUM PRODUCERS

G. Morrison: Good afternoon, Chair and committee members. I would like to acknowledge the traditional territories of the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations. CAPP, Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and our members are solution-oriented partners in meeting the world’s need for affordable, clean, safe and secure energy.

CAPP is committed to ensuring Canada’s position to help meet global climate commitments as a supplier of choice for lower carbon energy. B.C.’s natural gas is a key part of that solution, a cornerstone of the B.C. economy and a vital contributor to reconciliation.

The war in Ukraine has led to shifts in global energy markets, including massive growth in LNG demand in Europe and tightening of LNG markets in Asia. As a result, coal utilization in places like India has rebounded after years of decline. B.C. should take note. Now is the time to support and attract more international investment in B.C. to meet growing demand for affordable, lower-carbon energy.

B.C. has a unique and fortunate position to help improve the carbon profile of energy consumed globally and to make life better for British Columbians through growing exports.

To support this outcome, CAPP recommends the following. One, Indigenous capacity-building. We ask government to sufficiently resource and continue to support First Nations to build capacity and business processes in Treaty 8 to deliver on the province’s commitment to provide regulatory stability and predictability.

Two, continue cooperation on land management. We ask the government to sufficiently resource and continue to work with First Nations industry, communities and stakeholders to advance work on watershed, landscape and development planning processes.

And three, a new carbon management framework. We ask the government to develop a framework that improves competitive foundations for all of the province’s leading export sectors and avoids divestments and job losses associated with carbon leakage. Implementing the energy action framework should support responsible development of B.C.’s resources.

[3:30 p.m.]

CAPP believes the adoption of an output-based pricing mechanism, OBPS, to replace B.C.’s carbon tax for large emitters will achieve emissions reductions while helping protect the province’s economic competitiveness. The OBPS as well as methane regulations are the right tools, and they should be allowed time to develop efficient results before government considers layering on additional inefficient regulations such as sectoral caps.

In January, we released a supply chain study by Vancouver-based iTOTEM Analytics that characterized the contribution and reach of the upstream industry in British Columbia. That report examined a period from 2018 to 2021 and found that the natural gas industry benefited every region of the province, with $4.7 billion of spending by 2,400 businesses in 120 communities. This includes $337 million spent in Vancouver, $77 million spent in Creston and $35 million spent in Armstrong, to name a few.

The report also found that $540 million was spent with 100 Indigenous-affiliated businesses, accounting for 11.5 percent of the total spend. That percentage is trending up. Growing Indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry is an encouraging sign that we are building a province where all citizens can participate in a prosperous economy, and we are closing the social and economic gaps as part of our reconciliation journey.

Exports support essential services such as health, education, parks and roads. Energy is B.C.’s leading export, and the large bulk of our energy exports are natural gas produced in the northeast. B.C. Stats identifies natural gas as B.C.’s second-largest export globally. Our largest export to our most significant market, the United States, accounted for 20 percent of all B.C. origin exports in 2022.

The global demand for LNG is strong. Additional LNG export facilities will be needed globally to meet the steady demand. We should take action to ensure that safe, reliable, affordable clean energy is there to meet the needs of Asia, as trends show the U.S. is increasingly redirecting its LNG exports to support our NATO allies in Europe.

Given the extraordinary contributions of the industry to B.C. trade, investment and economic growth, it is clear that there should be a shared interest in collaboration and innovation between industry and government. Taking collective action on economic decarbonization is a climate and economic imperative for B.C. B.C.’s energy exports are an important part of meeting global energy demands responsibly, advancing reconciliation, delivering on government’s commitments to make life better for people, improving services we all rely on and ensuring a sustainable province for future generations.

Thank you for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Geoff.

The first one is Tom.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Geoff, for the presentation.

You mentioned in your comments that global demand is strong. From time to time, I hear that this is a sunset industry. Demand is going to be declining. I remember, back in about 2016, I think it was…. The U.S. had maybe one LNG export terminal. They decided they were going to focus on that. I think now they’ve probably got a dozen and probably another dozen that are in the implementation or the building stage. Maybe you can square that circle for me.

Our Premier, right now, is on a trade mission in Asia talking about these kinds of energy sources and how B.C. can be part of that. How do we identify this global demand? Also, how do we dovetail LNG into other energy sources such as blue hydrogen? Can you maybe answer those questions?

G. Morrison: That is a good question. Natural gas is such a large source of primary energy for world demand. Even if it were declining…. It’s going to be stable out to 2050. There will be new sources needed to replace declining sources.

In 2022, the U.S.A. became the world’s largest LNG producer. They forecast that their natural gas supply will increase 15 percent out to 2050, and their LNG exports will increase 158 percent out to 2050.

There is a demand for this product in the world. B.C. has a really great product. We have great resources, and we have the lowest carbon-emitting source of this product globally.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for that. Just a quick follow-up.

How real is carbon leakage, then, when we pride ourselves on having some of the best ESG standards anywhere in the world? How real is that, not only going to the U.S. but maybe some other jurisdictions that don’t quite meet our standards?

G. Morrison: The U.S. has, obviously, a new and increasingly strong record on climate, but there are other world suppliers. Russia is a big supplier of natural gas, obviously. Qatar, other places, Australia, as well, are leading exporters. There are about a dozen countries that export, though. Canada would be amongst the cleanest.

[3:35 p.m.]

B. Stewart: You mentioned that 20 percent, I think you said, of our natural gas is going to the U.S.

G. Morrison: Of all the exports B.C. makes to the U.S., 20 percent of that value is natural gas, which is the largest value.

B. Stewart: So with those being the largest LNG producer…. Are they using 100 percent of their own gas, or are they taking Canadian natural gas and a portion of it is becoming part of the supply chain?

G. Morrison: That’s a great question. There are Canadian companies that are now exporting natural gas off the U.S. Gulf Coast.

B. Stewart: Can I ask one more?

The OBPS, the output-based pricing system…. We’ve had that come to this committee before, and it’s not just with natural gas.

Can you just give us a synopsis as to where industry sees that that should be going or where it should land?

G. Morrison: The government here has adopted that, and it will be implementing that. They will be getting rid of the carbon tax on large emitters and replacing it with this federal equivalent program. To be compliant with the federal program, they have to adopt a new program.

It’s all about benchmarks. Those benchmarks are being discussed right now. Getting those benchmarks right will be important for maintaining competitiveness and preventing carbon leakage. So we’re right in the middle of that discussion.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Another one here for you, just to talk about government revenues and what the oil and gas sector does for government services.

I know we had a recent surplus. The large part of that was from oil and gas. Commodity prices were high. Maybe you can expand, perhaps, on what that is as far as revenues to government and how important it is.

G. Morrison: Obviously, it’s price-dependent. In the past year, in 2022-23, natural gas royalties were the largest single resource revenue for the B.C. government. We’d be a top ten or 12 provider of revenues to B.C. It was $2.2 billion last year, which would be about 20 percent of PST.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Really? That’s awesome. Thanks.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. I’m not seeing any other questions, Geoff. Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

Our next presenter is Margareta Dovgal, the Resource Works Society.

You have five minutes to give us your presentation and five minutes for us to respond.

The floor is yours.

RESOURCE WORKS SOCIETY

M. Dovgal: I’m Margareta Dovgal. I’m the managing director of the Resource Works Society. We’re based in Vancouver, and we’ve been around for ten years.

Before I start with my recommendations, I wanted just to acknowledge that I’m grateful to be here on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən people, also known as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations.

With respect to our organization, we’ve been involved with mining, forestry and oil and gas as an advocacy non-profit for about a decade now. Through consultation with many of our stakeholders, we’ve been able to formulate the following three recommendations.

First of all, the government’s vision of modernizing forest policy in B.C. should be reviewed and amended to ensure that not only the policy aligns with the needs of industry workers and communities but also that the sector can actually deliver on its full potential contribution to the provincial tax base.

The second recommendation, which we’ll go into detail on as well, is supporting mining innovation through adequate dedicated funding being allocated to the process of permits.

The third recommendation will be ensuring that enabling electrification infrastructure is being built and adequately funded so that the liquefied natural gas industry, LNG, in B.C. can succeed.

With the first recommendation…. We’re seeing some unprecedented declines in jobs and unprecedented uncertainty for forestry communities. A lot of that is being triggered by massive challenges with fibre supply here in B.C. We see that the harvesting and lumber levels are actually below what was seen during the 2009 recession, which is a far cry from the phenomenal output we had during the pandemic, as lumber demand soared worldwide, and those communities were able to see some real benefits.

We are hearing, as well…. Many communities and mills have gotten the memo that innovation is needed. There’s a transition happening right now. But if they’re not able to keep working, they’re not able to keep people employed.

[3:40 p.m.]

Those who have the skills and talent to keep these mills and these communities operational, then, will lose those opportunities, and communities will be hollowed out. So we’re urging the government to look at ways it can help the sector along in a time of change and transition and to evaluate ways the fibre supply can be improved so that working families and working communities can maintain these critical opportunities.

For the second recommendation, around mining and mining innovation, there’s substantial acknowledgment through several previous budgets, including Budget 2023, that critical minerals are a major part of the B.C. opportunity to help the world. We know that globally, we’re going to need to triple — and quadruple, in some cases — output of some of these critical minerals, like copper. If B.C. wants to be a part of that picture, we actually need to permit and build these mines at the pace that they are needed.

We’re really encouraging government to fix the status quo, which is largely affected by lengthy permitting delays. We see estimates from ten, 12 to even 15 years, in contrast to more competitive jurisdictions. In fact, according to the Fraser Institute, our mining investment attractiveness globally ranks about 15th, just slightly ahead of Morocco.

Jurisdictions like Nevada, Western Australia, Saskatchewan and Quebec rank far higher, and that’s where investors go. If we want to take advantage of these opportunities for British Columbia, we need to do everything we can to improve the permitting process and do so without compromising on environmental protection and also ensuring that Indigenous nations have the capacity to make informed decisions and participate in shared decision-making on critical minerals projects.

Our third recommendation is around electrification for LNG. The government’s energy action framework recently announced mandates that proposed LNG facilities must pass an emissions test and have a credible plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. While some projects, like Woodfibre LNG, do have such a plan, others do face challenges without a guarantee of sufficient power supply from B.C. Hydro for electric drives, which are needed to produce net-zero LNG in many cases — not all, of course.

This uncertainty surrounding power supply is contributing to a major part of uncertainty in the sector right now. We’re urging that government considers ensuring that Budget 2024 sends a clear signal that British Columbia supports these world-class projects and wants more of them built. Partially, of course, this does come down to permitting, too.

There is a need for increased collaboration among federal, provincial and municipal governments to overall expedite the building of these projects. If we can do everything we can to supply them with the power that they need to produce clean LNG, we won’t just be, hopefully, decarbonizing Asia and growing economies there, but also ensuring that B.C. communities can have the full benefit of this opportunity while there’s still demand for this product.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Bang on. That is it. Thank you very much for your presentation.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I see the priorities here, and it’s supporting mine dedication, permitting, something I’ve been on for quite some time now. We need to get those permits out the door. Of course, we’ve got to do it responsibly. We need some certainty, though, behind it to attract investment. As we heard from the last presentation, without these processes in place, that carbon leakage is going to go, and that investment is going to go with it.

Also, with the electrification of the infrastructure, B.C. Hydro’s IRP that came out, a 20-year projection on energy demands and what we have in the grid may show a surplus, and that’s arguable as to where we’re going with electrification. But it’s not always there at site.

We need that access when we’re looking at a critical minerals strategy, when we’re looking to make sure that we keep those critical minerals here in B.C. It’s super critical that we have that in place, because not only does it provide for a low-carbon future, but it also provides for our national security and many other things as well.

Where do you see natural resource…? I hear natural resources is a sunset industry. I asked the previous presenter on this. It’s not as important as it was in the past. As we go into the future, where do you see our natural resource sector going?

M. Dovgal: I think the pandemic was a really good reminder of the importance of having these industries in the present day. We saw almost everything shut down, and government took the right steps and deemed a lot of the resource projects that were being built, or were being operated, as essential industries. That enabled them to continue to build things that have future export potential or to continue to export things that elevate our collective quality of life and well-being as British Columbians.

[3:45 p.m.]

That, to me, is a really poignant example of the need we continue to have in the present day. The world is transitioning, but we’re in a remarkably resource-intensive society and way of living. We need natural resources. The need for that does not change as we transition and find ways to meet those needs more cleanly.

B. Stewart: You mentioned the time that it’s taking to get things permitted. I’m assuming it’s mining that you were referring to, 12 or more years. Is that correct?

M. Dovgal: That’s correct.

B. Stewart: Compared to those other jurisdictions you mentioned — Quebec and Saskatchewan, both in Canada — what would be a reasonable amount of time, or what should be the target, for getting a permit?

M. Dovgal: It depends on which factors you want to maintain. If you want to keep all of the barriers and things that need to be jumped through by industry to ensure that you’re meeting your targets, you probably wouldn’t eliminate all those steps.

There’s a lot of discussion about overlap between jurisdictions, pancaking regulations, so efficiency could be saved there. I see jurisdictions build mines in two, three, four or five years. A similar thing is seen in LNG.

So it’s very possible to bring those timelines down. It depends on the type of project and how complex it is, as to what is a reasonable timeline, but it’s clear, looking at our international competitors, that 12 or 15 years is just patently absurd.

A. Walker: Thank you for the presentation. I think the three goals that you’ve asked for are goals that all of us agree with. The idea of ensuring that workers are taken into account as policy changes come….

We are proud that we have a new gold mine in B.C. That was a long time coming. It’s the first major mine in a very long time. Electrification, obviously, of these industries is critically important.

Just looking at the work that you do as a society to bring forward both the idea of development nature as well as resource development, what work are you doing right now with Indigenous communities to make sure they’re a part of this conversation?

M. Dovgal: I’m really glad you asked that question. Since the start, we’ve been really closely connected with Indigenous communities through our work across the province, not just in Vancouver, where we typically do our events and operate.

We’re doing an event, actually, this week — the Indigenous Partnership Success Showcase. It’s our fourth year doing it. I’m actually the organizer. I encourage everyone here to come to it if you’re interested. We will be showcasing lots of stories of partnership between industry and Indigenous communities. That is a big part of the work that we do. It’s showcasing what is working, but it’s also thinking critically and carefully about ways that processes can be improved.

We’re excited to see natural resource industries be a really strong part of the drive towards economic reconciliation. That’s certainly the trend I hope everyone here is able to join us in observing.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your presentation this afternoon. It’s very insightful for us.

Our next presenter is Loc Dao out from DigiBC.

You have the floor for the next five minutes, and then we have it for the five after that. It’s yours now.

DIGIBC

L. Dao: Hello. It’s nice to see everyone.

Nice to see you again, Adam and Ben, for a second year in a row.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Deputy Chair.

I want to acknowledge that I’m here today on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking people, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I’m Loc Dao, the executive director of DigiBC, an association that represents more than 250 companies in the creative technology sector, made up of studios that make video games, animation, visual effects, virtual reality and augmented reality. The sector employs over 16,000 people in every part of the province and generates over $2.3 billion in economic activity annually.

For example, there are video game studios in Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, Qualicum, Nanaimo and Langley, as well as in Metro Vancouver and greater Victoria.

B.C. has grown into a globally recognized leader in creative technology thanks to the talented workforce, the education system, and, importantly, the provincial government’s interactive digital media tax credit. I want to thank you for extending the credit through 2028. This certainty will help our industry expand and, importantly, provide critical training so people can find jobs in our sector.

The sector has grown in B.C. over the previous year, with some real industry successes. EA, the world’s largest single video game studio and Canada’s oldest, continues to expand in B.C.

[3:50 p.m.]

Netmarble from Korea recently brought all its North American operations to Vancouver under Kabam. We saw new studio openings here, such as Disney Animation and Industrial Light and Magic’s virtual production stage.

The extended tax credit enables this activity, as well as supporting education and expanding the workforce. When people train for jobs in our sector, they’re not just working in digital media. Many of them go on to have an impact in other sectors that need people skilled in technology.

We are seeing every day the growing impact of digital technology in our lives. As a sector, we are working hard to make sure we have the talent to sustain what we have and connect people to the skills of the future. We’ve partnered with six B.C. public post-secondary institutions to create micro-credential programs for the creative technology sector for British Columbians who wish to upskill or re-skill. Our Play to Learn is an interactive program we are delivering in middle schools in rural and urban communities so students can explore science, technology, arts and math-based careers such as creating video games.

We’re also looking to grow the sector and global investment in B.C. with Canada’s first creative technology event in Vancouver this fall, called Signals. Our goal is to grow the festival over the next four years to eventually welcome 10,000 attendees and 1,000 companies from around the world.

April saw the release of Levelling Up: Growth Strategy for B.C.’s Creative Technology Talent Pipeline. Created in collaboration and with the support of the provincial government, the report examines how industry, educators and government can work together to ensure all British Columbians have the chance to connect to careers in our sector.

Key initiatives in this support include: increasing awareness of the creative technology sector for K-to-12 youth via large-scale events and hands-on workshops; developing resources to support employers and post-secondary students with increased work-integrated learning opportunities; partnering with training institutions to develop novel pathways for skills development, including micro-credentials; providing employers with resources to support diversity, equity and inclusion policies and initiatives; and developing a sector-wide mentoring network.

Our recommendation today is for the province to continue funding education and training activities that will help connect British Columbians — from those in school today to those looking for new careers — to the skills and opportunities of the creative technology sector.

Thank you for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

Tom, you have the first….

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. Maybe you could help me with something here. I’m trying to figure out the chicken-and-egg scenario here, with the technologies we have with video gaming and that type of virtual reality stuff. Is it your industry that develops for other industries, or is it that industry that has the deep pockets? What I’m getting at is such as 3D mine animation, virtual reality, autonomous vehicle types of technologies…. These are companies that need that to be proficient and effective in their industries, so they have deep pockets to develop this technology.

How much of it is from your association that works with industry? Is it your group that works with industry first, and then brings it to economy to scale for the general public after it’s developed? Or how does that work?

L. Dao: The core technology, such as 3D visualization and all the spatial things you’re talking about — that comes from my industry. One of our members is Unity Technologies. They’re multinational, but the company that provides these kinds of services exactly with some of the people you’re mentioning was called Finger Food — a B.C. company. They’ve been acquired by Unity, but they still continue. And they’ve actually enabled Unity to move beyond creating the software and out into doing services beyond entertainment.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Right on. Thanks. That’s awesome.

A. Walker: Loc, it’s great seeing you again. As with any industry, we hear this again — how important it is to get youth and young people engaged in something. You plant those seeds, and then ideally, they flow into that in the future.

Are you able to quickly share some of the successes you’ve had? I think there was a camp program that you were running and some other things that you were doing, if you could just quickly share that with the committee.

L. Dao: Yeah. We have a summer camp and spring break camp called DigiCamp that focuses on youth from underrepresented communities. We’ve been running that for three years in a row, with the main program currently video games for girls eight to 13 years old.

[3:55 p.m.]

Also, we have Play to Learn that I mentioned. We’ve partnered several times with the province on that. It’s a great industry and provincial partnership. That program is part of the B.C. math curriculum. It’s taught in middle school to the beginning of high school all over the province. Principals and teachers get to choose whether they want to be part of it. It was just announced two weeks ago that we received some matching support from the province to continue the program next year.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. You mentioned that Signal. It’s not the social media Signal you’re talking about. You were talking about a gathering in Vancouver of the gaming industry?

L. Dao: That’s right. We’ve partnered with the Vancouver International Film Festival and are creating an event this fall, in October. This is an event that focuses on celebrating the tech and talent from B.C.

A lot of them work on world-class films and video games that people play around the world. A lot of our families and kids and grandkids play and watch these properties, but we don’t actually know that they’re made here. So this event goes to celebrate what we have in our backyard and also looks at what the future is of convergence in the creative technology space.

G. Chow: So is that called Signal, then?

L. Dao: That’s called Signals, with an “s,” as opposed to Signal, the app.

G. Chow: Okay. I don’t know the difference.

L. Dao: Good question.

H. Yao: First of all, obviously, we really appreciate how the industry has us moving forward and our option to support our GDP.

I’m wondering. From the digital community, is there any kind of discussion around developing games, apps or activities that help us address some of our young people’s mental health concerns? In a way that’s less of a therapy, more of a game, through game interactions — help them address more, address some kinds of social issues. I would love to hear if there’s any kind of innovation coming from British Columbia in that aspect.

L. Dao: Yeah, we have partnerships and members, such as…. IM4 Lab is the Indigenous Matriarchs Lab, and they have been training youth. They’ve trained, I think, 400 youth now, over the last five years, in both digital literacy as well as the ability to create your own applications and software. We have several of these partnerships, and we believe that through programs like this, we’re enabling youth to actually create solutions to a lot of the problems that we’re seeing now.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon. I find it very enlightening, all the terms that are there, and the scope and the spectrum of what DigiBC does.

Next up is Kathy MacRae, Commercial Bear Viewing Association. I don’t have to give you the rundown because this is déjà vu all over again.

Kathy, it’s all yours.

COMMERCIAL BEAR VIEWING ASSOCIATION

K. MacRae: Thank you so much. Yes, I am here with my Commercial Bear Viewing Association hat on this afternoon. Thank you for having me again. I’m also here with my co-chair of the Adventure Tourism Coalition hat on. I’ll explain the two different organizations.

The Commercial Bear Viewing Association was formed in 2001, and it was to promote sustainable bear viewing and aid in the protection of wild bears and their ecosystems.

The Adventure Tourism Coalition formed from another unlikely type of ally example, where it’s 19 different sector associations that operate in the back country that came together to advocate for adventure tourism — or ecotourism, as we know it as well — in British Columbia.

Myself and Scott Ellis of the Guide Outfitters Association are both co-chairs. Again, we have come together to advocate for the greater good of adventure tourism in British Columbia.

I have two simple asks for this afternoon. I’ll reiterate the third one, of the chief ecologist. But the first one is to create an adventure tourism branch.

[4:00 p.m.]

Now, I would like to preface this with we are working with Minister Cullen and staff at the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship about this exact topic, but we’ve been told that creating and changing government structure and putting a new branch in place would be difficult. We see it as important to have advocates or champions, a concierge branch or an agency of some sort where adventure tourism operators have a place to go.

To take full advantage of the adventure tourism growth opportunities in B.C., we recommend the creation of a new adventure tourism branch, ideally within the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport or Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. The branch would be responsible for supporting the sustainable growth of adventure tourism throughout B.C. Using the mountain resorts branch, which is now housed in the Ministry of Tourism, as a model, the new adventure tourism branch would include staff capacity to champion the sector and improve communications between the sector and government as well as industries.

B.C. is 94 percent Crown land, and it is big, rural and remote, resulting in management more by accident than by design. Increased resource extraction has resulted in significantly more access and thus more people on the land, many of whom are at cross-purposes. As we continue to evolve, we need improved certainty and collaboration on the land. Land use planning requires better communication and planning between user groups to produce better outcomes for all.

These advancements will ensure that industry knows who is operating on the land and that the public knows their rights and obligations. Currently, it’s a free-for-all. Instead, by clearly defining the rights and responsibilities of industry, adventure tourism and public recreation, increased understanding and collaboration will result.

These initiatives will reduce confusion and conflict and, therefore, produce a better experience for all. For example, First Nations, ranchers, industry, adventure tourism and outfitters or viewers will all understand each other’s forms of use and how to work together.

To this end, the Adventure Tourism Coalition supports First Nations reconciliation when it is done fairly. It cannot be done at the expense of non–First Nations. It’s essential that the government makes concerted efforts to represent and protect the adventure tourism industry when negotiating land transfers for the purpose of reconciliation with First Nations.

The second one is increased funding, resources and support for B.C. Parks for commercial use through the park use permit process. This goes along with our recommendation 1, and it’s that operators are facing business uncertainty from long application adjudication times and increased consultation with First Nations. This has led to a disjointed and disorganized process which leaves the operators in an administrative “nightmare” — this is what I’ve heard from my operators — and high uncertainty.

Typically, back-country operators sell trips two to three years in advance, with permits that are usually about two years long. That length of time leads to uncertainty for the operators, especially when they’re booking two, three years in advance. Operators throughout the province are operating on historic permits that are in place while the renewals are pending. This is no way to do business.

Increasing funds, resources and staff for the park use permits within B.C. Parks and bringing in longer permits, maybe ten years, would allow for a more streamlined system and process. Changing to the ten-year permits with a review-and-renew aspect would give operators business certainty for the trips they are selling.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Kathy. You just nailed that one as well.

Are there any questions or comments right now?

A. Walker: Thanks for coming back. I guess the first question I have is…. You’re looking for, ideally, ten-year permits. What’s the structure right now? Is it ad hoc? What does it look like for these operators?

K. MacRae: I was just actually speaking to an operator about all of this, and we have a meeting with Jim Standen tomorrow to talk about this. Typically, for park use permits, it’s different than ten years. The park use permits to commercially operate within a B.C. park are typically about two years, and the application processes are long.

There is a revolving door where operators don’t know where to go or who to talk to. Because of all of that, there is…. FrontCounter B.C. is fantastic for Joe Public, absolutely fantastic. It’s the back country and that process for the commercial operators that I’m speaking about.

I mean, if people are selling trips that are for 2024 or 2025 right now, and they don’t have…. They’re waiting for their permit to be approved. They’re told it’s going to be approved: “Just trust us.” It’s hard. It’s hard to do business that way. It’s hard to have investment. And what we’re hearing from a lot of adventure tourism operators is that people are not wanting to invest in British Columbia anymore because of that.

[4:05 p.m.]

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. Nice. I like how that sort of segued right into my question here.

We heard that from industry as well. You’re feeling the same pains that industry goes through on slow permitting, getting tenures. Working with First Nations, obviously, first and foremost in all of this stuff — land use. But even with the consultation, overlapping of territories and things like that make it very uncertain. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Unlikely Allies part 2, I guess, because…. Working with Scott Ellis, obviously, with the Guide Outfitters of B.C.…. That’s a hunting organization, and here’s one that’s viewing those special creatures. It’s a great collaboration, so I’m glad that you guys are working it out together.

You mentioned industry as having a significant impact. Where does urban expansion fit into that?

K. MacRae: Urban expansion? You know, I don’t know. I’ve never heard about urban expansion. I’ve heard about the demographic shifting and how property taxes are increasing in the rural areas, which is new for….

I heard that from the fishing association — Matt Jennings from fishing. He mentions that because the demographic…. People are moving outside of the urban areas and moving into the rural settings. They’re seeing an increase in that, which is impacting businesses because that’s something that they haven’t seen before.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Sure. Sorry, just to follow up. That’s primarily what I meant by it — any kind of urban, rural expansion, I guess. We’re getting more and more people: 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 people a year. They’ve got to live somewhere. That’s got to have a significant impact.

What I’m getting at is that industry tries to do things responsibly. They’re trying, right? And there are a lot of rules, regulations, legislation that dictate that. They don’t want to be the only ones that are….

I would recommend looking at industry as a partner. I know there are many out there that do want to partner. I know, for example, that Teck, up in my region, has dedicated lots of land for ecosystem rehabilitation and growth — primarily for stuff that you guys like to do. Is there any kind of partnership with industry right now with what you guys do?

K. MacRae: Again, what I was saying earlier this morning is that it’s quite difficult for tourism operators to have conversations with industry because they’re not receptive. Yeah. That’s kind of what we’ve heard. I mean, I represent an industry, but from the operators specifically is…. The lack of consultation on the land is what we’re facing as tourism.

We’re not saying that other industries shouldn’t exist. We’re just saying that if a mine or forestry or something is going to happen, the tourism operator that also holds a park use permit or a tenure on the land is consulted so that they don’t show up in, say, the fall to get ready for their heli-ski operations and find that their entire tenure has been logged. That kind of thing; that’s what I’m talking about.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We’re going to try to wrap this up. I love the terminology of how you come together and how there is a little bit of dissension but, at the same time, I think everybody looks at the same big picture.

K. MacRae: Absolutely.

M. Starchuk (Chair): It’s all for the greater good, and your side of it is the greater good and just a tiny bit of fun.

K. MacRae: Just a tiny bit. Just a little bit. I get to go look at baby bears next week.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yeah. There we go.

Kathy, thank you very much for your time and for your presentation.

K. MacRae: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next is Bradd Tuck, British Columbia Funeral Association.

Bradd, you have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes from us for questions.

The floor is yours.

B.C. FUNERAL ASSOCIATION

B. Tuck: Good afternoon, members. Thank you for taking the time today to listen to me and to listen to everyone who’s here and consider the recommendations that are being put forward to your committee.

It’s an honour to be here on the traditional territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking people and to speak to you today.

My name, as you said, is Bradd Tuck. I’m a licensed funeral director and embalmer and general manager of a locally owned funeral home here on Vancouver Island. Today I speak as a representative of the British Columbia Funeral Association, commonly known as the BCFA.

The BCFA represents funeral homes, cemeteries and crematoriums throughout the province with the goal of holding our profession to the highest ethical standards and ensuring that our membership can deliver outstanding service to their communities. The BCFA also provides continuing education to member and non-member funeral professionals and is the administrator of the only school in B.C. to train new funeral directors and embalmers.

[4:10 p.m.]

Today I’m here to speak specifically about the funding granted to low-income individuals through the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction’s provincial burial program. This program delivers funds to cover the costs of burial or cremation to those in our societies who do not have sufficient means to do so themselves, regardless of their religion, culture, ethnicity, or region.

The funding for this program was established in 2008 and has remained unchanged for the last 15 years. It includes $1,285 for basic professional services, which include the arranging and administration of funeral services, documentation, sanitary care, basic facilities and staffing. There are funds for a modest urn and a minimum standard casket provided.

Transportation beyond 32 kilometres from the place of death is covered under a per-kilometre rate on a sliding scale, starting at $1 per kilometre for the first 50 kilometers and 60 cents per kilometre after 150 kilometres. There are no provisions for additional travel expenses such as delays or ferry fees. An additional $815 is provided for service facilities, staffing, embalming and any care of the deceased.

Over the past 15 years, as you’ve all seen, we’ve experienced a financial crisis and a recession, an opiate epidemic, heat domes, floods and forest fires, a pandemic, increased wages and payroll taxes and now inflation raising the costs of goods and services. These have had profound impacts on our profession. The average cost for the services provided to the ministry for that $2,100, now, on average, across B.C. cost $4,800. This number doesn’t even consider the cost of transportation that’s increased exponentially and continues to increase over the last few years.

Today I bring to you three recommendations to take the first step in closing that funding gap. First, it is a recommendation of the BCFA to raise the $2,100 rate to $3,500. This would allow for funeral professionals to provide increased service levels to pay for additional transportation costs, to provide culturally appropriate caskets and urns and to pay for service facility and staff requirements to meet the religious, cultural and personal belief systems that currently are very challenging to meet at the current rate of $815 to pay for all of those services.

Our second recommendation is to tie this increase and future increases to inflation. As the costs continue to rise, so will the cost to funeral providers to execute these services. Tying the increased rate to inflation makes sense so that we don’t have to keep coming back asking for more funds to provide these services to our communities.

Last, we recommend that the government implement a grant or temporary funding mechanism that could be administered through the ministry or through the BCFA to fill the void while the details of new funding agreements are decided. The costs being incurred by funeral providers are occurring today, and this problem needs to be addressed right away.

It’s important to recognize that funeral providers are not contractually obligated to provide services at this rate to the ministry, but we do so because we know that those families have nowhere else to turn. In 2021, over 35,000 individuals died in B.C., and each were served by a local funeral home at their time of need with dignity and respect. Over 3,500 of these families were funded through the provincial burial program. In 2022, the number rose to over 4,000, and with our aging demographic and the continued increase in cost of living, it’s expected that these numbers will continue to rise year over year.

Funeral directors enter our profession with a common desire to serve our communities. For years, funeral providers in all regions of the province have been subsidizing the costs of the provincial barrier program in order to meet the needs of their clients, regardless of their economic status. This includes paying staff out of pocket for travel expenses, adding staff to services at no cost and providing facility space at discounted rates.

Without change, we risk creating regional gaps where funeral providers can no longer afford to serve clients who need to use this program for funding. The costs are simply becoming too high to be borne by private business. We risk building a segregated two-tiered system where low-income individuals are no longer able to make dignified choices for their loved ones in their final arrangements.

I hope that you’ll take these recommendations into consideration and see that we need increased funding in order to continue to provide the service that we all want to for the province.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation, Bradd.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I really appreciate it. You mentioned that currently there is $2,100 provided by the province. You currently identify that the actual amount is $4,800 required. So may I ask how come you’re only asking up to $3,500? That’s a point.

[4:15 p.m.]

The second question I want to touch on is based upon $2,100 per person, about 4,000 people; you’re talking about $8.4 million. By increasing it to, I guess, $3,500, you’re looking at about $14 million, to top it up to $14 million. Or if we talk about $4,800, it’s $19.2 million. Are my numbers correct?

B. Tuck: Yeah, I think the numbers that we had calculated, in order to…. Essentially, if we were to reimburse funeral homes from that $2,100 to $3,500 for the 2021 year, it would have been at a cost of $11 million to the government.

The reason for our ask for $3,500 is that we’ve been asking this question for a long time; we’ve been hearing a resounding no for a long time. So we’ve done our best, throughout the province, to talk to funeral providers and ask: “What’s the minimum at which you could make this work?” We came to a point of $3,500.

We hope that in surrounding that $3,500, a big consideration will also come into travel — for example, ferry costs. We don’t have the ability to book a reserved ferry beforehand, to know when someone is going to pass. I have a staff member who’s sitting at the ferry terminal right now in Nanaimo, who left our office at nine o’clock and is hoping to return with the deceased from Port Moody for a funeral tomorrow.

Under the ministry funding, there’s nothing beyond 60 cents a kilometre, after we reach the ferry terminal, for our staff member and for us to be paid from that. These are other areas where we hope we can build around that funding, but we do believe that increasing to $3,500 would be a reasonable first step.

B. Banman: Let me see if I understand this correctly. You haven’t had a nickel increase for 15 years. You’re under zero obligation to actually do this, yet you do it anyway, and nobody, thus far, in government has heard you loud enough to want to actually fix this so that we can provide the care that individuals need or families need to look after their loved ones. Am I understanding that correctly?

B. Tuck: That’s correct. Our association had a lobbyist day earlier last year. We’ve been coming, bringing up to the appropriate ministries, and asking for additional funding.

We have seen increases to other programs. For example, the Public Guardian and Trustee provides funds for funeral services if there is nobody to take care of the estate, as long as there’s sufficient money within that estate to pay the Public Guardian and Trustee’s fees. Their fees, for example, are $3,500 for what our $1,285 from the Ministry of Social Development is, and an additional $3,500 to provide services. Their casket is given at a cost much higher, about double, than the casket provided under ministry rates, and the cost and allocation given for an urn is double as well.

Yes, we continue to ask the question, and we continue to provide the services, but we have not been heard.

B. Banman: So the total bottom line for what you consider to be the full impact per year — what would it be to the overall provincial budget?

B. Tuck: About $11 million, probably increasing by $3 million or $4 million per year, given the increased rate of death and the increased usage of the program.

If I may, there was one other aspect of your question that I didn’t answer: why do we keep doing it? The reason is because no one else will. When somebody dies, you can’t leave them where they are. You can’t say no to a family on the other side of the phone. Even if you know the funds aren’t there, we pick up the phone, we go, and we do those services, knowing that we may not get paid or that we may not cover our costs because there’s no one past us. We’re the last stop.

G. Chow: Thank you for your service. I don’t understand the travel costs. Is that travel costs for your vehicle and the people who are actually carrying the deceased?

B. Tuck: That’s correct. One of the reasons why there’s so much travel involved in funeral services is that for a lot of our specialty health care — cancer centres, for example — more care is done in centralized areas. So when people pass away in Victoria or in Vancouver or in Prince George or in other areas of the province…. When they came from a rural area, when that person dies, they’re simply brought to the morgue in that hospital, and it’s the responsibility of the family or the funeral home to bring that person back to their home community.

We also service a lot of remote communities. Funeral homes are generally in city centres and towns, but as we know, there are people who live all over the province — particularly a lot of First Nations families that are nowhere near those centres where the funeral home is — and travel is needed to get that person to where they need to be buried.

G. Chow: That means that it’s not always cremation that you’re dealing with. There are actually burials, too, depending on where….

B. Tuck: That’s correct. B.C. has a very high rate of cremation, but it is both cremation and burial that we deal with.

[4:20 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I think on behalf of everybody that’s in this room, even the presenters that are sitting at the back of the room, thank you for your service. The people of British Columbia need to understand how lucky we are to have an organization like yours. So thank you for your time this afternoon.

B. Tuck: Well, we certainly appreciate that and appreciate having the audience today. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Bruce Batchelor from Trelawny Consulting Group.

We have one other person that is in the back of the room. So just in case anybody is looking at their agenda, there was a mix-up in timing, so we do have one other presenter to go after this that was scheduled this morning, or at least appeared to be scheduled this morning.

Bruce, you’re up with five minutes with us and then questions and answers after that.

The floor is yours.

TRELAWNY CONSULTING GROUP

B. Batchelor: Thanks very much for this opportunity.

It’s an honour to be living and enjoying being on the lands, the unceded traditional territories of Indigenous peoples in many locations where our collaborative work is located.

I’m Bruce Batchelor, and I’m the CEO of Trelawny Consulting Group. I’ve been a lifelong innovator, entrepreneur and consultant to governments, non-profits and corporations. Over the past decade, I’ve been the principal organizer of a collaboration of multidisciplinary consultants and tech developers who have been researching, developing and testing innovations to tackle the many interrelated challenges around commuting, congestion, transportation, affordability, HR dilemmas and economic and environmental sustainability.

We have assembled our innovative technologies and organizational change approach into a proposed initiative that we call TRP4BC, trip reduction program for B.C. It is being considered right now for inclusion within CleanBC’s clean transportation action plan.

We are recommending the allocation of $10 million per annum, probably up until 2030, for this trip reduction program. This has been advocated by Metro Vancouver, other municipalities and many other organizations.

The trip reduction program would require all large employers and major trip generators, such as schools, health authorities, malls and other organizations to assess and make best efforts to reduce the vehicle kilometres travelled and to boost walking, cycling and transit.

Really, this is what jurisdictions are doing around the world. They’re recognizing that to meet the 2030 targets for clean transportation, you simply must involve the large employers, as well as doing all the other things, such as building bike lanes and things like that.

This TRP4BC will improve air quality; traffic congestion; affordability, especially for lower-paid workers; citizens’ mental and physical health, safety and their social cohesion and trust. It will help shield increasing road maintenance budgets from the impact of heavier EVs.

What we’re proposing is that over 8,700 private, public, cooperative and non-profit organizations will be collaborating to improve the quality of travel options for employees; for their clientele, whether those are students, patients, customers, visitors, etc.; and for local delivery. For those participating organizations, these actions will reduce their costs for recruiting, training and retention, while boosting productivity, quality, profitability and economic and environmental sustainability for those organizations.

When citizens’ cost savings on transportation, which for some is the largest item in the family budget, or the second largest, are added in, the return on the province’s $10 million annual investment will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

[4:25 p.m.]

Employers will be collaborating with other employers, municipalities, regions, advocacy groups, mobility providers and transit authorities on actions to extend biking and walking pathways, transit coverage and frequency, walkable neighbourhoods, transit-oriented development, secure bike storage, safe routes to school, cargo bikes, etc.

The TRP4BC initiative is built around operational and technology innovations that have been researched, developed and pilot-tested with public and private sector organizations in B.C. The initiative will be world-leading. It is destined to be promptly emulated by California, Oregon, Washington, other Canadian provinces and urban areas in B.C., all of whom have VKT and mode share targets similar to CleanBC. So look at that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Bruce, thank you very much for your presentation and the extra four seconds that we had that were there. That was awesome. Are there any comments or questions?

I do have one to start off with. You make reference to other Canadian provinces. Where would we find that in Canada?

B. Batchelor: Well, all governments are going to be needing to…. If your transportation is about 40 percent of Canada’s carbon emissions…. It’s over 50 percent in the urban areas. Anywhere there are urban areas, this is a big, key factor. Municipalities, federal governments and everybody are scrambling to try and figure out: “Well, how do we cut that down?”

Simply subsidizing electric vehicles doesn’t really help that much for some of the other aspects. It’s going to drive up the road maintenance costs, especially because people with EVs drive them more, and they’re heavier. It’s going to not address any of the equity and affordability issues. It’s not going to help with retention and recruiting. It’s not going to help with HR challenges that our schools and our hospitals have. You have to address the idea of giving people better travel choices.

The large organizations control the timing, the mode and the scheduling of almost all travel. That would be whether that’s a retail operation or it’s a hospital. Some of these organizations that…. I’ve talked to over 100 chief executives or heads of HR departments at large organizations across B.C. and to — what? — four cabinet ministers as well. But hardly anybody a has trip reduction program. They seem to think it’s somebody else’s problem. It’s some municipality or something else.

We really need, if we’re going to have a solution, to get the large employers to work together in a collaborative way. The approach is simply to say to all large employers: “You must have a plan of what you’re doing to address this, and you’re going to need to report on that every year. Here are tools that you can use.” That’s what this budget is about, giving them the apps and giving them the education and the explainer videos and being able to work with them to collaborate on actions that they can’t do themselves or, at least, won’t do themselves.

I talked to the head of HR for Vancouver Coastal Health. They could do some small pilot projects. But because it wasn’t a policy-level initiative, those pilot projects just peter out when somebody moves. They don’t have the authority.

As part of this, we’re recommending to the government that they make it mandatory for all organizations — all large employers — to have a trip reduction plan. What that does is give people inside the organizations the authority and the responsibility to do something. Now, what they choose to do, we hope to influence and give them lots of apps and lots of tools, and we’ve tested lots of them, to go ahead and actually make a difference.

When you do that, when you shorten people’s commutes or make them a healthier commute or a more affordable commute, those people are healthier mentally and physically. Also, they’ve got more money in their pocket. But they’ve got more time for their families. They make fewer mistakes at work. You certainly don’t want mistakes happening at hospitals. They’re less likely to quit. It’s easier to hire them.

[4:30 p.m.]

This works as something that really helps all these organizations. The organizations need help from the top. The help from the top is simply to say: “Do it. Just do something. Make your best efforts, and report on it.” This budget is to support them with the tools and the apps and help them get together with the collaboration.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’ll make it as quick as I can here.

Is this trip reduction program weighted specifically for large entities, large corporations? I’m just wondering how much impact that will have. I mean, we see initiatives already going forward with government. You said EV rebates. We’ve got a bike rebate coming out in a couple of days. We’ve also got roads and dedicated lanes for bicycles. We’ve got HOV lanes in place right now for vehicles. So we’re kind of trying to do that right now.

Now, I heard the Chair ask a question. You said that jurisdictions around the world are doing this trip reduction program. Who is it that we should be mimicking? What jurisdiction out there is doing it best that we can learn from?

B. Batchelor: Thanks for that. It’s a really interesting question. It seems things are being done simultaneously. They’re also being done in a slightly not coordinated manner.

You can get much more impact if you’ve got bike lanes, but you’ve also got other things like secure bike storage. If you’re developing bike lanes, but people are worried about their bikes getting stolen at the other end, you have limited impact. If you can have people working on whichever tactics they can have, or a collection of them, then….

The unique part of this is to bring it all together. We have great programs all around the world that are working with a single strategy. “Let’s build bike lanes.” “Let’s subsidize transit.” Stuff like that. For some people, those don’t apply. So have these other tactics that you can also use.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your time, Bruce.

Our last speaker. I have to ask if there’s a middle initial C. We have George Scott, from IATSE 168.

G. Scott: I will note that the asking about the C does determine your esteemed vintage. The kids have no idea who that is.

M. Starchuk (Chair): There we go. I bow to you.

Interjections.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Oh yeah. I know. It was almost like it was rehearsed.

Okay. It’s all yours.

IATSE LOCAL 168

G. Scott: Mr. Chair and committee members, thank you for your patience and largesse in allowing me to speak.

I am George Scott. I am the president of IATSE Local 168, the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. Our local represents 400 workers in live entertainment, off stage, with eight employers on Vancouver Island.

Some of you here may have had the pleasure of seeing Come From Away in its recent residency at the Royal Theatre here in Victoria. This was the largest theatrical production in the Island’s history, based on volume and value of tickets sold. It tells a Canadian story. It is a story about Canada’s place in the world, about the giving and caring nature of Canadians. It is set in Canada. It was written by Canadians.

The version you saw, if you saw it or have seen it elsewhere, did not drop fully formed onto a stage. It was written and then rewritten. It was spoken by actors around a table and then rewritten. It was then put into rehearsals and rewritten. It was staged in a small theatre in Toronto without an audience long before it became a Broadway and world-touring sensation. The lesson in this? Arts creation takes time. It takes money. When it works, it can be transformative.

As taxpayers, we at IATSE Local 168 believe there are stories like Come From Away to be told here in British Columbia. The province can support this work. The province currently provides a tax credit on production labour for filmed entertainment shot here in B.C. and, as we heard a few minutes ago, a digital media tax credit. We understand the reasons for these credits. Many of our IATSE members in other locals in film get work because of these tax credits. It’s also an important part of the B.C. economy.

[4:35 p.m.]

None of those credits are tied to telling Canadian stories. Those credits support telling any story set anywhere, a story that could be of any place, and many of those credits go to studios based outside British Columbia.

We propose the creation of a live entertainment labour tax credit to mirror the one that supports those other industries. A mere rounding error in the amount that the province supports filmed entertainment and digital media entertainment could fund a live entertainment labour tax credit.

Our first ask of this committee is the creation of such a credit system, knowing that it is tied into provincial tax legislation, to allow arts creators and presenters to defray some of the costs of a show for B.C. and about B.C. The requirement is that the show and story be written by British Columbians, based on a British Columbia story, to be directed, composed, choreographed, designed and acted by B.C. residents. We could see the incubation of the next Come From Away. Or maybe not. Who knows? We believe there are stories that need to be told.

A second ask is what we saw with the show in the theatre, shows happening on evenings and weekends. Daycare doesn’t work evenings and weekends. Many of our workers could take this work, if it was available to them, if there was a daycare system that worked outside the 1950s eight-to-four or nine-to-five daycare system.

While we appreciate the work the province has done in creating a more price-responsible $10-a-day program…. We believe that work could be put in by the province to create a system, even at a slightly higher rate, $15 to $20 a day, for those who work outside that. There are many, many workers in this province who work outside of eight to four, Monday to Friday. I think it would do justice to all of them to support that with an expanded daycare program.

Those are our two asks. Thank you for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation.

Just as a side note, IATSE was the first union that I belonged to. I won’t say how many years ago that was, though.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for the presentation. It was really appreciated.

I really want to talk about the child care issue you brought up. I actually had a few conversations with child care service providers about supporting shift workers — nurses, firefighters and different people who work different shifts. The challenge often, is, actually…. The child care industry would find it hard to support shift work when they don’t have that many kids at any given time to justify the shift coverage with a staff member.

Since we’re talking about a creative industry, we’d love to hear your creative solutions.

G. Scott: I agree. Obviously, it’s more of a challenge in smaller centres. You’re not going to have the volume that’s necessary.

In Victoria, Vancouver, Kelowna, Kamloops, Prince George, places like that, there is probably enough 24-7 work happening. It may require the creation of a centralized facility, as opposed to little facilities in neighbourhoods, which is currently the model for providing most daycare.

Hospitals work 24-7. A daycare facility, a centralized one in a centre, could work 24-7, right? People spoke about gaming. That happens 24-7. There are a lot of industries in this province where work happens 24-7.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your feedback.

Another question that I also have talks about is a lot of child care providers who talk to me say that a lot of parents actually don’t want daycare in the evening. They want to be able to spend the evening with their children, if they get back home in time to…. I think it becomes a creative challenge. We would love to hear your feedback. Maybe you can provide some suggestions.

I come from Richmond. I represent Richmond. It is considered a small city itself. It doesn’t seem to have enough population in regards to justifying, for some service providers — this is directly from service providers’ feedback — shift work and then the 24-7 daycare activities. They especially talk about…. A lot of people who are working shift work actually want to be able to come home to their kids instead of having the kids spend a night at a different location and then bringing them back half asleep.

I’d love to hear your feedback.

G. Scott: Well, I don’t think there’s any one perfect solution to this problem. There are people who work nights, and they are parents.

I think one of the things we need to do in building a more equitable society is recognize that most of those people who are put into that place of having to limit career by being caregivers are women. In building a better daycare system, we empower those people to give what they can to our society.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. I’m not seeing any other questions or comments.

Thank you very much for your presentation. You’ve definitely outlined the issues that can allow your industry to move forward.

G. Scott: Thank you for the opportunity.

M. Starchuk (Chair): A motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 4:40 p.m.