The committee met at 8:01 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Mike Starchuk. I’m 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 gathered today in the territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation.

I ask everyone else to reflect on the lands they live on, work on and play on.

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. British Columbians can share their views by making written comments. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is two o’clock, Friday, June 16.

We’re also holding a number of public meetings to hear from British Columbians about their priorities.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website and a complete transcript will also be posted. We will carefully consider all input to make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on what should be included in Budget 2024. The committee intends to release its report in August.

Now I’ll start by introducing the members of the committee starting with the Deputy Chair.

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

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

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

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

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

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

B. Banman: Bruce Banman, the riding of Abbotsford South.

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Karan Riarh and Emma Curtis from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Amanda Heffelfinger and David Smith from Hansard Services.

Today’s format here in Prince George: each speaker will have five minutes followed by time for questions and/or comments from the committee members.

First up this morning is Geoff Payne, University of Northern British Columbia.

Geoff, you have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

Budget Consultation Presentations

UNIVERSITY OF NORTHERN B.C.

G. Payne: Thanks very much.

I would also like to acknowledge that we are here gathered on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh. UNBC, through its four campuses, works with many First Nations and Indigenous communities and is very respectful of that important relationship.

I would like to thank the committee for their time this morning. My name is Geoff Payne. I’m the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Northern British Columbia. I’m just about to start my 20th year at UNBC. I started as a faculty member. It was my first job. I have sort of worked my way through the system, so to speak, and have been in the president seat now about three years.

Just a little bit about UNBC, and then I’ll get into the recommendations that I’d like to put forward to the committee this morning. UNBC is a research-intensive university, really born out of community connections 30 years ago.

[8:05 a.m.]

Our university is strongly connected to government as well as to community, to really supporting northern communities through experiential opportunities, through our education and research, strong employees, as well as our students and setting them up for the destinations they would want to go on to next, following coming to our institution.

Our goal is really in terms of generating the next thought leaders that we need for society going forward for today. Our submission this morning from UNBC is advocating for the provincial investment in three key areas to support environmental responsibility, economic viability and social equity. I’ll break those down over the next three minutes and 25 seconds.

In terms of economic responsibility, first, we’d like to thank government in terms of their investment in Mitacs. That is critically important for us as a university and research university for Mitacs internships and scholarships for graduate students. These really do drive a knowledge economy, so that’s really important for us to attract and retain high-quality researchers and scientists.

In terms of environmental responsibility, we need to promote the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainable managed forests and water and reduce biodiversity loss. Through investing in our students, that will certainly aid in that one.

The second one is economic viability. Many of the economies are moving fast to advance the sort of net-zero industries. Our youth are absolutely advocating stronger and louder on this. Investments in research and infrastructure and entrepreneurship hubs will allow us to promote clean energy and clean manufacturing.

An example at UNBC is our northern analytical labs. It’s not just for the students and researchers at UNBC. It’s been working across the north in terms of environmental sustainability. That’s one we need to ensure that we are moving forward for sustainable energy for all.

The final one is around social equity. The province has significantly increased the number of seats for technology, engineering and social fields like teaching and nursing. Absolutely, completely agree with that. But to continue to support inclusive and equitable quality of education and promote lifelong learning opportunities in northern communities, we need investment in infrastructure like housing and Wi-Fi.

I’ll give you a little fun fact. We had our convocation week this past week, and we went around. We have campuses in Quesnel, Fort St. John as well as Terrace. We were in Quesnel last Thursday. Our education graduating class…. People think of universities as just traditional high school students coming in and everything like that. Obviously, that is a huge number of our students, but, also, it’s lifelong learners. As I said, a fun fact.

The graduating class for education in Quesnel — average age was 42 with 2.4 kids. These are individuals that already have a very busy life, but they see the connection to northern community sustainability and, in their case, through education and educating the next generation. So, as said, as an average age of 42 with 2.4 kids, they went back to school and got their education degree, staying in community and allowing them to continue to contribute to those communities.

What we urge is large-scale infrastructure pathways and transition programs and scholarships to support lifelong learning, which will also then feed into the other two recommendations that I put forward.

With that, I think UNBC as well as post-secondary…. I know you will have my colleague later this morning. An investment in post-secondary across the north is the way forward, and the three recommendations I put forward to you this morning.

I yield my five seconds.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well done, Geoff. We have a list of people, so we’ll ask for the questions to be brief and the answers to be brief as well.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. Yes, I’m very interested in your education graduates who are 42 years old on the average and 2.4 kids. That would allow them to teach which kind of institution, post-secondary?

G. Payne: No, K to 12.

G. Chow: Okay, K to 12. Yeah, sorry. I think that’s what I meant, but anyway, K to 12. That’s great.

I guess they would be more predisposed to a trade, which we actually require a lot, rather than your traditional academic course. Am I right?

G. Payne: In terms of the students themselves?

G. Chow: Yeah, the students.

[8:10 a.m.]

G. Payne: They’ve come from all sorts of backgrounds. I think what they’ve seen is that the university has provided an opportunity to come back to school. It’s provided flexible opportunities. We need that flexibility because not everybody can attend school eight to four kind of thing when they have families.

Providing that opportunity allowed them a pathway to come back into the education system, into post-secondary. These graduates can now continue to stay in their communities but also then contribute back to the communities in which they are living, to the next generation, which is the students coming through the K-to-12 system.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Geoff. You’ve talked about lifelong learning. Technology is changing; industries are changing at lightning speed nowadays. How does the university work with industry to provide micro-credentials for students that are changing their careers?

G. Payne: It’s a great question. I think the lifelong learning…. There are multiple on- and off-ramps, and I think the micro-credentialing and the laddering of credentialing allows individuals to maybe start at a college, go back out into the workforce, come to university, back out. In addition to the traditional credentials such as a bachelor’s degree or master’s degree, the micro-credentials can wrap around that and allow us to work with industry to have our graduates, wherever they are in that continuum of lifelong learning, to be ready to enter the workforce.

S. Chant: Thanks for your presentation. When you talk about scholarships for lifelong learning, what does that mean to you, please?

G. Payne: Traditionally it’s to pay tuition, but I also think, due to the increases in inflation, the increases of…. You think of the example I gave you in terms of people, at age 42, coming back in. I think there need to be opportunities to broaden the scope of what a scholarship or a bursary might look like for us to really ensure that there are no barriers to those who want to get education, whether that’s a four-year, two-year or a micro-credential. More breadth of use of the scholarships would be useful.

H. Yao: Thank you again for your presentation. I’m glad you’re actually happy with Mitacs’ investment.

I’m going to go back to social equity as well. Our government has invested about $830 million for connectivity for all the communities. It sounded like one of the primary focuses for continued learning is also technology-based. Is there anything else in addition to the connectivity investment you’re looking for to actually strengthen the continued education for your students?

G. Payne: The connectivity is really huge. We saw that coming out of COVID. When we sent students home to their home communities, we suddenly saw them showing up in our hallways. We were like: “Why are you back?” “No Wi-Fi in my home community” or “One hub within our community.” So that connectivity is really critical.

The bandwidth is also. It’s not just low-grade connectivity. It needs to be high-grade connectivity. With more online learning and more flexibility and asynchronous flexibility that we need so students can stay in their home communities and learn, we need to strengthen that — hubs that can go farther as well as different ways of connecting communities into our centres and beyond.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The last 40 seconds, Ben.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to ask you about the northern medical program. It hasn’t changed since it was first introduced here. I believe it’s 32 or 36 per year.

G. Payne: It’s 40 now.

B. Stewart: It’s 40. Okay, good. Are they staying in the North?

G. Payne: My first job was as faculty with the northern medical program. That’s how I came to Prince George.

Absolutely staying. Family medicine is a two-year resi­dency. Probably 60 percent are staying. When we sent students away for their five year, we were worried. Would they come back? You know, life settles in. They are also coming back. So a huge success. We’ve expanded that to PT and OT, and we see that expanding into other areas as well. It’s the future for sure.

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

Next up Jasvir Singh, College of New Caledonia Students Union.

Jasvir, you have five minutes for your presentation and/or comments, and five minutes followed up for questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

COLLEGE OF NEW CALEDONIA
STUDENTS UNION

J. Singh: Good morning, committee members. My name is Jasvir Singh. I’m the elected representative at CNC Students Union.

Today I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded and traditional lands of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation.

The CNC Students Union has been serving the members since 1978. Currently we serve around 3,500 active members per year. We are also a member of BCFS, British Columbia Federation of Students.

I want to recognize that the committee has put forward many of our joint recommendations in the provincial budget over the last several years.

[8:15 a.m.]

We thank you for continuing to listen, to work together to ensure that post-secondary in British Columbia is accessible and affordable for each and every one, including international students.

Students, like other British Columbians, had a tough year. We have been squeezed like everyone else, also paying massive amounts of tuition fees. Even with the high tuition fees, our institutions have been struggling. College of New Caledonia has been lacking in funds, which has impacted the quality of education for students. This lack of funding led to cuts in crucial resources for students.

It was believed that international students would make up the lack from government, but CNC shows that even with our current practices of international recruitment, it isn’t just enough. Due to lack of funding, 51 percent of CNC’s total revenue is generated from international student fees, and internationals just make like 25 percent of the total enrolment. Even this year, it was increased by 4 percent for international students.

Post-secondary is incredibly important for British Columbians. Today B.C. is facing a large number of labour shortages, like nurses, tradespeople, doctors and too many more to count. Without adequate funding, institutions like CNC are left with no choice but to attempt to make those shortfalls through fees, especially from international students.

Next I have my recommendations. International students came to Canada to learn in one of the top-ranked countries for higher education, but due to underfunding, our colleges have been reliant on international students to make up those funding shortfalls. CNC is steadily increasing their student enrolment for international students, but to be honest, they are really lacking in providing even the necessary services and that quality of education which international students are supposed to have.

A two-year diploma costs $28,000 to international students, which is just $5,000 for their fellow domestic students. According to the 2018 census — the latest ones are not provided yet — international students contributed $645 million in B.C.’s tax, they created 45,164 jobs, and their total expenditure revenue costed up to $4.7 billion in 2018.

As we all know, if we talk about just Prince George, international students have given so much to Prince George — to its economic growth, to its infrastructure growth. But still in Prince George, I have personally seen so many cases where seven to eight students are living in just a two-bedroom basement. They are working in unregulated and unsafe jobs. Even I have seen students working at $10 per hour to pay their fees and using community food banks.

Where are the opportunities to succeed for these students? Was this not part of the promise when they were brought to Canada with their offer letters? We need to think and invest in education. We need to ensure CNC is stable for upcoming years.

That’s why our first recommendation is that government should amend the current tuition policy fee and limit the policy to include international fees and cap their increase by 2 percent annually, same as the domestic students.

For their post-secondary education, students are paying more than their fair share, even with 2 percent of annual increase in domestic fees. CNC has dealt with so many cases where students were deregistered from courses due to being unable to pay their fees, and week-long wait-lists from their academic advisers because CNC is not good at providing services because they say they are lacking in funds.

All these things are forcing students to think: is it fair to pay that much for this kind of education, where even the required services and the quality of education are lacking? So our second recommendation is to invest at least $200 million in post-secondary education for B.C., so that crucial colleges like CNC can have the opportunity to succeed and help our rural communities.

We hope that you will consider our asks in the upcoming months and consider how they will fit in your budget. We need to invest in the future of this province before it’s too late. Let’s work together and build a stronger British Columbia.

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

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation. It’s really important for us to hear just that disparity between the international students and the domestic students.

The question I know will come up is about international students staying. Is this driving students away? Are they saying…? You say rhetorically that they’re wondering whether or not this is worth it. Are they going home? Is this pushing them far away and damaging our reputation here in British Columbia?

[8:20 a.m.]

J. Singh: Yep, it is. I’ll just talk about…. In the last one-and-a-half years, there are so many cases where students are going back to India. They are even leaving their studies in between. They are even not completing their studies because they say they don’t think it’s fair to pay this much for this kind of education where even the required services are not met.

Even now that two grams of drugs are legalized, I have seen so many students…. They are just taking drugs from the corners of this downtown and being intoxicated the whole day. I have seen so many international students becoming druggies. That’s why so many students are coming back or their parents are calling them back.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Jasvir, I have a question. We always hear the disparity in international students and putting a cap at 2 percent. I know we don’t have a crystal ball in front of us, but do you see the other ancillary fees that students are paying being increased without a cap when you cap the tuition?

J. Singh: Sorry. Can you please say it again?

M. Starchuk (Chair): You’ve got other fees that students pay for whatever this system is. If you cap everything at 2 percent, do you predict, or do you believe, that those other fees will go up even more?

J. Singh: No. We are collaborating with CNC every time. They are saying that they are not enough to operate because they cannot afford it. But I think if government is granting us more, then they will not increase their fees more. They’ll just keep that balance. With adequate funding, I think they can cut down those services as well.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here and doing a presentation with us.

I have just a quick, simple question. When the College of New Caledonia, or just general post-secondary education, recruits international students, do we have in-house services to help international students be part of society after they graduate? Like having somebody dedicated work with international students about their PR, their work permit or how they can actually find a career that way and support their mental health and well-being as well. It’s almost like ensuring that we are actually working hard on our end to create an environment to build that bridge.

J. Singh: There are some services which are even provided by the college. Every student, on the first day, is enrolled in MSP. They have to do that. Sometimes CNC provides three months of insurance for the students who have just come in. That’s the only thing they get — nothing else than that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Not seeing any other questions or comments.

Jasvir, thank you very much for your time this morning.

J. Singh: Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Joyce Henley, CUPE Local 3799.

Joyce, you have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CUPE LOCAL 3799,
UNBC SUPPORT STAFF

J. Henley: My name is Joyce, and I am proud to be here on behalf of CUPE Local 3799 where we represent the support staff of the University of Northern British Columbia.

While I currently work and reside on the unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh, our almost 430 members are incredibly grateful to also work live, learn and play on the territories of many other nations.

Our members work across the institution to provide front-line student supports, administrative supports, trades and technical services. My position is in the wellness centre, where I am a counsellor who provides mental health support, primarily to racialized students.

We have three recommendations today. First, we recommend the restoration of majority public funding of base budgets with a progressive increase to 75 percent base public funding, including increased research funding and capacity.

UNBC is a small research-intensive university and is the only university in British Columbia north of Williams Lake. We were established in 1990 with a mandate to provide education opportunities to the north. Another part of our mandate was to provide opportunities to learners so that they could live closer to home while also gaining an education. Both of these are still really important pieces of our mandate. However, it is increasingly challenging to meet this mandate due, in part, to a lack of funding and investment in infrastructure.

Currently our public institutions compete with each other for the same pool of students, which has created an environment in which we have had to increase student fees, rely on external fundraising and have a focus on revenue generation with an emphasis on the sale of education to international students.

While the province’s future-ready action plan recognizes training and skills shortages in B.C. and promises significant investments to create targeted training opportunities, it fails to address the decades of underfunding that have left many post-secondary institutions literally crumbling under the pressure.

[8:25 a.m.]

B.C. public post-secondary institutions require a significant funding increase and a move to a stable funding model with dedicated funding allocations for student, academic and ancillary services.

Our second recommendation is that Budget 2024 support women and other traditionally underrepresented groups in the trades by permanently funding the B.C. Centre for Women in the Trades and creating trades liaisons in the public K-to-12 education system.

While UNBC does not provide training in trades, our support staff does include tradespeople. We know that women, Indigenous and racialized people are underrepresented in the skilled trades workforce in B.C. Isolation, discrimination and poor workplace cultures have long been barriers for these individuals entering and staying in the trades. One of the ways to combat these barriers is to build diversity by increasing the number of women and other underrepresented groups.

Again, the future-ready plan sets out ways to connect more workers with training and education for in-demand fields, but more action is required to connect young people, particularly young women, Indigenous and racialized youth, with opportunities in the trades.

We believe that this is a systemic issue that must be addressed far in advance of students attending post-secondary and that the province is missing out on key opportunities to facilitate this while young people are connected to our K-to-12 education system. Trades liaison positions in every school district can address a knowledge deficit among young people, particularly those who are traditionally underrepresented in the trades.

Finally, our last recommendation is that the province increase funding for campus services and bring outsourced campus services back in-house. As mentioned previously, chronic underfunding has put immense pressure on all parts of our post-secondary system, but the cuts have been disproportionately applied to campus services and facilities.

Many institutions are contracting out work to low-wage, for-profit companies whose return on investment is enhanced by shorting our campus communities of the services they rely on. Precarious work and the negative effects of contracting out in the post-secondary sector is most strongly felt by those who work in food, custodial and facility services, as work is outsourced to large corporations and a whole host of firms providing trades and maintenance services.

While we commend this government for the repatriation of public sector work in health care, we encourage you to expand this to include post-secondary institutions. At UNBC, we are currently working to bring the custodial staff, who are employed by the large for-profit company Sodexo, into CUPE 3799.

If our government and post-secondary institutions are truly dedicated to ensuring equity, diversity and inclusion in our public entities, then we must stop relying on corporations, such as Sodexo, that primarily employ women, Indigenous and racialized people at poverty wages with poor work environments and sometimes non-existent benefits.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

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

H. Yao: I have so many questions I would like to ask about.

M. Starchuk (Chair): No, you have one.

H. Yao: Like I said, I only have one, but I do want to thank you so much for all the great work you are doing.

I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to go back to the previous question I asked the other presenter — talking about services provided to help international students prepare to be part of Canadian society if they choose to.

Can you maybe enlighten me a bit more? What kind of services are available — maybe, for example, housing; mental wellness, as you mentioned earlier; transitioning into PR or a work permit. Is there any other service provided by different colleges or universities in supporting that kind of transition?

J. Henley: Yeah, I can specifically speak to UNBC. We do have an international education department with an international recruiter and also a coordinator that helps, when the students arrive here, to sort of get them settled in Prince George.

I can speak to the mental health aspect of it. My position, like I said, supports primarily racialized students. Where we’re seeing some major concerns, I would say, is around international students. As the previous speaker talked about, the high tuition and sometimes lack of support within the institutions but also within community…. Where we’re seeing some issues is within that mental health area. They are often coming to a completely different system.

I think, across the board, at post-secondary institutions, mental health and student support services need to have increased funding in order to…. If we’re going to bring these international students here, who add a huge amount of richness to our communities, then we need to be able to support them appropriately.

[8:30 a.m.]

A. Walker: Thank you for the presentation. Your request for 75 percent of base funding through tuition. I’m wondering. What is the current rate now of provincial funding, and what would it mean to get 75 percent base funding?

J. Henley: I believe it’s below 50 percent at this point. What would it mean? I don’t know that I have the answer to that. I just know that it depends on competition. For instance, we are, as a small institution, competing with U of T and all of those big universities, particularly here in B.C. — obviously, UBC and SFU — for the same pool of students.

I used to be a student recruitment officer, and it was a challenge sometimes. We have a beautiful campus, we have lovely support staff, and people love UNBC. If we could get them to our campus, we almost 100 percent could turn them into students, but it’s getting them into these smaller places.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Joyce, I had one question, with regard to your position. We hear from other students on mental health and the supports that are out there, especially during times of COVID and now coming out of COVID. What can you tell us with regard to your staff levels, your workload? What would it need or take to meet the needs of the students?

J. Henley: Our staff. We have five counsellors at the wellness centre. We also often have practicum students from our master’s of education and master’s of social work departments as well. Right now it’s slow. Obviously, we’re in the summer, so the numbers have gone down.

This past year we saw our numbers go up exponentially, of students coming in. We deal with students who struggle with everything from simple social issues, learning how to live with other people and be with other people, all the way to severe and persistent mental health issues. We saw, definitely, a huge increase in anxiety and depression, lots of grief. It was almost like it stopped…. People weren’t able to sort of grieve properly over COVID. We saw lots of that.

I would say that to get us to the correct levels, we also need to be able to do proactive work. We’re just not able to be out there as much as we would like to, to be proactive with other departments. We collaborate quite well at UNBC. But even to be proactive with other departments and also doing programming that can help to alleviate some of those mental health challenges….

That’s where the issue is. We’re not able to cast a wide net to ensure that we’re able to get students before they get to that crisis point.

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

Next up is Dave King, Caledonia Ramblers Hiking Club, Prince George Backcountry Recreation Society. I’m so happy for once that there is not an acronym. I would never remember it, but I will remember this.

Dave, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

PRINCE GEORGE BACKCOUNTRY
RECREATION SOCIETY

D. King: As you said, I’m a member of the Caledonia Ramblers Hiking Club. Prince George Backcountry Recreation Society is made up of about 15 non-motorized clubs locally here. My focus of this presentation is on our local situation of central Interior, as opposed to more of a provincial perspective.

I’ve made presentations to the committee before — in fact, about five times over the last six or seven years — all for the same reason. My main recommendation, I’m really wanting to stress again, is the need for more resources and staffing for the recreation sites and trails branch, which looks after rec sites and trails on all our Crown lands, outside of parks, about 80 percent of the Crown land in B.C.

There are only somewhere around 60 staff in all of the province doing that. Locally we have two people looking after all recreation sites and trails in the Prince George and Mackenzie forest districts. It’s an impossible situation for them. There’s just so much to do.

[8:35 a.m.]

If it weren’t for us volunteers that are looking after most of the trails and a lot of the rec sites, too, they would be in real trouble. They commonly phone us up and say: “We’ve got serious issues here. Can you come and give us a hand?” That includes even putting up insect pods to defend against fir beetle or something else. We did that recently; we’ve done that in the past, too. It’s just a big issue. They are two very good people, but it’s impossible for them to carry out all the work that’s required.

I’m strongly recommending that a permanent person be placed in Mackenzie forest district at least, to look after the Mackenzie forest district and to keep that separated from the Prince George forest district. That’s the No. 1 recommendation.

The second recommendation I’m making is with regard to B.C. Parks. They have received a little additional staffing and a little additional resources in the last couple of years, but they’re still far understaffed in what they really need, to look after the B.C. parks that we have here. Again, if it weren’t for the volunteer agreements we have with them, and the backcountry recreation society also, to help them out in looking after trails, looking after some of the facilities, they would be in really tough shape. That’s just a reality of the way things are.

What we’ve really noticed, and it sort of applies to the recreation sites and trails to some degree too, is that there has got to be far more consultation with First Nations everywhere, for anything we really want to do, to make sure that it’s in agreement. That consultation takes time, and so on. If we’re applying to do something, it’s significant. B.C. Parks, I think, are finding the same thing. We’ve got to wait until that consultation takes place through First Nations.

Right now they do not have any staff person focused on that. So the existing staff have to try to deal with it, and they’re having real difficulties. I think there needs to be an Indigenous supervisor or section head of some sort, some person in that capacity, in each regional office to really deal with the consultation issues that they’re having to deal with now. It’s getting to be a fairly serious problem.

Those are really the two main recommendations. You have my report that covers several other lesser items, work we’ve been doing on the Alexander Mackenzie Heritage Trail and other heritage trails for both B.C. Parks and recreation sites and trails, and so on. They can’t do it. We’ve been doing it for them, looking after sections of the trails, keeping them open.

In fact, I’ve been out twice this week already, and a couple of our gang are down there working on the Alexander Mackenzie Trail again today, different sections of it. It stretches, basically, from the Fraser River to Bella Coola, and we’re looking after sections that start from the Fraser River. Those are normal, typical things we’ve been doing for quite a number of years.

Those are really my two recommendations. I could have easily added a third one, but I’ll just leave it at that: more resources, a person for recreation sites and trails in Mackenzie; and then certainly, more ranger staff, particularly somebody focused on First Nations things just generally in the region.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Dave, thank you for your presentation.

S. Chant: Thank you so much, and thank you so much for the work that you and your volunteer bunch do. My husband does trail work, and I know what it looks like when he comes home.

No offence, please: what is the average age of your volunteer group?

D. King: Average age? I would say the majority of those that are doing the work are retired people.

S. Chant: Have you got young coming up after you?

D. King: Well, they come up to help a bit, but they have jobs. Often those who are going out say, “What are you doing tomorrow? The weather looks good tomorrow. Maybe we should go out to this trail or that trail,” or different things. It’s not that there aren’t younger people helping; they do. But I would say that 75 or 80 percent of the work that’s being done is by people that are retired.

I’m in my 80s. I’m one of the older ones in our group. That’s the way it is.

[8:40 a.m.]

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Dave. Thanks for your group. Stewards of the land: I can’t say it any more clearly than that. Groups like yours….

We come into these areas to work for economic benefits, but we stay here because of the recreation that it provides. If we lose that recreation, we’re really in trouble of sustaining our communities, for sure. So thanks for all that stuff.

You talk about understaffed B.C. parks. Are you talking conservation officers or other types of support staff like that? Because of the process right now, do you feel it’s easier just for government to say no to access?

D. King: It’s not the conservation officer side of things. It’s the actual staff just to do the work.

I think B.C. Parks really needs a few more rangers. In certain parks…. It probably should have naturalists on duty through the summer months, at least, in some of the high-profile parks. Ancient Forest is one of them. Mount Robson locally here, and so on, those kinds of things. They just don’t have the staff to be there, to do the job, to look after the public, and so on.

What has happened through COVID is…. Public use of our trails really went up. Some are trailheads that used to have five or six cars on a weekend and now may have 15 or 20. That happens very regularly now through the summer months, with just a higher level of use.

You have higher levels of use. That means it needs more trail maintenance. Trails get beaten up a little bit more and things like that. They’re just there, just work.

If you want to get trails that have been used for years and still haven’t got any status on them…. That goes through the review process. This is where consultation with all kinds of people, including the First Nations, is required. It’s still happening.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I do remember you from a few years ago. Thank you for your continuing commitment to recreation opportunities here in B.C.

A question around climate change and the various disasters that have been hitting British Columbia. What have you seen on the ground? How is that impacting the work that the clubs are doing?

D. King: Well, it hasn’t really affected the club directly very much. We’ve been very lucky in this greater Prince George area. We haven’t had any serious forest fires in the last five years — they’ve been elsewhere — nothing within 100 kilometres of here of any consequence.

The tree line is certainly moving up, and that’s certainly having an impact on how some of the high country is being used. Areas that used to be open for skiing…. Trees are all growing in. You can’t ski on them anymore. It would be a nice downslope, and so on and this kind of thing.

B.C. Parks is wanting to replace one of the cabins locally here. Climate change is certainly going to have a little bearing on where the new cabin is going to go. It can’t go where the existing one is. It’s got to be moved a little bit, not up. It’s got to move sideways. The water flow, and so on, has changed, just the way the snow melts through the years. Things are changing.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Dave. Thanks for continuing to come out.

I do think this funding model…. I wonder if the fire safe program, where there is mitigation work…. I see you’re using chainsaws and keeping trails clean. Is there any way of getting that money to help support what you’re doing, whether you’ve tried that?

The second thing is: is there an option for the increased users to…? Not a fee so much but a donation box. I don’t know if that has ever been really tried. I guess the point about it is…. Without the increased funding, it’s going to continue off until there’s nobody left to continue this.

I realize that’s not really the best solution. But is that an option?

D. King: Actually, money for actual trail maintenance work, and so on, is not a big issue. We raise some money through sales of the trail guides, for every trail guide we sell.

[8:45 a.m.]

The cabins that are in the parks here, which are bookable, are handled by the Prince George Backcountry Recreation Society. Even though they are Parks cabins, the money is held by the Backcountry Recreation Society. By agreement with B.C. Parks, we decide how that money is going to be used. If it went to B.C. Parks, it would be lost in general revenue. It would have to go to Victoria. So the money from the four cabins, I guess it is, in B.C. parks, locally here, is held locally. The actual money….

You mentioned chainsaws, and so on. Recreation Sites and Trails actually bought us a couple of chainsaws. That’s not really the issue. We have them. We’ve got access to them.

As I say, just to do the work, the type of volunteer work we’re doing, the stuff…. The administrative side of things is really, really kind of weak.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We have time for one more question.

A. Walker: Thank you, Dave. I had the fortune of going through Ancient Forest Park last summer with my kids. The work that you guys have done there is absolutely incredible, especially trying to make the park more accessible.

The question I had is just about the first recommendation about staffing levels. What kind of scale are you looking for as far as increased staffing? What would that mean for your organization?

D. King: Well, in terms of ranger staff here…. I think they need probably a couple of permanent ranger staff.

They’ve had summer work crews, at times, some years. In a way, I almost think that if a summer work crew could be held throughout the whole…. Rather than just a summer crew, I think that if three or four could be held right through the whole year, it would be a darned good thing too.

The other permanent, not necessarily permanent…. Certainly, a naturalist type of person based at some of these parks would be a heck of a good thing. Ancient Forest pushed to have a First Nations person. Lheidli T’enneh are quite involved with that. They could contribute in a big way.

As you probably know, I was a key person in getting that park formed. Shirley Bond certainly helped in a huge way, too, in the end, even though she started out saying: “No way. We can’t have a park here. It’s on forest land.” But things evolved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): On that note, Dave, thank you very much for your time this morning, for your presentation and, more importantly, for the work that you do.

Next up it’s got to be the best name going in agriculture — Sage Gordon, the Quesnel Cattlemen’s Association.

Sage, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or answers.

QUESNEL CATTLEMEN’S ASSOCIATION

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

My recommendations are three for the 2024 budget: fuel, fertilizer and roads.

As in 2022, fuel prices…. Fuel is still high and needs to come down. The cost of fuel is cutting into our profits. With higher carbon taxes and generally higher fuel prices, it’s getting harder and harder for ranchers to make a living. The cost of fuel, having driven up the cost of trucking, has driven up the cost of supplies. This has, in turn, driven up our operating costs. We would like to recommend that the carbon tax be lowered on fuel.

Fertilizer. Right now, due to the high cost of fuel, the most common fertilizer is $1,600 a tonne. I believe it went up a little. We have heard that it is going up again. If the price of fuel could be lowered, the price of fertilizer would come down.

We have also heard that there are new regulations coming in concerning fuel. We would like to see incentives that would encourage or help ranchers utilize the manure they have cleaned from their pens to fertilize their fields.

Roads play a vital role in us receiving our supplies and also getting our products to market. With the conditions of many roads, we have seen delays in receiving supplies and delays in getting our products to market. Even if there are no delays, there are longer delivery times, both for supplies and products, due to rough roads and longer detours.

[8:50 a.m.]

With food security being of vital importance to the province, we would like to see more money put into the proper maintenance and upgrades of all roads.

That’s it. It’s a short one, but it comes back on most of what I’ve brought up in the past.

B. Banman: Thank you for your presentation. I actually want to zero in on something you didn’t touch on. The other thing you need is water. What I’d like to know is….

I’ve heard stories of trying to put in a dugout or trying to build a small retaining dam, like a beaver dam kind of thing. How bureaucratic is it now to actually try and secure a water source that maybe, traditionally, has been there for 100 years, even? Now you’ve got to provide….

What’s the cost of all the engineering and cost of everything else that you’re being asked to do?

S. Gordon: Well, we have to have a water licence, which ranges anywhere from $50 a year plus. The initial start-up ranged anywhere from $100 to $300 or $400, plus the $50 for a lump sum. But now that price has gone up because the deadline has passed for early sign-up.

As for maintenance for dugouts or getting permits, even, your dugouts…. Depending on whether they’re collecting runoff or if they’re directing water from a stream, certain dugouts are allowed. If they’re directing water from a stream into a dugout, now you have to get permits and permission, and it costs time and money.

That can range…. That’s all over the place for prices, depending on where it is and what stream you’re taking it from, what permits you need, depending on your fish — if it’s inhabited by fish or what have you. It can get pretty involved. It is a pain in the neck, and it slows things down.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I’m sorry. I was just looking at what a dugout is to try to educate myself as much as I can.

I do have a quick question, which was actually from a previous year’s presentation. It was talking about how cattle ranchers can contribute to help us fight a forest fire by having the cattle going through areas to help reduce the biofuel. Is there any kind of partnership around the area with the emergency management that has been updated since then?

S. Gordon: Yes, and we are working with that. It is in the process with the new community forest that’s being implemented in the Quesnel area. It’s becoming part of the role of that being involved. It helps. It does help.

You get the cattle in there. They’ll knock down underbrush and eat the grass. Then any dead grass underneath, if they don’t eat some of it, they stomp it into the ground. It just creates more fertilizer. It breaks it down and might grow for the next batch of grass. It turns into healthier grass. It’s less flammable, better. It helps open up your spaces.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We have four people on the list in 3½ minutes.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. I’ll be quick. How big is the cattlemen’s association? How many ranchers are we talking about? How do you measure how…?

S. Gordon: In the Quesnel area, we have — what is it? — about 25 or 28 ranchers that are members. We’re part of the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association, so that involves all of B.C. We lobby, lots of times, directly to them, and then they lobby the government on our behalf. But we take the opportunity, when we can, to present to….

R. Leonard: How many cattle are we talking about?

S. Gordon: In the Quesnel area, there are probably around 3,000 or 4,000 head or better.

[8:55 a.m.]

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. Talking about the manure, what kind of incentive would you like to see, and what do the ranchers do presently with their manure?

S. Gordon: Well, in some areas, like down in the Abbotsford-Chilliwack area, they liquefy it, and then they spread it on their fields. Here we’re limited because we’re not allowed to spread at certain times of year when we should be spreading. Like in the spring, lots of our fields, because they’re peat fields, are too soft to get on, so we have to spread in the fall. But lots of times, the ground freezes before we get out there to spread on it, and we’re not allowed to spread on it.

We need to be able to invest in an extra machine or something to turn our manure piles so that we can break it down and compost it better to spread on the fields. Some people can spread it out and harrow it. Maybe composters. There are composters out there that speed that process up by heating it.

They also want storage sheds. We’re not, technically, supposed to store our manure piles in one spot for over a certain period of time. We have to keep rotating it, which means extra machinery. So if we had incentives or whatever to build a shed…. We need the elements to get at it. It has to be an open-floor concrete pad or something that we can contain everything in.

Maybe an incentive, a break or something they can apply for to get a little funding to help with that. It’s expensive to try and truck concrete or stuff out to some of these areas, to rural ranches.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Tom and then Ben. You guys have got 15 seconds.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just to cost pressures, you mentioned a whole bunch of them here. You never mentioned anything about predation and reimbursement. I’m just getting a quick picture, snapshot.

When you auction your calves off in the fall, what price per pound are you getting right now, and what expense is it costing you that’s attributed to that price that you’re getting?

S. Gordon: Well, at today’s prices, we’re running at about roughly between $3 and $3.25 a pound. You’ve got to take out your commission of 20 percent for the auctions, 20 to 25 percent for the auction, and your trucking.

My cost, if I take a load of cattle down there for somebody, I charge…. From Quesnel to Williams Lake, it’s $525. That comes off of their cheque for trucking. Sometimes it’s more. If it’s a bigger liner, it’s $2,000 or better for a truck. The farther you go, the more costs.

Your feed comes out of there. You’re left with a very thin margin line. Right now, our margin to break even is almost $4 a pound — to break even right now.

B. Stewart: Just a little bit…. Thanks very much, Sage. I just wanted to ask you….

At the start, you talked about these costs and about making a profit. Are the cattlemen in your area making a profit based on current conditions? With the costs, are they below water?

S. Gordon: Because of the past years, they’re just barely breaking even, and some aren’t even breaking even. Operating costs for a big outfit run between $14,000 and $35,000 a month to run — just fuel and maintenance.

B. Stewart: Okay. You used the word profit, and I just thought….

S. Gordon: Our profit margins are not very big, if at all.

B. Stewart: No. I just wanted to bring things in perspective.

S. Gordon: Yeah, it’s low.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Sage, thank you for your presentation this morning. If there was ever going to be a contest for best ’stache, sir, you will win every year.

Next up George Moore, Gingolx Village Government.

George, you have five minutes to make your presentation, then followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

We do have other people coming up.

George, before we start, if you wouldn’t mind allowing your other presenters that are at the table just to introduce themselves for the record.

[9:00 a.m.]

C. Barton: Just for clarity, my name is Claude Barton, the elected Chief for the Gingolx Village Government.

George Moore is here as our CAO.

J. Moore: Good morning. My name is John Moore, one of the council members for Gingolx.

A. Lincoln: Good morning. Arlene Lincoln.

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

GINGOLX VILLAGE GOVERNMENT

C. Barton: Thank you. As mentioned, we’re one of the four Nisg̱a’a communities. We are on the coast, the end or the beginning, depending on which way you’re going. We’re surrounded by the Nass River. It’s right in front of our community, the mighty Nass River. Kincolith Creek is behind our village. We’re surrounded, in the valley, with granite all around us. So it’s an expanse. It has been a huge problem for us.

If it’s okay, I’ll do one of the presentations. My colleagues will also do the other one.

We’re located at the confluence of the Nass River — Lisims — and the Kincolith River meeting the Pacific Ocean. It’s a prime location, with the vision to become a destination of choice not just for tourism but for a full 2,028 citizens of Gingolx who wish to make the community their home.

Gingolx has 2,028 total memberships registered to us. Of the 2,028, the demographics consist of 84 residents that are over 60 years old, 144 that are 30 to 59 years of age, 60 that are 17 and under, while there are 58 between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. We will, in our official community plan, include the demographics of our entire population, as the largest of the four Nisg̱a’a communities.

Our geographic location and the restrictions imposed by the surrounding bodies of water dictate that our best option is to build up. In our plan to densify, we currently are considering up to three-storey apartments, townhouses and other multiplex units. We are considering creative options for our Elders that make sense, given our considerations, including emergency response, for example. We seek the assistance of our treaty partners in British Columbia to achieve this plan, just as we have in previous years to have our roads fully paved.

There are subdivision considerations on the table from the Indian Act days, such as Westridge, which would yield 350-plus residential spaces. This can be accomplished as we harvest the granite rock from a mountain in that location. That will yield a 70-year supply of this useful resource in B.C. and beyond.

Building an age-friendly community has also been discussed. It is our hope that we can, with the upcoming budget, collaborate with B.C. to make even the far-reaching places in this province beautiful.

In closing, we have begun the process of re-evaluating our infrastructure to allow for growth that in our past has never been accomplished. Thank you.

G. Moore: Good morning to you all. I am representing our emergency services, EOC building and rescue vessel with the Coast Guard.

Being located on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, which is being fed by the Nass River and the Kincolith River, sometimes makes our waterways impassable. Seasonal change and the annual harvest in our ang̱o’oskw, the places we harvest our food, get complicated and life-changing due to tragedies that are very often unexpected.

With climate change bringing higher winds and leading to higher waves, we need to have a plan to ensure our people’s safety on the land and on the waters. Earthquakes and sometimes resulting tsunamis require Gingolx citizens to vacate our homes and community on very short notice and to park vehicles under hydro power lines. We flee, on danger, to park under another difficult danger, power lines coming down on us as we seek safety.

[9:05 a.m.]

The planned EOC is being combined in a unique way that addresses the emergency evacuation process for a portion of our Elders population. The consideration is to supply an Elders residence to the emergency operations centre. This opens a residence for our Elders who are more challenged. When the EOC space is not being used for a full evacuation, the residence Elders can make use of open space for leisure, sports and other creative activities.

Gingolx Village Government has begun the process to purchase a Model 290 from Titan Boats. The Coast Guard has a set time of 30 minutes to respond to maritime marine emergencies, and the vessel in our area requires 120 minutes to be mobilized. This is unacceptable.

We currently use a volunteer fleet of five private vessels that are equipped with RCMSAR communication equipment. This fleet of volunteers is very adept and skilful at keeping in contact with the Coast Guard.

The new vessel will allow our volunteer unit, Station 75, the ability to act swiftly and efficiently, saving human lives. While we have trained bodies, these individuals are aging out. The council has approved a training program for training two captains and initiating an effort to secure a junior RCMSAR unit.

Mr. Chair and hon. members, we seek the cooperation of our B.C. treaty partners to achieve these goals and are available to meet with the relevant ministry to have ongoing discussions on our emergency plan.

Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. I think you’ve made very clear what we’ve seen over the last few years: that emergency managers and emergency planners no longer do it on the corner of a desk, where they think about it once every ten years. It’s a constant threat, and constant planning to be able to be there.

A. Lincoln: Good morning. Mine is on a small craft harbour. Gingolx is a destination of choice. Being the seafood capital of the Nass requires that we prepare for an influx of visitors.

Fishers, recreational boaters and levels have increased since Highway 113 opened. We do have a facility within our community that will allow for some growth for the boaters and fishers, without competing for space with the commercial salmon fleet and other industry vessels that will require moorage in our current marina.

Currently, local fishers and visiting sports fishers must compete for adequate moorage, which sometimes leads to frustrations by these users. Providing a small craft harbour will greatly reduce much of this annual frustration. Gingolx Village Government has approved the repair of our village docks, using steel pilings. They needed to be replaced and boats secured.

We seek any support available to have a small craft harbour in place, where this type of facility once existed. This facility would be to ensure that boat owners have adequate space for their smaller recreational vessels and that sports fishers visiting Gingolx would also benefit. The current harbour is not being used due to no floats, and the gangway would need replacing.

All these would give local users and visiting users a safe harbour, without fearing that the vessels are moved without their knowledge to make room for larger commercial vessels and, also, that their boats would not end up on the rocks. This happens occasionally when the tides and winds move our marina floats on receding tides.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, thank you for your presentation. I’m sorry for interrupting it there.

S. Chant: Thank you very much for your presentations, and thank you for the focus that you have on making your community safer, stronger and more equitable.

Can you tell me, for the three major components here, what your estimate would be as to how much you would need to achieve these goals?

[9:10 a.m.]

G. Moore: I appreciate the question. In response, as a CAO, our long term plan is we’re looking at approximately $5 million in total for the improvements to and the focuses of life, health and safety for residents and for all of our guests that return on an annual basis.

S. Chant: So that’s for everything that you’ve presented today, $5 million. Very good. Thank you so much.

B. Banman: I think…. For the record, could you please state your name? I don’t know that we got that.

G. Moore: Okay. Sorry, Mr. Chair. George Moore, chief administrative officer, Nisg̱a’a village of Gingolx.

B. Banman: Thank you, George.

My question actually is to do with emergency management. How has your experience been with talking with emergency management? More importantly, has emergency management actually considered or taken into heart any of the recommendations you may have made?

G. Moore: Thank you for the question. We are working with emergency management B.C. Right now with the rescue vessel, village government has set aside a $2 million budget towards the purchase of a rescue vessel. Right now we have a former unit 75 RCMSAR that is established in Gingolx, but it currently has no vessel and is unable to respond.

Nisg̱a’a Lisims Government had a vessel that was about an hour and a half inland from the ocean, and it would take them about three hours to mobilize. So our community said it’s best for us just to purchase a vessel, and that’s what we’re doing.

M. Starchuk (Chair): I have a question that kind of piggybacks on that. How big is your emergency response team, and are you in use of the services of FNESC?

J. Moore: I believe we have 12 trained and we have some ongoing training that’s happening, actually, yesterday and today. A good example of the response time is, most recently, we’ve had boaters lost in the Nass River. We’re thankful that there were some local boats that made it out to secure them. They were about an hour away from the community on the beach, and their boat was at least three hours away from the community. So it’s very serious. Growing up on a coastal community, the need is there.

FNESC does offer services. Before the highway opened, we’ve had a seaplane accident that claimed three of our members, and they were there the next day to help with us. There was nothing in the very immediate because of location.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The reason I asked that, I see that FNESC is doing an awful lot of training scenarios with the nations that are out there and just want to make sure that access to their training sessions that they have is known.

R. Leonard: I’m still trying to picture your community. It sounds very exciting, a new place to explore, but I understand that comes with some challenges for you.

My question is around how…. What would you say is the split? Now you say that the highway is opened, you’re getting more visitors, and that’s impacting the moorage. So what would be the split, like in terms of moorage, with visitors or local residents mooring and the split between recreational use and commercial use like fishing?

G. Moore: I appreciate the question. On the commercial side, whenever commercial fisheries are open in the Nass area, there are upwards of about 400 boats in our area during the summer months. On an annual basis, moorage spaces are filled in our current marina, and the majority of them are commercial vehicles that are stored over the year.

[9:15 a.m.]

Others are the rescue boat and a fishery boat that takes up space that’s not available any longer for our community use. Recreational fishers, on an annual basis — we’re estimating right now because we haven’t actually tabulated it — there are between 50 and 60 recreational fishers that come in on an annual basis. Those that will stay about a week: about 50 or 60. Those that are more transient: we haven’t received that number yet. But most of those smaller vessels are on the southwest side of our breakwater, and when the tides shift and the winds blow, some of those boats end up on the rocks, with the breakwater.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, George and your team, thank you very much for your presentation this morning. Thank you for what you do to protect the community as well.

J. Moore: Thank you. We really do appreciate the time that you’ve given us.

M. Starchuk (Chair): You’re welcome.

J. Moore: You’re all more than welcome to come visit our community.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Julie….

Interjections.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Julia, yeah.

J. Balabanowicz: That’s okay. I’m quite used to that. My mother calls me Julie, so I answer to both.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Oh, there you go.

J. Balabanowicz: My last name is Balabanowicz, if you need it for the record. It’s pretty phonetic. I think maybe my ancestors pronounced it differently.

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

INNERGEX RENEWABLE ENERGY

J. Balabanowicz: Okay.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee here today.

I do want to begin by acknowledging that we’re gathered here on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation, part of the Dakelh people’s territory. I’m very grateful to be here today.

My name is Julia Balabanowicz, and I’m the senior director of corporate relations at Innergex Renewable Energy. Innergex is a leading Canadian renewable energy company that develops, owns, operates and constructs wind, solar, run-of-river hydro facilities, as well as hundreds of kilometres of transmission line and storage. We’re also now looking into how to produce green hydrogen using renewable electricity here in Canada.

Over three decades, we’ve grown into a multinational corporation that has 87 operating facilities across Canada, the U.S., Chile and France that power over one million homes a year. In British Columbia, we’ve made a $2.5 billion capital investment in this province and operate 22 renewable energy facilities here. That equals about $60 million a year in operational and maintenance spends in the province alone and over 100 employees in quality jobs across the province. It also represents 25 partnerships with First Nations and over $50 million in revenues to those partners.

Innergex, as central to our business, is partnering with Indigenous communities, and we are committed as a business to implement the United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

B.C. has the potential to be a renewable energy powerhouse, and in many ways we already are. But we need more electricity. Businesses need more electricity in order to meet their net zero commitments, and B.C. has a vast and untapped affordable resource. We also have ambitious climate targets in this province, as you all know. To reach those targets, we are going to also need more clean electricity.

Speaking to the Globe and Mail earlier this year, Premier Eby said that he sees a huge investment opportunity for B.C. If we can find a way to fast-track clean power expansion and distribution, as he said: “We can’t wait five to seven to ten years for these kinds of projects. We need to be way faster, and we need to shift to a model where we are creating the generation capacity up-front and then recruiting and retaining businesses.”

[9:20 a.m.]

Innergex has three recommendations to enable this shift to deliver the renewable electricity that B.C. needs.

Firstly, we’re asking that you fund the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation to commission an independent energy pathways assessment. This would look at B.C.’s entire energy system, including electricity and natural gas, and map out potential scenarios towards a net-zero economy by 2050.

Currently supply-and-demand forecasts for different forms of energy in B.C. are siloed between gas and electric utilities and, in some ways, disconnected from government policy. As an example, this led to the development of contradictory forecasts and plans in B.C. Hydro’s most recent integrated resource plan. That plan used a forecast for electricity and demand that wasn’t aligned with B.C.’s climate targets.

The lack of clarity on B.C.’s energy needs creates uncertainty for potential investors like Innergex and risks that B.C. is being left without sufficient, clean electricity supply to meet our demands. This assessment that would explore credible scenarios for B.C.’s future needs, from the perspective of our complete energy system, would address this gap.

The second recommendation is to provide funding to develop streamlined permitting processes for renewable electricity projects. A new wind facility in B.C. would currently require over five years to get through permitting and construction. This adds costs and deters investors who can bring projects online in neighbouring regions more efficiently.

The potential environmental impacts of wind and solar generation are well known, limited and manageable. Establishing a process such as a class environmental assessment for renewable electricity projects in B.C. would set out standardized procedures and principles so that environmental effects are considered as required under the Environmental Assessment Act without needing to go through lengthy and repetitive individual assessments.

Thirdly, we recommend funding and exploration of new business models to accelerate the necessary buildout of the transmission system. Historically this infrastructure has taken many years to develop, and we must find creative solutions to avoid B.C. being caught behind, as recognized by the Premier in his remarks referenced earlier. This new transmission investment should also layer in questions of resilience and adaptation to climate change, which we see impacting our essential infrastructure more each year.

In conclusion, it’s critical that we act quickly, but there are some clear actions we can take in order to do so. And Innergex is at the table, keen to invest in this province to help make all of this happen.

Thank you very much, and I’m happy to take any questions.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much, Julia. I really appreciate your presentation.

I do have a quick question. We just had a presentation yesterday talking about geothermal, and this is now part of the conversation right now. May I ask maybe what is your opinion or what is your perspective when it comes to geothermal?

J. Balabanowicz: Yeah. I don’t have anything necessarily negative to say about geothermal, just that Innergex isn’t invested in that technology. I think the way to look at all renewable, or any energy technologies that we’re assessing into the future, is to balance market readiness, affordability, safety and how it aligns with our climate targets. A good geothermal project may be part of that solution.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Julia. I have so many things to say on this one. Thanks for all the stuff you guys do. You touched on the IRP on B.C. Hydro’s 20-year forecast. The forecast says we will have a surplus of power. I’ve questioned that numerous times when we’re trying to electrify the economy, whether it’s through hydrogen or just anything as far as improving the grid.

Even if the IRP is correct and, say, we have a surplus of power, how important is it for companies like yours, groups like yours, to ensure that we have independent power throughout the province to work in tandem with bigger projects such as Site C?

[9:25 a.m.]

How important is it to bring back the standing offer program? You’ve got 22 projects in the province right now. One of them, Rutherford Creek, I believe is coming up here in 2024. How critical is that to secure those power purchasing agreements and to include more projects such as yours going forward with a standing offer program?

J. Balabanowicz: Yeah, there are a few pieces there you touched on. I would say that projects like Innergex’s projects are distributed in nature. They’re smaller scale and all across the province. That brings a lot of benefits in terms of being able to have less impact everywhere where there is a project, to be able to bring more opportunity to rural and remote communities across British Columbia, as well as Indigenous communities in partnership and Indigenous-led renewable energy projects. When you just do one really large project, that’s not necessarily the case.

The distributed nature of renewable energy projects, like the ones Innergex builds, also builds resiliency into the system. When we’re thinking about climate change, that’s really important. If you just have a few really big generation stations in a few parts of the province and some of them go down, or the transmission line between that project and a major load goes down, it spells a lot more trouble than when it’s distributed.

Then when it comes to…. You mentioned the standing offer program. I think there are many ways that the province could enter into procuring more renewable electricity. The standing offer program has its benefits, but also, competitive procurements have benefits of making sure that we’re getting the lowest-cost electricity for ratepayers.

G. Chow: Thank you for your presentation. I gather your company mainly really just generates electrical power.

J. Balabanowicz: Correct.

G. Chow: Two questions. What’s your capacity now in terms of megawatt output? Are they all connected to the hydro grid? Do you have any wave power generation?

J. Balabanowicz: Okay. I’ll do the last one first. No, we don’t have any wave power. Across our portfolio, we’re almost 4,000 megawatts. In British Columbia, we’re around 600 megawatts.

Yes, all of our projects are grid-connected. The one project we have in Quebec, in Inuvik, that’s just about to be commissioned is the only one that’s kind of its own microgrid because it’s a remote community in the far north of Quebec.

G. Chow: So B.C. is 600 megawatts.

J. Balabanowicz: Yes.

G. Chow: Okay, thanks.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Ben, quickly.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much. I want to better understand why there is a disconnect between B.C. Hydro’s estimate of what we need and where you’re coming from in terms of the needs. You’ve suggested that there be a reassessment of that. I just want to be clear on that.

Can you just describe how you bring these two sides together, assuming that people trust B.C. Hydro, or at least we think they do? And we want to make certain that their estimates are accurate, and we’re not going to run short of power when we need it.

J. Balabanowicz: Right. B.C. Hydro necessarily has a limited mandate. It’s legislated, and it’s overseen by the BCUC, the B.C. Utilities Commission. B.C. Hydro, when it’s looking at its electricity demand, looks at limited factors and doesn’t necessarily take into the entirety of government policy and doesn’t take into account the fuel switching from the gas system that Fortis runs in the province, and Fortis and B.C. Hydro don’t have a mandate to work together on their forecasts.

This is about bringing all of those pieces together under the full umbrella of the government mandate, because no individual entity out there has that full mandate in order to get that complete picture.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

J. Balabanowicz: All right. Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up is Jeanette Beauvillier, CUPE north area district council.

Jeannette, you have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes for questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CUPE NORTH AREA DISTRICT COUNCIL

J. Beauvillier: Good morning. My name is Jeanette Beauvillier, and I’m presenting to you today as the president of the northern area district council. The NADC represents members from Williams Lake all the way to Fort St. John and to the west all the way to Haida Gwaii in Northern B.C.

[9:30 a.m.]

I work as an education assistant for the Quesnel school district, and I am the president of CUPE Local 4990, a local which represents 350 educational workers in Quesnel, Nazko and Wells.

I’d like to acknowledge that I’m speaking to you today from the unceded ancestral lands of the Lheidli T’enneh. Indigenous people have been the stewards of this land that we reside on today for thousands of years, and have strengthened my community, the North and the province as a whole.

Living and working in northern British Columbia makes clear that the rural areas in the North are often left out when we think about the distribution of resources across the province. Today’s recommendations speak to broad concerns which, if adopted, will improve the lives of people across British Columbia, including here in the North.

The NADC’s first recommendation is to increase funding to the Labour Relations Board and employment standards branch. Funding must be significantly increased to the Labour Relations Board and the employment standards branch to ensure there is a fair system in place for workers, with the proper supports that can be accessed in a timely way.

With the introduction of card-check certification, more workers than ever are looking for the protection of a union. More industrial relations officers will help to better support the unionization process in this province.

Increased funding to the employment standards branch will ensure that workers are protected and that employers are held accountable when they violate workers’ rights. The employment standards branch is still facing a backlog from the COVID pandemic, and delays hurt working people who often do not have the luxury of affording to wait through a lengthy process. From 2013 to 2017 alone, the ESB failed to collect $14.9 million in owed wages, hurting workers and their families who rely on this money.

Our next recommendation is to increase funding for mental health and addiction supports. Mental health and addiction services are not currently meeting the needs of people across the province, and this is compounded in rural and northern communities. We need greater mental health supports for front-line workers in the community health and emergency services to ensure that workers are supported when they’re in crisis, so that they can receive an early intervention, and to support a more stable and healthier workforce.

We recommend the creation of more stand-alone addiction treatment facilities that support equity-seeking people, as existing facilities do not meet people’s needs. These supports should take into account people’s intersecting identities and must provide culturally safe care for those in need, including Indigenous and racialized people.

We recommend $100 million in new funding for emergency supports for the overdose crisis, including services that can be accessed in rural and northern communities. When we only have services in urban centres, people must leave their support systems in order to get the help they need, which is detrimental to their recovery.

We also need dedicated and direct funding for E-Comm 911 to expand its scope to providing mental health supports for people in crisis. Callers have increasingly required the support of trained professionals while facing mental health crises, and we must meet this need.

Lastly, we recommend the funding and public delivery of before- and after-school projects in every school district. Without proper access to affordable child care spaces, parents are forced into long commutes and multiple drop-off and pickup locations. They may not feel comfortable with the child care centre, but they have no other options.

These struggles persist because B.C.’s model for child care is one in which nearly all child care, including those on school grounds, is provided by for-profit and not-for-profit providers. There is no public option operating alongside the private model. The system does not work for parents and children. It also does not work for those who work in child care centres, whose jobs are often precarious, with not enough hours, low wages, few benefits and no pensions.

British Columbia needs a public option for school-aged care, one that provides reliable, stable, accessible child care in every community. Where pilot projects have been funded, including in the Peace River North, communities have thrived. There have been fewer transitions, better care for kids, better jobs for workers and more access to reliable and affordable spaces parents need.

Importantly, a public option in school delivers these benefits while retaining parents’ choice of care. This model is among the highest-regarded system for early learning and care around the world, and it could be implemented across the province using existing spaces and, in many cases, using existent and underemployed staff already working in our school system.

I want to again thank you for allowing the NADC to present to you today. Our recommendations will help to ensure that all people in northern B.C., regardless of their identity or financial situation, have the support that we need to thrive. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

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

[9:35 a.m.]

S. Chant: Thanks very much, Jeannette, and thank you for your advocacy and the work you do.

You talked about direct funding to E-Comm 911. Did you have a particular amount that you could attach to that?

J. Beauvillier: I do not have an amount. I apologize; I do not.

S. Chant: No, no. Okay. Thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): On that note, Jeanette, is there another E-Comm location up in the Prince George area?

J. Beauvillier: Not that I am aware.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Oh, okay. All right. That was just a general ask, then.

J. Beauvillier: It was general, yes.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions as we frantically…?

R. Leonard: I may as well stick with a similar theme on the E-Comm.

J. Beauvillier: It might not be one I can answer for you.

R. Leonard: I guess I’m not quite certain what you’re…. I just wrote: “Increase funding.” I’m not quite sure I understand what the challenge is and how it may relate to the next generation that we’re dealing with.

J. Beauvillier: The challenge is that 911 operators are not trained in the mental health. What we’re seeing is the rise in mental health on those calls, and then they’re having to wait the times to find someone to help them through that crisis. So what we’re asking for is the funding to help.

R. Leonard: So it’s directly related to mental health.

J. Beauvillier: Yes, it is.

R. Leonard: Got it. So it’s that fourth line.

J. Beauvillier: Yes.

R. Leonard: Okay. Thank you.

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

Next up is Terry Robertson.

Terry, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

TERRY ROBERTSON

T. Robertson: Thank you. I’m going to talk as fast as I can. I, too, would like to thank you for letting me speak to you today.

I recognize that I sit and talk to you on the unceded territories of the Lheidli T’enneh today.

My name is Terry Robertson, and I’m here to talk to you today about people with special needs and their families. I’ve presented to this committee many times in the past.

My daughter Bree-Anna lives with cerebral palsy and is 37 years old. She doesn’t sit, stand, walk or talk and needs help with bathing, dressing and feeding. This means she cannot provide any of her own care. She has complex health needs that compromise her life as well. She uses a wheelchair for mobility and an eye-gaze computer to communicate.

Our family created a microboard in 2004 to support her transition to adult services. A microboard is a group of family and friends who create a non-profit society to support an individual with disabilities. Bree’s microboard receives funding from CLBC, which is Community Living B.C., and Northern Health. This allows us to provide supports directly to her. There are about 1,500 microboards in the province, as well as several hundred families receiving individualized funding to support their sons and daughters.

These funding options, while allowing us to control services, come with paperwork and a constant struggle to be appropriately funded so we can hire staff to provide her care. The funding system is not a level playing field. Staff working for community living agencies receive a significantly higher hourly wage of pay than someone doing the same work for a microboard or individualized funding.

Before the pandemic, I spoke to this committee about the low-wage redress, but nothing has changed within the sector. Even though microboards have been offered the same wage increase as unionized agencies in the past year, our base rate is already lower, and the wage gap increases every year. If we are able to hire staff, once we’ve trained them, they often move on to better-paying jobs with agencies. It is frustrating and exhausting, and their departures often leave it difficult to explain this to our daughter.

Our daughter deserves a good life. Her father and I work hard to provide that as Bree’s parents, along with other families doing similar care. Keeping our adult children at home is saving every government millions of dollars over the cost of placing them in a group home. We believe our loved ones are living a much higher quality of life because of this.

The fundamental problem is that CLBC is substantially underfunded. It has been that way since the day it was created. I know this because I was in the room through the entire experience. The government of the day considered individualized funding as a cost-saving measure.

[9:40 a.m.]

I know that CLBC does the best job they can to provide services to families. They simply don’t have enough money. In the 2023-24 budget, CLBC got very little additional funding. The number of youth coming into the system from MCFD far outstrips the funding increase given to CLBC from the Treasury Board. Even crisis circumstances have not been fully funded in some situations, which will lead to dire consequences.

When the pandemic hit, we were encouraged to go home, stay home and keep our bubble small. The doctors all agreed that keeping Bree’s bubble small was very important because of her health complications. We kept one full-time employee and laid off three staff. Now, three years later, we can’t hire anyone back. The sector that depends on support workers to care for our individuals has been gutted provincewide. Even the agencies are struggling to find staff.

Every day I see families that are exhausted and at the breaking point. Some are unable to continue to support their sons and daughters because both they and their children are aging. Where will these individuals go when mom and dad can’t do it anymore? The agencies aren’t equipped to take on hundreds of new individuals.

Every government says that people with disabilities are important and deserve a good life. But the response to our sons’ and daughters’ needs always falls short. As I stand here today, because I expected to be standing like in the past, I know that I’ll have to come back next year and plead once again for you to listen to the struggles of families.

I’m not here just about my own family; I’m here about families everywhere. I hear from them every day, and I hear how exhausted they are. I’m more worried about the ones that I don’t hear from, that don’t have the energy to pick up the phone and call me.

My daughter gives back to her community in many ways. She is not just a drain on the system. One day I’d like to sit here and talk to you about my daughter and all the wonderful things about her. But I don’t feel that I have the time to do that when there are so many things that are falling through the cracks and people are struggling so desperately.

I have two recommendations. The first is to, obviously, fund CLBC to the level where they can truly begin to address the crisis in families and their requests for a service list. Secondly, to actively promote community living as a career opportunity.

I apologize. I try not to get so emotional.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Terry, there’s no need to apologize. Thank you so much this morning for your presentation.

S. Chant: Hi, Terry. I’m a nurse in community. I hear you, and I get it. I understand so much about what you say.

What is the current wage that the non-profits can offer care providers, given the funding that CLBC offers, approximately?

T. Robertson: We are lucky if we could get $24.55. The agencies are around $26 or $27 starting wage. With that $24.55, I would be paying my top employee, who does a lot of personal care and physiotherapy, and all those kinds of things. That is right now the top wage for non-profits.

B. Banman: Thank you very much. Again, emotion is actually what brings it to light for us. What you rightfully say is that this is about people. Your daughter is not just a number.

T. Robertson: She’s not.

B. Banman: Not at all.

What do you think the wage should be? What do you have to compete with? What does government need to fund you so that your daughter can get the care that she’s worthy of?

T. Robertson: Presently those agencies are at about $26 or $27. Now, the percentage that we’re shocked with, that we were actually offered this year…. We got no wage increase last year or percentage increase last year.

[9:45 a.m.]

Then this year we were offered the same as the unionized workers, which kind of stunned us, which is 6.98 percent. But because the gap is still too far apart, we can’t begin to gain on those agencies. Don’t get me wrong. The agencies need to be in place. I understand this, and I’m very passionate about Community Living B.C., which some families are not particularly fond of. Having been at that table for three years, it does impact me about how they work. They can’t run a deficit — all of those things.

It doesn’t mean that families aren’t going to continue to struggle. I want to say that if we could be level with the unionized sector, it would be great. Many of us are training individuals at a lower wage, and then they’re moving on.

My daughter is always looking at us like: “What did I do wrong?” There’s nothing she did wrong. It’s just the system. Everybody wants to make more money. That’s just the way of the world. And unfortunately, we’re sort of in a situation that we can’t compete with that.

You know, our daughter is going to stay home with us for the rest of our lives, for as long as possible. But when we can’t hire people back, it’s really difficult, and I think that is a challenge across the board.

I work in a small organization. There are 4½ people that support Vela, to create microboards for families around the province. It’s a very small staff group. What I said was…. You know, I get calls every day. We all get calls every day from families that are just breaking.

R. Leonard: I have so many questions. I want to say thank you very much for talking about that human element. Actually, we had a presenter earlier, last week, from my community. One of his first CLBC workers was a student colleague in elementary school, from my child’s school. It is a career path, and I really appreciate you saying that we should be promoting CLBC as a fulfilling career path. Thank you so much for that.

I wanted to ask you about the last thing that you just said — that your daughter will be with you as long as you can. What happens after you’re gone? What is that pathway?

T. Robertson: We have a microboard, and we’ve created a multigenerational microboard. There are family members at my age, which is not young, and then there’s a middle group that are sort of in their mid-50s. Then I have the kids, to me — our nieces and nephews — who are also part of our board. I’m adding my nephew — who’s going to be 16 in a year and a half — in a year and a half.

We’re planning, long term, for family to be connected and take on the role of hiring and all those things. So we have a plan, but I don’t think that’s necessarily so for everybody.

R. Leonard: You’re creating community as you do that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Terry, thank you for your presentation. There’s no doubt that you’re not the only one that was shedding tears this morning.

T. Robertson: Oh, I’m sorry for that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): No, don’t apologize. Don’t apologize for that.

Our next speaker is Vicky Thomas.

You have five minutes to make your presentation.

VICTORIA THOMAS

V. Thomas: My name is Vicky Thomas.

I’m from the Wuikinuxv Nation, and I’ve been residing in the Lheidli territory since 1992.

I can’t imagine how difficult your decisions must be, and I really thank you for taking the time to go across the province and talk to little folks like myself.

My recommendations are broad and are being made through my own personal experience and the experiences I have working with high-risk youth for the last 29 years. My first recommendation is around education. Our children are our future. The best preventative programming is to invest in our young ones, and I don’t agree with our funding allocations for our school system.

[9:50 a.m.]

When I was a youth care worker, we always had what was called kid count. So your teachers, your youth care workers, your Indigenous education workers, your education assistants were always dependent on the amount of children that you have in your school. I’m sure our school district staff could tell you what would be a more appropriate level of staffing that could better adequately work with our children.

My brother and his family wanted to move back to B.C. years ago, but they couldn’t because the autism services for my severely autistic nephew were better in Alberta at the time than they were here. They wanted to be closer to family, but they can’t, so they’re stuck being a province away from us.

Within the Indigenous education department, it would be great to see the funding so that Indigenous education workers could invite all children to take part in all their planning and that when you look at things through an Indigenous lens, all of humanity is a part of there. I understand the importance of connecting with our Indigenous youth, but our Indigenous education workers shouldn’t be turning away non-Indigenous kids because they’re not Indigenous. The best way we can combat racism and discrimination is to make sure everybody is included.

My second recommendation is around low-income families. In my career, I’ve seen times when families have been ripped apart and children have been placed in care due to reasons surrounding poverty. It’s heartbreaking. My husband and I adopted three children. Before we adopted, we had to become foster parents; my husband and I both work.

I was blown away that, for three children, the government gave us $4,000 a month to adequately provide for the basic necessities of these precious children. But their parents, who were low-income and required social assistance, weren’t afforded the same opportunity — from which I, in my job as a foster parent, could give two weeks’ notice to stop looking after these children. They get way less money, and the children get ripped away from homes. It would be great to see some level of the playing field around that, and for children who are in care.

They have a cousin who is a permanent ward of the court. She went to graduate — we all know that the graduation rates of children in care is drastically reduced from that of kids who aren’t in care — and she was only allocated $150 for her graduation outfit — $150. I took her dress shopping, because her social worker was a man and didn’t know anything around that kind of stuff. She found the perfect dress, and she was crying. I thought she was crying happy tears, but the dress was $400, and she said: “I don’t have it in the budget.”

I said: “Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay for half.” I just went to the social worker and I said: “Can you please put in writing that you can’t pay for this dress? I’ll go to the MLA and see what we can do.” Then he phoned back an hour later and said: “I have a cheque cut for the rest of the dress.” But our children shouldn’t need an advocate to their own guardian, just to have something simple and something that we should be celebrating for our kids in care.

My third recommendation is around mental health and addictions, that crystal meth and opioid addiction has changed the way we need to provide services to our citizens who use substances. We need more low-barrier supportive housing, better training for staff on how to work with co-occurring disorders — for example, how to deescalate difficult clients — and better training and wages for staff working in shelters and non-profit agencies.

It’s hard to keep staff with a low wage and an incredibly high-stress job. If I were facing this type of substance use 29 years ago, I would not have lasted in the field.

Ǧiànakaci.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. You said that they shouldn’t need an advocate to do that for the dress, but I wanted to say that I’m glad that you did do it, and I’m glad that you chose the route to go to be able to get that. It’s unfortunate that’s what it took to get there, but at the end of the day, you made somebody, obviously very happy for their graduation.

[9:55 a.m.]

B. Banman: I, too, want to thank you, Vicky, for coming and speaking from the heart and speaking with what I consider to be great common sense. You’ve been able to make it digestible for us, to understand that the system is far from perfect.

If you were to try and change how the system operates…. Take the graduation dress, for instance. What advice would you give us so that we could go back to Finance and say that this is what’s wrong with the system? “We’re not exactly 100 percent sure how to fix it ourselves, necessarily, but this is what we need to look at to improve the mental health and the physical and emotional well-being of those that we’ve been charged to look after.”

V. Thomas: I’ve thought about that. How do you do that when someone is ten steps removed from something? I can’t pretend to have all the answers either.

Your per diems for your hotel and your meals for the day probably exceed $200 a day while you travel around. I’m employed by UBC and B.C. Children’s Hospital. I can have a hotel room of up to $150 a day — well, $250 — and then my meals are around $80. One day, to cover my living expenses to travel out of town, is more than what’s allocated to our children in care.

How much would you spend on your own children’s graduation? Even for our kids, our boys, I was like…. I don’t think renting a tuxedo is wise. Yeah. It’s only $150. Maybe that’s where the $150 comes from; I don’t know. I feel like it’s more important for us to buy you a suit, so that you can have that suit to use later on in life. That was $500.

Our children are our future. The government is charged with looking after them. Would you do that to your own children?

R. Leonard: Thank you for coming and presenting today. Thank you for your 29 years of serving youth. You talk about people not staying. So I want to say thank you for staying.

You live in a small community, yes?

V. Thomas: No, Prince George.

R. Leonard: You live in Prince George now.

Do you see a difference between urban kids, and the supports that they get, compared to in smaller communities?

V. Thomas: I hear about it all the time from our kids who end up moving into town. There are even less services in a remote setting. Part of the problem of coming into a bigger setting is that you’re getting swallowed and lost as well. There are huge disadvantages to either. It depends on who you have in your corner fighting for you.

R. Leonard: I really appreciate your comments around integrating Indigenous learning with all students. I think that’s really noteworthy. It’s also important for raising confidence and pride in culture.

I know in my community, one of the school teachers, the Indigenous-learner teacher, has worked with kids to create books. Then they get to share the language with the rest of the school, with the rest of the community.

V. Thomas: Nice.

R. Leonard: Yeah. I really appreciate that, and I want to see that ripple go out further.

V. Thomas: It’s important, yes, for me.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Vicky, I’m going to say something that I have not said to anybody and probably, likely, will not say to anyone else. Thank you for standing in front of this committee today. Thank you for your time.

Our next presenter is Dawn Leroy, Wells-Barkerville parent advisory council.

Dawn, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

WELLS-BARKERVILLE
PARENT ADVISORY COUNCIL

D. Leroy: Good morning, respected members of the committee. My name is Dawn Leroy, and I’m here representing the parent advisory committee. I’m a resident of Wells, B.C. and a mother of two children, grades 6 and 8. I’m also a member of the select committee for the district of Wells community lands and facilities.

[10:00 a.m.]

In the 2023-24 operating grants manual, the Ministry of Education has committed an additional $242,000 to school district 28 for the Wells-Barkerville school through the elementary small community funding, small remote schools. We’re grateful for this commitment to rural education. However, the lack of policy guiding how this funding is allocated means that the aid provided is absorbed into the general operating budget for school district 28. This lack of directed policy has left our school and community under-resourced and disadvantaged.

Our community faces a unique challenge in the form of our school structure. Currently, we have one classroom and one teacher for children spanning from kindergarten to grade 7. This structure is clearly unsustainable and is adversely affecting the quality of education and the mental well-being of our students. It places an enormous burden on a single teacher and complicates the recruitment and retention of quality educators.

Our current school structure has had a profound implication on my family this year. Once our children reach grade 8, they must bus over an hour and a half to Quesnel. Because of this — my son was entering grade 8 this year — we made the difficult decision to temporarily move to Quesnel. My husband stayed back in Wells for work, and it created a painful separation within our family that weighed heavily on us all. This also caused the Wells school to lose yet another student.

Though my children have shown resilience in navigating this transition, their hearts ache to return home. The impact of their absence extends beyond just our family. It resonates through the community, further highlighting the effects of our current school structure.

Next year, my 11-year-old daughter will return to the Wells school. Despite her eagerness to return, I’m filled with apprehension. I’ve received feedback from our parents expressing concerns about the current school’s environment, which is primarily designated for younger children. This imbalance poses a challenge for our educational growth and social development of intermediate students, causing families to home-school, or, even worse, leave Wells altogether.

My first request today is for the committee to consider instituting a policy that ensures that funds allocated for rural schools are spent in a way that truly benefits the children of the communities that they serve. Specifically, we implore you to support our advocacy to school district 28 in splitting our K-to-7 classroom into two classes with two teachers to better serve the needs of the primary and intermediate students. Not only would this address our immediate needs, but it would also put our community in a more sustainable position to attract and support workers and their families.

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

Moving on to our second request. Our aging school building is owned by our municipality and currently rented to school district 28 for a mere $7,500 per year. The revenue doesn’t even cover the heating costs, let alone other operating expenses and necessary maintenance. Assessment of the building is estimated at a minimum of $1.1 million worth of health and safety upgrades and deferred maintenance. Despite our best efforts, grant funding has remained elusive.

In 2016, the rural education enhancement fund was established to prevent the closure of rural schools — a lifeline for communities like ours. Yet our unique circumstance, with the school being neither owned nor operated by the school district, made us ineligible for this vital funding. Our select committee undertook the task of crafting a comprehensive business plan, and this plan was not merely a funding proposal. It was a blueprint for transforming our school building into a multifaceted community centre that truly captures the spirit of the building.

Despite our efforts and strategic positioning, our funding applications, most recently to the REDIP fund, have been rejected. This invaluable community asset is under threat due to the looming cost of significant deferred maintenance. So my second call to action today is an urgent appeal for financial assistance to maintain and preserve our community building. We’ve done our part, rolling up our sleeves, formulating plans and envisioning a vibrant future for our school. Now we’re asking for your support to turn this vision into a reality.

We urge the committee to acknowledge the value and necessity of our community-owned-and-operated school and provide funding for the necessary maintenance upgrades.

[10:05 a.m.]

Our school is more than just a building. It’s the heart of the community, and we are resilient and passionate about the education of our children. We are only asking for what our children rightfully deserve — a quality education in a safe, nurturing environment. With your help, we can make this a reality.

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

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Dawn. Just help me understand the numbers of students we’re talking about that are in the Wells school. I want to understand this extra funding that you say has been absorbed into the school district, to understand how they’ve arrived at that. Most school districts are funded on a per-pupil basis. I’m just trying to understand that.

It’s interesting. I’ve been fighting for a school in my riding, where the students go over an hour to the schools just to get into Kelowna. So it’s a problem across the province.

D. Leroy: Yes. There are two parts to your question. The first answer is that last year, when my daughter was there, there were 19 children in the school. I believe there are now 16. The issue that is happening within our community is that once children reach the middle-school age, we continue to lose families, and we lose those numbers with the school. For example, my son went into grade 8, and my daughter came with us, so the numbers decreased. The school district is pretty adamant that we will not even be considered for a second teacher until we reach that magic number of, I believe, 22 children.

The second answer to your question is yes, we do qualify for the per diem. We receive funding for the basic allocation, which is per student. There’s funding for the Indigenous students. There’s funding for the children that meet the level 2 special needs. So there’s a significant portion of the budget that covers the basic necessities.

In addition to that, the operating grants manual allocates a fund for rural schools that meet the criteria of being a certain distance away from the school board. So for our school, there are different levels. Our school has $242,452. The school district does not have to allocate those funds directly to our school. Because our school is not owned by the school district, they don’t have any capital expenditures associated, so they’re paying $750 a month rent to our municipality. I believe that they are profiting off of the money allocated as a result of our school.

Every year I go to the budget meeting and request more funds and more resources, and we have yet to be successful. They explain to me every year that that money is just in the general operating budget and gets dispersed throughout the school district.

G. Chow: You mentioned another figure, which was $7,500 per year. That is the lease cost of the school from the municipality?

D. Leroy: School district 28 has a rental agreement with the municipality of Wells, which is $7,500 per-year rent.

G. Chow: Okay. So what is that figure, about $750 per month, that you just mentioned?

D. Leroy: Ten months, the school year.

G. Chow: Okay. All right, not 12 months. Good math.

D. Leroy: I broke it down. The reason why I said $750, which I wanted to put, is because when you think about renting a home…. You know, I’m a landlord, and $750 a month would get you a bachelor suite with nothing included. They’re paying $750 a month, and they’re getting two classrooms, a library, a kitchen, a gym, two offices, plus this massive heating bill that goes to the municipality. So it just doesn’t seem right.

R. Leonard: Well, thank you very much for coming to present to us today. You’ve taken me back many, many decades to some of my elementary days, when I actually went to one-room schools, mostly in Ontario, and also in Manitoba, and I’m here today. So just hang on to the fact that your kids are brilliant and they’ll make their way in the world. But I really appreciate your pinpointing some of the key challenges of today and what we can do to make that pathway for their success to happen.

[10:10 a.m.]

I went to Wells a few years ago, thanks to this committee and hearing about different places in the world. I wanted to ask you about the plan that you had around making it more of a community school with recreation facilities, if you could just elaborate a little bit more on that model.

D. Leroy: Yeah. It’s quite a large building, so in order for us to generate more revenue to offset some of the maintenance costs, we formulated a plan that allowed other user groups to use other parts of the building to generate some revenue. We have the art community. We also have a daycare in the school. We have the opportunity to rent to people coming from outside of the community that need a rental venue space.

We formulated this plan to help us with advocating for funding and being eligible for different funding streams. We aren’t eligible as a school under any circumstances.

R. Leonard: Did you get some explanation of why that model wasn’t going to work?

D. Leroy: The most recent, I believe…. Under the REDIP funding, they said that there wasn’t enough economic impact of the building on the community.

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

There’s a little bit of a change in the agenda in the sense that Richard Wittner from Cariboo Mining Association is also listed as our last speaker at 10:45, for the Quesnel chamber of commerce.

Richard, we will let you wear your mining hat for the first five minutes, and then we will have questions and answers. Then you can switch gears, so to speak.

You have the floor.

CARIBOO MINING ASSOCIATION

R. Wittner: Thank you.

Hello, my name is Richard Wittner, and I’m president of the Cariboo Mining Association, also known as the CMA.

Welcome to Prince George.

In 2021, government took in over $4,274,000 in various fees. This does not consider the money paid out in carbon tax, GST, PST, water permits, water usage, stumpage fees, royalties and income tax. In May 2021, government released a discussion paper, and in this document, it concludes: “It costs the Ministry about $2 million per year to regulate the placer industry.” This means we’re paying double what it cost to regulate our industry. It now takes a minimum of 180 days and up to 550 days to get our notice-of-work permits approved.

We’re asking you as the budget committee to recommend that the tax revenues generated by our industry be put back into the mines budget rather than into general revenue. This will not only pay to regulate our industry, but it will also give the ministry revenue to fix the application timing issues.

We as industry in the Cariboo region spend over $122 million annually in our short five-month season. This does not include the spending in Atlin, Okanagan, Tulameen and the Kootenays. This is an economic impact that our province needs.

The CMA’s main mandate is education: educating miners, regional and high-level government, local First Nations and public. We do this through hosting public training sessions, social media, meetings with regional government, meetings with First Nations. We often meet with First Nations, addressing concerns and looking for solutions. Our local First Nations are on board with our industry. We take regional government, First Nations Elders and government policy writers out on operational tours. We host annual training sessions, open to the public, working with many levels of government, with topics such as new regulations, progressive reclamation, arc chance finds and safety regulations.

The Yukon government funds the Klondike Placer Miners’ Association $120,000 a year for annual staffing. They also funded them over $80,000 to develop a land use plan, working with local government and First Nations, as well as other funding for training. The Yukon government openly supports the KPMA and the benefits it creates.

[10:15 a.m.]

We at the Cariboo Mining Association urgently need funding. We need to expand our services to other areas in the province to be able to work with other local placer associations, develop training and work with other First Nations outside the Cariboo region. Regional government has seen a rise in compliance as well as accuracy on applications with the work the CMA does, thus making the turnaround times on applications faster and saving the government resources.

The CMA is developing a fee schedule that will pay local First Nations an annual income based on production. This is the first time in history our First Nations will share in the revenue generated from placer and jade mining.

This will relieve tensions between First Nations and miners through education on what really happens in the field. It will promote better compliance with miners, teaching them a better way to operate, such as progressive reclamation. This will also make the ministry staff work much easier, with better compliance in the field and enabling them to focus on applications and relieve tensions government has between miners and First Nations.

Funding will allow the CMA to travel and engage with First Nations in other regions, develop positive relationships with local miners and First Nations, lowering tensions between them. This will allow mining operations in central B.C. to return to work in the jade and placer industry. This will create more jobs; stimulate rural communities; develop positive relationships with regional government, First Nations and miners; educate miners for better compliance; save government resources.

We request that, out of the fees collected from our industry, government fund the CMA $180,000 annually to enable us to hire full-time, part-time staff, materials needed and travel expenses.

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

Unsurprisingly, Tom, you’re first up.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Oh, thanks, Chair.

Thanks, Richard, for everything that you guys do there.

Obviously, permitting is a problem. We listened to AME not too long ago. I went back on my notes. They’re noticing some success in permitting and getting some permits out the door. Although, your group represents something a little different. AME is more on the exploration side. You’re on the placer, hard rock side. You mentioned jade, which, obviously, there’s a moratorium right now. We need to get through that as well.

What is the biggest roadblock you can see? Now you’ve touched on some of it with the First Nation consultation and partnerships and working together to build capacity, understanding, reclamation, all that kind of stuff. What is the biggest barrier right now for you just in the permitting process?

R. Wittner: As far as I know, when it was handed back to mines from FrontCounter, they had such a backlog, and now they’re training new staff. They’ve hired new staff, but it takes time. In the last year, the Kamloops office did 58 permits. They were at 208. They were at 150 last fall, and then this spring they were back at 150. So there are anywhere between 80 to 100 placer permits that go into the Kamloops office annually. At this point, I don’t know if they’ll ever catch up.

G. Chow: Thank you for the presentation, Richard.

Before the moratorium on jade mining…. How big is the industry, and how much did it contribute to government revenue?

R. Wittner: Yeah. I’m not sure about the jade industry. I’m not familiar with that. That’s why I was hoping, if I could get some funding, I could get up there, work with First Nations and work with the miners up there.

We’re working with government right now on putting together a fee schedule not on proposed work but on a production level. It would actually be paid out to the local First Nations annually from each mine, depending upon their production.

G. Chow: Okay. Great.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): We’re seeing some challenges right now, court challenges, on staking claim and cells. Of course, we’re going to undoubtedly be looking at revising or amending the Mineral Tenure Act, for sure.

What do we need to get right as far as revising the Mineral Tenure Act to include placer and hard rock mining to be a little bit more predictable on staking claim? We don’t know what the result of this court challenge is going to be, but it could be a big game-changer. What do we need to see in the Mineral Tenure Act that will protect hard rock and placer mining?

[10:20 a.m.]

R. Wittner: Before they brought in UNDRIPA, I actually went and lobbied to all the resource ministries, and they guaranteed me with UNDRIPA that it would not give them the rights over minerals, that First Nations would be the same as every landowner. You have surface rights. I think those rights need to be protected. I understand their concern about allowing who can stake where, and I don’t see necessarily an issue with that personally.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thanks.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, Richard. Thank you very much for your presentation on behalf of the Cariboo Mining Association.

R. Wittner: Okay.

M. Starchuk (Chair): So we will get ready to switch gears and, for the record, welcome Richard Wittner from the Quesnel chamber of commerce.

The floor is yours.

QUESNEL AND DISTRICT
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

R. Wittner: Okay. Thank you. I’m not only the director for the Quesnel chamber of commerce. I’m also on the forestry advisory committee and the airport advisory committee, and I serve on four other committees with the chamber of commerce. The mayor, who’s sitting behind me, wanted you to know that both he and council support my presentation today.

All the traffic heading north and south currently travels through the downtown quarter of Quesnel. The northern thoroughfare is vital to the transportation of goods and services to the entire North. Quesnel has two pulp mills, many sawmills, a plywood plant, MDF plant and value-added mills. All commercial chip trucks, logging trucks, lumber trucks drive through the centre of our congested city. Every major industry and community in the North draws materials, equipment, etc., from the Lower Mainland that travel through our downtown core.

On a study that was completed there were, at peak, over 700 vehicles travelling through our downtown core in an hour. On a study completed at the Quesnel weigh scales, there were 86 dangerous goods trucks passing through in one eight-hour shift. This would amount to over 235 dangerous goods trucks passing through our downtown core. The highest number of accidents in our area is in our downtown core.

A community engagement summary report was released, and there were several issues addressed, but more importantly to the discussion was the idea of the interconnector to help relieve issues of traffic congestion in our downtown core. Following this report, we entered phase 2: future conditions. This phase generated assessed short-, medium- and long-term improvement concepts.

Open houses were held to introduce the Quesnel transportation plan and collect feedback. During this public open house, many options were put forward at different levels on directions the interconnector could take. The AR-1 north-south interconnector was overwhelmingly wanted during the public inquiries using online polls, emails and even handwritten submissions.

B.C.’s tourism is a key sector in the recovery of the province, especially to communities like ours with mill closures. Quesnel is a community that has an opportunity to thrive in tourism. The Quesnel River Bridge is an important component to allow tourists to come in and out of Quesnel safely.

Overview. Provides an alternative to the existing route through downtown Quesnel. Replaces the Quesnel River Bridge and the B.C. Rail overhead on a new alignment. Could be two or four lanes wide and includes two new signalized intersections at each end of the route.

Background. Traffic demand and safety on Front Street is a top community concern. Results in a significant reduction in traffic and truck demand on Front Street. The existing bridges are nearing the end of lifespan. The bridges are narrow and are a constraint on oversized heavy trucks. They actually have to shut the bridge down to bring in an oversized load. Long-term solution is to fully replace both bridges.

Benefits. Reduces heavy trucks and dangerous goods movements from Front Street to Carson Avenue. Improves mobility and reduces traffic congestion in downtown Quesnel. Front Street and Carson Avenue have the potential to be revitalized to support the city’s community objectives.

Other considerations. The current route drives directly by multiple senior and elder housing complexes and the Quesnel hospital. The pollution and noise from having heavy truck and other traffic right by these buildings. We have overwhelming support from all of our community.

[10:25 a.m.]

Conclusion. Supported by local industry. Supported by local First Nations. Supported by all local businesses. Supported by all local municipal governments. Supported by local residents and public. All studies and preliminary planning stages have been completed. Public engagement has been completed.

The current highway runs directly past seniors homes and hospitals, creating health risks. Existing bridges do not meet current MOTI standards, existing bridges require major maintenance, and the functional design has been completed. So please put it into the 2024 budget to complete the detailed design.

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

S. Chant: How much money do you need?

R. Wittner: In 2018, they figured it would be about $375 million. We don’t have any current numbers on what it would cost.

B. Banman: For the economic impact for British Columbia, in and around the area, how vital of a link is this to be able to get, as you say, some of those wide goods through that area to other areas of British Columbia? Put it in terms for us.

R. Wittner: Well, basically, for any mine that operates in the North — I think they’re spending something like $470 million in the North — every piece of equipment has to pass through Quesnel. It’s quite a narrow bridge that was built in 1961, so they have to shut down one lane for it to go through. If anything happened to that bridge, you wouldn’t even be able to travel through Quesnel anymore.

We have another bridge called the Johnston Bridge, and it can’t take weight over, I think, 10,000 pounds. So you’ll see that, similar to what happened during the wildfires, everything will have to be routed way around Quesnel.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Richard, I don’t necessarily have a question, but I’m curious. Generally when you start rerouting things, local business is saying, “My traffic is gone,” but your presentation indicates clearly that rerouting this is for health and safety and for speed reasons that are there. How did that circle get squared?

R. Wittner: I’m not sure of your question.

M. Starchuk (Chair): With regard to local business, you’re saying you want this traffic to be in another….

R. Wittner: It’s mainly for a truck route. It’s just that we have so many trucks travelling through our downtown core. Any tourists that are going to stop in Quesnel will still stop in Quesnel, so it won’t affect our businesses that way.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Any other comments or questions?

Not seeing any, well, thank you for your two hats today. While the presentation was going on, there were no scowls. There was no fist-shaking from the mayor that was behind you. There was not even one of those that took place. I’m pretty sure he’s pleased with the presentation that was presented to us today. Thank you very much.

R. Wittner: Thank you for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Cori Ramsay, from the city of Prince George.

Cori, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CITY OF PRINCE GEORGE

C. Ramsay: Thank you so much.

For those that don’t know, my name is Cori Ramsay. I’m a councillor with the city of Prince George. I am the finance and audit chair.

I’m pleased to be joining you today on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh.

Today we bring forward three focused areas that we’ve identified and that we could use your support on. The first is increased access to treatment beds. Our recommendation is to increase the number of in-patient mental health and detox treatment beds available in Prince George. Northern Health specialized services provides three primary types of mental health and substance use services within the Prince George area, including acute, community-based and outreach.

There are only 20 in-patient mental health service beds available for adults. There is one substance use program for adults, with only 20 detox beds. The demand for access to these specialized mental health and detox services far exceeds the number of available beds. There are always capacity issues, which means that those most in need of service often experience significant wait times. In addition, many community-based agencies are unable to connect clients in their moment of readiness with timely access to detox services.

[10:30 a.m.]

The second issue we bring before you today is ensuring the availability of specialized services for youth. Our recommendation is to confirm the province of B.C.’s support and funding to proceed with the planning and development of a regional child and youth centre of excellence located in Prince George.

Northern Health provides services for children and youth encompassing assessment, early intervention and treatment for a broad range of conditions. These programs include neurocognitive assessments, a need for educational developmental planning, psychological and psychiatric support for children and youth experiencing mental health challenges, as well as substance use treatment for youth.

There are only six mental health service beds and seven treatment beds for youth in northern B.C. As there is an ever-increasing need for these regional services, exploring options for the development and enhancement of these programs is key to meeting needs across the north. The presence of a regional child and youth centre of excellence will also position Prince George as a supply and service centre for the north to attract qualified specialists, reduce significant wait times and improve health outcomes for children and youth.

Finally, the third issue we bring before you today is confirmed funding for the HealthIM and Car 60. Our recommendation is to provide funding to the city of Prince George to enable continued operation of the HealthIM application and Car 60.

Prince George was an early adopter of the HealthIM application, which facilitates improved police response to mental health calls. The application, which will be rolled out in our B.C. jurisdictions with funding from the province of B.C., provides police and health responders with critical information regarding the requirements to apprehend under the Mental Health Act. If apprehension is not necessary, police can assess community-based mental health response supports, including Car 60.

The implementation of the HealthIM was a necessary but unfunded response by the RCMP that saw a 120 percent increase in the number of mental health–related calls from 2015 to 2019. Car 60 continues to operate as a complementary service to other related initiatives, like the HealthIM application. To date, the expense has been shared by Northern Health and the RCMP, with reimbursement funding from the province.

Currently, committed resources can be utilized to explore and implement other initiatives to better serve those with mental health issues while simultaneously ensuring valuable police resources are allocated to core policing functions.

Thank you so much, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

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

I’m going to start off by…. You used the term — I’m not familiar with it — “HealthIM.” What is IM?

C. Ramsay: It’s an app that the police have on their phones and they can pull up…. I’m not sure what the IM stands for, unfortunately, but it’s an app that they can access in real time to provide them with resources and in making a better assessment of the situation at hand.

M. Starchuk (Chair): That’s tied to what? Where is the information coming from?

C. Ramsay: It’s from the health authorities, I believe.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for your presentation. In regard to Car 60, I know that in Cranbrook we had a mental health liaison RCMP officer on staff. We hired that position out. Is this Car 60 the same kind of idea? It’s external from the RCMP, I guess. Have you guys considered implementing a mental health liaison with the RCMP?

C. Ramsay: The Car 60 program is a registered nurse from Northern Health partnered with the RCMP. They respond to mental health–related calls. However, the service is exhausted, and expansion of the program would benefit us greatly. Additionally, the funding model is optional.

The other thing I’ll note is that if police or our medical services are overwhelmed, they’re pulled from these optional services when they’re highly oversubscribed.

S. Chant: What are your current hours and the cost of your Car 60? If you were to get the payment up front for it, what would that cost be?

C. Ramsay: I don’t currently have those figures offhand, but I can have our staff submit them in the application.

S. Chant: That would be great. Thank you.

[10:35 a.m.]

A. Walker: I appreciate the presentation. I’m wondering. For clarity, the 20 beds that are serving…. The detox beds and treatment beds for Prince George….

What’s the region that that serves? Is that just Prince George, or is this a much broader region?

C. Ramsay: In conversations with Shane DeMeyer at Northern Health, it’s my understanding that those beds…. A portion of them are held for regional use, and if some of the smaller hospitals don’t have the capacity to deal with a crisis or an issue, they are sending those patients. So I believe six of the 20 beds are reserved for regional use.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just going back, supplemental, to the question before — to answer that part of the question. Have you, as the city of Prince George, explored that option of hiring internally within the RCMP for that mental health liaison? That way, it wouldn’t be separately budgeted out of another administration. It would all be internal to the RCMP.

C. Ramsay: The city of Prince George does, through our bylaw team, have community outreach workers that are coordinating at situation tables with police, Northern Health and a lot of our non-profit organizations. I believe that was through one of the community safety grants that the province put out. So we will be funding those positions, likely, once the funding is no longer available.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. The question that comes to mind for me is that you’re a city councillor, and we’re talking about services that aren’t typically undertaken by local government, but you are obviously seeing impacts to the city that you are responding to. So I’m just wondering if you can make a comment about how that’s been unfolding for you.

Then a very specific question is around the HealthIM. It’s an app, and it’s about critical information that can be used. I’m wondering what the cost involvement…. Is it in training the RCMP to be able to interpret information? What is the cost associated with that?

C. Ramsay: Thanks. I’ll answer the first part as a comment. Our administration recently calculated the cost of downloading that has been incurred by the RCMP, by our fire and by our bylaw services team, and we estimate that it’s around $11 million a year in dealing with mental health issues that don’t necessarily fall under the jurisdiction of the city of Prince George. It’s an incredible burden on us to try and manage these health situations with an overtaxed medical system.

In the city of Prince George, we have the highest number of toxic drug deaths per capita. We have more people dying in the city of Prince George than in Vancouver currently, and we don’t have the resources to deal with it. We have the highest level of homelessness per capita in the province right now, and we don’t have the resources to deal with it from our health services provider.

The city of Prince George is effectively trying to help fill some of the gaps in this but to the tune of $11 million that should be spent on infrastructure. We have a $150 million infrastructure reinvestment funding gap, so we’re having to make some really tough choices that are only going to get tougher as this crisis continues.

In terms of the HealthIM costing, I don’t have that information on hand. But my understanding is that it’s a software expense for having that software available. But I can, as well, get those figures for you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Cori, thank you for your presentation this morning, and thank you for being that representative in local government.

C. Ramsay: Thank you so much. I don’t envy your roles. You all have a very tough job. So thank you so much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, to note on that, Cori, there are a number of us that came from local government before we got here. So there is a sincere understanding at times.

C. Ramsay: Thank you so much again, and take care.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Our next presenter is Nancy Harris of Spinal Cord Injury British Columbia.

Nancy, you have five minutes in which to give us a presentation and then five minutes set aside for comments and/or questions.

The floor is yours.

[10:40 a.m.]

SPINAL CORD INJURY B.C.

N. Harris: I’m Nancy Harris. I’m the regional development liaison for Spinal Cord Injury B.C. and the Access B.C. lead. We did send a bit of a package forward, for more information, as we’ve done a lot of work with our tourism partners over the last few years.

On behalf of Spinal Cord Injury B.C., I’d like to thank the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for providing consultations that support input into recommendations for the 2024 budget.

Last week was national accessibility and inclusion week. It was celebrated around the province. With….

Sorry, I don’t have…. I just found out I can’t wear my reading glasses. The light is bothering my eyes.

It was celebrated around the province. With this top of mind, we hope that B.C. will not only celebrate accessibility and inclusion for one week but continue to use this lens to explore and work year-round for a more sustainable example of what we are capable of.

Dr. Scott Rains was once quoted: “What is so unique about a situation that justifies exclusion instead of saying what it takes to make it accessible?” I hope that, moving forward, in the next few years, we can really undertake that as part of our philosophy.

With this in mind, let’s consider the following. The first recommendation would be accessibility and inclusion in tourism and the importance of partnerships. The recommendation could be to expand the scope of access and inclusion liaison positions within each of the six tourism areas.

Over the past several years, Spinal Cord Injury B.C. has provided cost-sharing arrangements for positions within northern B.C. tourism — the Cariboo Chilcotin Coast, Kootenay Rockies and Thompson Okanagan associations — and provided many hours of ongoing, in-kind support for SCI BC’s regional development liaison and other pieces of our staff that support our partners. Sustaining these roles and meeting the demand for additional roles for all regions of the province requires investments and capacity-building through cross-sectoral partnerships.

Number 2 would be promoting and marketing accessible opportunities. The recommendation is to leverage additional funding opportunities across all ministries through partnerships with tourism associations, local governments, non-profits and private sector partners. Capacity-building by investing in accessibility and inclusion will allow ongoing and new partnerships to be developed and sustained.

The rationale would be that investments in promoting and marketing accessible tourism experiences, products and services will support and provide sustainable growth and opportunities that can position B.C. as a global leader. Accessible and inclusive tourism contributes $81.7 billion globally, minimum, to the economy. This would include employment and customer service, resourcing and development of opportunities, community development, communication, information and infrastructure.

Recommendation No. 3 would be standards and best practices, and why they are important, to provide and leverage provincewide opportunities and funding through community development. This supports the development of a systemic approach to standards and best practices that can be used with tourism associations, local governments, non-profits and private sector partners. In turn, this collaborative approach will create capacity for building sustainable investments in accessibility and inclusion and will support and maintain sustainable partnerships.

We believe investments over the next five years will enable and provide routes for sustainability. With partnerships, B.C. should significantly be in a position to move accessibility and inclusion of outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities forward in the province, bringing with it a broad spectrum of psychological, social and health benefits. This can be complemented with a holistic approach to education and training for stakeholders, best practice models and evaluation for tourism stakeholders and their communities, transportation and housing policies and best practices, and employment opportunities.

I look forward to any questions.

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

S. Chant: Hi, Nancy. How are you?

N. Harris: Good.

S. Chant: Good to see you.

N. Harris: A bit blind.

S. Chant: Well, we’ll try and make it accessible.

Can you give an example of some of the things that Tourism B.C. has done in the North to create more accessible tourism, please?

N. Harris: We live in Prince George. I’m the Access B.C… Northern B.C. Tourism was one of our first partners. We hold official MOUs with all the tourism partners across the province.

[10:45 a.m.]

We live here. A lot of our examples of our work have been the catalyst for moving the rest of the province together.

We first started doing assessments and planning…. The long-term planning is a really key piece. So we’ve been working forward, and we had good momentum. COVID hit in the middle; we still had momentum. We’re just sort of snowballing past the next piece of our levels. We need more personal infrastructure to involve the other pieces of employment and the built environment, programming and policy.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Nancy. It’s great to see the differences. We had the Praxis Spinal Cord Institute come to see us here. I think it was back in the Richmond era.

N. Harris: Oh good.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): That was a great presentation. That was more, primarily, on research, and this is more grassroots, ground level–type stuff.

With accessibility and inclusion, do you see a bit of a difference between rural and urban accessibility issues? I mean, in the rural areas, it’s going out to a good, old rodeo or something, in the urban areas, maybe it’s a museum, and both of those have accessibility issues. Is there a big difference between the two?

N. Harris: Not really. There are the common pieces of what is not working and what is working across the province. I work in all the tourism associations, with Destination B.C. as well, and the same things are happening over and over. It’s that holistic experience I mentioned: the lack of accessible transportation to get someone to employment, the lack of housing. It’s all cross-sector regardless if you have a disability or not. It’s all combined.

M. Starchuk (Chair): It was back in Richmond, as well, I believe. There was Will Davis from the B.C. Adaptive Snowsports that made a presentation to us. Is that an organization that you are working with as well?

N. Harris: I’m familiar with them. Spinal Cord Injury is part of a network of organizations, and we do communicate and work with them when something comes up. The disability community is very connected.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Nancy, thank you very much for your presentation this morning, and thank you for the work that you do for those people that need it the most.

On that note, we are on our way, this afternoon, to Dawson Creek for meetings that are there. At this point, we would ask for a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 10:47 a.m.