The committee met at 8:31 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Mike Starchuk. I am the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

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

I’d ask everyone else to reflect on where they work, live and play.

Our committee is currently seeking input on the next provincial budget. We have been meeting with British Columbians over the last couple of weeks to hear their priorities for Budget 2024.

All audio from our meetings is broadcast live on our website, and a complete transcript will also be posted. British Columbians can also share their views by providing written input. Details are available on our website at bcleg.ca/fgsbudget. The deadline for input is this Friday, June 16, at two o’clock. 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.

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

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Tom Shypitka. I’m the Deputy Chair and MLA for Kootenay East.

B. Banman: I’m Bruce Banman. I would be the MLA for the riding of Abbotsford South.

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

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

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

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

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Assisting the committee today are Karan Riarh, Darryl Hol and Jianding Bai from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services.

The format today: each participant will have five min­utes, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments from the committee. I would remind committee members to make your questions brief and to those presenters to make their answers brief so we can get through as many questions that the committee may or may not have.

This morning first up is Craig Davis, Pearson College UWC.

Craig, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments. The timers are on the wall.

The floor is yours.

Budget Consultation Presentations

PEARSON COLLEGE UWC

C. Davis: Okay. Thank you.

I’m here to represent Pearson United World College. We are situated in Metchosin. For those who don’t know, we receive students from every province in Canada and from 156 countries around the world that are selected through a volunteer group of committees as part of a movement to make education a force for peace and sustainability. Eighty percent of our students receive either full or nearly full scholarships, financial assistance, and the students are also selected for their commitment to social change and social good as part of a network of 18 global institutions.

The focal point for us in terms of what I’m talking about today is that for the first time in the college’s 50-year history, we are shifting our curriculum from the international baccalaureate diploma — it’s for 16- to 19-year-olds — to a new climate action leadership diploma. That climate action program is, I think, we believe, the first of its kind of a high school curriculum which is intentionally focused on climate change and climate leadership.

[8:35 a.m.]

We’ve been doing this in partnership with Royal Roads University and Vancouver Island University to try and tap into their expertise around climate science, climate adaptation, climate mitigation and, for Vancouver Island University, to tap into their expertise of Indigenous epistemology and learning.

We’ve been one year into this course with our first cohort of students from around the world. What’s really interesting about this program being in this location is that many of the students who we’ve attracted have come from those countries in the global south who are most adversely affected by climate change. That includes students from the Marshall Islands, Madagascar, Indonesia, New Zealand, etc.

The course has been phenomenally received this year, and what we’re looking to do with the course now is to adapt it so it can be applied and used in any public school or independent school in Canada. So while it’s specific to the location at Pearson College in Metchosin, our learning design intentions are to make it applicable in any context and usable in any context. We want to scale it for maximum impact.

Now, we’re doing this, also, as part of our reconciliation action plan commitments. We have for the first time in the college’s history, employed a director of Indigenous engagement who’s working very closely with that curriculum, and we’ve found that we’ve been able to attract more Indigenous students from western Canada than ever before in the college’s history because of this curriculum.

The curriculum has been also co-constructed with the support of Chief Chipps on the Sc’ianew, Beecher Bay, First Nation, where the college resides. They’ve had input, and of course, we’ve been able to work with our Indigenous students to further indigenize that curriculum. Like I said before, the students have been incredibly receptive to the Elders who’ve come onto campus to deliver part of the course.

The two things are running very symbiotically, I might say — the reconciliation action plan commitments and the curriculum. We’ve got quadruple the interest for next year’s cohort coming in from every province in Canada and also globally. We know the course is having impact, because of course, as we know these days, social media networks are what sell and promote courses, rather than anything the university can do itself.

Probably more importantly, we believe the impact po­tential of the courses is enormous. Within the UWC network, we know we’ve got 16 colleges now that want to emulate the course. But we want to retain the commitment to doing this within schools and colleges in Canada and making it available in Canada. That’s the main purpose.

The last piece to mention is that like many campuses with a 50-year-old history, as Lester B. Pearson College has, we have an aging infrastructure, an aging campus. Electrical grid replacement is hovering on the horizon, so we want to make sure that we can do this sustainably to match our net-zero targets, which is why we’re reaching out to B.C. Hydro to see whether, in that replacement, we can align with provincial goals in doing that really efficiently and sustainably.

That’s why we’re also having that as part of our budgetary commitment to make sure our campus actually represents the same goals as the course that we’re delivering for our students. That’s part of what we’re talking about today.

I’d say, in finality, that the other piece is that when we’ve reached out to both public schools and private schools in B.C. around our climate curriculum, there’s huge interest. What we’re looking for is to be able to have the resources to scale this for the maximum impact that we know the IPCC is asking for in terms of curriculum change, not climate change, and I think it can’t be overstated. I know that there has been really positive reception when I’ve taken this on the road in both Toronto and in Vancouver.

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

I now open up the floor to comments or questions.

I’m going to start off by saying that I’m intrigued by the electrical grid upgrades that you’ve talked about. You’re in consultations with B.C. Hydro. Are there any barriers that are foreseen?

C. Davis: Mainly financial, because we’ve been told that it’s going to be a $5 million to $6 million replacement, which for a college which is philanthropic…. I mean, if you’re not aware of Pearson College’s context…. In its early days, we received provincial and federal support. That is no longer the case, so funding is largely generated from fundraising and a modest amount from tuition. So the financial piece is considerable.

Of course, the other piece is that we want to do this in a way which is very sustainable. That’s why we want to take the guidance from B.C. Hydro.

B. Banman: I’m curious why you no longer receive provincial or federal funding. What triggered to change that?

[8:40 a.m.]

C. Davis: I have to admit I do not know the context for that. I know I’d been told, when I came in three years ago, that there was provincial support for scholarships. We do receive some provincial support from Alberta but no longer from B.C.

Of course, the college’s initial funding was generated from federal support because of the fact that it was Lester B. Pearson himself and John Nichol and others who helped to establish the college. I couldn’t tell you specifically, but I can get that information to you if you need it.

R. Leonard: Good morning. Thanks for being with us on this beautiful morning.

I’m curious what the percentage and the growth trajectory has looked like with Indigenous curriculum changes in terms of how many Indigenous people…. Are they all Canadian Indigenous people, or are they also coming from other countries?

C. Davis: We’ve had an increase in the number of Indigenous students, from around four to five to now up to 11 to 12 in the last two years. Our National Committee of Canada, who reach out to all of the provinces, have recently, with the support of Kory Wilson, who is on our board, and others…. The way we’re reaching out and using the application process to make it more friendly to Indigenous context — that’s having a huge impact as well.

Of course, it goes without saying that to encourage Indigenous students to come to live for two years in a residential context is not necessarily going to be the easiest ask. So we’ve been changing how we’re doing that outreach to ensure that we have success with that.

Next year we’ve got an even higher number of Indigenous students coming from Canada. The residual positive from that is that we always have, probably, year on year, about three or four students who come to us who then self-identify as Indigenous, usually from Central and South America. But we also had one student this year who did the same from Ethiopia.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. A couple of questions.

First, do you see B.C. Hydro’s IRP, its integrated re­source plan, being not quite what it’s projected to be, as a surplus of power up until about 2035, I believe, or 2036?

Then, second to that, in an effort to reduce carbon emissions and to improve on the electrical grid, would the college also be in support of streamlining and fast-tracking permitting so that mining can get its job done to build that critical infrastructure?

C. Davis: Yes. I think we’re open at the moment. We’re open to guidance, I would say. That’s made that really clear. In terms of our own internal capacity and knowledge, we need that. So I think the primary issue here is that with a new climate program, we’re committed to having a more complex, sophisticated understanding of how to meet net-zero targets.

That’s part of the program itself, to actually shift young people’s, what I might say, abstract activism into something that’s far more nuanced. That’s part of the climate action leadership program commitment. It’s to try and create young leaders who can work in lots of different ways in different industries for that.

I’d say that’s a long-winded way of saying that yes, we are open to whatever is effective and what would work, as well as the fact that we need the financial assistance.

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

Next up we have Dr. Veronica Thompson, Royal Roads University.

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

The floor is yours.

ROYAL ROADS UNIVERSITY

V. Thompson: It’s a privilege to join you here on the traditional ancestral lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən ancestors and families.

I am Veronica Thompson, vice-president, academic and provost at Royal Roads University, and I thank you for this opportunity today.

I’d like to begin with a quick snapshot of Royal Roads, the only public university in Canada created solely to address labour market demands through applied and professional programs. Our focused mandate and unique governance model afford Royal Roads University the flexibility to be nimble, responsive and innovative in structuring our programs to meet the needs of students, our communities and the B.C. economy.

Royal Roads students and our more than 33,000 alumni spread across Canada and around the world consistently describe our programs as life-changing. Our strategic vision, “Inspiring people with the courage to transform the world,” is to equip emerging leaders with the skills they need to thrive in an ever-changing world and to make a positive impact in their workplaces and society.

[8:45 a.m.]

While learners are seeking the professional skills they need to make a difference, they will require the personal supports they need to cope with intense exposure to the troubling changes happening in our world. The social, ecological and economic challenges we all face are complex and interconnected. As students try to navigate these challenges personally and professionally, health and wellness supports can play a vital role in successful educational outcomes.

We commend the government and are thankful for the commitment to post-secondary education and skills training through the StrongerBC future-ready action plan.

Our first recommendation is that Budget 2024 expands on these future-ready commitments, increasing financial aid and wellness supports for students who are struggling to succeed, as inflation exacerbates the high cost of living and learning in British Columbia.

There is a pressing need to provide additional tuition assistance, bursaries and awards for Royal Roads students. Equally urgent is the need to expand student access to counselling, wellness and social support services.

The West Shore communities are one of B.C.’s fastest-growing regions, with a steadily rising youth population. We are working to expand access to post-secondary learning in our communities, but high tuition and housing costs, hours-long commute times and rapidly rising prices for food and essentials are posing a significant barrier for too many students and their families.

Royal Roads strongly recommends and deeply hopes that Budget 2024 continues to bolster funding for financial aid and student support services, with a focus on equity, diversity and inclusion; on Indigenous students; and on overall mental wellness.

Our second recommendation for the standing committee is that provincial funding and support for the development of collaborative educational programming and services at our emerging West Shore campus is sustained in Budget 2024. When it opens to learners, the West Shore campus will deliver new access to post-secondary education for British Columbians and significant progress advancing key government priorities.

We’ve worked closely with government and our educational partners at UVic and Camosun College, as well as with the Justice Institute and school district 62, to design and develop real-time, hands-on programming aligned to the B.C. labour market.

Royal Roads specifically is bringing forward innovative new undergraduate programming. The design, development and delivery of educational programs focused on tackling real challenges for our learners, their communities, our economy and our planet require sustained funding and support in the coming fiscal year.

Finally, but in no way least important, we recommend to the committee that the next B.C. budget provide new support for urgently needed capital and ongoing support for new student housing alternatives planned for our emerging West Shore campus. Student demand for affordable housing is growing rapidly, and its scarcity is a significant barrier to post-secondary education in our communities.

Planning for our new West Shore campus includes development of student accommodation at the Langford site, and new funding support in Budget 2024 will open doors to post-secondary education for learners unable to find housing in our underserved communities. Students are at the heart of everything we do at Royal Roads.

Through its future-ready investments, we know government shares our commitment to making high-quality post-secondary education accessible and affordable for all British Columbians. We look forward to working with you on achieving this goal.

Thank you for your consideration.

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

Any comments and/or questions?

R. Leonard: Good morning. I was not clear. Do you have student housing underway, or is this just a hope and a dream coming forward?

V. Thompson: We are working on a business case for student accommodation at the Langford campus.

R. Leonard: How many students are you hoping to be able to house? Do you have a sense of that yet?

V. Thompson: We have projected 400 FTE Royal Roads students at the Langford campus. We would be looking at probably 50 percent of that FTE, which would accommodate our students but also students from UVic and Camosun College.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Can you just expand a little bit on the collaborative educational programming? Who are you working with? What’s that all about?

V. Thompson: Yeah, sure. Royal Roads University is de­veloping first- and second-year undergraduate programming, which is new to our institution. Currently, we offer third- and fourth-year undergraduate, and students are transferring in with credits from other institutions.

[8:50 a.m.]

We are developing a challenge-based curriculum for years 1 and 2. We have been working on that curriculum in collaboration and consultation with SD 62. It flows from the new K-to-12 curriculum that was introduced in B.C. We’re also working with UVic and Camosun on potentially developing new, collaborative curriculum. It would be a first in developing curriculum together, across institutions, to meet the needs of students on the West Shore.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments, other questions?

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Dr. Thompson.

I just would like to understand. Is the total population at the school…? If you could describe what that is. How many international students make up part of that population? Where do they currently stay?

V. Thompson: Sure. Programming at Royal Roads University is about 80 percent online and blended. So many of our students are learning with us virtually. We offer what we call learning intensives or residencies on our campus at Royal Roads.

We have about 3,000 FTEs at any given time at Royal Roads, and 30 percent of those students are international. Our international students, when they come, are living in homestays and within the Victoria and greater Victoria area housing. We also have short-term housing at our campus in Colwood where our students who come for learning intensives and residencies reside.

B. Stewart: Okay. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments, then, or questions?

B. Banman: As we emerge out of the pandemic…. Many institutions went virtual. I see some silver lining. I try and look for the silver lining out of anything. One of the things I see is….

Are you considering doing more virtual training and expanding that? In particular, for adult students that are trying to get back in…. They’re trying to improve themselves and find that niche where they can have a more successful life. Do you have any future plans for that?

V. Thompson: Yeah. Thank you for the question.

As I said, about 80 percent of our programming is already offered in a blended format. The bulk of the learning that our students are engaged in is virtual and online learning with on-site residencies. We are looking at the possibility of offering those residencies in more hybrid and high-flex ways as we understand students’ requirements moving forward post pandemic.

The average age of our students at Royal Roads is 35 to 40. Our students are mid-career professionals. So our programming really responds to the needs that they have for moving forward and progressing in their careers.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, thank you very much for your presentation, Dr. Thompson.

Next up is Kevin Hall, the University of Victoria.

Kevin, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of comments and/or questions. The floor is yours.

UNIVERSITY OF VICTORIA

K. Hall: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. As you said, I’m Kevin Hall. I have the absolute privilege of being the president at the University of Victoria.

I’d like to start by acknowledging that we’re on the lands of the lək̓ʷəŋən people and by paying my respects to Elders past and present.

I also wanted to recognize the hard work that you all do as MLAs, as elected officials, and your constituent offices.

I wanted to thank the Chair and the co-Chair and the committee for letting us come today to talk a little bit about what we’re up to and just to remind us all that we are a public institution. I actually work for you. I work for the government, and I work for the citizens of this province. The remarks I offer today will probably reflect that. I’ve got three recommendations today and a commitment from the university to pitch in and help.

I thought I’d start off with innovative partnerships to really look at how we can advance housing in this province and, particularly for us, student housing. I would just say that we want to be part of the solution to this problem. We have assets that we can use to help solve housing in the capital regional district.

Housing insecurity is really presenting a significant risk to economic growth in this province. I think the lack of affordable housing, in particular, in this region is a barrier for a lot of our students. It’s also a barrier for us to attract our academic staff and our other staff.

UVic is really committed to advancing innovative partnership models to support student and staff housing. At the same time, we hope we can create some additional revenue and diversify our revenue so we’re not so reliant on the government in doing so.

[8:55 a.m.]

We’d like to thank the government for the recapitalization of the provincial student housing program. It’s to build additional on-campus housing. Right now we’re working on a business case to add another 1,000 units to our existing supply, which is 2,300 units in a student population of 26,000 students.

We’d like to recommend that the government of British Columbia continue to make regular investments in university housing to help accelerate efforts to build safe, secure and affordable housing for students. That will, in turn, really take pressures off the local rental markets.

The second item I’d like to talk about is future skills and talent. We believe we’re at the forefront of designing and delivering micro-credentials for innovative lifelong learning opportunities and for meeting the needs of a wide range of sectors. We’re constantly adapting to respond and to meet the evolving skills and training needs.

UVic works with government, community groups, not-for-profits, business and industry to develop customized programs and to really ensure that people have the education necessary to grow and succeed in their field. We continue to deliver one of Canada’s largest co-op and work-integrated learning experiences, which is a well-kept secret that not too many people know. We’re second to Waterloo. We’re really committed to ensuring the future-ready action plan is successful. We also look forward to working with the government to implement the recently announced 3,000 tech-relevant seats.

We’d like to recommend continued investment in inno­vative and experiential learning opportunities and support for in-demand programming, particularly in the fields of energy, climate change, technology and health care.

The third point I’d like to touch on is B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA. The unanimous passage of DRIPA in 2019 presented our prov­ince with an opportunity, really, to accelerate the rights and reconciliation of Indigenous people. While British Columbia, of course, is a leader in this work, we know there’s a lot more work that needs to be done.

Like all public institutions, UVic really understands that we must transform the way we work. We have to integrate Indigenous knowledge into our operations, and we really have to look at the ideas, the systems and the policies that are no longer serving us as an institution.

This fall we will be launching our new Indigenous plan, which is going to enable us to create an environment that really fosters an environment for success for everyone. This plan will allow us to continue reshaping the university so that it can respond to emerging priorities and will focus on transforming our governance and operations, our learning and our teaching, our research and our people.

Two examples of what we’ve done recently are the master’s of reconciliation economics and the Indigenous law program. With this new Indigenous plan, UVic will align with DRIPA and accelerate reconciliation efforts with local nations and beyond.

To support this essential work, we recommend significant investment in programs fostering reconciliation and enabling more Indigenous learners to attend post-secondary education.

These priorities really reflect our shared commitments to addressing some of the most pressing issues facing British Columbians, to being responsive to a rapidly changing world and to ensuring, really, that British Columbia and its citizens have the opportunities and skills to be successful and to contribute to a better future for everybody.

I thank you for this opportunity and look forward to your questions.

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

Questions and/or comments?

I’ll start off by saying…. You talked about your micro-credentialling. Could you expand on the list of programs that have come out of that?

K. Hall: Yeah. The programs are very wide, depending on who the client is. What we’ve tried to do is to go out and engage sectors beyond just typical students you might see at school. In the case of Canada, 90 percent of our students are school leavers coming directly from high school.

We’re trying to go out to people that didn’t have the opportunity to go to university, to start, to upskill themselves, to reskill themselves. We’re trying to work with business and industry on delivering some programs.

Topics are anything from artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, energy transition systems, sustainable development goals, education training. We’re really trying to have a broad variety. Under the government’s program, which they’ve just started, we have about 27 micro-credentials being offered for credit. In addition to that, we have a lot of micro-credentials we’re working on with business, not only here in Victoria but across this province and, in fact, across the world.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you.

George and then Adam.

G. Chow: Hi, Mr. Hall. How are you? Welcome to this committee.

You mentioned two programs for Indigenous, the launch of the…. One is Indigenous law. You will get an LLB out of that. What’s the other one you talked about?

[9:00 a.m.]

K. Hall: The second one is the master’s of Indigenous economics. This is a program that has been put together with B.C. friendship centres and our business school. It’s really focused on teaching and training Indigenous students around Indigenous ways of doing business and dealing with how those students might go back into their communities and to their nations and actually lead economic growth in those nations.

It’s in its first year. It’s just started, and we’re extremely proud of the program. We think it will have the same outcome as our law program. We had 45 law graduates last year in the first cohort. Each of them had five or six job offers and were out working very quickly. We think the same thing will happen with the students in this program.

G. Chow: Yeah. Very interesting, the masters of economics.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We have three people on the list and less than three minutes.

A. Walker: Thank you, Mr. Hall. It wasn’t in your recommendations, but you spoke about a willingness to partner as far as housing goes. What would that look like for UVic?

K. Hall: Yeah. A couple of options for us…. We want to continue to build on-campus housing, and hopefully the government will be supportive of that. But we have a couple of pieces of what we call outlying land. So in total, we’ve got about 50 acres of land. We would like to partner with a private developer and look at building a housing solution that meets the needs of people in the greater Victoria area.

B. Stewart: I just wanted to understand “leverage its assets,” which I suspect is what Adam just asked — about this 50 acres and using that to develop. Okay. That’s great.

R. Leonard: Good morning. I want to ask about the development of the indigenized learning and the overall issue around indigenization of your governance, operations, etc. In terms of what it took to get those two programs going forward, what did it take in terms of human resources and financial resources and how much time did it take?

I know that in my community, the college has an indigenization plan. I know it’s a smaller ecosystem, so that may have played into the timing. But I’m curious about that.

K. Hall: The Indigenous law program was really spearheaded by two individuals who were totally committed to this, and they worked over a four- to five-year period to put this program together, because as you can imagine, there are things like accreditation by the bar and the Canadian law societies. That was quite an event — probably five years to put it together. The resources were basically paying people and support people to put this program together.

The masters of Indigenous economics was quite a different story. The friendship centres came to us and wanted to put this program together. It was going to be funded, and our business school was able to respond, quite frankly, within about a six-month period to get this program going because there aren’t accreditation bodies to deal with. These are business degrees, essentially, that aren’t accredited.

What really drives us, quite frankly, is we have about 75 Indigenous academics at UVic out of 900 academics, which is about 8 percent of our workforce. It’s the largest number in the country, almost double what any other university has in terms of percentage. We’re continually getting great ideas about how we might change and indigenize our curriculum.

What I wanted to thank the government for is DRIPA, because that gives me permission as the president to start looking at our governance structure. So we’re looking at everything from a tricameral governance with a senate, a board and perhaps local Indigenous community governance over our lands and over some of the functions that go on at school. We’re really trying to shake up all of our operations, whether it is governance, whether it’s our purchasing policy or whether it’s the way we interact in the community.

R. Leonard: Is it led primarily…? Not to be colonialist about it, but to be led by Indigenous people.

K. Hall: Yes. One of the first things I did when I came 2½ years ago was to create the office of the vice-president, Indigenous. Qwul’sih’yah’maht, Robina Thomas, is the vice-president, and she is running the effort around our Indigenous plan. It’s done solely with consultation with the Indigenous community and our Indigenous academics. W get a working plan that we need to all pitch in and roll up our sleeves in.

R. Leonard: Thanks.

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

Next up we have Zita Botelho, Watersheds B.C.

Zita, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of comments and/or questions. And thank you for altering your schedule slightly for us.

You have the floor.

[9:05 a.m.]

WATERSHEDS B.C.

Z. Botelho: Thanks for the opportunity to join you today.

I acknowledge that I am a guest on these traditional and unceded territories of the Esquimalt, Songhees and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations.

In just over two weeks, my 12-year-old daughter is about to have the adventure of a lifetime. She’s going to go with her dad and scout group to spend ten days paddling the Yukon and Teslin rivers. I have fond memories of learning to paddle with my father, and I’m sure you have similar memories which connect all of us to the powerful essence of water. It’s the most basic need for humans and ecosystem health, safety and progress.

I’m the director of Watersheds B.C. and co-director of the healthy watersheds initiative, and I also lead the Indigenous watersheds initiative. Watersheds B.C. works to strengthen B.C.’s watershed security by supporting local people and decision-making with the knowledge, training and networks needed to restore and secure watersheds across B.C.

Since 2020, we’ve worked in partnership with our REFBC on the healthy watersheds initiative and, since 2022, with the MakeWay Foundation on the Indigenous watersheds initiative. Together we have distributed $42 million in funding to support watershed security in B.C. These important investments are supporting communities to create the kind of B.C. we want to leave for our children, grandchildren and their grandchildren. I know we’re all sitting here together today because we want thriving communities, nature and places where people have good local jobs that build and restore our natural wealth for today and the future.

Like many Canadians, the wildfires that are affecting communities, literally from coast to coast, feel like a sobering reminder of the urgency of this work. In the last several years, British Columbians have experienced severe floods, droughts and forest fires, and these disasters impact people and their livelihoods and important habitats we depend on. We know these threats will continue to grow, and proactive investments in our watersheds are the best line of defence and can save billions of dollars from future climate disasters.

Our watersheds play a critical role in providing natural defences against climate change and the need better planning. We’re asking the province of B.C. to allocate an additional $300 million in Budget 2024 to grow the watershed security fund, and request that the federal government match the province of B.C.’s investment in watershed security. This, combined with additional investments from the philanthropic and private sector, will ensure the fund can support watershed projects in communities across the province. The cost of inaction is far greater than this request.

We deeply appreciate the $100 million investment from Budget 2022’s surplus to kick-start the fund. We know this doesn’t match the scale required to address the urgent and complex challenges our watersheds face. The return from a $100 million endowment will only provide an estimated $5 million for watershed projects. We know this endowment model has a proven success track record, and it’s what we need to ensure funding for the long term.

Since 2019, this committee has recommended investments in watershed security and, specifically, last year re­commended $75 million in sustained funding for a watershed security fund. But to meet the scale of investment needed, a $1 billion watershed security fund is needed.

B.C. needs to continue to grow the fund by requesting a match from the federal government and additional investments from the philanthropic and private sector. This may feel like a daunting cost, but the cost of inaction is far greater than the cost of action. We can’t afford to wait.

Over the past several years, B.C. has spent nearly $11 billion recovering from the effects of extreme weather. And this doesn’t include the current fires and floods that have just impacted B.C. Communities are also facing the downstream impacts of poorly planned development, including pollution of drinking water sources, destruction of salmon habitat, impacts on food security and cultural and spiritual values.

Partnerships are the only way forward, but they don’t come for free. The provincial government is seeking to work in partnership with Indigenous nations, local governments and communities to advance watershed security, which is positive, but without additional growth in the current funding available, increasing their role will be seen as downloading on other levels of government.

Advancing provincial commitments to UNDRIP re­quires long-term predictable funding for Indigenous nations so they can invest in their own watershed management. We know these investments provide an important boost to local economies, creating good jobs and leveraging additional funding. We saw this in remote communities, particularly during the healthy watersheds initiative.

[9:10 a.m.]

That $27 million investment attracted additional investments, leveraging up to $4 for every dollar invested. We need to see additional investments to create the fund, fit for purpose, that can support the actions required to re­build our watersheds.

B.C. is a unique and special province, and this government can lead the country to develop a made-in-B.C. solution that builds resilience and a legacy of healthy watersheds in the present and for future generations.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I do want to emphasize that, without a doubt, water security will be the number one issue for societal stability dealing with climate change. I thank you for taking the leadership in championing this cause.

In regard to your $300 million you’re asking the provincial government to provide, obviously matched by the federal government for another $300 million…. It’s a lot of money, but I do think, probably, like you say, we need more than that. Do you have any kind of number or stats that can demonstrate that if we don’t invest this $300 million within the next year or the next few years…? What kind of potential expenses associated with climate change emergencies, food insecurities, water insecurities and then the habitat? Later on, what cost of profits?

Z. Botelho: There are a lot of studies that have been done. Most recently there’s been work done by the impact group at the University of Waterloo. The Insurance Bureau of Canada has produced a number of reports, as well, that show that it is in the tens of billions of dollars.

We often invest across this country in things like bridges and roads that cost tens of billions of dollars, so the scale of the investment is not, I don’t think, unreasonable. It is a lot, but we know that…. We can look across the country right now at what’s happened in the last year and what the federal government has had to invest and what B.C. is going to be investing even this summer in the wildfire situation.

I can provide a list of reports for you.

R. Leonard: Thanks for presenting this morning and, apparently, coming in early for us.

We’ve heard from a number of people presenting, asking for a boost to that endowment fund. I’m curious about what the overall vision is you see in terms of how those dollars are spent. I can envision…. Some of the things that need changing are regulatory, how we do things on the landscape. That can have an impact. It also can come with asks, as well, for funding to achieve that might be outside the scope of this endowment fund. I’m curious about how you see that all framed. Or you can share with us what you already know.

Z. Botelho: You may have also heard that this work is being done in tandem with the watershed security strategy, which has a number of actions and is being led by WLRS, your ministry. I’ve been involved in this $42 million allocation of funding that the province has already invested.

To date, we’ve seen 61 projects through the healthy watersheds initiative, and we’re about to announce another 30 projects from the Indigenous watersheds initiative. We’ve already funded 21 projects. So roughly, let’s say, 80 projects across the province which are doing work that ranges from….

These are funded through IWI, Indigenous-led work, and through HWI, both non-Indigenous and Indigenous work. We have seen projects from restoration, extensive restoration work, water monitoring to planning work, maintenance and rehabilitation of particular areas, inventory. There’s a combination of science-based work and also actual hard restoration work, both complex and large scale and smaller scale. We’ve seen training that has been part of this. Employment has been part of it.

It’s really about engaging and enacting communities and other organizations outside of government to be able to do this work. We know that the province will never have enough staff to be able to do this work. That leveraging of an investment is really, I think, an under-reporting of what those investments are. The health benefits that come along with this are so profound.

[9:15 a.m.]

The focus of that fund itself would be to support other partners to work in this field and to support the broader context of connecting and supporting networks in this field, because there’s a capacity-developing element that we have done as leaders in providing this funding. All of that is work that is very challenging for the government to do. I have to say that we’ve done all of this in about 2½ years.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Zita.

The discussion about the magnitude of what it is that we’re trying to deal with here…. I guess when you talk about $1 billion and even $300 million, which is a significant amount, where do you see…?

You compare this to infrastructure about bridge and roads. Where do you see infrastructure or actual investments that are needed? What are the priorities in your mind, the top four or five that you see? I mean, a lot of this stuff is collaborative, building capacity. That’s all nice, but it doesn’t sound like it’s infrastructure.

Z. Botelho: Just to make sure I’m understanding your question, you’re asking what kind of infrastructure or, specifically, what would be my top five recommendations for investments?

B. Stewart: Yeah. I mean, I’m looking at infrastructure, like in the Sumas Prairie area, where we had a significant event where infrastructure…. That is hard infrastructure that failed. I guess what I’m asking is: what are Watersheds B.C.’s priorities in terms of infrastructure?

Z. Botelho: It would be natural infrastructure and making sure that where we do build that hard infrastructure, it usually needs to be complementary. But the key is: let’s not build back the same way that we built things. We need to build back better and ensure that we’re looking at the future pressures that we know we’ll be experiencing.

It means shifting the way that roads are built, in some instances. I know there’s work in the Ministry of Transportation that is addressing that exact challenge.

It would be looking at how investments in natural infrastructure can support the objectives. That means things like investing in wetland restoration, which we know has enormous benefits to climate adaptation and mitigation. The restoration work that’s happening across the province is infrastructure. It’s natural infrastructure, again, but it’s protection against flood. Habitat protection is really significant. There are ways to do infrastructure differently, and there are ways to invest in natural infrastructure that are very significant.

There are definitely priority regions, I’ll just say, and I could get into more details. I don’t think we have time for that, but the area that you mentioned is a really significant one.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Zita, thank you very much for your presentation and your passion in what you do. As well, good luck to your daughter in her paddling. I remember my first time in a canoe. I thought I had muscles, and I was reminded of it for days and days — of the pain of paddling. So thank you very much.

Next up we have Bruce Williams, Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.

We will give you a few moments to settle yourself in, Bruce. You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

Bruce, the floor is yours.

GREATER VICTORIA
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

B. Williams: Thank you very much. I’m pleased to be here representing the members of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. I have a bit of a shopping list, so I’ll just move through it as quickly as possible and open the rest up for questions.

Downtown safety is a big concern for all municipalities across the province — indeed, across the country if not across North America. We feel that one of the keys to that is treatment and recovery beds.

All day long we can talk about what’s involved in the law and the reinforcement of laws around that issue, but the basic cause of all of that is mental illness and housing. That’s what’s put those persons in the situation that they’re in, who are living in those circumstances, especially downtown, creating an unsafe environment for so many people. So for all the right reasons, treatment and recovery beds, we feel, are very important to allow as many of these individuals as possible to regain their mental health and get the stability back into their lives.

All the comments I have, by the way, are directly from members of the chamber of commerce.

Trades training around creating workforce right now. As we know, we have a job shortage. The funding model right now, especially for trades at post-secondaries…. It’s funded at about 80 cents on the dollar. In other words, each student in the trades training costs the colleges money. We would encourage you very strongly to increase the support for funding, especially around the trades in post-secondary education.

[9:20 a.m.]

Housing is something that everyone will bring up. The way that I want to look at it is to talk about accelerating the availability of on-campus housing, which of course creates a sense of community within a post-secondary campus. It also means that there is going to be a reduced carbon footprint for the amount of travel required. The bottom line is that it frees up so many of those residences that are being rented by students for workforce. So in a sense, that’s a means of creating housing.

Something else that the Premier was mentioning a while ago, which this chamber has been talking about for quite some time, is to increase the amount of military housing at CFB Esquimalt. Less than 10 percent of the people coming and going from that base every day are actually housed on the base. They also have an issue with recruitment and attraction of personnel for military service. Making housing available, again, would reduce the carbon footprint and would free up a great deal of housing within our greater housing community that could then become workforce housing.

The Belleville terminal issue — right across the street here, where the Clipper and Coho ferries come and go. We know the province has made a commitment to make that happen. Minister Fleming has spoken about that. I spoke again last week with representatives of his ministry, who are still awaiting a decision from the federal government on their degree of funding. We would very much like to see the province continue to pressure the federal government to come forward with that funding.

As you probably know, U.S. border services has indicated that if the facility is not upgraded, they will withdraw their service, which means no more Clipper, no more Coho, no more preclearance for cruise ships, and it’s going to be very difficult to get to a Seahawks game for all the people that want to go and do that. We would very much like to see the province step up, continue to advocate and put pressure on the feds.

We would also like to see the province advocate with the federal government to extend the repayment deadline for CEBA loans. You’re probably hearing from your constituents all the time that the deadlines are approaching. Many businesses are facing insolvency by having to repay those loans on the current deadline. We would very much like to see that deadline extended — and indeed, in some cases, even forgiven for those that are at greatest risk.

Vancouver Island imports 90 percent of the food that we consume. We would very much like to see an investment in food production, in vertical urban farming and containment farming, and in better use of land space, so that we can take better advantage of the agricultural land reserve to create more food security for all of us here. As we know, for a long time we were one earthquake away from a problem. We are now one atmospheric river away from a problem, when it comes to creating our own food supply.

We’ve been doing a great deal of work with economic reconciliation with Indigenous-owned businesses. We’ve created something that we’re calling the Indigenous economic reconciliation table, and we have more than tripled the number of Indigenous businesses within our chamber membership. This is enabling those businesses to now engage with non-Indigenous businesses, which has been a bit of a barrier, on both sides of that conversation, for a long time.

We were also very pleased to partner with the creation of the Indigenous Business Directory, which was launched last week. We did make a funding submission to this government for us to continue that work, which at the time was denied. We would very much like to see some consideration again of us being directed some funding to continue to engage in that reconciliation dialogue.

Many have just said to please do what you can to en­courage a reduction of the provincial debt. That was kind of a common theme from all of the people who are chamber members, which they put forward to me.

For the last one, under the B.C. coastal marine strategy: marine environmental remediation of the entire Victoria Harbour, and funding models for partners to work with First Nations on ocean conservation.

I will leave it at that.

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

Just one question from me. How many members do you have?

B. Williams: It’s 1,400. We are the second- or third-largest in B.C. We’re also Western Canada’s first chamber. We’re 160 years old this year.

B. Banman: Of your 1,400 members, have you done a survey about how many of them…? There was a recent survey done on small businesses, which really are so fragile — beyond fragile, in fact. Have you done a survey of your membership, how many of them feel as if things do not change, that in a couple of years from now, they may not be able to keep their doors open?

B. Williams: Not a direct survey, but anecdotally, we’re hearing that quite a bit. The interest rate circumstance is a huge issue with that. The cost of borrowing money — the cost of financing — is a big issue for a lot of people. The development side has seen a big change in that. We have heard some despair from a number of them. We haven’t done any direct research on that. We don’t really have the capacity to do so.

Yes, we are seeing a slowdown in business. We are seeing some doors close, certainly in the core area of the city, as all cities are seeing. The pressure of the interest rates right now is quite profound. As I mentioned too, the repayment of the CEBA loans is a factor with many.

[9:25 a.m.]

B. Banman: Specifically, with regard to crime that’s happening, this randomized crime that’s going on, how is that affecting businesses?

B. Williams: Profoundly. As a guy who has a background in media, I know media goes out of their way to report things like that because that’s the red, shiny ball in the room. The acts of random violent crimes and of repeat offenders are from a very small number of people, yet the entirety of the downtown community is being painted with that same brush. Conversations have been held, of course, about changing the bail restrictions to try and retain and involuntarily restrain some of those people when they are arrested.

Again, it’s a very small number of people that are representing the opinion that media puts forward. As I said in the beginning, too, it’s one thing to enforce that through law with that small number of people, but so many of them are caught into a web of mental illness and addictions and the challenge of housing. Recovery and treatment beds are integral to making that situation better.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions?

H. Yao: I just want to follow up, because you made quite a few recommendations around advocacy to the federal government. Would you mind giving us a history of how much the Victoria Chamber of Commerce has been pushing the local MPs and how they’re responding? How can we be an ally in that aspect?

B. Williams: On the things that I brought up, we have spoken with local MPs about those already. I’ve spoken, on a higher level, with federal ministers in meetings that were arranged by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce on all of the issues that I already mentioned. Yes, the feds have heard from us about that, and we would appreciate anything this government can do to accelerate what we’ve been doing.

B. Stewart: Bruce, just on the CEBA loans, do you have any idea what percentage is in default or in jeopardy?

B. Williams: I don’t have a direct number for that, no. I could take a guess, but it wouldn’t be accurate, probably. It’s significant enough that it’s happening in many conversations all the time, and I think you’re going to hear more and more about that as these deadlines approach.

A. Walker: Bruce, normally we hear three recommendations. I’ve got nine down here, but I appreciate that with 1,400 members, obviously, there is a wide variety of views.

B. Williams: Yeah, many voices.

A. Walker: The one that intrigues me was the food production on Vancouver Island. It’s something that I’m passionate about. Obviously, we know what the end goal is, but are there any more specifics as to what that could look like, especially in the greater Victoria area?

B. Williams: There are companies based in B.C. that do containment farming. A lot of it happens in the Fraser Valley. I think we have the ability to do that here. We maybe don’t have as much arable land as many might think. The Comox Valley, Cowichan — places like that do, and the Alberni Valley, certainly.

Containment farming, especially, takes a couple of forms. One would be on reserve land, which would mean that then the nations would become a landlord to that tenant. Those crops can be harvested about every 24 days. We have the best climate in Canada but still one traditional agricultural harvest.

I think very soon we’re going to see conversations around the repurposing of office space, which will no longer be used by traditional tenants. A lot of that space could be repurposed for vertical urban agriculture, as has happened in eastern Canada, in parts of the United States, and in Europe, too.

I think those two things are things that we could take a good look at.

H. Yao: I want to ask a quick question. I know we don’t have a lot of time left.

I know containment farming struggles with carbohydrate- or starch-based materials. Of course, definitely, when it comes to food security, that’s actually a source of energy. Do you have any recommendations around that that we can consider as well?

B. Williams: I think it would be more leafy things that we’d be growing — fruits, vegetables, that sort of thing. I don’t think any protein would be created through that whatsoever. That’s still going to be an issue for us.

Connected to that, we don’t really have a functioning abattoir anywhere on Vancouver Island. So the processing of protein involves the transportation of animals from the Island, in a very traumatic process, to go to somewhere on the Lower Mainland. Taking a look at doing that somewhere in the capital region would go a long way, I think, in solidifying and stabilizing the food production.

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

Any time the words “Monty Python” are mentioned, it generally leads to a good day, and we weren’t talking about the ministry of silly walks.

B. Williams: I won’t walk that way when I leave here, either.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Very good. We are going to take a brief ten-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 9:29 a.m. to 9:41 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, our next presenter is Christina Wiebe.

Christina, the floor is yours.

CHRISTINA WIEBE

C. Wiebe: Good morning. I am here to direct your attention to a human rights and health care crisis that has existed in our province for far too long due to the apathy and inaction of our government. Over 77,000 British Columbians are suffering as a result of this crisis, but if you asked them how our government, our doctors and our society as a whole have made them feel, you would hear, over and over again: “Ignored, stigmatized, gaslighted, neglected and abused.”

My name is Christina Wiebe, and I am one of your constituents who suffers from the devastatingly debilitating and disabling disease, myalgic encephalomyelitis, or ME, as I will be referring to it. I probably look healthy to you but, in this case, looks are deceiving, and that is why ME is an invisible illness.

I am grateful for this opportunity to advocate for those who are amongst the most marginalized and disabled in B.C., but I cannot help but be consumed by frustration — frustration at the fact that ME remains in the shadows, neglected and disregarded despite decades of ME patients appealing to our government for help while other diseases take the spotlight.

How have most people, especially our government officials and our physicians, not heard of a disease that affects more people in Canada than breast cancer, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease combined; that can strike and disable anyone at any time, especially now with COVID-19; that affects at least 560,000 Canadians; and that causes suffering equivalent to what an AIDS patient experiences two months before death? I believe it comes down to our physicians, who learn next to nothing about ME, and a gross lack of funding for ME research due to the neglect of our government, resulting in ME being a disease that has been incredibly misunderstood and stigmatized for decades.

The result: severely sick and disabled people who go undiagnosed and thus face high barriers to accessing support, who experience harm at the hands of our unknowledgeable medical and social systems and who have to bear the overwhelming and, truthfully, impossible burden of figuring out how to survive with this life-destroying, career-ending illness.

Imagine you have cancer. You go to your doctor knowing that something is wrong with you, desperate for a diagnosis so that you can gain access to treatments and support, but your doctor hasn’t even heard of cancer. That is what it is currently like for people with ME in B.C. today.

I was only 25 years old when my life came to a screeching halt. I lost everything: my career aspirations as a UBC Sauder School of Business graduate, my plans for a future family, my ability to function and live independently, and so much more. Instead I was left with crippling fatigue and a constant onslaught of debilitating symptoms that made even brushing my teeth impossible at times.

[9:45 a.m.]

To quote from the doctor who finally diagnosed me: “Due to the patient’s disabling fatigue and post-exertional malaise, her energy is not consistent or reliable. In addition, she suffers from cognitive disfunction and significant pain. As a result, she cannot work at any job. Given the duration and severity of her symptoms, her long-term prognosis is poor. She is likely disabled indefinitely.”

I ask you to imagine having these words written about you in your 20s. What’s even more painful is that I likely got sick with post-viral ME at least five years earlier, but I was bounced between doctors with no answers. Had I received a timely diagnosis of ME in 2008, I may have been able to avoid the irreparable damage caused from unknowingly operating outside a restricted energy envelope for years.

How can our government claim it is ensuring quality, appropriate, cost-effective and timely health services are available for all British Columbians when at least 77,000 British Columbians with ME, and many more undiagnosed, especially in BIPOC communities, are being neglected? Today I ask you to stop turning a blind eye and take action on these three recommendations that will serve as the foundation of desperately needed change.

One, prioritize and fund the development of ME-specific billing and diagnostic codes for B.C. physicians.

Two, prioritize and fund the development of continuing medical education credits, modules or incentives for B.C. physicians, medical students and other medical professionals to attend training for ME.

Three, remove the spousal cap on social assistance while increasing the amount of income assistance and PWD rates to above the poverty line.

I truly appreciate that you are listening to me now, but truthfully, I worry that nothing will come of this and that once again, sacrificing my health and risking becoming bed-bound for weeks or months, again, of my life will yield no change in policies.

I worry because for decades, extremely little has changed, even though these same asks have been voiced countless times before. I hope you will prove me wrong. I hope that we can all agree that severely sick and disabled people shouldn’t have to get more sick and risk their lives to advocate to be seen and helped. It is time for ME to receive attention and priority from the B.C. government to achieve equitable health care and access to social supports.

I thank you for your time, and I ask for your action now.

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

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Christina. You did great. That was awesome. Really good presentation. Thanks for coming down and — I can only speak for myself — alerting me to what ME is. I had no clue.

I see a lot of folks around the table googling it up and checking it out. So you’ve accomplished at least one objective, and you’ve made at least one MLA aware of this syndrome, I guess it would be classified as. Is it a PWD designation? How hard is it to get that designation if it is?

C. Wiebe: I can give you an example from my personal life. I applied back in 2016. At the time, my husband’s reported income for the year was $10,456. He was working part-time at a float centre so that I could experiment with using that as treatment. That was enough to disqualify me from qualifying for income assistance and the persons-with-disabilities designation.

To me, it felt like the government was telling us that two people needed to survive on less than $11,000 per year, and this is at the start of my life. So I’m not sure how I’m supposed to survive or even come close to thriving.

B. Banman: Thank you for your presentation. I’m truly empathetic for the position that you find yourself in. I realize there was a recent test that was done in 2019. It was actually a blood test that may help diagnose this.

[9:50 a.m.]

This is not…. MS is very similar, where it is a diagnosis through, basically, running out of other things. Because it’s difficult, until recently there was not a definitive test. Do you know whether this particular blood test has been adopted anywhere, and specifically, do you know if it’s being adopted in British Columbia?

C. Wiebe: As far as I know, it has not been adopted in B.C., but I cannot say that with full confidence. Just from my personal experience, from the experiences that I have heard from so many other people with ME in B.C. — I attend a lot of patient groups — we have not heard of this blood test being used.

ME is technically not a disease with diagnosis by exclusion. There are diagnostic criteria for it, and our physicians don’t even know about that. I brought a one-page summary of two diagnostic criteria that have been established for ME, which I could share with you.

I think it’s unacceptable that most of our GPs have not even seen this before, have not even heard of ME before. That’s hugely problematic, because they are the gatekeepers. They are our first point of contact. If they haven’t heard of it, we can’t be diagnosed, we can’t gain access to treatment for managing symptoms, and we can’t get assistance with filling in disability paperwork. It impacts our entire lives and prevents us from accessing any kind of support.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Christina, I have a brief question. We talked about diagnosis and the time lag that’s there to get the treatment of the symptoms. Can you explain to us what the treatment of the symptoms may look like?

C. Wiebe: There are a lot of…. Right now in B.C., I believe the time to diagnosis is at least seven years. That is also problematic, because the first two years are extremely critical after the onset of ME. That is when the patient has the most chance of going into a state of remission. Past that, you risk going into more severe levels of ME.

First of all, a patient would be taught about pacing — the critical importance of pacing. They would learn about post-exertional malaise, which is the completely disproportionate reaction that a person has to very minimal levels of exertion. It’s not like working out, where you work out, and you’re sore and tired following that workout. This could be a patient brushing their teeth and having a flare-up in symptoms that include heart palpitations, extreme nausea, debilitating fatigue and ending up bed-bound.

Treatments. Right now, there is no treatment for ME, but for treating symptoms, there are different medications that can be used that aid a patient in getting sleep during the night — which is extremely critical with managing extreme, persistent nausea or in dealing with orthostatic intolerance due to POTS, which is one of the comorbidities. Things like that just help reduce the severity of the patients’ symptoms while they’re learning to manage living with this disease — until enough research can be done to find a cure or an appropriate treatment for it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Not seeing any other questions or comments, thank you very much, Christina, for your presentation this morning and, more so, for your determination and courage to keep this going.

If you have some information that’s there, you can just leave it at the desk, and then we’ll get to it.

C. Wiebe: Absolutely. I would love to do that. Honestly, I have run some campaigns in the past, and they have been campaigns where our MLAs have been emailed directly or cc’d on the letter campaigns. One of them was a letter campaign where I had over 70 people contribute to it, and 52 people wrote personal accounts of what their lives with ME are like.

If our MLAS had taken the time to read them, they would have seen how devastating this disease is and how it destroys family systems, how it just has such a huge impact on the children of parents with ME. It would mean a lot to me for you to read those, to look at any information I have and take action on this.

ME has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a disease since 1969, and I don’t know why we are in 2023 with so many people never having heard of it yet. I just want to know: what will it take for this to be given time in the spotlight? That’s my question.

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

We will take a short recess, to 10:15.

The committee recessed from 9:55 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Our next presenter is Lisa Stewart, the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants.

Lisa, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments from the committee.

The floor is yours.

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION
OF PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS

L. Stewart: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this morning.

I’m a physician assistant or a PA. I currently live in Co­mox. I was born and raised in British Columbia. After serving with the Canadian Armed Forces, I moved to Winnipeg to study as a PA at the University of Manitoba. I’ve been practising as a PA for, I guess, just over ten years now, initially in critical care and then transitioning to plastic surgery, where I work with burns and trauma and reconstruction patients.

Myself, as well as many Canadian PAs, I would love to work in British Columbia. We want to help with the province’s health care crisis.

I also serve as the British Columbia director for the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants, or CAPA, as we call ourselves. CAPA is the national professional association that advocates for and represents physician assistants, or PAs, in Canada.

We believe the most critical issue affecting the sustainability of dependable health care is a pervasive and growing shortage of health care professionals. Introducing the PA model in B.C. would be a critical step forward, strengthening public health care services to ensure that people get the care they need when they need it while reducing overall costs.

Our first recommendation is to regulate PAs under the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia.

In other Canadian jurisdictions, PAs are regulated under the provincial colleges. Regulation provides formal oversight to protect patients. It investigates complaints and imposes discipline on unqualified practitioners.

CAPA has taken steps to offer guidance for PAs in the form of an entry-to-practice certification exam, a code of ethics and a national competency profile. Regulation will solidify the PA role in the health system and ensure PAs, as medical professionals, are being upheld to the highest of standards.

Our second recommendation is to provide health authorities with funding earmarked to hire 50 PAs over the next three years at a cost of approximately $6.5 million.

A series of reports from the Conference Board of Can­ada provides important evidence on how PAs can help alleviate demand and save money. While PAs are never a replacement for physicians, Canadian and global evidence is clear that they do help physicians manage more patients and improve outcomes.

It costs significantly less to hire a PA. PAs can be a cost-effective substitute for certain designated medical tasks. The Conference Board of Canada states that hiring more PAs and properly integrating them on health care teams could save the Canadian health care system up to $1 billion by the year 2030. So an investment in PAs can save the health care system money in the long run.

Our third recommendation is to explore developing a PA education program at UBC or the future SFU medical school to begin training homegrown PAs soon.

In Canada, there are currently three accredited PA education programs which meet national standards of education, including a defined set of competencies that are outlined in the profession and trustable professional activities. The programs are the University of Manitoba, master of physician assistant studies; the McMaster University physician assistant education program; and the Consortium of PA Education, the University of Toronto, in collaboration with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine and the Michener Institute at the University Health Network.

All the education programs are delivered in partnership with the faculties of medicine at Canadian universities. Aligning PA education with the medical model lays the foundation for a collaborative working relationship with physicians.

[10:20 a.m.]

On average, PA education programs receive more than 2,500 applicants per year, some of which are from western Canada. All programs are highly competitive, with only a combined total of 69 seats. This number is going to grow very soon, as the current programs are expanding their seats. Programs are currently under development at the University of Calgary and Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia.

Implementing a PA education program at UBC or SFU will keep British Columbians in their home province.

Thank you again for this opportunity. I welcome your questions.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I have two quick questions, so I’m going to ask them quickly.

The first one is: can you maybe provide a bit of a de­scription for explaining to us the difference between PAs and nurse practitioners? You will often see nurse practitioners being used as a substitute.

The second point is the $6.5 million. How much savings would that be if we had 50 physicians? Is it 50 physician assistants?

L. Stewart: Well, I’ll answer the last question first. Physician assistants usually earn a salary between $85,000 and $140,000, depending on the role that they have and their experience. If you’re looking at comparing that to a physician, you’re looking at usually a third of the cost of a physician, I would say, but it depends on the physician, right? If you look at a specialty physician….

H. Yao: Like family doctors.

L. Stewart: Yeah, family doctors. I think they’d pay — what? — about $400,000 approximately. So there you go.

Your first question: the difference between a PA and an NP. That is increasingly, sometimes, difficult to answer. Ultimately, we are trained differently. We are trained to the medical model. The nurse practitioners are trained in a nursing model. The candidates for the programs are different. PAs in the education program tend to cast a wider net and allow a variety of health professionals to apply to their program.

My background is as, well, a med tech with the Canadian Armed Forces, and a paramedic. You see lab technicians. You see people that study science-based research. We have nurses that come into the PA program, international medical school graduates. So the net is a wider cast of experience.

Our model of practice is aligned very closely to a physician because we work closely with physicians. In fact, our whole profession is a delegated authority from physicians. Nurse practitioners are independent providers. Physician assistants are not.

Another difference is that because of working in a delegated authority underneath a physician, it enables us to focus our practice, occasionally, more in different areas. For example, I worked in surgery, so I did first assist, surgical assist, a lot of procedures — a very procedure-based role. You tend not to see nurse practitioners employing roles like that as much because they’re independent providers and their background as nurses doesn’t expose them to that.

We also tend to be, we can be, a bit more flexible. I initially started working in critical care, transitioned to plastic surgery and then can transition to family practice. That also is cumbersome for a nurse practitioner because, again, of their being an independent practitioner.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. We have two more questions in two minutes.

B. Banman: We just went through the largest bill that’s ever gone through here in years, which is Bill 36, the health care bill. Were you consulted, do you know of, with regards to being included?

L. Stewart: We’re a part of, I guess, a group…. We were aware of the bill. I wouldn’t say we were necessarily consulted, but we’ve had opportunities to provide feedback. It’s been difficult, because we’re not a regulated practice here in British Columbia, so the bill technically doesn’t really affect us yet because we don’t even work here. We’ve kept abreast of the changes but haven’t been able to really represent ourselves terribly well, I guess.

[10:25 a.m.]

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

In regards to being regulated with the college, what are the barriers of getting immersed into that whole situation with the college? I don’t know. There might be some political stuff. I’m not too sure. But what’s the biggest barrier?

L. Stewart: I will say that Dr. Heidi Oetter, the registrar for the College of Physicians and Surgeons, is very supportive of PAs, and they have been for a number of years. They state it would be a fairly simple process, once they get the green light from the Ministry of Health, to at least put in a set of delegated authority, I guess, to allow PAs to practise in B.C., like maybe three months. But it does remain that it requires direction from the Ministry of Health. That’s ultimately when this happens.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): The designation program: how long does it take to get your PA designation through a university?

L. Stewart: You require an undergraduate degree and certain prerequisites very similar to going into medical school, and then it’s a two-year program. It’s 24 months, so it’s a condensed program. The first 12 months, didactic learning, and the second 12 months, you’re going through rotations alongside medical students.

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

Next up is Kim Mackenzie, Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. division.

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

The floor is yours, Kim.

CANADIAN MENTAL HEALTH
ASSOCIATION, B.C. DIVISION

K. Mackenzie: Thank you for the opportunity to present this morning. My name is Kim Mackenzie. I am the director of policy with the Canadian Mental Health Association, B.C. division. Really grateful to be here.

Most of you probably know about CMHA B.C. In British Columbia, we have B.C. division, and we have 14 local branches, many of which are in your local communities. We serve up to 100 communities across the province, and we’ve been around for a very, very long time.

I’m sure I don’t need to stress the importance of mental health and substance use care to this committee. I’m sure you’ve heard about it already as a need. We are really grateful to the province for significant investments in this area over the last several years. Last year was a historic investment of $1 billion in mental health and substance use care. We know that there’s lots of work being done, but there’s still lots of work to do.

Our focus for our recommendations today is really look­ing at more upstream. In the last budget, we saw a lot of emphasis on treatment and recovery — downstream measures to address some of the challenges we’re seeing in our communities.

We’d really like to encourage the committee to move a little bit further upstream, so our first recommendation is really around early intervention and prevention. We’re encouraging the committee to intervene in mental health and substance use issues early on by improving access to the full continuum of mental health and substance use care in B.C., with a focus on upstream prevention, early intervention and treatment for mild to moderate symptomology.

We know this is the right thing to do. We know it’s the smart thing to do. It saves a significant amount of money in the long run, in terms of costs to our health care system, our criminal justice system. What this looks like…. There are a few different ways that we can look at it. We just heard about, you know, challenges to accessing primary care, family doctors. We need to ensure that we’ve got a workforce that’s able to provide the services. We want to see reduced wait times for doctors and psychiatrists, for assessment, diagnosis and referrals.

We’d also like to see the expansion of the community counselling fund administered through the community action initiative, which provides free, low-barrier and low-cost counselling to communities across B.C.

A big one is preventing lifelong consequences by investing in child and youth mental health. We know that nearly half of adults that experience a mental health disorder or mental illness acquired those in their teenage years. So that’s a really important time to invest. We’ve also heard the need to address the mental health needs of the aging population as well.

And of course, through all this, we want to continue to see investments in the sociocultural determinants of health, like housing and poverty reduction.

The other recommendation we have is around crisis response and care. We’re asking the government to invest in community-based mental health crisis care to enable diversion from the expensive and overwhelmed health care and justice systems, and provide better and more ap­propriate care to people experiencing a mental health crisis.

We’ve been able to launch, with the help of the province, three peer-assisted care teams across the province. In the last budget, we received funding to expand to seven more teams across BC.

[10:30 a.m.]

We’d love to see the continual expansion of those programs, as well as funding for the longevity of these programs. They are a civilian community-led response, alternative to police, to addressing mental health crisis.

In order to allow for this transformational initiative to be truly transformational, we also need to ready the emergency response system to be able to dispatch to these teams, so we’re encouraging the province to invest re­sources in piloting dispatch and access solutions so that police don’t continue to be the default response through the 911 system.

Finally, we’d like to see the province as part of a continuum of care, fund alternative care to the hospital emergency rooms. We’ve seen some really great work out of Ontario around crisis stabilization care, where people who have experienced crisis go to a facility in the community and receive follow-up services that divert them from the emergency room.

Finally, the last recommendation is a little bit more focused on CMHA B.C. We are encouraging the province to reduce geographical disparities and mental health service provision by providing core operations funding to support CMHAs in B.C. to provide equitable service provision across the province, especially for rural and remote communities, where, we know, they’re being hit hard by the toxic drug crisis, the mental health crisis, affordable housing — all of the crises intersecting.

Our branches do some beautiful work around supporting the social determinants of health. That’s the strength of community-based mental health services. They provide a greater continuity of care for folks, greater user satisfaction, increased adherence to treatment and overall prevention of stigma. And many of our branches are unable to reach the geographical reach that they wish they could, that they could provide if they had core funding, so our final recommendation is around supporting that.

I want to thank the committee for your time and attention today, and I welcome any questions.

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

Briefly, we had presentations from the crisis line groups that are out there, and you’ve got your group that is peer-assisted care teams, and you talked about dispatch and access solutions. How do they blend?

K. Mackenzie: That’s a great question. I think everybody has that question. Currently, all of our teams have direct lines to access their services in Victoria, the North Shore and New Westminster.

Ideally, in a sort of ideal end state, we have a fourth option for 911 that is for mental health. That will allow us to track diversion, which is challenging to do if we don’t have that system in place. It will also ensure, like I said, the transformation of the system we’re hoping to see to ensure that police aren’t the default response. My understanding, and we’ve done lots of consultation with partners around this, is it’s a very complex system.

As you know, E-Comm is currently ramping up to up­grade their technologies, and they need some time to do that. There’s some significant work on the back end that needs to happen in terms of training, in terms of ensuring adequate responses and being able to actually meet the demand of having a fourth option for mental health. Our recommendation is really around providing some re­sources to do some of that readying work.

The other thing that we’ve looked at is how we might be able to use other ways that people engage with the mental health system, like crisis lines. Again, the Provincial Health Services Authority is in the middle of a crisis line enhancement project that they’re very focused on. These are complex issues that we need to address.

The other thing I’ll say, and I’ll go back to E-Comm for a second, is that you probably know that right now they have contracts with each individual regional district, and I know they’re looking to achieve a provincial mandate to provide their services. That would help us immensely to be able to do the background work, to have E-Comm have that fourth option. So, yeah, there’s a lot of work to be done.

Then I’ll mention, too, 988 is coming, pretty imminently, in November. That’s another option that we may look at for dispatching these teams. But again, the crisis lines are working overtime to address that coming in the fall as well. So lots of complexity and need for further collaboration.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Tom.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Chair. You took my question.

That was a great answer. Thanks. I think we really need to expand those 911 services and support those crisis lines that are in crisis.

I wanted to just touch on, further down the line here, involuntary care. When is that necessary? How supportive is CMHA of that model?

[10:35 a.m.]

K. Mackenzie: We would love to see the voluntary services in the province built up to enough of a place where folks don’t require involuntary care.

We are concerned with the numbers of involuntary de­tentions under the Mental Health Act. We’re getting up to 30,000 a year, as per the last Ombudsperson report. That is significantly more than any other province across Canada. It is a concern of ours. I think there may be extreme circumstances where somebody might need to be involuntarily cared for to address their challenges — again, if we’ve readied the system enough where people can get voluntary services.

In those particular situations, we really want to ensure that people’s rights are being upheld. We are really excited that we received funding from the province to launch an independent rights advice service in partnership with Métis Nation B.C., Health Justice and CLAS and hopefully some more First Nations partners that will allow folks in British Columbia to get independent rights advice should they be detained under the Mental Health Act. B.C. is the last province to implement that service. We’ll be looking at launching that in the next little while.

To summarize, I think involuntary care is the absolute last resort, and we really need to ensure we’re investing early on so people don’t get to the point where they have their rights taken away from them in that way. Thanks for the question.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much, and thank you for the work that you do. A question around…. I know there’s a desire to reduce wait times and expand counselling. How is your workforce in CMHA? Do you have challenges with meeting the demand?

K. Mackenzie: It’s a good question. Especially in rural and remote communities, it is a real challenge. I mean, there are lots of ways in which the system can improve.

Obviously, pay is a big one. So we, especially in our branches, see folks leaving community-based mental health organizations to go work in, for example, health authorities because the pay is just that much better.

The retention challenge is there. That’s where allowing organizations to have more core operating funding will really help address some of those challenges so that we can pay people adequately. Because it is almost like, in terms of the workflow, we’re in competition with organizations that can just pay people more.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning. And then let’s hope when the NG911 comes through, it’s not too far after that that we can get this other ball rolling.

The next presenter is Carolina Ibarra, Pacifica Housing.

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

The floor is yours.

PACIFICA HOUSING

C. Ibarra: Perfect. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for having me today.

My name is Carolina. I’m CEO of Pacifica Housing. We are one of the largest providers of affordable housing and supportive services on Vancouver Island and, hopefully, in other places in the future. We provide services from encampment, outreach and transitional housing all the way to market rental housing. We have quite a unique view of how the housing crisis is impacting people across the housing continuum and income levels as well as how providers experience it at each part of that continuum.

Getting straight to it. The one thing that we feel is very important is a budget to meet the critical need of affordable housing across the continuum. I’m sure you’ve heard this many times before from just about everybody, but I think it bears repeating. Especially…. It’s not simply about the units being built — that’s one piece of it — but the other piece is actually having subsidies attached so that we can have deep subsidy rent geared to income units and supportive units.

Right now we’re losing units faster than they’re being built and delivered. That’s not because they’re disappearing. In the affordable housing spectrum, what’s happening is buildings are coming off of operating agreement and, because of the state of the buildings and the investments they need in capital upgrades and such, we have no choice but to turn them into market rent units. Therefore, those subsidized units are being lost.

And some of the new buildings that are subsidized but mixed income — the family units are not subsidized because the building is supposed to be net zero or minimize the total subsidy. That means that we may have 130 units in a building, but not a single three-bedroom will be subsidized. So the families that need access to them aren’t getting them.

[10:40 a.m.]

The second piece is budget for maintaining adequate housing. As I mentioned, a lot of the housing stock in the province — well, in the country — is aging, and funding has not kept up for inflation, meaning existing budgets do not allow for subsidized housing to have basic maintenance budgets for things like pest control. So this results in critical aging infrastructure that can’t be updated, and this isn’t just for maintenance. It includes important systems like fire systems and elevators. That’s why we see some of the older buildings getting into serious issues in terms of the delivery of the services to the residents.

Lastly, we need a budget that appropriately provides supportive services that are tied to housing. By this, I mean that funding is often put towards managing crises, but adequate and predictable investments that allow for effective staffing levels, training, health and safety programs, maintenance, programming and administrative oversight, which is so important, are critical to the success of the supportive programs.

For these services to be able to be delivered, we need to be investing in the professional development of the individuals who provide this service, because the demand is growing, but the people who provide the service aren’t. The numbers aren’t growing at the same rate.

As an example, people are struggling, across the continuum, in all walks of life. We see the homelessness situation. That’s the most visible piece. So we do need to invest in supports for those people, helping them move forward along the continuum so that we can release some of those units and supports for those who need them after them.

We’re also seeing a lot of families struggling in independent living, especially after the pandemic, these being single moms with jobs. The support services aren’t there for them, so they’re, more frequently than I would like to say, losing their housing because they can’t maintain a home. They don’t have the supports. Then after that, they lose their children, because there’s no supportive housing for families, or there’s very, very little.

I think a holistic view to support services is really im­portant to stemming the tide of homelessness long term. Also, it’s just an economic…. It’s an investment in our communities.

Thank you. I beat the clock.

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

R. Leonard: Thank you so much for the work that you do here on Vancouver Island. Something that struck me from our tour just last week is that a lot of small communities don’t have the capacity to move forward on housing projects.

I’m curious if you can describe to us how you can partner with those small communities that have small NGOs that simply don’t have the capacity to move forward on even the first step towards getting a housing project built in their community.

C. Ibarra: That’s a really good question. I think partnerships between the smaller and larger societies is one option or, also, societies like ours taking an advisory role.

Again, capacity. If that could be charged to the project, that could absolutely work. I know what we do. Because we’re in Victoria and Nanaimo — greater Victoria and Nanaimo — we often send staff from each region when we’re opening a new building or wherever they have the strength to support each other in developing that capacity. So I see that being the same for any smaller organization in any community. It’s just sharing those resources.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. Can you expand a little bit on…? You mentioned that we’re losing housing due to a couple of factors. Capital upgrades aren’t being implemented, as well as net-zero regulations. Can you just expand on that a little bit? I’m just more interested in that.

C. Ibarra: I’ll give the situation of Pacifica, which I am quite certain is happening in other areas.

We just happen to have quite a bit of everything. We have ending operating agreements, whereas if a building is in really good shape, we could typically keep those lower rents on turnover because we don’t pay a mortgage.

[10:45 a.m.]

What’s happening right now is the units are not in great shape. The buildings are not in great shape when we start losing that subsidy, and on top of that, there are increased costs of labour, maintenance and everything else. In order to balance our own budgets and make ends meet, on turnover, we have to increase those units to market.

Another example. We have a building that has an agreement with Island Health, but because Island Health isn’t able or willing to pay even near market for the units they rent, we are having to get out of those agreements so that we can, on turnover, charge market to be able to sustain the maintenance and the operations of that building.

Because we’re larger, we’re balancing that out more or less with new buildings that come on with subsidized housing. But the net new units of subsidized housing aren’t there, because for every 80-unit building that we’re building, we’re losing 50 units of subsidized, for example. I hope that makes sense.

R. Leonard: When you say that you’re losing the operating agreements, are you speaking of the federal government ones that…? I know there were tens of thousands of them that were being lost many years ago. They started to, by attrition, when the agreements came up.

C. Ibarra: Provincial government. It is by attrition. As an example, we’ve got seven…. Between 2020 and 2025, there are seven properties coming off operating agreement. Again, if circumstances are different, that wouldn’t be a huge deal, but a lot of infrastructure upgrades haven’t been done. We’ve got a 30- or 40-year-old building that needs a building envelope upgrade and upgrades internally. The only way we can pay for that is by starting to raise rents and acquire debt on that site.

R. Leonard: Okay. Thanks.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much. Further on that point, I guess normally in a strata or something like that, you’d have a deferred maintenance kind of schedule and be anticipating these things. Is that something that is not recognized in the way that the model is set up currently?

C. Ibarra: That’s a really good question. The model does have a reserve fund allocation, but it’s minimal. Even B.C. Housing has told us that’s the regulation, but we acknowledge that it’s not sufficient to build a reserve fund. So I’ll be frank. In some of our buildings, they have negative reserve funds because maintenance can’t pay for a suite turnover, and the reserve fund can’t either.

The newer buildings are in a much better position. But if there could be something like…. I think with stratas, 10 percent of the previous year’s budget has to be allocated to a reserve fund. That’s a good model. If that could be applied to affordable housing, that would ensure much more robust reserve funds that can handle these things.

B. Stewart: Okay. Thank you.

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

Next up is Casey Edge, Victoria Residential Builders Association.

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

The floor is yours, Casey.

VICTORIA RESIDENTIAL
BUILDERS ASSOCIATION

C. Edge: Good morning, Chair and committee. Thank you for the opportunity to present today.

I’m Casey Edge, executive director of VRBA, promoting housing supply, affordability, education and consumer protection. We have 180 members, the majority of which are builders on Vancouver Island.

Here are our recommendations for housing. Just three here. Recommendation 1, end the ability of municipalities to fast-track the B.C. building code and other provincial timelines related to housing. B.C.’s building and safety standards branch is only now proposing mandatory radon rough-ins for new housing throughout the province to mitigate toxic radon exposure, five years after launching the B.C. step code.

VRBA warned about radon increasing in energy-efficient homes when the B.C. step code was introduced, enabling municipalities to fast-track energy efficiency. A national building code report says there are no safe levels of radon. Most radon-related cancer deaths, such as lung cancer, are in dwellings where levels are below Canada’s radon maximum of 200 becquerels per square metre.

B.C.’s step code bypasses national due diligence, and many municipalities adopted high energy efficiency levels. Municipalities do not have the expertise to fast-track building codes. Now they are fast-tracking the zero carbon step code, which does not permit natural gas, including carbon-neutral renewable natural gas from the Hartland Landfill.

The province’s timeline for zero carbon step code is 2030, and the date imposed by Saanich, Victoria and others is November 2023, six years in advance.

[10:50 a.m.]

Builders using 100 percent carbon-neutral RNG should not be required to build to the highest, most expensive levels of the B.C. step code.

Recommendation 2, cap municipal fees and regulations to increase housing supply and affordability. It won’t be news that our population growth, the fastest among G7 countries, created a housing shortage in B.C. and the high­est prices in Canada.

Some claim that we are already building a record number of homes — except that it’s not a record relative to our population. Victoria’s population in 1972 was 192,000, with housing starts of 4,100 — representing 2.2 percent. In 2022, Victoria’s population was 390,000, with housing starts of 4,800 — representing 1.2 percent. Relative to the different populations, that’s a decline of 45 percent in 2021 versus 1972.

Canada has the lowest number of housing units per 1,000 residents of any G7 country. The housing affordability crisis is the inevitable result of slow development processes, rezoning obstruction, more fees, taxes and regulations. Add demand from a large demographic of millennials and record immigration numbers, and there could be no other result.

New housing numbers are deceiving, because many new homes in core municipalities, like Oak Bay, are replacement homes. The Ministry of Housing has announced that it will encourage Oak Bay to boost rezonings and create more efficient permit processes. That will take a lot of encouragement, based on housing needs reports saying that even non-profits avoid rezonings in the municipality.

While the province’s efforts are welcome and overdue, there remains a loophole large enough to drive a truck through: municipal fees and regulations. Rising municipal fees are making new construction unaffordable. Municipalities are posting million-dollar surpluses from building permits alone.

According to a story in the TC last week, DCCs will boost the total per-unit fees for a 1,000-square-foot Cambie apartment to $200,000. Saanich raised their DCCs 180 percent and central Saanich 100 percent a few years ago. DCCs require the approval of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, which ignored our written objections to these triple-digit percentage increases.

Now Saanich plans to add up to $33,000 per new townhome unit in community amenity contributions and density bonusing. Other hurdles include extreme environmental regulations, such as Saanich’s past EDPA, which created challenges to build anything in the urban containment zones intended for housing. If reasonable financial numbers cannot be realized in our projects, pro forma, housing won’t get built, or what does get built will be the least affordable. There were zero new townhomes built in six CRD municipalities last year. We can do better.

Recommendation 3, enable university electives in the trades. There’s a solution for skilled trades right here. We have vast numbers of students pursuing university degrees in the humanities and sciences and choosing electives. Many would enjoy practical electives in framing, welding and other skills. This would offer a well-rounded education and provide employable skills during the summer and immediately after graduation. Construction offers good paying jobs in every community across B.C. Some students might even choose to pursue construction as a career.

We have trade schools and universities with the expertise to teach the necessary skills, and young people are willing and able to learn. Examples of successful collaborative programs in universities include the engineering bridge program and school of nursing.

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

H. Yao: Thanks so much, Casey.

I’m going to go back to your recommendation 1. Speaking about radon, I know the B.C. Lung Association earlier was talking about radon. I need to make sure we’re talking about the same thing.

We talked about underground gases coming into a subbasement. If it has proper air ventilation, it can be cleared. Can you help me appreciate what’s challenging here? Again, I’m in not the sector, so bear with me if my question doesn’t make any sense. What kind of challenges are radon posing for the building sector here right now?

C. Edge: In more energy-efficient homes, you get de­pressurization within the home, and it’s very difficult to create a balance. Through servicing cut-outs and cracks in the foundation, you get the radon gas, which is everywhere. It’s across B.C., just different amounts, and it’s site-specific. You really have to do a test on a home.

For instance, Salt Spring, which was considered a low-radon area by the B.C. government, in fact had, I think, 900 becquerels, when the so-called safe number is 200. Actually, that’s not even considered safe over a long period of time. The bottom line is that radon is pulled up through the foundation.

Now, as we recommended five years ago, before they implemented the step code, we recommended radon mitigation rough-ins throughout the province. They’re just starting to do it.

[10:55 a.m.]

G. Chow: Thank you, Mr. Edge. You mentioned DCCs. Around this area on the Island, a 1,000-square-foot home will have to pay $200,000, correct? That’s $200 per square foot.

C. Edge: It wouldn’t be just DCCs. There would be other fees associated with that, but the DCCs are a significant portion, and they require the signature, the approval, of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. Other fees — like community amenity contributions, density bonusing — are things that the municipality can enact.

G. Chow: You’re saying that it amounts to $200 per square foot for all the fees and DCCs and everything else. Would the rest be construction costs?

C. Edge: The $200,000? They’re talking about municipal fees.

G. Chow: Yeah. On a 1,000-square-foot unit, the DCC and the fees are $200K, so that comes out to be about $200 per square foot. What would it be as a percentage of the construction cost? How much would it be, approximately, per square foot of construction?

C. Edge: Some 15 years ago it used to be about 10 percent. Now we’re bumping up to 30. These kinds of fees, over the past, say, 20 years, have tripled. We’re talking also about property transfer taxes and all the rest.

Property transfer tax is charged up to three times in the development of a single home. The landowner sells the property to a developer. The developer subdivides and sells the property to a builder. Those are two property transfer taxes. When the house is built and sold to the new-home buyer, there’s a third property transfer tax charged. All those three would be embedded in the price of the home.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for your perspective. I think it’s very helpful. Radon is not on everybody’s radar. I thought that radon was actually in pockets in different places, but to hear that there could be an issue anywhere in British Columbia is really important that we know. Thank you for sharing that.

I wanted to ask you a question. You had listed a bunch of the different costs, fees and charges that have gone up over the years. Of course, costs have gone up over the years as well, for municipalities to build, so I would work an inflation measure into that. But I see your point when you say 10 percent to 30 percent increases.

You mentioned DCCs, building permits and community amenity charges, but you also mentioned density bonusing. I’m wondering how that plays a part in increasing costs.

C. Edge: Basically, the municipality decides how much the land is worth, and they want a piece of the action. They don’t take any risk. If you increase the density, they want X. I think Victoria takes 75 percent or something. That’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about municipalities seeing housing as an opportunity to boost their revenues. Community amenity contributions are things the municipality wants to have, but it doesn’t want to raise property taxes to pay for them.

On the inflationary part of it…. Yes. If Saanich had stuck to 2 percent a year over 20 years, not increasing the DCCs, that would be 40 percent. They charged 180 percent. Municipalities are seeing housing as an opportunity to boost their revenue without having to go back to taxpayers and get more property tax.

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

Next up is Samantha Gambling, B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food.

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

[11:00 a.m.]

COALITION FOR HEALTHY SCHOOL FOOD,
B.C. CHAPTER

S. Gambling: Hi, everyone. My name is Sam Gambling. I’m here on behalf of the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, a slight change from housing, which is administered by the Public Health Association of B.C. I coordinate the B.C. chapter of the Coalition for Healthy School Food, which is Canada’s largest school food network, made up of over 260 non-profit organizations from coast to coast to coast.

Our 90 member and endorser organizations here in B.C. include non-profits, stakeholder associations, school districts, local governments and other grassroots organizations from all corners of the province, many of whom deliver school breakfast, lunch, snack and other nutrition or food literacy programs.

Together we’re advocating for public investment in a high-quality school food program that would provide all K-to-12 students in Canada with daily access to healthy food at school and that meets guiding principles such as health promotion, universal accessibility, connection to curriculum, community economic development, Indigenous food sovereignty and more.

The coalition is grateful to the B.C. government for listening to the voices of hundreds of advocates across the province and for providing dedicated and stable funding for school food programs in Budget 2023. Thank you so much on behalf of all of our members of the B.C. chapter.

This is a historic investment in school food, and we are leading the way across Canada. That said, we know the hard work begins now with the implementation of programs. To maximize the impact of this historic feeding futures funding, we have three recommendations for Budget 2024.

Firstly, we recommend that the B.C. government allocate $10 million per year for provincial and regional support networks as well as centralized implementation support. Across B.C., school districts are at different levels of readiness to implement school food programs and to use the feeding futures funding effectively to feed B.C. students. However, there are hundreds of experienced and passionate organizations and practitioners across the province who are embedded in local food systems and who can offer valuable supports to districts in developing robust and sustainable programs.

We believe that providing funding to leverage and support these existing networks and assets as well as other centralized resources will significantly amplify the impact of B.C.’s new historic investment in school food.

This includes funding for non-profit community organizations to support school districts in developing and implementing programs, a provincial school food task force to support resource development and evaluation, and a team of regional support staff across B.C. hosted by a provincial NGO partner such as the Coalition for Healthy School Food or the Public Health Association or otherwise; to build and maintain relationships with school districts and other school food stakeholders in a given region, offer guidance and training, and support connection and collaboration between districts.

We also recommend that the B.C. government fund and evaluate local food pilot programs to test the potential impact and effectiveness of local food procurement in­centive programs at K-to-12 schools. These pilots should leverage existing food hub assets within communities and support small to medium-scale farmers in the institutions’ bioregions. These types of local food procurement incentive programs have been very successful for K-to-12 institutions in the U.S., resulting in an estimated $1.26 billion in local food sales from schools participating in these programs in 2019 across the country.

Given the competing priorities and potential challenges with local food procurement in K-to-12 institutions, we believe incentive programs will help move our schools towards local purchasing, with potentially significant im­pacts for both the local food and agriculture sector and also for the students participating in the programs.

Lastly, we recommend that the B.C. government call on the federal government to match our province’s historic investment in school food. The federal government has expressed their commitment to a national school food policy and program over the last five years, but we are yet to see an actual investment in school food programs in the federal budget.

We ask that B.C.’s Minister of Finance reach out to the federal Minister of Finance expressing support for federal investment in school food and B.C.’s willingness to enter into tailor-made bilateral agreements between the prov­ince and the federal government.

In addition, we ask that the B.C. government call on the federal government to increase funding to First Nations schools, per the B.C. tripartite agreement, to ensure that B.C.’s 131 First Nation schools have adequate and equitable funding to implement nourishing and culturally appropriate school food programs and to facilitate Indigenous food sovereignty.

The B.C. chapter has sent in a written submission with further details on these three recommendations. I’m happy to answer any questions here.

Thanks very much for considering our submission. Thank you sincerely for your commitment to ensure all students in B.C. have access to healthy food at school. We really appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Samantha, thank you very much for your presentation.

[11:05 a.m.]

I actually have a question with regard to your submission, which was there. It says that food procurement in­centive programs, starting with four to five districts, are ready to go. Can you expand upon, maybe, who those are and what you’ve done?

S. Gambling: There are lots of school districts who have already explored this. There are lots of community partners who have explored this.

One example might be SD 71, in the Comox Valley, partnering with LUSH Valley, Maurita Prato. They are doing amazing things. They’ve got, already, an amazing food hub and group of farmers there who can, maybe, facilitate this and support the district in this local food procurement.

There are so many. We hadn’t actually thought of the four to five school districts. I think right now it’s really…. We’re getting a sense of where districts are at across the province. There are food hubs in…. Well, Prince Rupert actually has a really fantastic connection with Ecotrust. They’re doing a lot of local seafood to schools. Haida Gwaii, of course, is doing some amazing work as well, already, with local food procurement, traditional Indigenous food procurement as well. There are many.

The one I would also say…. In Vernon, SD 22 and the Land to Table Network in the North Okanagan have this wonderful food hub, as well, that could facilitate that process.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Samantha, just in regards to the first ask there, the $10 million for regional support. You mentioned there are a few things, implementation and training. There’s evaluation in there.

I’m just wondering how the evaluation works for children that need healthy foods. Some may be financial barriers, where the parents may not have the financial resources to provide healthy foods. There are some children that could have a packed lunchbox but full of processed, un­healthy foods.

How do you evaluate who needs more help? Is there a letter sent out to parents? How does that work?

S. Gambling: I think there are a couple of different questions in there.

In terms of evaluation, I guess there’s the difference between impact evaluation and process evaluation. Right now there are some really great examples of districts who are running process evaluations within their own school food programs. SD 62, the Sooke school district, is doing some really fantastic work piloting a program and then evaluating the process of that program, given there are certain objectives and guiding principles. It’s less about the impact of that program on the students. It’s more about how that program is functioning within the district.

If you’re talking about identifying students who should be participating in programs…. I mean, we’re advocating for a universally accessible program where all students have access to food. That means a cost-share program. That might be a pay-what-you-can program. There are some great examples of those across the country. Asking for money from the federal government to help cost-share our investment so that all students have access to a meal when it’s provided in a school setting really reduces the stigma of a program as well.

It’s less about identifying the vulnerable or hungry students and more about recognizing that all students can come to school hungry for various reasons, whether that’s a sports thing in the morning, their parents are running late, or they don’t like breakfast that early. There are various reasons that students come to school hungry. So it’s identifying opportunities for universal accessibility within a program.

Sorry. That doesn’t really answer your question.

B. Stewart: I wanted to talk a little bit more about…. When we made that recommendation last year, we heard lots of compelling stories. I guess the question, to me, is the consistency and the quality. There’s not really a system in place. There are all sorts of best efforts.

Do you have any recommendations on regulations or guidelines? What is it that should be done to bring consistency, if you want to call it that, to the objective?

S. Gambling: I actually think the Ministry of Education is doing a great job of slowly rolling out some guiding principles for this program. I know that they’re working on these guiding principles for the feeding futures program. I know a lot of it aligns with the coalition’s guiding principles.

I would say working towards supporting districts when they are ready to meet these objectives and providing enough resources and support to districts to be able to do that. It’s one thing to ask them to have a local, sustainable, culturally appropriate, stigma-free program. It’s another to actually help them get there.

I think part of the submission is recognizing that there are so many existing supports and assets on the ground. If we can help make those connections and support those local organizations who are doing that work….

[11:10 a.m.]

School districts will get there. The communities want this. It’s a matter of providing enough capacity in terms of funding, which has been done now, in terms of resources, like human resources, which has also been done now, and being able to fund a coordinator at the district level. Now it’s a matter of a community of practice, sharing promising practices. This is what we’re hearing from districts in terms of what they need to reach their objectives.

In terms of legislation, I actually don’t think a top-down program is the best way to go about it. I really think it needs to come from the community, and it looks like most school communities I’ve talked to have similar objectives in terms of what they want for their students.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Samantha, thank you very much for your presentation this morning. The enthusiasm is duly noted.

Next up is Cynthia Lockrey.

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

The floor is yours.

CYNTHIA LOCKREY

C. Lockrey: Thank you. I’m here today to present the views of a parent of a child with disabilities and complex medical needs.

I live and work in the unceded territories of the Coast Salish people in the Cowichan Valley.

For seven years, I’ve been coming here presenting to this committee as a mom, talking about the crisis in our education system and how kids with disabilities are falling further behind. COVID has only made it worse. When I first started presenting, I had hope — hope that the statistics would be impossible to ignore and more funding invested in education, stats like: a 53 percent graduation rate for kids with disabilities in school district 79; one in 35 kids in B.C. currently diagnosed with autism — conservative number is one in 30, probably much more than that; a fall in literacy and numeracy rates across the board for students with disabilities. Talking to teachers, the gap is getting wider between our kids and neurotypical peers.

Despite acknowledgment from this committee on how we’re failing our kids, there has been no change to education funding. A funding announcement from the Ministry of Education in April gave some hope, but I quickly learned the announced funding was for collective agreement wage increases with no new dollars to help students actually get support.

As I was preparing for today, my daughter asked: “What are you doing?” When I told her, her response was: “I wanted to go to university and become an advocate for girls with autism and ADHD, because they’re underdiagnosed, and their needs are overlooked” — she had actually found some universities where she could go — “but I see how hard you’re advocating, and nothing has changed. Why do you even bother? I don’t want to spend my life fighting and no one listens. The government doesn’t care about kids like us. We’re invisible.”

Sadly, she’s right. Here is a grade 9 student who was physically and verbally abused for years in the public system and received zero supports despite having a funded designation. It was only by pulling her and paying for private education that she could be kept safe, get the support she needed and reach her full potential, which is straight A’s. She was two months into her private school, and she said to me: “Mom, for the first time ever, I feel safe. I never felt safe at school before.”

We shouldn’t have to pay to keep our kids safe or make sure they get the help they need. I have a younger child who remains in the public system. It was only by paying for a private psych-ed assessment, after being told by the school district he would never get a public one because he was already diagnosed with autism, that we found out he had severe learning disabilities. We now pay a private tutor to teach him to read as the school doesn’t have the staff to help with his dyslexia.

In our school, there is one EA for every 100 children. In his classroom alone, there are five kids with ADHD, two kids who are dyslexic and one autistic child. It’s a class of 27 kids.

The needs are there, but the funding of education is not enough to support our kids. Anybody will tell you the amount of designations are getting more. Look at anxiety, which is going through the roof.

I will tell you that our family is going into debt to keep our kids safe and help them learn, as the only other option is trusting an education system where they have a 50-50 percent chance of graduating. Those are not the odds I’m willing to take.

So my ask is simple. Help our kids. Quit ignoring kids with disabilities. Everybody is ignoring them.

[11:15 a.m.]

Invest the money in education to provide more training for staff so they understand disabilities and move away from ableism mindsets. I could tell you stories all day about what we’ve heard.

Increase funding for resources to support kids with disabilities — EAs, resource teachers, therapists — and make sure this money is specifically allocated for kids with disabilities, just like funding for Indigenous learners is kept separate in the budget.

Make sure kids with disabilities can go to school full-time and be included in field trips like their peers, not forced to do a couple of hours a day or left behind because there’s not enough staff. We’ve been told the only way our kid can go on a field trip is if we take a day off work and go with them, but no other parent is being asked.

Finally, continue funding independent schools, as this is the only safe option for some kids.

We know every dollar spent on prevention saves $10 on treatment. Investing in kids today prevents the crisis of tomorrow — underemployment, homelessness, addictions — yet we continue to let our kids struggle and try to manage the outcomes of an education system that doesn’t have the resources to support its most vulnerable students.

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

I have a quick question myself. You talk about one EA per 100. Is that specific to your school district?

C. Lockrey: Yes, it is. They say it’s because of…. It all comes to pay designations, but there are lots of kids that don’t bring in money that need help.

B. Banman: Thank you very much. I share in your frustration. I have a grandchild that…. His parents are just yanking their hair out. I think my son puts it best when he says: “You know what? My kid is entitled to an education the same as everyone else, and being put in the vice-principal’s office and told to play with LEGO is not an education.” Sadly, that’s what happens.

I want to thank you for bringing this to us. If you were to do two things, what are the two things that you would do that would help your children succeed?

C. Lockrey: I would definitely increase funding to independent schools, because the statistics are that the kids that are leaving the public system…. Greater numbers are going to independent schools or home-schooling because of what you’ve said.

The other thing I would do is look at how you can get more EAs — more EAs trained, more coordinated designations so there’s a system in place, because we need…. That’s a cheaper option than more teachers.

R. Leonard: Thank you for your presentation. I know it’s hard sometimes to talk about your own personal experiences, so I really appreciate you coming and sharing yours.

The option of going to independent schools. I’m curious, because my understanding is that the school systems are supposed to be supported for integrated learning so that everybody is welcome in the classroom, and I know that that’s not true. Does that mean, entirely, that you don’t support integrated learning or is there somewhere in between where you can test the waters, come back and…?

C. Lockrey: I wish I didn’t have to pay, and I don’t think I should have to pay to keep my kids safe. I wish that the teachers understood disabilities.

My child has had meltdowns, which are not temper tantrums, and being told to be quiet, sent to the principal’s office. He’s in the middle of a meltdown. He’s unable to regulate.

I’m here because of all the parents who can’t be here. I was at the school fun fair on the weekend, and I had parents crying to me at the public school about what’s happening to their kids. The bullying is excessive. Kids are taking their frustration, anxiety…. The United Nations did a report, a study two years ago on kids with disabilities being disproportionately bullied. Who’s there to help them, first, co-regulate and, second, be kept safe?

I would love to see our public system be a place that we feel safe sending our kids and our kids aren’t spending their days playing LEGO or, in my kid’s case, playing Minecraft. Although he likes that.

G. Chow: In terms of doing it in the public school system, like you mentioned, a separate budget item…. Would you advocate the kids be in the same as in the public school or actually a separate school?

[11:20 a.m.]

C. Lockrey: Oh, no. They need to be with their peers, because kids with autism, for example, who are technology-minded are 140 percent better at technology than neurotypicals. There are great possibilities.

What I’m saying is that Indigenous learners’ money is kept sacred in the budget. Kids-with-disabilities funding can be used for construction, can be used for…. We need to make sure that their funding is kept sacred. They do need to be with their peers, because their abilities are being discounted, and being with their peers helps them build their abilities.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, Cynthia, thank you very much for your presentation, for being the advocate that you are and, more importantly, for being the mom that you are as well.

C. Lockrey: Thank you. I might be your only mom on the agenda, but nobody can fire me if I say anything. I still have the job tomorrow.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Andrew Mai, PolyCan Health Centre.

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

Andrew, you have the floor.

POLYCAN HEALTH CENTRE

A. Mai: Good morning, Finance Committee, ladies and gentlemen. I’m presenting here from a long way, from Burnaby.

My background is that of a medical doctor. Now it’s a holding build of the PolyCan Health Centre, right at Simon Fraser University. PolyCan is one of the multi­disciplinary leaders for family health and also various specialties, including allied health into the centre. We can provide one-stop, team-based care for the local residents, the university students and the faculty members. The mountain has about a 4,000-to-5,000-people population.

Personally, I have 35 years in medical care, also R and D and successful research. We’re connected worldwide to a group of universities, including UBC, Simon Fraser and U of T, and I’m helping with those health centres.

For the first one, I encourage the committee to pull for PolyCan’s cancer prevention and rehab centre. That’s important, because cancer is one big issue to the population right now in B.C. Also, lots of cancer patients don’t have a lot of rehabilitation after treatment, like radiation, surgical and also chemo treatments. For those patients, it can be really hard to get back to their lives and also could hurt the patients, their families and also the community.

Cancer, as anyone knows, is big, big-time event. It’s not just like after COVID-19. Maybe we’ll have a COVID-23 and COVID-24; we don’t know yet. What are we doing? At least right now health care is one of the priorities of our government. I have all the lists on the inside. These are for the cancers.

Second, we’re going to invest in health and wellness. From primary health to multidisciplinary health, it’s about AI monitoring and telehealth technology, improving our health care accessibility. That means that our patients’ care is a priority. The patient is the priority. Any family may have patients in their family and their friends. I think you will see, and pay attention, when about 40 percent of doctors will be retiring in the next two to three years. Because of baby boomers, more and more will be coming up for their health care.

Health care funding is a big issue, no matter whether for provincial or for federal. Of course, the municipal have no way to afford the funding. On government funding, I’m also thinking about private health care lottery fundraising. We may consider if we can do this one. We try for government funding, but the government will have to raise our taxes. This means that I get, like, another taxpayer debt, which makes it more heavy for this.

[11:25 a.m.]

There’s the health centre. Why we need the health cen­tres. The health centres are allowed to provide preventive and early diagnosis and screening. Also, one is AI doesn’t burnout, like the shortages of the doctors and nurses. So AI technology monitoring is helping lots of patients without the manpower. We can use the AI technology to take care of those type of patients. We can access the technology. Also, we can work with a larger university to build this system.

We do something like a remote community, like a First Nation community, Indigenous. Right now we work with the Indigenous in Skeena, from far away, the Pacific Northwest, and also with the Stó:lō Nation. They are pretty excited for being able to provide this kind of service to them. I believe that the government should focus on it.

Also, government…. We have lots of immigrants that come. Our federal government put it at about a 500,000 population that may move into the country. So where’s the doctor? Where’s the nurse? We need to face how those are going to be more challenging in the future. What about my children? What about my grandchildren? Okay. We need to take care of this problem and as early as possible. I already mentioned to the government of ten years ago. But right now, today, hopefully we can get it better.

I mentioned it for density breast cancer. Our government…. We don’t have a solution for dense breasts, early stage for cancer screening. Eighty-five percent of breast can­cer happens in dense-breasted women, and those dense-breasted women…. It happens also, about 85 percent, in Asian people.

I have talked to some communities, like a Korean community and Japanese community and Chinese community. They find out the cancer is here. The system cannot detect it, like a mammo. They cannot find it at the early stage. They find it already at stages 3 and 4.

I mentioned this once to the government. I talked with Minister Dix a long time ago. Minister Dix said to do something, like put an announcement for that. But we’re still finding out we need more power, more muscle to move forward, because otherwise MSP will pay more money.

The last one. We do a topic for the stem cell. People thinking about a stem cell as a clone is actually wrong. Stem cells can fix lots of problems, including leukemia, a brain tumour and all kinds of stuff. We work closely with Simon Fraser University and UBC medical school. Also, a Japanese company and also an American company work together for the stem cell technology. Stem cells can fix lots of problems for people with cancer and people with post-COVID-19 symptoms. There are lots of people suffering after COVID-19 disease. They may feel tired. They feel a lack of energy. All stem cells can fix this one.

Right now all the governments, like the Japanese government and the American…. They already put this one on their priority right now. We are able to do this one in the PolyCan Health Centre. I have about 13 years of experience with the stem cells. I’m thinking that this one…. If the government can fund this one, it would be great, especially for the Alzheimer’s, cancer and drug abdication, additional ones that it can help to fix the problem.

That’s it.

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

At the beginning of your presentation, you had made comments about AI monitoring technologies. I’ll say, for myself, that every time I hear AI, it makes me clench up a little bit as to what’s taking place that’s out there. Do you foresee any privacy issues when you talk about AI monitoring?

A. Mai: Privacy. I understand that people care about privacy, but the patient care, it just means that…. You stay in hospital. You have no privacy for the nurse. It’s the only thing, as privacy, if the patient that needs…. I’m not causing…. It’s not for normal people. If there’s a need for privacy in a hospital…. In a very big hospital, you have a side agreement to allow a nurse or doctor able to bill you, and they can visit you any time.

[11:30 a.m.]

B. Banman: Thank you very much. I find it fascinating. When you talk about AI, I’ve often thought that AI could actually help speed systems up because AI would be great at doing differential diagnosis, for instance. It’ll fill in the parts that humans will miss.

I wanted to zero in on two things that you said. First off you said that, if I heard you correctly, Asian women have denser breast tissue, and that means that it is much, much more difficult for early diagnosis. Is there a test currently that will help with the diagnosis of early intervention?

The other one was…. I’ll just let you answer that question. Someone else can ask another one.

A. Mai: We have invested in 3D, 4D ultrasound that can detect the density of breasts for their age, even the cancer tumour of, like, a stump of one millimetre and two millimetres. Actually, I got mistakes. I already put out an announcement. After we talked, they had the announcement on CTV News back to 2019.

B. Banman: Is that technology implemented yet in British Columbia? Do we have it, and if so, why are we still using mammograms when this technology exists?

A. Mai: Why? There are reasons. Sometimes we take time to change and just lead. We have the technology. We have brought in the machine. We’re the first machine in the country in 3D, 4D ultrasound and the support for automatic breast scanning. To look back to 2020…. It was the pandemic at that time.

I also pushed it like we talked about, because stem cell is also very good for burnt skin. Lots of firefighters have burnt skin.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

Where are we with ADSC stem cell research in the prov­ince compared to other jurisdictions? What kind of funding are you looking for to get us on par with advancing that type of research?

A. Mai: Okay. Right now we are trying to apply for the funding from the burn fund. I mentioned this one. There is a burn fund. I wish we could to get some. Most of the burn fund is invested in the U.S. To get a U.S. company to do it for us actually is not right. The first one will get the burn fund and send them back into Canada. This is the burn fund again.

Also, the provincial government will have some of those kinds of deep funding. That would be a great way. We can move this forward. We are the first ones that will have a cell band in the country and also get stem cell research for skin burns, cancer, Alzheimer’s and post-COVID-19 symptoms.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): So you work with SFU.

A. Mai: I work with SFU, yeah.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): You work with UBC, I believe as well.

A. Mai: I work with UBC too.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): What’s the dollar ask?

A. Mai: The dollar, roughly…. If it’s for the beginning to properly stage it, it is about $2 million. It could maybe go up. We’re going to bring a clinical trial at the FDA stage. So we can bring it to the FDA if we can prove this one in Canada.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, that concludes your presentation. Thank you very much for your presentation this morning and the research that you’re doing out there for all British Columbians.

A. Mai: Thank you. Also, a small thing we’re asking. PolyCan is private, so many retired doctors put their effort, about 30 to 40 years experience, to build this one. I know I work closely with the university, and we have a funding issue. This centre was built in 2020. We don’t get any money from government subsidies, because we do not qualify for the COVID issue. We already talked to our…. The board director will see if we’re able to get the government to support helping a little bit, helping a university, helping the community.

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

Next up is William Leggat, Disability Action of Canada.

William, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments from the committee.

William, the floor is yours.

[11:35 a.m.]

DISABILITY ACTION OF CANADA

W. Leggat: I’d like to start off by expressing my thanks to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for giving me the opportunity to present here today for the Budget 2024 consultations.

My name is William Jeffrey Leggat. I am 55 years old. After more than 30 years of working intermittently and not properly managing my acute anxiety disorder, I de­cided, in 2018, it was time to get my mental health in check.

In early 2019, I was medically assessed and designated a person with disability living in B.C. My life has been filled with many positive but short-lived bouts of employment and success alongside many desperate lows filled with unemployment, mental health concerns, poverty, self-medication, panic attacks, agoraphobia, depression and near homelessness. Since being designated as disabled in B.C., I have been afforded the opportunity to face my mental health issues and learn how to best manage them for a more stable and fulfilling life.

My life has notably improved since becoming a person with disability in B.C. For that, I would like to thank the provincial government. But there are also a number of shortfalls within the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction. I would like to address three important issues.

First and foremost, disabled British Columbians are financially supported through monthly disability income support at well below the official poverty level in Canada. The current monthly provincial support level is $1,410 a month, while the official poverty level in Canada is $2,202 a month, per the LICO, low-income cutoff, table recognized and utilized by the government of Canada. Those are the 2021 figures for LICO.

This financial support level is somewhat less oppressive for the 26 percent of persons with disabilities in B.C. that have subsidized housing and pay under $500 a month in rent. For the 74 percent, or the rest of us, left to pay market rent, the majority of our monthly support cheques goes directly to the landlord, leaving only a few hundred dollars to cover all other monthly expenses: food, toiletries, clothes, laundry, heating, water, electricity, cell phone, Internet, medications which are not covered, transportation and, God willing, a little bit of a social life once in a while.

For instance, I pay $1,200 a month for my one-bedroom apartment up in Mill Bay, leaving me with $210 for everything else. I can assure you this is not enough.

I’m calling on the government of British Columbia to provide a disability income support level at no less than equal, and tied, to the official poverty level in Canada, per the LICO table, and adjusted annually for inflation and cost-of-living increases.

Second, I am an individual. I’m a human being. I’m also a person with disability living in B.C. When I am single, I am treated as such by the ministry. If I were to date, enter a relationship or marry, the ministry no longer sees me as an individual but as a financial burden, which they quickly pass off to my significant other. I lose my dignity, respect and autonomy as well as my ability to be self-sufficient, even at the current level of less than poverty. How humiliating. How disgusting.

I call upon the government of British Columbia to treat every single person with disability as the individual human being that they are, regardless of partner fiscal considerations. Please allow us the basic dignity of individual, poverty-level financial support.

Finally, clawbacks, including CPPD, life insurance and others that are automatically taken off our disability income support. For those of us lucky enough to be eligible for federal income supports alongside our provincial support, our luck runs out as the ministry automatically claws these financial supports back, leaving us once again trapped in the government-imposed poverty.

I’m calling on the government of British Columbia to restrict any and all financial support clawbacks that leave the disabled in B.C. receiving anything below the official poverty level in Canada. Being stuck in legislated poverty, as a disabled person, is trauma. It is oppression. It is a perpetual state of survival. Please give us the opportunity to participate in our community, in our society and in our lives by ensuring that we all are financially supported at no less than the poverty level.

That’s it. Thank you so much.

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

[11:40 a.m.]

I have a quick question. Sometimes my pen and my eyes and my ears do not match up when I have to write things out.

When you spoke about clawbacks, you talked about life insurance and some other things that were there. Could you…?

W. Leggat: CPPD. If a person is receiving provincial disability income support, the money they receive from the federal government, CPPD, is often clawed back and taken back by the ministry.

So if the province is providing $1,410 a month, and the CPP allows for $800 a month, that would get a person up to the official poverty level of Canada, but that money is clawed back. So a person is kept in a state of perpetual poverty. And that includes life insurance or whatever other supports that a person might be receiving.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for coming and presenting today. We really appreciate it. The clawback, I’ve learned, is related to the fact that they don’t consider it to be income, because there is an amount that people can earn. Does the amount that people can earn bring people to a level of the low income?

W. Leggat: Yes, if a person is able to work, if a person is able to find employment, be employed, what have you, we are able to earn up to $15,000 a year above and beyond the provincial disability income support, which is wonderful. That gives those people the ability to be above poverty level. But for those who aren’t able to be employed, find employment, for whatever reason, they’re stuck at $1,410 a month.

B. Banman: Thank you very much, William. You’ve hit on some things that…. I often say that there are few presentations that keep me awake at night. This would also fall into that category. Thank you for coming here. Thanks for being under the five minutes. Way to go.

I want to zero in on…. I agree that I think we should treat that as income, the same as a job. Also there’s a certain point where I think there are some people that are designated with a disability who actually could enter back into a workforce, like yourself, perhaps, I hope. But they get to that $15,000, and then it’s the same trapdoor where every single dollar is now subtracted. Do you think we should have a graduated scale?

W. Leggat: I would, absolutely. If someone is able to get back in the workforce, there’s no reason to penalize them for earning more than $15,000 a year and still receive the disability income support.

The way that it’s set up right now is we’re keeping people controlled in a certain amount of money — what they can earn or receive. Instead of supporting them and lifting them up and giving them the dignity to be self-sufficient, we’re keeping them in a state of control. So I would definitely agree upon a graduated system for those who are able to earn for themselves. Yes.

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

Well, not seeing any, William, thank you very much for your presentation, and thank you for sharing your story. It’s important. For most of us, storytelling is a great way to get a message out there.

To the committee, we have had a couple of cancellations, so I hate to break it to you, but we are going to recess for lunch a little earlier. If we can reconvene at one o’clock, so we’re ready to go for this afternoon’s presentation.

The committee recessed from 11:43 a.m. to 1:11 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will get our meeting back in order right now.

First up is Maurine Karagianis from Victoria Women’s Transition House Society.

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

The floor is now yours.

VICTORIA WOMEN’S
TRANSITION HOUSE SOCIETY

M. Karagianis: Thanks for allowing me to speak on behalf of the Victoria Women’s Transition House. I am the current chair of the board of directors, and I’m here with our executive director, Makenna Rielly, and our deputy director, Parm Kroad.

I would like to first acknowledge the traditional territories of the Victoria Women’s Transition House, the lək̓ʷəŋəŋ and SENĆOŦEN-speaking peoples of the W̱SÁNEĆ, Esquimalt and Songhees Nations, with the expressed shared hope to live in communities free of intimate partner violence.

As a former Member of the Legislative Assembly, I am keenly aware of the many years of ongoing struggles for organizations like Victoria Women’s Transition House and other transition houses across B.C. As a point of context, the ministerial mandate letters call for an ongoing action plan to end gender-based violence and for government’s commitment to gender equality in budgets, policies and programs.

In the last two years, we have presented to this committee and advocated for predictable, reliable multi-year core funding. We are here once again to ask for the same thing and to urge the government to consider ongoing program funding gaps and the resulting impacts that it has on families.

Inflation is steadily increasing, as we all know, and the incidence of violence is also increasing, forcing organizations like ours to do more with less, a model that is not sustainable. Families are struggling to be free of intimate partner violence. Without program dollars and transitional housing, many women and children are trapped in violent, unsafe homes.

No one selects a violent partner to reside with, but once the abuser asserts control over the family, women and children are in great danger for their lives. Many cannot leave for fear of becoming homeless, and all of the people leaving intimate partner violence face great financial barriers. In addition, without proper funding, we see wait-lists increasing for programs, housing, counselling and children’s services.

For today, we provided an infographic that captures the current funding gaps. The top red portion of each bar shows the shortfall in funding for each program as a percentage of the total program expense. These funding gaps must be fundraised through community donations and grants, and still we are not meeting the demand for essential services in our community. The colour-coding represents funding received from B.C. Housing, PSSG and MCFD, all showing that we are continuously underfunded by all three funders.

While we know the government is keenly aware of the housing crisis, we are emphasizing the situation from our perspective. People cannot leave a violent relationship if there’s no place to go. Our shelter has families on wait-lists and families in desperate need of housing. When they come to us in an emergency, they need a place to stay, crisis counselling, legal assistance, safety planning and resources to find a safe place to live in a time of extreme housing shortage.

[1:15 p.m.]

The system is breaking down. Many shelters are forced to keep people past the mandated 30 days because there’s simply no place else to send them. The goal has always been to assist families to find affordable housing as the next step. We continue to hold to a 30-day emergency stay, but the pressure is unbearable.

We need the space for emergency intake, but with no housing after that point, women and children are in terrible danger of returning to their abusers or becoming homeless. We all know that providing immediate shelter for women and children and the supports and services they need to get their lives back on track prevents and reduces the long-term impacts and trauma that result from intimate partner violence.

Realistically, services are complex, with too many inflationary factors outside of our control — increased wages and benefits, operational costs, utilities, rising insurance costs and the ever-increasing cost of living. There is no way of incorporating these external cost increases automatically into a service contract, so the lack of capacity to meet these levels has a huge impact.

We know our agency, it’s essential management and administration staff and resources and a set of core services provided through a single multi-year renewable contract, including transparent accountability measures and explicit provision for externally driven costs like salaries, is crucial. It would reduce the administrative burden on both funders and agency, and enable resources to be maximized. A three- to five-year contract with annual performance reviews would ensure stability and allow us to respond to emerging needs.

We recommend that the government acknowledge that women and children fleeing intimate partner violence is also a high priority for affordable housing and to provide emergency funding to address the crisis for traditional housing in greater Victoria, where inflation and cost of living continue to soar, leaving women and children with no options to find affordable housing.

We respectfully thank you for your time today, and I’m happy to answer any questions.

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

R. Leonard: Wonderful to see you here today.

I’m curious about statistics. I’m not sure if they’re in the submission that you made. How many women and families do you have to turn away? How many, at the end of 30 days, are you able to find even temporary accommodation for?

M. Karagianis: Let me just ask my executive director, because they work on the front lines every single day.

Makenna, what would you say is our average number of people that we are pushing out the door?

Interjection.

M. Karagianis: Makenna is saying that in the past year, we’ve had to turn away about 120 families.

R. Leonard: After the 30 days, what kind of housing supports are you able to find to help prevent them moving back into a violent situation?

M. Rielly: What happens is that in the 30-day stay, we attempt to do safety. So when folks come in, we don’t guarantee that we can find them housing.

Ten years ago someone would come into the shelter, and we would have housing for them within two weeks. Now they have to transition out to the next step, and that’s one of the reasons why we’re emphasizing our build in Langford of 50 units for families, which will be completed by the fall of next year.

In the meantime, we attempt to find other safe housing, outreach support and anything that we can do to keep them from returning to the abuser, but we know that a lot of women are not willing to leave and unable to leave because they’re not going to go homeless with children. So it makes each case now more intense, more complex. The violence since COVID…. We’re seeing increases in the amount of violence.

M. Karagianis: Can I also say that we do try and offer some kind of rental subsidies where we can. I’m sure all of you are very keenly aware of the lack of housing in this region, for sure, and across the province as well, if we want to advocate for other transition houses.

[1:20 p.m.]

There was a time when we had a much more direct relationship with housing providers as well and a direct link so that our families and women coming out of shelter were put on a higher priority list than others who are waiting for housing as well. That has changed in the last couple of years.

It is one of the things we feel is really important — that we have that proprietary relationship where if some housing exists, we have an opportunity to get our families, our women into that housing first. It’s unkind that we have to bump somebody else to do that, but….

B. Banman: I want to thank you for the work that you do, first off. It’s challenging work and at times heartbreaking.

I want to zero in on…. I know in Abbotsford, some of the groups…. We have some unique places in Abbotsford where the challenges that these women have is you can’t just put them out in Timbuktu either, which you can do with men, especially those that are recovering from substance abuse. The women need to be near schools, and quite often they also need to be near transit because they’re leaving literally with the shirts on their backs, at times.

How important is it that they and those children are located in neighbourhoods where their school systems are?

M. Karagianis: I think all those things are important, and we’re not here actually advocating for more transition housing. We’d like to certainly have more. I think the community would like more. But, really, for us, the support systems that go with it are really important. That’s really what we’ve come forward, every year, asking for.

All of the support counselling and things we offer…. We do have to go to PSSG Ministry cap in hand every year, and that doesn’t allow us to have a continuity going forward of staffing, of programming. We have huge wait-lists because we don’t know if and when we are going to be approved for funding, so that is one of our priorities.

Certainly, I think that all of the housing providers here and the government itself knows how critical it is for us to build more transition housing, but that doesn’t happen overnight, as we know. Yeah, I think families need to be near schools. They need to, hopefully, not be relocated too far away from the community that their children are comfortable with. But the reality is the programs that wrap around them are so crucial to their ongoing success and to not going back to their abusers. Really, that’s one of the big focuses for us today.

This graph says to you…. This is the shortfall in red, right? That has gotten worse. If we have to come back here next year, it’ll be worse again.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. I’m going to allow one final question, even though we have two people on our list, unfortunately. Henry.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I will make the question quick.

I obviously appreciate the graphic you demonstrated here. I’m also from a community which is a lot more ethnically diverse. We also have a lot of women who are not aware or not comfortable running away from domestic violence.

Based upon your projection, based on what you are already seeing right now, are you able to give us even a number of what’s…? Because I’m assuming once the funding tops up, there will be more individuals finding courage to utilize your services, and therefore the shortfall would be recreated again. Are you able to maybe even project what’s really actually needed compared to just covering the current shortfall?

M. Karagianis: I think that the budgets that we submit every year are very valid. If we knew that we could have some kind of sustainable funding and assured funding for several years into the future, then we would be able to offer those services in a more positive way.

I understand, in the case of the community that you’re referring to…. It’s very similar in some other communities like Indigenous communities as well. We don’t have any capacity to do outreach other than to offer up the programs like ending the violence and other family support programs.

I think there’s no predicting. I suspect that if we had more funding and could provide more services, we would see more families. If we had more housing opportunities, we would see more families. They are right now hiding out because there’s no place to go.

H. Yao: Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for your presentation and for the work that you do, Maurine.

M. Karagianis: Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): For the committee, we are now going to switch ourselves into the virtual world. There we go.

[1:25 p.m.]

Our next presenter is Maryann Abbs, Let’s Ride: Make Public Transit B.C.-wide.

Maryann, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed up by five minutes of questions and/or comments. The floor is now yours.

LET’S RIDE:
MAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT B.C.-WIDE

M. Abbs: Thank you very much for this opportunity. Let’s Ride: Make Public Transit B.C.-wide is an ad hoc citizens group which is independent from government, and we are focused on the need for public intercommunity and intercity bus networks across B.C. We are advocating for a public intercommunity bus network that is clean, affordable, sustainable and publicly owned and operated.

Our supporters include transit users from across the province: the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs; Council of Senior Citizens Organizations; B.C. Society of Transition Houses; Richmond Poverty Reduction Coalition; Council of Canadians, Nelson and Victoria chapters; Stand Up for the North; the B.C. Rural Health Network; Dogwood Society; University of Victoria Students Society; Camosun College Student Society; and Greater Victoria Acting Together.

Our main recommendation is that for justice, equity and climate issues, we urgently need a public, high-quality, affordable, reliable and accessible intercommunity bus service that is run by B.C. Transit and that connects all communities in B.C. Access to public transit is a justice and equity issue. When public transit is not available, community members may be forced to choose unsafe or even dangerous options, such as hitchhiking.

Public transportation has been a topic of high interest. During the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, many family members and survivors spoke to the national inquiry about the fact that Indigenous women, girls and LGBTQ2S people were forced to hitchhike due to the lack of public transportation, especially those living in remote and northern communities.

The lack of an affordable transit network that reaches throughout B.C. also affects the mobility of those living on low incomes, seniors who might not be able to drive or feel forced to drive when they’re no longer able to do so safely, students who are travelling back and forth from school to home and those who need to travel for medical appointments and health care.

According to a report by the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Rural Health Research, on average, between 2017 and 2020, rural patients paid $777 in transportation costs and $674 in accommodations per person, per health issue.

As well, the current patchwork of private operators simply does not work. Many communities have little or no access to public transit services. The departure of Greyhound from B.C. in 2018 has been replaced by a patchwork of smaller private operators on fewer routes that may not even connect with each other and can often make reaching your destination more expensive, more time-consuming, more difficult or even impossible.

As well, relying on private operators means they may decide to drop routes when the routes become unprofitable, as happened recently on Vancouver Island, when Wilson’s Transportation mothballed its Victoria-Tofino route, leaving riders scrambling.

We appreciate the recent announcement of $2.5 million for research and consultation on intercommunity transportation. To just end, I want to summarize that there’s an urgent need, for climate reasons, in terms of getting people out of their cars and reducing our carbon footprint from transportation, as well as for justice and equity for Indigenous rural communities, so that people have the ability to travel between communities.

As well, this is a big issue for people who live in cities, who want to travel either for tourism or to visit friends and relatives and other communities in B.C.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to the committee.

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

Are there any comments and/or questions?

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Maryann. You know, it’s interesting. Just last week we were in communities where they don’t have access to some of that transportation, and you can see how difficult it is, even in the North, where they have Bus North or transit north.

[1:30 p.m.]

I guess the question is: have you got any idea what the magnitude is of putting in something that would get us started in this, what types of costs? Have you done any research on that?

M. Abbs: As I think I said earlier, we are a small ad hoc group who see the need for this to happen, so that’s what we’re campaigning around. We’re hoping that the government’s recently announced $2.5 million on research and consultation will start to answer some of those questions about what would be the cost of a good network.

What we’re advocating for is a good network that everyone will want to use. It’s not just for the people that have to use it, but it also serves to get people out of their cars and use transit instead of driving.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just to piggyback off my colleague here. There’s a report that’s been commissioned right now that…? How much money was going towards that, would you say?

M. Abbs: This is a government announcement of $2.5 million for research and consultation on intercommunity transportation. I believe it was announced about two weeks ago.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. Do you know when that report is supposed to be finalized?

M. Abbs: I don’t have that in front of me; I’m sorry. I know it’s being driven by three community groups: one on the Island, one in the southern Interior, and one in the North. The consultation and research is being put through three community organizations.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): If you send us some more information on that, I’d just like to read up on the proposal and the details of that report. That would be great.

M. Abbs: It’s a B.C. government announcement. I’m happy to send it to the committee.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Maryann, you talked briefly about the costs for travel and accommodation. I believe it was around health issues. Could you expand on how you got those numbers and where they came from?

M. Abbs: Yeah. That came from the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Rural Health Research. I’m happy to send the report if that’s needed.

M. Starchuk (Chair): That would be great.

Are there any other comments?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Just a comment more than anything. You mentioned remote and northern commun­ities. I would argue…. You mentioned one of your groups that you work with, from Nelson, I think.

I reside in the East Kootenays. One could easily argue that in the southeast corner, we’re as remote, if not more remote, than the North. At least the North has B.C. Bus North. But since 2018, as you said, since Greyhound, we literally have nothing. So transportation to health care or anything like that is just impossible for some folks. Actually, some people make life-changing decisions based on the fact that they can’t transport themselves to a hospital in Kelowna or Victoria.

M. Abbs: Yeah. I absolutely agree. I’m sorry if I left that impression. We are advocating for a provincewide network and understand that this affects every corner of the province, not just in northern and remote communities.

In fact, myself, I often drive from Victoria to 100 Mile House so I can take my parents to medical appointments in Kamloops.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks. It wasn’t a dig on the presentation; I was just trying to promote my region there a little bit. So thanks. It was a little self-serving.

M. Abbs: Just a comment with that is there are medical buses in some areas, but the service is very limited. For example, to access health care in Kamloops from 100 Mile House — I just know this example well — there’s one bus that goes on Monday. Your specialist appointment needs to be between 11 and 3 on a Monday. So try to schedule that.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Maryann. Thank you very much.

Henry, did you have a comment?

H. Yao: Yeah.

I’m just curious. Speaking about your mom’s specific case, have you ever tried Better at Home? I know sometimes they have volunteer drivers to drive seniors to medical appointments.

M. Abbs: Yeah, we are actually looking into that. Thanks for that suggestion. I have looked into that so much, and the service is a bit limited as well.

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

M. Abbs: Okay. I’m going to follow up with the provincial release and the UBC rural health research report.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Very good. Thank you very much.

Okay. We are going to take a short recess to shuffle some cards around.

The committee recessed from 1:35 p.m. to 1:47 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right, we will call the meeting back to order.

Next online is Lynelle Yutani, Camosun College Faculty Association.

Lynelle, if you can hear me, you have five minutes to make your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

CAMOSUN COLLEGE FACULTY ASSOCIATION

L. Yutani: Excellent. My name is Lynelle Yutani.

I’m joining this meeting from the unsurrendered territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən and SENĆOŦEN-speaking people from the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations that we now refer to as Victoria, B.C., where I have been privileged to live, work and play as an uninvited visitor and settler since 2010.

My pronouns are she/they. I’m here representing the Camosun College Faculty Association of FPSE Local 12.

Distinguished ministers and members, I stand before you today to address three critical issues that require the attention and support of government funding. These issues are interconnected, and addressing them collectively will contribute to the growth, sustainability and inclusivity of our educational institutions and community.

The first is unaffordability and lack of appropriate housing for faculty and students. Our academic institutions are facing a housing crisis that affects both faculty and students. The unaffordability and inadequate housing options hinder both recruitment and enrolment.

Local media outlets reporting on student car life ex­posed the financial difficulties students face that can result in choosing either to pay for their tuition or for a place to live. Faculty turn down jobs when they can’t find affordable housing and are forced to leave when priced out of their local markets. When you include social and economic issues arising from systemic racism, Indigenous and persons from diverse backgrounds face even greater challenges.

To address this, we propose allocating sufficient funds to develop affordable and sustainable housing options, in­cluding partnering with local housing authorities, exploring private and public partnerships, rental rebates for students and faculty and conducting extensive research to inform evidence-based decision-making and measure the success of these measures. By investing in affordable housing, we can attract and retain talented faculty and create an inclusive environment, increase domestic enrolment and provide students with the conditions they need to thrive.

The second issue is the under-resourcing of public post-secondary education and the overreliance on international tuition.

[1:50 p.m.]

Our public post-secondary institutions are grappling with chronic under-resourcing, leading to compromises in education quality, demotivated employees and limited opportunities for domestic students. Additionally, overreliance on international tuition fees poses risks and imbalances within the student population. To address these chal­lenges, we urge increasing funding to adequately resource our institutions, including new investments in modern infrastructure, state-of-the-art facilities and competitive compensation for faculty and staff, in addition to releasing the report on the post-secondary funding review and addressing recommendations made therein.

Restoring primary base funding and diversifying funding sources will create a more sustainable financial foundation that ensures access to post-secondary education for all students, nurtures a vibrant academic community and fosters the growth and success of our province as a whole.

The third issue: rebates for employers promoting sustainable transportation initiatives. Promoting sustainable transportation is crucial for mitigating climate change, reducing emissions and fostering healthier communities. We propose offering rebates to employers who provide sustainable transportation options, such as bus passes and bike lockers, to their employees. Programs like these encourage businesses to adopt climate-forward practices and reduce the carbon footprint of commuting.

Rebates in the form of tax breaks, grants and subsidies can be provided through government funding across multiple ministries, fostering collaboration between government bodies, local authorities and employers. Such initiatives contribute to a greener future, improve air quality, reduce traffic congestion and enhance employee well-being.

By addressing these three interconnected issues together, we can create a more inclusive, sustainable and prosperous future for all British Columbians.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. I am happy to answer your questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Lynelle, thank you for your presentation this afternoon.

Comments?

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation.

I really would love to dig a bit deeper on your No. 2 recommendation, the under-resourcing of post-secondaries and their overreliance on international students for balancing the budget.

I know that some of them are saying that currently our government has provided about 50 percent. How much…?

L. Yutani: Base funding amounts to around 40 to 42 percent of my institution’s funding.

H. Yao: You’re looking for something close to 100 percent, or…?

L. Yutani: Well, historically, and if we look back about 20 years, it was around 70 percent. So we have seen a real decrease. The problem is that domestic tuition is really only about 40 percent of the equivalent course and programming charges for an international student. The students are receiving the same education, but the international students are paying a much, much higher premium for that.

Because we have the same number of seats in each class­room, the motivation to fill more of those seats with international students — because the institution receives more tuition for those students — is very high. We see that in the aggressive recruitment for international students: worldwide tours to go to small communities and entice those students to come to our organization, often at great expense, with loans.

Then there are concerns that faculty share, about ex­ploiting those students once they arrive in Canada — for example, the releasing from or taking away the limitation for them to be working more than 20 hours a week. When you’re taking a full course load and you’re studying, or trying to study, and you’re also working, sometimes, full-time hours, the risk to the student is that they’re going to be unsuccessful. They don’t get their money back if they’re unsuccessful. They have to take the course again.

We see some great risks to the international students for being exploited. It’s an unnecessary risk if the organizations were sufficiently funded at their base level.

M. Starchuk (Chair): We have 2½ minutes and two more people with questions.

B. Banman: My questions are pretty simple if you have the answers to them. One, how big is the wait-list for domestic students to enter? Two, you mentioned that these foreign students are at risk. Do you have any data as to how many of them fail and have to retake a course or drop out altogether?

[1:55 p.m.]

L. Yutani: To your second question, I do not have the data off the side of my desk at this moment in time, but our registrars would be able to provide that information. What I can tell you is that faculty are hard-pressed to not fail students when they might otherwise choose to do so, because of the risk to their ongoing work permit or their student permit, as well as progression through the programming. Appeals are perhaps not as equitably addressed as they would be for domestic students.

To your first question, on what the wait-lists are like, I would say it depends very much on what programming you’re offering. We have extensive wait-lists in some of our programs, and those programs often don’t have international seats in them because of such extensive wait-lists. What we are seeing is a falloff on our domestic enrolments, largely due to my first point: the lack of affordable accommodations in the Victoria area.

I’m in Victoria; Camosun College is at the heart. Most of the students that I have in my class are not in good living situations, and I’ve had an increasing number of my students homeless in the last several years.

B. Stewart: You kind of touched on it, Lynelle, about the international students taking places from domestic. With the college, Camosun, how do they…? With the universities, GPA would be kind of the typical measurement to accept people in, and they would set the threshold of the number. Also, I think, the government has a cap of around just over 20 percent on international students. I don’t know if that’s by program, but are there people that are domestic that are not able to get in because of international students? That’s really where I’m going with this.

L. Yutani: I think the opposite has happened, in most cases. Additional sections have been added to serve a greater number of international students. That’s in very unique and specific areas where the demand is quite high — for example, in the School of Business or in the early childhood education areas, where we have whole cohorts that are being added on. That is my understanding.

I’ll just quickly say that the college here has changed its policy on the English assessment process to match that of the government’s, for enrolment. That should be the same. I think that was part of the question.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay, Lynelle. Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

Next up is Brent Calvert, Federation of Post-Secondary Educators.

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

You have the floor.

FEDERATION OF
POST-SECONDARY EDUCATORS OF B.C.

B. Calvert: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brent Calvert; I’m president of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of British Columbia.

Our offices are located on the ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

FPSE represents over 10,000 post-secondary education workers at colleges, universities and special purpose teaching universities across the province.

I have three points to bring to your attention today. The first is core funding for post-secondary education, the second is the current overreliance on international student tuition revenue, and the third is the role of the public post-secondary education system in the government’s skills agenda.

Public funding for post-secondary education continues to be a challenge. Measured in real dollars, funding for the PSE sector has declined by 15 percent over the past 20 years. I think it’s fair to say that our institutions have never recovered from the funding cuts of the early 2000s.

[2:00 p.m.]

Over that same period, we have seen massive change across the sector, including the creation of special purpose teaching universities, the need for rapid retraining to temper the volatile cycles of the resource sector, and an increased push for teaching and research in the emerging areas of the green economy.

Our members take great pride in innovating and servi­ng their communities, but we are nearing the end of the road when it comes to doing more with less and other painless efficiencies. We were encouraged when the government announced the comprehensive funding formula review just over a year ago. However, we’ve been perplexed by the mixed signals communicated about the review since then. The B.C. PSE sector devoted considerable resources to the review and fully participated in the public consultation.

We were disappointed when it did not show up in Minister Robinson’s mandate letter but recently heard that the release of the report may be imminent. Independent of the status of the review, we are way past due for an in-depth dialogue about public funding for post-secondary education in British Columbia. The initial promise was that the review would be part of this year’s budget cycle, and we would be grateful if the committee takes note of the report if and when it is released.

While our federation values and welcomes diversity in the classroom and delivers robust programming for all students, the fact is that our institutions have become over-reliant on the tuition revenue from international students. The funding shortfall noted earlier would be causing distress across the system were it not for international student tuition revenue. Stats Canada research confirms that the international student enrolment has doubled over the past five years. International students now comprise up to 20 percent of the student population and provide most of the tuition revenue to institutions.

As we all learned during the pandemic, this is not a secure model of funding. International students are vulnerable to unscrupulous recruiters. In many communities, the rapid influx of international students is exacerbating pre-existing housing shortages. Simply put, international student enrolment cannot be a long-term foundational piece of the funding puzzle for public post-secondary institutions. Yet that seems to be the [audio interrupted] of the ministry.

I want to close with what we see is a good-news piece and an opportunity for public post-secondary education in the province. The government recently announced the future-ready action plan, which includes $480 million for short-term skills training in the form of micro-credentials. While we applaud the government for this bold investment, the plan came with a derogatory poke at the post-secondary education sector through the ’23-24 budget, calling for a “more relevant and responsive post-secondary education system.”

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, our members demonstrated a lot of flexibility and innovation in ensuring that the continued delivery of post-secondary education was done through difficult circumstances. The expertise of our members and the infrastructure of our campuses are where the government should be investing future-ready funds. In the initial rollout of the announcement, it seems clear that the funding was earmarked for public institutions. However, recently there’s been slippage from the ministry.

We’re concerned that the funding of this magnitude will attract for-profit operators who do not have the level of quality control and teaching expertise our members do.

In addition, our members and the public colleges, institutes and universities are aligned with the government’s values of decolonization and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples. They are best placed to deliver on that mandate. Particularly in small, rural communities, our institutions are deeply attuned to the needs of communities they serve and are best positioned to ensure that this funding is invested effectively towards meeting the government’s policy of ensuring that British Columbians have the skills they need in an uncertain and unpredictable labour market.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation this afternoon, Brent.

Questions and/or comments?

Not seeing any, I wanted to see if you could expand, if you wouldn’t mind, Brent, about the micro-credentials and how you feel that they may not be the proper use of those funds.

B. Calvert: Well, the word that we were given was that the micro-credential programming is targeted to 12 weeks or less of duration, which flies counter to a traditional academic term at a college or university.

While we recognize the government may be tapping into a gap in terms of people with some high school but not post-secondary training, the long-term results around micro-credentials are going to require some type of a framework so that micro-credentials can be stacked and contribute towards a credential that’s recognized not just in British Columbia but right across the world.

[2:05 p.m.]

We think there’s a lot of work to be done there. We think, also, that the current infrastructure is a great place to deliver the micro-credential programming. We see it as a complement to current things that are going on, not as a replacement.

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I have a question in regard to your recommendation 2 or comment 2, the overreliance on international students. You made a comment about Stats Canada mentioning that we doubled the number of international students within about five years.

Bear with me. I’m not here to question your number, but I do know that quite a few presentations were telling us the reason why there’s such a sudden increase of international student fees is because we haven’t recovered to the previous point. It’s sort of a conflicting message I’m receiving. Maybe you can help me clarify that.

B. Calvert: Sure. I can put it really simply. Think about the tuition revenue paid by a British Columbia student. There’s a cap of 2 percent on that. It’s been a long-standing policy of the government. International students pay effectively three times the tuition rate.

The rules that apply to the use of that revenue aren’t the same as what is applied to the funding that comes from the government. It allows for funds to be moved around into different categorizations and institutions. Effectively, if the desire is to mask how that revenue is brought in, what the actual totals are and how it’s used…. Quite often, it’s used to backstop capital projects for institutions that are struggling in maintaining the capital infrastructure.

The set of rules around the use of international tuition revenue isn’t matched with the rules that come with the public funding. We think that would be a good starting point: to have a clear set of rules that show where that international student flows into in terms of the GL codes of the institutions.

H. Yao: My apologies. Maybe I wasn’t asking my question clearly. I do apologize for that.

You mentioned that Stats Canada said we doubled the number of international students in the last five years. However, there were multiple presentations we had earlier telling us the reason why they’re increasing the international student rate and fees is because they haven’t recovered to the number of international students before the pandemic. I don’t know. Those two informations are in conflict for me.

B. Calvert: The international student programs are tied up into both the federal and provincial immigration policy programs. Those have changed recently, and those numbers are increasing. Depending on how the students are accounted for in the previous years, there was a hit to in­ternational student enrolment in the early stages of COVID. But as we’ve moved through the stages of recovery, those numbers have come back.

Whether we’re talking about a dip through a pandemic, the bottom line is that our institutions right now are overly reliant on international student tuition revenue. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see that other changes, whether related to immigration or pandemics or policy changes, would change that. That will be devastating for B.C.’s public institutions right now.

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

Our next presenter is Joy Johnson from Simon Fraser University.

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

The floor is yours.

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

J. Johnson: Well, thank you so much. It really is a pleasure to be here in front of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. I can only imagine how many presentations you’ve already heard. I’m really honoured to be here. As mentioned, my name is Joy Johnson, and I am the president of Simon Fraser University.

I’m speaking to you today from the unceded traditional territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, the Squamish, the Kwi­kwetlem and the Musqueam peoples.

British Columbia’s public universities and colleges and institutes are really an amazing asset for British Columbia. I want to thank every MLA in the room for your support.

[2:10 p.m.]

I also want to acknowledge the future-ready action plan that was released in April. The plan allows us to expand the number of student seats in high-demand, tech-relevant programs and offer short-term training opportunities, which is very welcome. It’s going to make a big difference for our students.

In my remarks today, I am going to focus on three priorities for Simon Fraser University: the SFU medical school, the SFU life sciences building and, finally, the Burnaby Mountain gondola. These priorities really complement the work of B.C.’s entire post-secondary sector. In that regard, I do want to mention that SFU fully supports the recommendations of the Research Universities Council of B.C., including making investments in research and innovation.

Let me start with the medical school. I began my career in nursing and later earned a PhD in the field, and taught at the UBC School of Nursing, and from there moved into health research. Along the way, I developed a deep appreciation for our public health care system. SFU medical school is a key part of the solution to address the dire shortage of family physicians in British Columbia.

First Nations, Métis and Inuit perspectives will be a critical part of that programming, and graduates are going to be equipped to respond to community needs and im­proved health outcomes. Work is underway with the Fraser Health and the First Nations Health Authority, and SFU has engaged leading experts in medical education and Indigenous health. We’re collaborating and learning from UBC and other medical schools, and I want to thank the government for its foresight. I also want to thank the opposition for endorsing the plan.

The new school will be located in Surrey, B.C.’s youngest and fastest-growing region, and together with the School of Sustainable Energy Engineering, opened in 2019, the medical school will make progress toward the commitment to double the size of SFU’s Surrey campus to 5,000 full-time students. As you might expect, support for the new medical school runs very deep in the community. We have dozens of letters from First Nations, business and community leaders in support of the program.

The SFU medical school is an idea whose time has come, so my first ask of the committee is that it recommend that Budget 2024 include the necessary operating and capital to support the government’s ongoing commitment to the SFU medical school.

I’m going to turn to our second priority, and that’s a new life sciences building on SFU’s Burnaby campus. Life sciences is a huge draw for students, and two-thirds of our students in the faculty of science graduate with a life sciences degree. However, these students are learning in spaces built almost 60 years ago, spaces and infrastructure that were not designed to meet the needs of modern teaching and research and indeed pose dangers to the students.

A new life sciences building will fix this. It will feed students and talent to SFU’s medical school. It will also be a centre for discovery and invention and innovation, enabling companies in B.C.’s flourishing life sciences sector to access R and D and specialized wet lab facilities, and it remains SFU’s top capital priority. Therefore, my second ask to this committee is to recommend that Budget 2024 include capital funding to build a life sciences building on SFU’s Burnaby campus.

Finally, a few words about the Burnaby Mountain gondola. Transit commuters on Burnaby Mountain face some of the longest commute times in Canada, and the gondola is a cost-effective, environmentally friendly and reliable transportation solution that will make a huge difference for the region. The community has come together to develop and back the proposal. It’s been included in the Trans­Link Mayors Council’s ten-year priority plan.

The plan will redeploy 25 buses that are needed to im­prove bus services in the Lower Mainland. Everyone, especially our students, is very eager to see it move forward.

My final ask of the committee today is it recommend that Budget 2024 include the necessary capital funding required to see the Burnaby Mountain gondola through to completion.

With my time almost at an end, I want to thank you for this opportunity, and I also want to thank you for your service to British Columbia.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Joy, thank you for your presentation this afternoon.

I will recall a conversation we had a couple of months ago about my excitement over the fact that we could have the SFU medical school produce the doctors to go to a new hospital in a riding near me.

On that note, when you talk about the operating and capital for the new medical school, can you elaborate on what you believe those costs to be?

J. Johnson: Thank you very much for the question. We have put together a preliminary business case and are right now refining that business case, working with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Skills Training. Alas, I do not have final numbers for you to present to you today.

[2:15 p.m.]

Capital. We do require capital, however, for a new facility for the students, and I do anticipate that the cost per student, because of the size of the school, might be slightly larger than that of the UBC medical program, but we’re looking for as much alignment as possible.

B. Banman: You know, for at least two of those projects, I don’t have an issue whatsoever — the medical school and the sciences. The gondola one, we’ll see how well that pans out. I’d like to see some cost projections on that. On the whole, I think they’re good.

I’ve got to ask about the white elephant in the room that was not mentioned, especially with the news of late with the cancellation of the football program. I’m surprised that was not one of your asks, to help with that. Does that rate anywhere on the priority list for you at all? Is there a chance of it being saved?

J. Johnson: Thank you for the question. I’m sensing the football fan in the room.

We have assigned a special adviser on football…. Right now, to be clear, there is nowhere for our varsity football team to play. We’ve been playing in the States, and we’ve been told that we can no longer play in the States in the Lone Star Conference.

We are looking at opportunities. The path is not clear for football at SFU. We will require resources for it, but we believe those resources need to come from the community through fundraising. That’s what we’re really focused on doing. It’s a priority for us. We’re trying to find a path forward; the path is not clear.

G. Chow: Thank you, President. You mentioned a new life sciences campus building. Is that entirely on the mountain? How big is it, and how much do you think this will cost?

J. Johnson: We do need a whole asset replacement. Our life sciences building has actually one of the worst ratings of any building in post-secondary education in British Columbia.

The ask right now for capital is $207 million. It is a fairly large facility, and the costs really reflect the fact that we need specialized labs with fume hoods and that kind of equipment. SFU is committed to fundraising to put our own dollars, in the amount of $50 million, into this plan. The total budget right now is $257 million.

H. Yao: Thank you so much, President, for the presentation. I want to say that I used to work for SFU Surrey and SFU Burnaby. So I know exactly what you’re talking about, which actually goes straight to question 3: the gondola for SFU. I’m almost a bit disappointed, because I don’t think a gondola has the capacity to bring the students who need this to SFU. I almost think it should be a SkyTrain.

The reason why I brought it up is because I remember when I used to be at SFU Burnaby. I know that SFU has its own weather system. In Burnaby, Production Way might be sunny, but at SFU, it will be snowing like there’s no tomorrow, with students stuck up there sleeping, and the buses cannot go up and down.

Do you mind explaining to me why a gondola? Why not something more that has a stronger capacity to bring students up to Burnaby Mountain?

J. Johnson: Well, I’d love to share the business case with you, because it is very, very strong. This is not a gondola like a ski-mountain gondola. This is a people-mover. We’ve seen this infrastructure in other areas around the world, and it’s been very, very effective. The cars hold up to — I can’t even remember the number — 30 to 40 people. They move every seven minutes.

It’s a very effective, very cost-effective way to move peo­ple up the mountain. The proposal is for the gondola to move from Production Way, where the SkyTrain station is, and to bring students, within seven minutes, right up onto the mountain. It’s great technology, it works in all weather, and it just really is a bulletproof technology right now that can solve…. It is novel, as well, which we’re really excited about.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation. I’m interested in the life sciences program at SFU. Obviously, life sciences can promote many industries — medicine, agriculture, health, mining exploration. Is there any specific area where your program is going in any of those, or is it all-inclusive of all life sciences? I mean, it’s pretty broad.

[2:20 p.m.]

J. Johnson: Thank you very much. It is fairly all-inclusive and, I would say, particularly in the life sciences, when we think about data capacities and analytic capacities. Those are really cross-cutting.

We do have a lot of capacity in the life sciences, both in terms of the agritech area and agricultural and in the health sciences. We really do believe we can grow capacity in the health sciences as we move forward. Think, again, about the development of the medical school here at Simon Fraser University.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you for your presentation this afternoon, Joy.

J. Johnson: Thank you very much. It was a pleasure. Thanks for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): You’re welcome.

Our next presenter is Brett Fairbairn, Thompson Rivers University.

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

The floor is yours.

THOMPSON RIVERS UNIVERSITY

B. Fairbairn: Thank you very much. Let me begin by thanking all of you for your time and for the work that you put into public service.

Just a word about TRU and a few facts about our institution. We serve a wide stretch of the interior of B.C. We have about 28,000 students. We’re a member of the Research Universities Council of British Columbia. We offer a full spectrum of post-secondary programs, including a growing number of graduate-level degrees at the master’s level, most recently the master of nursing–nurse practitioner.

I would also say TRU is a leader in online and open-access education. We’re a leader in indigenization. We’re also a leader in internationalization and, increasingly, em­ergingly, a leader in fire science and emergency management and response. I want to say a word about that in a moment.

The three recommendations that I have for you today all address a single issue. That is really the talent needs and the talent shortages that we see, I think, across all of B.C. Certainly, I’m aware of the way that talent plays a role in health, in services and in many branches of our economy. I think addressing talent shortages is one of the biggest opportunities that we have in front of us to move British Columbia forward.

The first recommendation that I bring on behalf of TRU is to address trades shortages by providing more funding for skilled-trades training, including new spaces, opportunities for international students and strategic green trades at the post-secondary level.

By way of background, the rates for trades-training seats have not increased in more than two decades. We’ve seen, in that time, the growth of many new approaches that are very important for TRU. Our women in trades initiatives, our outreach for trades in Indigenous communities and education on First Nations are very important. All of those were functions that didn’t exist 20-odd years ago when the funding regime was established.

It’s also difficult to plan ahead and recruit and manage enrolments in the current system. Certainly, we see that as critical to meeting the labour needs of B.C.’s economy. We do all we can to address those needs by recruiting domestic students, but international ones will be required, as well, to meet the targets that are in front of us.

Our second recommendation has to do with increased funding of post-doctoral graduate and specific undergraduate student seats. That includes addressing areas in which B.C. is lagging — some of the parts of the world that we collaborate with, compare with and compete with.

One piece of that, which is of particular interest, I think, is addressing the issue of foreign-educated professionals and their ability to become qualified in Canada. Because of our long track record, especially in open-access and online education…. TRU is a leader in prior learning assessment and recognition, and we think we can bring those skills and that experience to bear to assist with the evaluation of foreign credentials and upgrading.

Third, we also recommend investment in research inno­vation and digital infrastructure. I want to stress that that area is of particular concern to the part of the province that we especially serve in the Interior.

[2:25 p.m.]

Rural areas have a special need for high-capacity connectivity. It supports what we do with engagement and online learning. There’s also a particular need for research and innovation that are specific to rural places, whether that’s about new tech industries and services or whether it’s about new tech in established industries like the resource industries, which are often located and spread in rural places.

Finally, I did want to highlight, in terms of TRU’s in­terests in rural innovation, the area of wildfire science and emergency management, which I mentioned a moment ago.

We’re in the process of pulling together an institute. We have assembled provincial and federal resources to get leading researchers, people who are experts in predictive sciences and in fire ecology, and we’re in deep discussion with the B.C. Wildfire Service about putting together joint initiatives around training. We see that area coming together as one in which we, at TRU, and B.C., as a province, can be a leader across Canada and internationally.

To sum up: increased funding for skilled-trades training; increased funding for postgraduate, graduate and specific undergraduate student seats; as well as specific funding in research, innovation and digital infrastructure.

I really look forward to the discussion with the committee.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much for your presentation. I do apologize for walking out for a second.

I know the Ministry of Citizens’ Services, working with the federal government, came up with $840 million to support connectivity B.C.-wide. Is that sufficient? Do you actually see something you could add, on top of the initial announcement, or something that would complement the ask that you’re asking for right now?

B. Fairbairn: I guess it depends on the impact that has in the particular regions that we deal with. We haven’t yet seen the impact of that investment. We’re certainly hopeful that it will go a good distance towards meeting the needs.

Clearly, one of the things we see is a growing interest not only in purely online education. Increasingly, everything is becoming hybrid. For people in remote locations, spread across our region, that means they need high-speed connectivity, not just in a few centres, and we’re still working on that, but actually in widely distributed locations throughout the Thompson and Cariboo regions and beyond.

We haven’t yet seen the impact that would really support students in that regard.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Brett, I have a question. You talk about trades training and new spaces. Are we talking about additional seats, or are we talking about new spaces for new programs?

B. Fairbairn: Thank you for the question. I think it’s about both. There’s a need for new spaces to train more people. I would also say that it’s a question of how the seats are managed. One of the things I hear from our dean who plans trades training is that the basic seat allotments aren’t increased and established far enough ahead to aid in long-term recruitment. Often they’re adjusted late and at the last minute. So it’s more seats; it’s more flexibility.

We also think there’s a great opportunity in what we’ve referred to in the presentation as strategic green trades, so things like mechanics for electric vehicles, solar panel technicians, perhaps environmental green construction techniques. We think there would be an added benefit from actually having special programs and dedicated seats in those areas.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

I’m interested in the prior learning assessment, PLAR, and how that works. I’ve never heard of it. Obviously, it has been going on for a while. I would imagine every industry or every trade would be different. Knowledge could be practical. It could be learned. It could be many different things.

Can you just tell me a little bit more about that process and what it entails?

B. Fairbairn: Absolutely. TRU has deep experience go­ing back to the days of the open university in the late 20th century. This is decades of experience and people who have built their careers and expertise around PLAR.

I think, by origin, what PLAR was about was assessing a portfolio of what individual people bring in terms of their experiences, informal experiences, formal training, perhaps training by a company rather than by a post-secondary institution and kind of assessing it as a basket and figuring out how to credentialize that training and give the person credit within our system at TRU but also transferable and extendable to other institutions in the province.

[2:30 p.m.]

Two developments in recent years. One of them is that increasingly, although it can be done on an individual, case-by-case basis, more often what we’re doing is doing it with an organization, an employer or a not-for-profit, as the case may be. We’re working out the equivalences for all the training that they do in-house and all the experiences that their employees generally have. Once we have that in our credit bank, there’s assurance to people in advance. They can figure out what they’re going to get credit for when they go into this process.

The most recent piece is about assessing Indigenous knowledge and credentializing Indigenous knowledge as part of these practices. Our practitioners in this field have won awards and national recognition for path-breaking work in that regard.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks. Just a quick follow-up to that. If you have somebody that’s a learned profession for a long time…. Say he’s a stonemason or something, and he has been working on that for years and years. How can you credentialize those experiences so he could be available to work in a union-type environment?

B. Fairbairn: Well, it depends on the union-type environment, but we need to work with the employer to ensure that whatever accreditation or credentialization occurs is recognized. What we’ll do is look for existing equivalencies first.

It might be, by the way, that someone that’s worked for a long time doing that will have other skills in management, in bookkeeping, whatever it might be, and there might be other things that we can credentialize. But it really is about working with the employer and identifying those equivalencies.

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

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

B. Fairbairn: Thank you again for the work you do.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Taryn Thom­son from the Vancouver Community College Faculty Association.

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

The floor is yours.

VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE
FACULTY ASSOCIATION

T. Thomson: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.

I’m coming to you today from downtown Vancouver on the lands of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh and Musqueam.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. The budget is not only about spending but about priorities and the ideas and philosophies behind these priorities. With that in mind, the comments and questions I’m making today are really about values, the values that anchor our work here at VCC and in the VCCFA.

I want to offer some kudos first of all, make one request and ask one question.

In terms of kudos, I’d like to thank the government for making ABE and EAL tuition-free in 2017. I was a department head in an ABE department in 2014 when the Liberals brought in tuition, and it was such a difficult time for ABE students. I completely agree with the current government that basic levels of education and language acquisition are a basic right, like basic medical, and should be free of charge.

This was one of the first actions the current government took, and it was a positive one. At VCC, our developmental or access programming is at the heart of what we do. While many institutions have all but stopped delivering developmental programming, we remain committed to doing this work that is vital to the communities we serve.

I’d also like to applaud the government on the new Anti-Racism Data Act. This is a really important piece of legislation that is going to change the way data is collected and how it is interpreted. Inequalities will be brought further into the light to be reckoned with, and this is necessary work.

Secondly, I want to just touch on the funding review.

Access programming is about raising up the skills, education and future prospects of diverse students, both new Canadians and domestic students. VCC has held on to its access routes, but this continues to be a financial challenge.

Most institutions rely on revenue from international education to achieve financial stability. VCC is different. We believe that access programming is important, and we continue to hold space for it. In addition, we don’t have the quantity of UT programming that other institutions have. This means that we’re structurally different as well, and that limits the amount of international programming we can offer.

[2:35 p.m.]

While we welcome international students at VCC, for us, it is about finding the right balance. At VCC, we have unique programming, and we do what others do not. We hope the government will return to the funding review in the near future.

Finally, international education. Most institutions rely heavily on international students and the high tuition they bring to keep their campuses running sustainably. How­ever, the news is filled with the darker side of this funding model.

We know that not all international students are wealthy and that many come to Canada using the last of the family funds in order to create a brighter future. Once here, many face food insecurity and housing insecurity. Now we are even hearing of international students turning to sex work to make ends meet. International students need the support of their institutions and our government so they can thrive here.

If post-secondary is relying on this group of students to fund our system, it is unscrupulous for us to take advantage of them while in our care. Is the government undertaking a study of this issue and, if so, when can we expect to hear the results?

Look, I’m ending it before my time. I’ll happily take any questions that you have.

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

Any comments and/or questions from the committee?

H. Yao: Thank you so much. Please pass on my greeting to Ajay as well. I believe he’s your president.

T. Thomson: Yes.

H. Yao: I think what you spoke about that truly troubled me is exploitation of international students, where they have reached the point that they have to conduct themselves in a way that’s raising funds for their tuition in an illegal manner and putting themselves in harm’s way.

Can you maybe go a bit further on how you know about this information and how we can be more sensitive, in tune, so we can support international students? Also, of course, protect our students from inappropriate exploitations.

T. Thomson: Yeah. I don’t know if you’re referring to the sex work thing. I just saw that in the news yesterday. If you look it up, it’s starting to come out. I think it was already known that students, a certain percentage, were starting to get into this type of work just to pay their tuition. But certainly for international students, they have much higher pressures financially. So there are starting to be indications that this is happening more.

In terms of our own experience, I know we have programs that regularly have events for students where they offer food in whatever way they can because students are showing up hungry. This is happening all over the place. It’s just so, so common. Of course, in the Lower Mainland, it’s so expensive to live, so it’s even more difficult.

A. Walker: Just wondering. You had mentioned briefly about asking whether we are studying the issue of international students and the impacts. I’m wondering if that’s one of your asks — that we do such a thing.

Then I’m also hoping that you can maybe share a little bit about the impacts of that ABE funding, about what it meant for some of the students that you’ve worked with.

T. Thomson: Yes, that was my ask. I really think that a study needs to be done. We need to find out exactly what is happening for international students. A lot of the information that we have is anecdotal, so in order to really make a difference and change things for the better, we need some hard data.

In terms of the ABE students, it was a game-changer. That couple of years that tuition was in was a disaster. This is already a group of students that are often marginalized, so to have to come up with a huge amount of money was just impossible, and they left in droves. So, yeah, it’s hugely important that it remain tuition-free.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. It’s interesting to hear how your college is different structurally from other colleges. I’m not quite sure I understand entirely how that rolls out, but maybe you can describe that a little bit.

[2:40 p.m.]

I wanted to speak to the importance of diversity and having a voice to make sure that international students, their concerns are being represented and advocated for. It’s beyond the students themselves. It’s domestic students; it’s faculty. It has been very interesting to hear the support for those international students, so I just wanted to comment on that.

The question was around the college and just getting a better understanding of how it’s different from other colleges.

T. Thomson: VCC used to be connected to Langara. We were one institution. When Langara left, they sort of took the UT programming. VCC was left with what we have, which is trades and developmental, primarily in health.

That has meant…. We don’t have the ability to offer…. Usually for international students, it’s UT programming. We have a very small UT. We have a small capacity to offer UT.

R. Leonard: What is UT?

T. Thomson: Oh, sorry. University transfer.

R. Leonard: I got half of it in my head. Thank you.

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

T. Thomson: Thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): To the committee, we will take a short, brief recess for five minutes. We will be back for the rest of the afternoon.

The committee recessed from 2:41 p.m. to 2:48 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Our next presenter is Susan Walters, the Association of British Columbia Public Library Directors.

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

The floor is yours.

ASSOCIATION OF B.C.
PUBLIC LIBRARY DIRECTORS

S. Walters: Good afternoon, and thank you for the op­portunity to speak to you about public libraries. My name is Susan Walters, and I am the chair of the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors, also known as ABCPLD.

I’m joining you today from Richmond, which is located on the ancestral territory of the Hul’q’umi’num’-speaking peoples.

ABCPLD is an executive association of the 71 library directors who lead public libraries across British Columbia. Formed in 1988, ABCPLD serves as a platform for knowledge exchange between library directors and pro­vides organized representation to government, supporting and advocating for the shared interests of B.C. public libraries’ leaders.

ABCPLD together with the B.C. Library Trustees Association, the B.C. Library Association and the B.C. Libraries Cooperative are the four members of the B.C. Library Partners. We are a group of independent but collaborative organizations who work together to increase awareness of the positive impact of B.C. public libraries and to bring to the government’s attention the need for stable and increased annual funding to support libraries in their communities.

Together the B.C. Library Partners represent the voices of library directors, trustees, staff and the communities that they serve. I know you will also be hearing from each of my colleagues this afternoon.

I want to say thank you and acknowledge that the one-time funding for the public library sector earlier this year positively benefits libraries struggling to meet the changing needs of their communities.

[2:50 p.m.]

With over 60 million visits per year, B.C.’s 71 public libraries are a network of 250 vital community hubs across the province. Free and inclusive, libraries make life more affordable for families, seniors and newcomers; provide all British Columbians with opportunities to learn, be inspired and make connections; and help create safer communities by providing at-risk individuals with a welcoming space to access services and better their lives.

With no ongoing, permanent increase to core funding, public libraries find themselves balancing growing community demands against steeply increasing costs for library service, while more and more being relied on to manage complex front-line community needs. Without proper planning and sustained, consistent core funding, many local libraries will quickly be unable to perform even their most basic services, such as keeping the lights on and the doors open. Other libraries will continue to struggle to expand services to their rapidly growing communities.

To ensure libraries can continue to provide the services needed in their communities, the library partners are asking the provincial government to increase its annual core funding to support public libraries to $30 million per year. This core funding increase would maintain the current balance of 16 percent of funds going to shared provincial services and 84 percent of the core funding going directly to public libraries.

Sustained core funding is key to allow public libraries to operate successfully and will stabilize other core funding sources. With core funding in place, municipalities can know their contribution requirements and plan accordingly. This would also allow assumptions that when the provincial government does one-time, high-profile investments in libraries, municipalities cannot pull back their share of core funding.

B.C. libraries, from large to small, urban to rural, are committed to providing inclusive and responsive library services to the communities that we serve. We provide a wide range of programs to support community members of all ages and backgrounds, from baby times to ESL conversation circles to book clubs for seniors.

We welcome community into our spaces and take our services outside of our four walls to reduce isolation and help community make new connections. We provide ac­cess to a wide range of free collection resources and technology to ease the financial burden on our communities. We act as a place of refuge during climate and environmental events, and we are connected to specialized service providers who can support individuals experiencing homelessness or being impacted by the opioid crisis in our communities.

Libraries are constantly reimagining services to meet changing needs, and we are essential contributors to making people’s lives better, safer and more affordable. In­creased provincial funding of $30 million a year will build capacity for libraries across the province to provide all British Columbians with the services that will make a positive difference in their lives.

Thank you, and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you may have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Susan, thank you for your presentation this afternoon.

You had made a comment about the one-time funding and what it did do, but you also talked about the possibility of expanding services. Could you just touch briefly on what the expansion of those services might be?

S. Walters: Yes. For many libraries, we have had the same funding in place for a number of decades, so with increased funding, it will allow us to go out into our communities. It might mean expanding our hours in some communities. Not all libraries are able to open seven days a week or for longer hours to meet community needs. It also means potentially offering more programs, expanding access to collections that we know are in high demand, like e-books. So there’s a wide range of what we could do to expand services for our communities with adequate funding.

H. Yao: I don’t have a question for you. I want to say hi.

She’s from Richmond Public Library.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks for the presentation.

You want a lift to $31 million, I believe, is what you said. What was the core funding before that? How much of a lift does that represent?

S. Walters: Right now our core funding is $14 million a year. That would be a lift of $16 million.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Right. I think you said 71 public libraries in the province, which is interesting. I never knew that. So that would represent…. If it’s 84 percent of that $31 million that goes to public libraries, and there are 71 public libraries, that’s about $366,000 per library.

[2:55 p.m.]

You would think that would be sufficient to expand those programs and to provide…. I mean, libraries have become more than just books and learning institutions. They have become more of a social fabric for the communities that they’re in right now — everything from warming centres to, as you said, the opioid crisis and everything else. You feel $366,000 is sufficient to expand those services?

S. Walters: Yeah. That is our ask at this time. We feel that would bring us to the point where we are able to do what we need to do for our communities. We’ll have an opportunity with the funding that we received this year to be able to demonstrate that over the next three years as well.

R. Leonard: Thank you very much for your presentation. You’ve got a library lover here.

The number 71 seems low. Vancouver Island Regional Library has got 38 libraries, and then there’s Victoria. Right there we’re talking about getting close to that 71, let alone the rest of the province. Are you talking about library systems?

S. Walters: Yes, 71 public library systems. Sorry. And then there are over 250 public libraries or service hubs across the province.

R. Leonard: Yeah. That would make a little more sense.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, Susan, thank….

Sorry. Apparently, Henry does have a question.

H. Yao: No. I just want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude.

I know I have been to Richmond Public Library many times, and you demonstrated how libraries are a phenomenal equalizer to help many individuals struggling with a different stage of their life to be able to find resources, connections and opportunities. I know my family really appreciated the support you’re providing over there.

Do you mind even going into a bit more detail? Maybe sharing with the committee, which I have personally witnessed, the technology opportunity that you guys provide in Richmond Public Library in a way that kids are able to access programming opportunities which already have a cost attached to it. Maybe the little robot that runs right in the middle of the floor. Maybe you can go into a bit of detail on how libraries are becoming a means towards future innovation.

S. Walters: Yeah. We have, like many libraries but not all libraries across the province, a space called the LaunchPad where we are able to provide access to digital technology and resources for children, all the way to seniors, to come in and explore play and learn. We know it will support their skills as they enter the workforce in later years.

This is something that we are able to do, but not every library across the province can right now. The ask for the increased funding will allow us to sort of level that playing field and ensure all British Columbians have access to resources like this, not just people who live in Richmond or in a larger urban library.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Susan, thank you very much for your presentation, with the full expectation of the next four presenters being on similar pages as to what we’re asking. Thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

Our next presenter is Matea Kulic, the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia.

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

The floor is yours.

ASSOCIATION OF BOOK PUBLISHERS OF B.C.

M. Kulic: Thank you so much, Chair and committee members, for having me here this afternoon. My name is Matea Kulic, and I’m the executive director of the Association of Book Publishers of B.C., Books BC.

Our head office is located on the shared ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam, Skwxwú7mesh and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

I appreciate the opportunity to update you on how the book publishing industry continues its recovery from the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions and other industry impacts and how Budget 2024 can continue to support our sector’s recovery.

In the 2022-2023 budget, the province responded to our previous year’s request for additional support to the B.C. Arts Council by providing an envelope of $1.5 million of resilience funding earmarked for publishers. Amounts to each publisher ranged from $5,000 to $300,000, based on the publisher’s annual operating budget.

In a year when we saw Canada’s largest book retailer, Indigo, hit by a cyberattack, resulting in losses in sales for both the retailers and publishers, and where we saw printing, production and shipping costs double and triple in some instances alongside other inflationary pressures, the resilience funding was a critical support measure in keeping publishers afloat.

[3:00 p.m.]

I can tell you that the gratitude from publishers is palpable. This support is allowing them to keep on track with their publishing schedules, delivering books to British Columbians at a time when many in our communities are looking for the entertainment and escape books can provide, as well as an understanding of how their actions can lead to social change.

In April of this year, book publishers returned in person to the Legislature for B.C. Book Day, welcomed by a new Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, the Hon. Lana Popham. Our organization and its members had the opportunity to meet with various ministers and MLAs and showcase the diverse offerings of our industry, while also underscoring that book publishers continue to face many industry challenges, including increased competition from multinationals, copyright uncertainties and disappearing avenues to promote our books locally.

Without government support, small to medium-sized businesses located here in B.C. simply cannot compete with multinational competitors, let alone with global publishing giants such as Amazon, etc.

I’d like to now present our three budget recommendations, which are also summarized in our written submission.

Number 1. In 2021, the province renewed the B.C. book publishing tax credit for another five years. On the 20th anniversary of this critical support measure, we ask that the province consider not only renewing the tax credit in 2026 when it comes up for renewal but removing the sunset clause altogether, as it has done for the film and television tax credit, to provide the same robust, long-term support to the industry.

The B.C. book publishing tax credit allows publishers to make the large upfront investments required for the development of new books. To give you an example, thanks to the credit, B.C.’s Greystone Books was able to launch a new children’s publishing division in 2019, Greystone Kids. Greystone Kids has now published more than 30 books for children, garnering a Governor General’s Literary Award finalist nomination on top of many other Canadian and international awards.

In a highly competitive marketplace dominated by multinationals, local independent publishers rely on the stability that the tax credit provides. This tax support has been effectively working for 20 years, and we’re asking that it becomes a permanent and predictable long-term support for publishers.

Number 2, and this is a long-standing advocacy issue. We ask that the province, through the Ministry of Education, recommit to fairly compensating creators and publishers by paying the royalty rates set by the copyright board. This rate is $2.41 per K-to-12 student and should include payments from 2020 onwards.

As I mentioned, this is an advocacy campaign that ourselves and publisher and author organizations across the country have been advocating for, for many years. The principle is simple. We believe that authors and publishers deserve to be compensated for the licensing of their content and use of their copyrighted materials in classrooms.

Unfortunately, over the last decade, our advocacy on this issue has not been responded to. We are aware of the fact that B.C. schools now freely use and photocopy sections of entire editions of B.C. published books without providing compensation to the creators of these works.

Addressing the issue this year has never been more necessary. In recent months, we’ve discovered that Access Copyright, our collective licensing agency, cannot continue to carry on its role without urgently needed copyright reform and faces reducing operations if tariff payments are not resumed.

We once again urge the B.C. Ministry of Education to recommit to paying the royalty rate, which will ensure the survival of our long-standing licensing infrastructure and the investments that B.C. publishers are required to make up front to produce high-quality educational resources to support B.C. curriculum goals.

Recommendation No. 3. This is, again, to support B.C. Books for B.C. Schools. We ask that the province follow up on its recommendation in the 2022 budget consultation report and commit to a three-year program valued at $1.5 million that incentivizes the purchase of B.C. books in public schools and promotes the opportunity for B.C. students to see themselves reflected in their community stories.

We were pleased to see that the 2022 budget consultation report included a recommendation to “create a program to incentivize the purchase of B.C. published books in schools and libraries.” We are asking that the B.C. government now commit to such a program by providing a funding envelope of $1.5 million over three years aimed at bolstering B.C. school acquisition budgets for B.C. books and, at the same time, supporting our association’s B.C. Books for B.C. Schools catalogue, whose titles are selected and annotated by B.C. teacher-librarians based on appropriateness to the B.C. curriculum.

[3:05 p.m.]

There was such a plan for two decades back in the ’70s until 2001 called the school library purchase program. We are asking for a renewal, slightly different but of a similar philosophy and principle.

Our three budget recommendations are directed at the need for support and sustainability for B.C.’s independent publishers and the creation of conditions that will allow them to continue to be resilient in the face of ongoing industry changes and challenges.

Thank you for hearing our three recommendations today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Matea. We have questions and answers that are coming. We are up against the clock, so I would ask that the answer may be brief so that we can get through as many questions as possible.

R. Leonard: I won’t preface this with a whole lot, other than that obviously, B.C. books help create culture and identity. I’m curious about whether you have been doing any kind of metrics around the impact of the growth of B.C. books.

M. Kulic: It’s a great question. Unfortunately, right now, the metrics are more along the decline of B.C. books be­cause, especially with the copyright issue, we know that in fact, many of our educational materials are coming from the U.S. That is, of course, things like textbooks and that kind of thing, but most of our independent publishers are producing literary titles, nonfiction, fiction, poetry, kids’ books.

Our recommendations are very much about ensuring those metrics are on the increase rather than the decline. We know that B.C. publishers do produce 500 titles each year. That number is not waning, but we definitely want to make sure that that material is coming to B.C. students and that B.C. publishers aren’t incentivized to create materials for B.C. students, because right now there’s a disincentive. Basically B.C. publishers are saying, well, our works are being copied in educational areas freely, so we’re not being compensated for that material.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks. Maybe just to further that…. You want compensation for copywritten material, which I can totally understand, and then on the other hand, you want $1.5 million in incentives for purchases of B.C. books in the curriculum. Would those purchased books that go into the curriculum be exempt from the copywritten material? That would be a tax on a tax to the taxpayer, in my mind. I don’t know.

M. Kulic: The copyright tariffs are really for any section of a book. That’s just how it used to always basically function until 2015. The B.C. Ministry of Education paid that royalty rate per student, as I said, $2.41, so they could freely copy a poem, an excerpt from a book, a play and any section of any book that they wanted.

Of course, it is a support to just purchase the book by the library itself. But that program would really provide about $300 per school for their libraries. It’s not the same thing as paying per student to just have access to all of the educational material that was provided.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay.

A. Walker: I’m intrigued now. This $2.41 that was paid. That was a fee that was previously paid per student? So every school would pay into a fund, and then where would that go, and how would that be ensured to be equitably shared depending on who wrote what?

M. Kulic: That is where Access Copyright, the collective agency that I mentioned…. That was our collective agency, much like Socan for the music industry. Many industries have a collective agency that collects these tariffs on their behalf. The $2.41 would be collected by Access Copyright, and they have their robust mechanisms where they go into schools, they see which materials are being copied.

It’s much like the Public Lending Right that the libraries have as well, where they compensate authors based on how many times their books are taken out from the libraries. They keep their own metrics of which books are being photocopied, which books are being used in the classrooms, and then they, in turn, compensate the publisher based on those amounts.

The publisher often has a royalty contract, actually always has a royalty contract with their author where 50 percent of that fee that’s given back to them is also shared with the author.

[3:10 p.m.]

It is an advocacy issue that’s on behalf of authors as well because they’ve seen their licensing cheques be reduced significantly in these past ten years that those royalties haven’t been paid.

R. Leonard: A question on…. You had mentioned that there were declining opportunities for marketing. I’m wondering. What’s the cause of that?

M. Kulic: A lot of it is actually connected with just the decline of publishing in terms of our local newspapers and avenues where we had a lot of marketing opportunities to promote local books, through local review sections in newspapers that have gone away and local programs on radio shows and all these things that would talk about local books. There has just generally been a decline in that kind of publishing support. It’s harder and harder to get those books to market and to profile them to the public.

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

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next speaker is Kevin Millsip of B.C. Libraries Cooperative.

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

You have the floor.

B.C. LIBRARIES COOPERATIVE

K. Millsip: Thank you, Chair, and thank you, members of the committee, for inviting me here to speak with you today. My name is Kevin Millsip.

I’m calling in today from the west end of Vancouver on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

I’m the executive director of the B.C. Libraries Cooperative and the co-chair of the B.C. Public Library Partners.

The B.C. Public Library Partners, as you have heard from my colleague Susan Walters, is a group comprised of four sector-serving organizations, all of which are presenting to you right now or shortly: ABCPLD, my co-op, the B.C. Library Association and the B.C. Library Trustees Association. We have been working together for over six years as our sector’s collective and trusted voice to the provincial government. In short, we advocate on behalf of public libraries in B.C. to the provincial government.

Now, my co-op is a part of the partners because, as a co-op, we’re founded and operate on a belief that collective action and effort can have greater impact than individual action and effort. We’ve seen the impact and outcomes of collective action in a positive way since 2020 through a cumulative total of $56 million in one-time funding from the province to our sector. And we’re very grateful for that. Those funds have gone and will go a long way to helping our sector recover from the impacts of the pandemic.

A little bit about the co-op where I work. We’re a non-profit cooperative that helps libraries help people. Our members are other organizations and institutions. For ex­ample, all of the 71 public library systems in B.C. are members of our co-op.

We were actually created out of the provincial government back in 2009 to provide affordable online technology and infrastructure to public libraries across the province. We do a number of things. We host and design websites for libraries. We do group purchasing of electronic and digital resources. We operate an open-source, integrated library system. Think of it as a big electronic sort of back-end database where libraries can communicate with each other. We also provide books for people with print disabilities. About one in ten people in Canada have a print disability of some kind.

Through the one-time funding that we saw through the province…. That funding has gone a long way to helping the sector recover from the pandemic. I want to just quickly mention two impacts. One is that there has been a huge increase in demand for online services from libraries through the pandemic, as you would expect. Now, there’s a positive aspect to that in that online services can have a more accessible component to them. The challenge is that some online services, especially digital resources…. Electronic resources are actually generally a lot more expensive than a physical resource, say a hardcover of a book.

We can get into the details of that later if you want, but the increased demand for those services has put huge pressure on library budgets. The one-time funding from the province is going some ways to ease that pressure. This also brings me to my ask, which you heard from Susan as well. Our ask to the province is that you increase the annual total amount from the province to public libraries from $14 million to $30 million and make that a permanent, ongoing increase with small increases for inflation over time.

[3:15 p.m.]

What the $30 million would allow us to do is longer-term planning in a whole bunch of areas, from looking at new programs and services that might be offered through to longer-term planning for the purchase of digital electronic resources, for example.

Susan has already talked a bit about the role that libraries play in communities. A couple of you mentioned, very accurately, that libraries are more and more community hubs. They’re pieces of essential community infrastructure, as I like to think of them. I think, rightly or wrongly, a lot of the complex needs that we’re seeing in our communities are showing up in our public library systems as well, which demands that the folks working in those systems have access to more resources to be able to try to provide and serve some of those needs.

Very quickly, a second pandemic impact that I wanted to share with you…. I was at Salt Spring Public Library last Monday. In speaking to the chief librarian, she told me that a lot of their longer-term volunteers have stopped volunteering at the library since the pandemic. I asked why that’s still going on. She said: “Well, most of those volunteers are retired, and for a number of reasons, they’re still not feeling comfortable about returning in person into a public library space.”

The impact of that on their library is some of the services and programs that they offer, they’re having to scale back. Actually, their technology support program, they’re having to scale back, because it was actually retirees who were delivering the bulk of that program. So one impact on that library is they’re now going to their regional district to try to get more money so they can hire more staff to deliver a service that used to be delivered by volunteers. Again, those are just two quick pandemic examples. There’s a myriad of examples across the province of the impacts of the pandemic.

I think that does circle back to the reason why we’re asking for this increase to the core annual contribution from the province to the sector. I’ll hold there to see if there are any questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Kevin, thank you very much for your presentation.

I do have a question to start off with, because you kind of hinted whether or not the digital or online aspect of things was more costly than the in-person visits, so to speak. If you could expand on how that’s more costly, because I think most of us are sitting around here thinking it’s the opposite.

K. Millsip: It’s counterintuitive, isn’t it? It really comes down to licensing. I pulled up a couple of examples from our co-op, because one of the things we do for the sector is that we buy collective digital resources. Here are some recent examples from Prince Harry’s new book, Spare. Whether you want to read it or not is irrelevant. As you know, it’s a bestseller. There’s a lot of demand.

The hardcover edition of that book you can get through Chapters for about $28.20. There are different electronic book licensing options for that book. A 12-month licence is $28.50; a 24-month licence is $57. To make sure we’re clear on that, if a library bought a hard copy of that book…. This is true for any resource.

If you buy a hard copy of it, you’ve got that book for as long as that book is still in usable shape. When you buy an electronic licence from the publishers, they usually are time-limited. In this case, the 12-month licence is $28.50, which is about the same cost as a hardcover book. But after 12 months, if you still want that book in circulation, you basically have to pay for it again.

This is just one example of many in the digital realm for licensing, which leads to incredibly high costs for digital resources. You can’t just buy the resource once. You’ve got to buy it again and again and again. There’s a whole conversation there about the hold that the big publishing companies have on this.

I want to be clear. This is really an issue from the five major publishing corporations in North America. This is not an issue with the smaller publishing houses in B.C. Their pricing is generally much more fair.

I’ll hold there.

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

Well, I have one based on that, that’s there. When you talk about having to pay on an annual basis, and you’re paying it to the publisher, what percentage of that fee goes to the author?

[3:20 p.m.]

K. Millsip: That is a great question, and I do not know the answer. A great question for the publishers.

You would think there’s no…. They’re not printing. They’re not transporting these. They’re paying for the digi­tal infrastructure, of course. I think of the five big publishers as a quintopoly, and we are really held captive by the restrictions that they put on licensing. It’s the public that that pays the cost.

Something I didn’t mention is that one of the things that goes along with the higher prices is that generally, libraries will be more limited in how many copies of a given e-book they can purchase. Right now Prince Harry’s e-book has 475 holds on it, and the audio book has 952 holds on it. The average wait time for one of those holds right now is just under three months. There are a whole bunch of reasons why they’re doing this. They really want you just to go and buy the copy yourself. But anyway, that’s a whole other conversation.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Well, thank you very much for your presentation and enlightening us on the additional costs that are there when it’s in the digital world.

Next up we have Rina Hadziev from the British Columbia Library Association.

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

The floor is yours.

B.C. LIBRARY ASSOCIATION

R. Hadziev: Thank you all for the opportunity to speak to you today about public libraries. My name is Rina Hadziev.

I’m coming to you from the unceded territory of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking people, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I’m the executive director of the B.C. Library Associa­tion, or BCLA. You may have gathered from my colleagues who just spoke to you that we, in library land, love an acronym. I’m pleased to be here to speak to you on behalf of our members.

The B.C. Library Association leads the library commun­ity in advocacy, professional development and support of intellectual freedom. We ensure that all British Columbians have equitable access to information, ideas and works of the imagination. We represent unionized and non-unionized staff from large and small libraries across the province. We also represents B.C. libraries as institutions. That ranges from the largest university libraries to the smallest public libraries. Then we’re also privileged to represent many library stakeholders in B.C., including publishers, literacy organizations and library vendors.

We were founded over 100 years ago, and we’ve always had a steady, progressive and relevant role to play as an essential part of the infrastructure of B.C.’s library environment. In addition to my role at the B.C. Library Association, I’m also a co-chair of the B.C. Public Library Partners. I know you’ve heard about who we are, so I won’t touch on that. I know you are hearing a lot about libraries this afternoon.

BCLA is a member of the partners because our individual and institutional members, even those who have nothing to do with public libraries, have told us that advocacy for public libraries is essential to them. They recognize the pressing community need for increased funding to B.C. public libraries. Public libraries have tasked us to work as part of the B.C. Public Library Partners to represent them and be their voice to you, and we take that responsibility seriously.

As you know, the partners are united in our recommendation that the provincial government increase its annual core funding supporting public libraries to $30 million and provide a modest annual increase going forward, as needed, to offset inflation. We deeply appreciate the one-time funding support the province has provided over the past several years. It has helped to stabilize public libraries, but that’s temporary.

Without proper planning and sustained, consistent core funding, local libraries are having to make difficult deci­sions about what services to cut, including core services, such as operating hours, or what community needs to leave unmet. That can be anything from support for families to newcomers or marginalized folks.

[3:25 p.m.]

The amount of annual core provincial funding to public libraries has been frozen for over a decade. At the same time, the community demands on libraries have multiplied, and the costs to provide core library services have drastically increased. Books costs more. Staff cost more. Facilities cost more. Then, as Kevin was mentioning, there are new costs, such as digital content, with licensing models from the big five that are often unsustainable for libraries.

Public libraries are a network of 250 integral commun­ity hubs across the province, and they evolve and adapt to meet the needs of the people in their individual communities. One of the amazing things about public libraries is that they’re really near the people they serve. But with increasing social issues and pressures, we’re increasingly managing complex front-line community needs. That also increases costs, as libraries strive to provide a variety of additional social supports and also train and support staff to respond to increasingly challenging situations.

This is also key when we talk about the need for stabil­ization for municipalities and electoral areas, who also help to fund public libraries. With core funding in place, those groups can know their contribution requirements and plan. It would also minimize the assumption that municipalities and electoral areas can reduce their share of core funding in a year when the provincial government provides one-time, high-profile investments in libraries.

I want to close by saying that library workers care deeply about their communities. They are proud of the work they do to support the people they serve. In past years, we’ve even heard stories from folks on this committee that highlight the important role that libraries and library workers play in your communities. Whether it is providing baby time and story time for families, supporting students, connecting newcomers to services, helping folks sign up for income assistance, providing resources for local business owners, being a refuge during a climate emergency, pro­viding a point of contact and connection for isolated seniors, or so much more, libraries are key to community health and success.

I want to tell you, on behalf of our members, that library workers are also tired. They are community members too, and they need support. We’re asking you to help support them by increasing core annual provincial funding for the public library sector to $30 million.

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have for me.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term “library land” until today.

R. Leonard: Thanks for your presentation. One of the things that you didn’t say might be cut is the books, which shows what your priorities are, for sure.

We’ve heard a lot and seen a lot around the expanding role that librarians have to play in community. I’m wondering if you can talk about the training aspect of it, how it may be changing and what supports might be needed.

R. Hadziev: I’ll tell you that, for the book side, actually, part of why I didn’t mention that is that libraries have already started to cut, sometimes, their funding for books. If you have to choose between laying off the person who does baby time or buying, maybe, a few less copies of a book, you’ll buy a few less copies of a book. So often those the decisions that are already being made. Libraries have been making cuts for the past decade with frozen funding. They’re just at a point where now everyone is really going to start seeing the cuts.

As far as training, it can vary a lot. Obviously, technology has been a huge change, and there are many people who have worked in libraries for 30-40 years who have needed to get up to speed and stay up to speed. But when you come to some of the social issues, there is, partly, building capacity and understanding around things like reconciliation. That can be a completely new concept for people. How can they possibly provide appropriate service and fulfil the needs of their whole community when they don’t really understand them? So there are things like that.

But to be honest, they’re doing a lot more training, too, around violent encounters and how you manage them. How do you do first aid, both mental health first aid and physical first aid? They’re learning more and more about how to keep themselves and their colleagues safe in dangerous spaces.

They’re also learning how to provide trauma-informed service to people, because there are often folks who are coming in who are street involved, who have mental health issues and who, for a variety of reasons, do not have a lot of places they feel comfortable or safe. The library can often be one of the only places where they feel at home.

Library folks actually take that very seriously, and love that, but that can also come with some dangers sometimes. When people are really desperate and struggling, they are not always safe for the people around them.

R. Leonard: Is that training in-service, or is this part of your university training?

[3:30 p.m.]

R. Hadziev: The range of staff working in libraries can vary from folks with masters, like me — I worked for 20 years as a librarian — right down to folks who just graduated high school or haven’t even graduated high school yet and are coming in. A lot of this training is now being provided by some of the non-profit organizations you’re seeing here.

Our library members are telling us what they need, and we’re providing them. Also, if you got a library degree 20 years ago, you didn’t learn trauma-informed care.

B. Stewart: Thanks very much, Rina.

We had earlier presentations last week and, probably, prior to that, from groups about literacy. I wonder if there is a way of somehow meshing the two together so that that issue…. I mean, it starts by competency. I’m just wondering: is there a way forward to blend the two in some way? Just like the last topic you were talking about — trauma-informed. I mean, that wasn’t part of the education. Have you got a thought on that?

R. Hadziev: Yeah. Literacy — we actually are very connected already. I’m frequently in contact with the folks at Literacy B.C., both at a local level and at a higher level. Literacy is part of the training that folks get when they do their library degree. So when we offer baby time or we offer storytime, we aren’t just a book clerk reading a book. We’re building in literacy concepts and giving parents building blocks that they can use to develop their child’s literacy.

Libraries do that as one of our core things we are trained for and that we do provide support for. A lot of the literacy organizations, I would say, really dive in where people are struggling, whereas libraries provide sort of a basic foundation that people can start with. Does that connect with what you were hearing from folks?

B. Stewart: Yeah. I go back to how long it has been since…. I know the provincial government looks at this as being a local-government issue, and the $14 million is just kind of to give them a hand up, not a hand….

They’re not operating. It’s not that. I do think there might be some connection. That’s all I was thinking. Thanks a lot for that.

R. Hadziev: When you’re struggling to exist, it can be hard to partner — when you’re trying to get the bathroom clean and get the lights on.

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

Next up is Darra Hofman, British Columbia Library Trustees Association.

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

The floor is yours.

B.C. LIBRARY TRUSTEES ASSOCIATION

D. Hofman: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to appear. I’m Dr. Darra Hofman. I am the vice-president of the British Columbia Library Trustees Association.

I beg your forgiveness if I get a little bit emotional today. I’m joining you from the Chetwynd Public Library be­cause I was evacuated from my home in Tumbler Ridge last week, and I have been reminded quite personally and viscerally of how important libraries are. The public library has provided me with the space and the Internet connection to be with you today.

Libraries serve as third places, places that are neither home nor work, where people can join and be together. It has been that for my teenage sons, who have been able to sit with some of their friends from home and play video games and chat and feel like normal teenagers instead of evacuees for a little bit. My daughter, who has participated in the programming that so many of our children take part in across this province every day, has been able to do crafts and storytime and to feel like a normal little girl again.

The services that our public libraries provide are like a critical heartbeat for our communities. The British Columbia Library Trustees Association is the organization that represents library trustees: members of the community — be it in Tumbler Ridge, Vancouver or throughout this province — who give of their time and expertise, from all walks of life, to ensure that the public library in their community represents the needs of that community.

In Tumbler Ridge, where I live, that looks like every­thing from making sure that Service B.C. comes in occasionally, I think once a month, so that folks who can’t travel to Dawson or other places can be served. It looks like writing grants so that there are snacks for children who come to after-school programming, who don’t have enough lunch to eat each day, so they don’t have to go hungry. It looks like providing help with getting vaccine cards during the pandemic, and it looks like making sure that folks have resources to fill out EI applications and job applications, especially after the mines closed down.

[3:35 p.m.]

In Richmond, where I used to live, it looked like making sure that there were services for new Canadians like me to be able to pass their citizenship exams, to be able to connect with the community, to bring their expertise from their home countries into Canada and to ensure that there were strong bilingual collections.

Our public libraries are serving every community in this province, in all of their diversity, but they can’t do it without adequate support. A large portion of my time as a public library trustee has been advocating to our local council for adequate financial support. I think a lot of library trustees face that same challenge.

In part, one of the challenges, of course, is the sense that when the province gives big one-time support to the libraries, it means that the council, at the municipal level, is off the hook and can just kind of claw back — whereas the simple fact is that when we’re providing all of these services, when we’re acting as a lifeline for our communities, we need steady and consistent funding to be able to provide those services.

Folks don’t often know this. Librarians are typically master’s-degreed, educated information professionals. They also, in these trying times, have to be able to fill a number of roles beyond information-professional connections. They have to be able to help people find the information they need, whether that be information about EI or a good book for their kids. They also step into the gap to provide a lot of social-type services.

Our libraries are often one of the few freely available, climate-controlled spaces where our citizenry can go, especially folks who live on the wrong side of the digital divide, who need access to the Internet to, say, fill out job applications. They’re one of those few places where folks can go to join in community without having to spend money.

Keeping the light on, keeping the air conditioning on, in these historically hot temperatures — keeping the heat on in our harsh northern winters, especially — those things cost money. The librarians and library paraprofessionals who support our communities deserve, as well, to be paid adequately for their expertise and work.

For libraries to be able to continue to support their communities, to be the lifeline for people like me who have been evacuated or just everyday people who need the support of their community and their library, we need adequate funding. Therefore, on behalf of the BCLTA and our library partners, I request that the library budget, which has been frozen for 13 years, be increased to $30 million.

I thank you all for your time. I’m really happy to answer any questions you might have.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Darra, thank you very much for your presentation.

It should not go without being said…. Of all the people that have spoken in front of us, you had the best rationale to say: “I’m sorry. I couldn’t be there today.” You have cho­sen to go that extra mile to present to us. That shows, to everybody that’s sitting inside of this room right now, that your service to the community means much more than your personal inconvenience that you’re going through right now.

H. Yao: I echo my Chair’s comment. Thank you so much for being here despite the challenge you’re facing.

To be honest, I’m very disappointed to hear some of the comments you’ve made. I really would love to hear your support in regard to what we can follow up on. You mentioned that when the provincial government provided big, one-time funding for libraries, some of the municipalities did a clawback of funding for the local library. Are you able to create a list of the different municipalities so we can look into what the situation is? We just gave $1 billion to all the municipalities. To me, that was a bit disappointing to hear.

The second concern I have is…. If the provincial government does increase from $14 million to $30 million, what’s stopping the municipal governments from lowering their contribution? How can we make sure that’s guaranteed? That way, we’re there to support the library, not simply to alter one payment for another payment.

D. Hofman: That is going to be something that will re­quire really strong and appropriate messaging, of course, from the library partners and the province as well.

I think one of the things that we’re really struggling with in libraries, in general, both in this province and more broadly, is the fact that we are not flashy, in the same sense — we’re not as obvious, for example — as the firefighters. We are very much in love with the firefighters right now in Tumbler Ridge. The way that we hold our community together and the things that we do are not as obvious, I don’t think, to a lot of folks.

[3:40 p.m.]

I think there’s going to be a lot of messaging and support that needs to happen, but there’s also the challenge and the fact that we’ve been frozen at the provincial level for so long. I think there’s a sense that libraries are not a high priority for the municipalities as well. I believe that there is that sense of: “Well, if they’re not going to fund you, why should we?”

That’s the challenge, of course, of being that shared governance, shared-funding model. So I think having that strong level of support from the province would help us to make that message that, no, our libraries are critically important to the well-being of both our local communities, our municipalities and British Columbia as a whole.

B. Stewart: Darra, thanks very much. Is there an ex­ample of another jurisdiction where library funding is done completely differently? I’m just thinking about comparing information. You must have a pretty good idea of what it’s like in other jurisdictions.

D. Hofman: Sure. Well, I’m actually originally from the United States, and I teach for a library school in California. I in fact forgot to change my background, so I apologize for that.

For example, in Kentucky, where I come from originally, it’s done almost entirely by local taxes, and what you see happening there is you end up with a very have, have-not library situation where folks who have resources also have very well resourced libraries.

Whereas, here in British Columbia, because we have that stronger level of provincial support, you end up with a much more equitable library situation. For example, folks who are low income and are on the wrong side of the digital divide, even in a little town like Tumbler, can still go to their public library and access the big databases that they need and access professional trained librarians and have those kinds of supports.

B. Banman: Darra, thank you for what you do. I would say that you definitely have everybody’s attention on that. We just want you to get home safe and soon. There are fires all over the place, and our hearts and thoughts go out to everyone that’s involved with that.

I want to focus in on…. One of my critic roles is for Citizens’ Services, which includes broadband connection to rural areas. For those in the Lower Mainland and other parts of British Columbia who just take for granted that when you pick up your phone, it’s going to be there and work and you have…. How many of the individuals that you have, be it ranchers that are trying to zero in on their water rights or people that are trying to get information and link to government programs, would you say, in your area of the world, come in because they don’t have that connection and need to come to you to get it done?

D. Hofman: Oh my gosh, it is an ongoing challenge. Everyone complains about the Internet in Tumbler. That’s part of the reason, for example, that we have Service B.C. actually drive out to Tumbler on a regular basis: because folks can’t necessarily get online and do that.

One of the most popular things that they have available to borrow from our library are the little cell phone–based signal routers which, of course, are very expensive. You can use the little device to use your cell phone as a hotspot to be able to access the Internet in your house. So yeah, it’s a huge challenge trying to get that connection, and that’s one of the major things folks come in for: to be able to get connected.

B. Banman: Thank you for what you do to help those people, sincerely.

D. Hofman: My pleasure.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Darra, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, and good luck on your return to home, hopefully sooner than later.

D. Hofman: Thank you very kindly. I appreciate it, and thank you for letting me share my story with you today.

M. Starchuk (Chair): You’re welcome.

Our next presenter is Margaret Chrumka of Kamloops Art Gallery. Margaret, you have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes of comments and/or questions.

the floor is yours.

KAMLOOPS ART GALLERY

M. Chrumka: Okay. Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to present today. My name is Margaret Chrumka.

I’m joining you from the traditional and surrendered lands of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc and Secwepemcul'ecw, the traditional territory of the Secwépemc people.

[3:45 p.m.]

I am honoured to work as the executive director of the Kamloops Art Gallery, a position that I’ve held for the past ten years. To further situate us, the Kamloops Art Gallery is located in downtown Kamloops. We’re 4½ hours from the B.C.-Alberta border, five to Vancouver, two hours to Kelowna and seven hours to Calgary. Kamloops, as you can imagine…. A population of 92,000 is not necessarily a rural community. It’s a small, urban city. But this distance from other major centres makes us remote.

We are a public, not-for-profit art gallery, established in 1978, that cares for a collection of over 3,100 artworks that represent our cultural heritage, predominantly B.C.’s cultural heritage. We realize 12 exhibitions a year, three each season, with three distinct gallery spaces, two of which are professional gallery spaces. In 2022, we provided compensation to 50 artists at the nationally designated fee level established by CARFAC, the organization that represents artists.

Prior to COVID, we saw between 25,000 to 30,000 visitors a year. During COVID, we saw just over 20,000 a year, and five months into 2023, we are anticipating seeing 35,000 visitors, a 15 percent increase in attendance and our highest attendance in our 40-year-plus history. To date, in 2023, we have doubled the number of children that engage in our school program since pre-COVID, and overall gallery attendance is up 13 percent over the five-year pre-COVID average. Basically, the growth trajectory that we were on pre-COVID is now being fully realized.

Why do I share these details? What does this mean? Simply put, this means that people are increasingly visiting and engaging with the work of artists and are finding meaning in these interactions. Through the sharing of artwork, we’re providing British Columbians with an accessible opportunity to deepen their understanding about some of the most complex and challenging issues facing society today, including the effects of climate change, the impacts of colonialism, racism and marginalization, while also providing a space to feel joy and find solace.

We do this with a budget of $1.3 million, 20 percent gratefully received from the province of B.C. This amount has not changed in over ten years, with 13 full-time staff, 20 part-time staff and all but four new entry-level staff receiving a living wage, which is just over $17 in the Interior. Wages account for 50 percent of our budget.

Within this context, I have three requests.

One, in thinking about the importance of art in our lives and how art fosters critical thinking and shared understanding, I ask you to keep in mind the context of remote communities and the added cost in bringing our work and artists to our region.

In my time at the gallery, the cost of shipping and exhibition has grown from $15,000 to $35,000, with shipping making up half of our exhibition costs. This money, the increase, is taking away from what we can invest in associated programs that more deeply connect audiences with art.

Two, I ask you to honour your commitment to doubling the B.C. Arts Council’s budget to $48 million as an­nounced in 2017. Heartbreakingly, the Kamloops Art Gallery’s operating funds for 2023, ’24 and ’25 have been reduced by the B.C. Arts Council by 10 percent, not based on merit or in consideration of our growth and increased audience engagement or due to a misalignment with the B.C. Arts Council’s goals but solely in an effort to provide other equity-deserving arts organizations with support.

How is the arts sector to sustain itself if we are now in a place where we need to harm one organization to support another? Please recommit to supporting the Arts Council to the level of your 2017 commitment.

Third and finally, in all our efforts to realize equity, I ask you to consider new investment in supporting much-needed systems change. The Kamloops Art Gallery has long been engaged and committed to the work of dismantling racist and white-centering structures. This work, though, takes time. To be able to hire into and sustain positions where we can manifest these necessary changes, we need additional financial support. We can only continue to do more with less for so long, and system change needs to occur.

[3:50 p.m.]

I will close and say that every day we see how the work of artists brings us together, provides space for difficult conversations and enhances understanding. During this time of growing divisions and entrenched stances, small investments in the work of artists will engender civility and enhance our overall social and economic prosperity.

Thank you very much for this opportunity and consideration.

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

I guess my first question would be…. Right at the beginning, you said that your attendance, I believe, was up by 40 percent and at a new level. Do we know why?

M. Chrumka: Well, we’re working incredibly hard to engage people. Pre-COVID, we did a lot of foundational work to ensure that audiences felt welcome here. This includes providing free Thursdays, which are sponsored by BCLC, providing opportunities for anyone who feels that the $5 admission is a barrier to attendance, also creating programs that allow people to more deeply understand the exhibitions.

We sort of set the foundation. Then during COVID, we took the time to really bone up on our marketing skills. Everything is kind of coalescing. We’re just seeing this incredible return to engagement with us.

The increase is 20 percent, not 40 percent.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. My wishful thinking.

A. Walker: I’m wondering if you can share a little bit more about this investment into systems change. What kind of dollar amount, who would lead that, and what would that look like?

M. Chrumka: If this could be on top of the commitment to the B.C. Arts Council. I wouldn’t like to see this…. I’d like to see the Arts Council commitment of $48 million realized and additional funding…. The Arts Council could direct this funding directly to the hiring of Indigenous staff or to the mentorship program. That is going to sort of build that pipeline where we’re able to provide these opportunities.

Right now, for a person of colour to be hired at the Kamloops Art Gallery, somebody has to leave, and we have very low turnover rates. Already, 40 percent of our staff are considered racialized people, but we’re unable to really manifest the change we need to see. We need to do more.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other comments and/or questions? Okay. Well, I’m not seeing any.

I wish you luck. Your success speaks a lot to your organization and to the community that supports you as well. I was very shocked at the shipping costs and what it actually means, your cost to have an exhibit there.

M. Chrumka: It costs us the same amount to do art shipping to Kelowna as it does to Toronto. It’s based on the way the trucking industry is going right now.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for sharing that with us, Margaret. Thank you again for your presentation this afternoon.

M. Chrumka: Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Cassandra Lopez, from the Children’s Autism Federation of British Columbia.

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

The floor is yours.

CHILDREN’S AUTISM FEDERATION OF B.C.

C. Lopez: Good afternoon. My name is Cassandra Lopez. I am the co-founder of the Children’s Autism Federation of B.C. I’m also the mother of an autistic child with lived experience in both the Ontario centre-based support system and our B.C. individualized funding support system.

The Children’s Autism Federation of B.C. was founded as a grassroots organization. It has focused on advocacy and support surrounding individualized funding and en­suring any changes to the framework that supports children and youth encompass the needs of all children.

The primary focus of our advocacy has been the retention of individual funding. Individual funding provides not only accessibility to a family to choose what works best for them but a lifeline for those that depend on it. This allows a family to use this funding in a way that best suits their child.

[3:55 p.m.]

Coming from a centre-based system with a multi-year wait-list, I can attest to the opportunity and development individualized funding can provide to a child. To eliminate this funding from a family can put a child in so much regression that they can engage in self-harming behaviour, sensory overload and further trauma. It is imperative that when we speak about any changes to the framework to support children and youth, we are ensuring that we are building a framework that will work for all.

Today we’re asking the budget committee to take into consideration our three recommendations.

Recommendation No. 1: expand and increase individual funding to all disabilities. We know individual funding provides choice to families. Not every family has the ability to access the centre-based support system. We have children that are not able to tolerate stores or waiting rooms. The expectation that they should travel to a centre for support is not feasible for many families. We also know that we have children that are currently unsupported in our province, and funding gives them what they need to thrive as well.

In November 2022, Premier Eby announced interim funding to be given to other disabilities. Although this is a step in the right direction, interim funding is not a permanent solution. We do already know that at the pilot family connections centres, there will be wait-lists. We recommend expanding individual funding to all disabilities to ensure that all children have funding to be able to truly meet their needs.

Recommendation No. 2: lower the assessment wait time. A public autism assessment is currently approximately 18 to 24 months. We know that a diagnosis is crucial in setting a path of support for a child. Waiting two years for an assessment is a barrier. A private autism assessment is incredibly expensive. Many families are not able to pay privately in order to avoid that two-year wait-list. In order to access an autism assessment sooner, families need access to professionals in their area or nearby. One way this could be accomplished is by hiring more skilled professionals.

We recommend focusing on decreasing wait times for an assessment. This, in turn, will give support to children faster, which is critical, especially when we look at the importance of early intervention.

Recommendation No. 3: shift the autism file out of MCFD. One thing we heard consistently during the course of our advocacy was the inability for families to put trust in MCFD after the ministry continued to disregard parents’ concerns. Autism is a medically diagnosed disability.

The Children’s Autism Federation of B.C. is recommending that the autism file be moved out of MCFD and placed under the Ministry of Health or that a separate disability ministry be created. Moving this file, or the creation of a disability ministry where organizations and families could have their unique needs not only met but understood, would not only provide trust in the government but also would allow families to feel heard and children to be supported.

In closing, we have made these recommendations as a means to effectively support children and youth with disabilities in B.C. so they can thrive.

I thank you for your time.

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

Comments and/or questions from committee members?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Cassandra, for the presentation.

A couple of questions. On lowering the assessment wait times, the first question would be: can that be accomplished with online assessments? If not, why not? If so, then are we exploring that?

The second would be moving autism, you said, out of MCFD. Would that be just for autism or all neurodivergent children?

C. Lopez: For the first one, lowering the wait time. Obviously, we can have more organizations speak to this in consultation and engagement.

Virtually would be very difficult. I think with autism, at least from my experience, having somebody view your child in person over the course of, usually, a day or two, for the assessment, is necessary. They can interact with your child. They can ask you questions. They can ask your child questions.

I’m not sure, to be honest, if virtually is being explored right now. We can’t speak to that. But definitely, through consultation and engagement, that could be explored.

Moving the file out of MCFD is something that came up a lot during our advocacy after the autism funding announcement was announced back in 2021 — that they were slashing the program. This came up constantly. Families don’t trust MCFD.

Moving the file out…. It could be for other disabilities, if they’re diagnosed medically. Autism is a medically diagnosed disability. So for many families, it should not be under MCFD. It should be under the Ministry of Health or a disability ministry, where you could have different organizations come in, consult, be part of a steering committee, and so forth.

[4:00 p.m.]

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions and/or comments?

Not seeing any, Cassandra, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, and thank you, as well, for your advocacy role that you play so greatly.

C. Lopez: Thank you for your time.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is James MacDonald, Western Canada Theatre.

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

The floor is yours.

WESTERN CANADA THEATRE

J. MacDonald: Wonderful. Thanks very much.

I’d like to start by extending my thanks and appreciation to the government and the people of British Columbia, particularly for the COVID resilience funding that’s come to us through the B.C. Arts Council. It is not an exaggeration to say that that has directly attributed to the survival and our ability to plan for the future in British Columbia.

To contextualize our request, I just want to tell you a bit about our role in the community. Western Canada Theatre makes an indelible contribution to the quality of life for British Columbians outside the Lower Mainland and the capital region, particularly in the southern Interior. We are the 15th largest theatre company in Canada, in Canada’s 64th largest city.

I wanted to talk a bit about the work we do in our community. We have an exemplary history of working with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc in developing programs and programming that promotes Indigenous culture, education and audiences, leading towards cultural revitalization and reconciliation.

We’re an active participant in the society working to bring a new art centre to Kamloops. We work with Tourism Kamloops to create tourism opportunities in our region. We work with the chamber of commerce to support economic development. We work with the Royal Inland Hospital to bring doctors and nurses to our region, assuring them of the cultural vitality of our city and arts education for their children.

We work with Thompson Rivers University to provide mentorship and employment for their graduates in the­atre, education, marketing and business. We work with the Chris Rose centre for autism. We work with rotary clubs, run clubs, car clubs, and wine and beer festivals.

We operate Kamloops Live! Box Office. We work with the Kamloops Symphony, Art Gallery, Sports Council and Arts Council and support the work of local independent and amateur arts organizations. We work with school district 73 in supporting their productions and offering student matinees.

In short, we’re a pan-community operation whose existence touches the lives of virtually every person in our city in a manner that is exponentially greater than the product you see on our stages. However, we see opportunities to do more for our community, and we will respond: more cultural diversity in our programming, serving equity-deserving and racialized communities and artists in our growing and increasingly diverse city; increased accessibility in our productions and in our theatre school; more mental health and professional development opportunities for our staff and our artists.

Inflation has hit those of us in rural areas much harder than major urban centres, with significant increases in production costs, services, materials, travel and accommo­dation. We’ve been hit hard by the loss of expertise in our industry, particularly in our technical staff. Paradoxically, we’re faced with these increased costs and challenges at a time when our audiences are surely but slowly returning to the theatre.

I come to you with one request today: that the government affirm their commitment to the doubling of the annual budget of the B.C. Arts Council to $48 million by talking about what it means to our communities, our organizations, our people.

Through the early career development program, we mentor emerging artists, technicians, educators and administrators who are the future of our industry. Through the arts impact program, we’re hiring an Indigenous artistic associate to reaffirm our commitment to Indigenous artists and audiences and to mentor Indigenous students and emerging artists in their careers. Through the infrastructure program, we’ve made much-needed improvements to our aging facilities, including upgrading a lighting and sound system that has been in place since Expo 86.

Resilience funding kept our doors open and our people employed, enabling us to pivot to digital programming for one season and full programming the next, and keeping our audiences engaged. Touring funding enables us to take our productions across Canada, including our 2018 production of Glory by B.C. playwright Tracey Power, which has played to over 100,000 people across B.C. and Canada in 17 different venues.

[4:05 p.m.]

Operating funding enables us to keep productions on our stages, turning a $145,000 investment into a $3.4 million company that employs 15 full-time, 32 part-time and over 140 contract artists and 190 volunteers.

We use the dollars of the taxpayers of British Columbia very well. WCT takes the investment of the people of B.C. and turns it into a significantly larger return for our community. We are a theatre company. We are an educational organization. We are a vital part of mental health and wellness in our city. We promote the active engagement of racialized and other equity-deserving communities. We contribute to regional economic development, tourism and quality of life. We make our city a great place to live and to visit, and we could do none of this without the B.C. Arts Council.

Thank you for your time, and thank you for your considered support.

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

I’m not sure how many people would have listened to your presentation and wondered: what’s Expo 86? But everybody in this room I think is quite familiar with that terminology that’s there.

I will open it up to questions and/or comments, to the committee.

While we’re waiting, James, can you correct me? Was there not an ask a couple of years ago about a new theatre and some land that was in your municipality?

J. MacDonald: Yeah. Right before COVID, in fact at the end of March 2020, we were scheduled to have a referendum on a new arts centre, and the arts centre project has recently come back. We’ll probably have a referendum on it in the spring of next year, and that will be a major infrastructure project that we’ll be supporting in the years to come.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Thank you. I do recall what was there, and good luck on your referendum.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, James. I needed some clarification here, just on the resiliency funding. It depends on your operational status, I guess, on how that funding is received. So your theatre is an operational status then? Do you get that resilience…?

J. MacDonald: That’s right.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): So do you agree with the concern that the funding isn’t perhaps equitable for some of those other theatres that aren’t…? I think they’re performing status. I guess that’s what it’s called.

J. MacDonald: Is that around project status? Do you think that would be on project status?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Yeah.

J. MacDonald: Yes. I think that the resilience funding should be going across the board. I guess it depends on…. Our use of the resilience funding is literally to go back to full operation. We didn’t think we could go back to full operation. We needed to do that in order to continue to engage our audiences, and we wanted to do that because we were getting that support. We didn’t want to sit on any money we were getting. We wanted to take every dollar we got and put it back into our communities and our productions.

I can’t speak for other organizations as to what they’d do with it.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Right. Great. Thanks.

J. MacDonald: But I do support…. We got a cut from the B.C. Arts Council, which was a planned cut in our operating, to bring on more equity-deserving companies, and I support that as well. I’d just like to point out the fact that in our operations, we take the support of those equity-deserving companies in our community very seriously as well. We use the money to do that.

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

H. Yao: Thank you so much again. Obviously, we really appreciate your comments, especially how you spend our taxpayer dollars in such a productive way.

One of the things I keep on saying, like to Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as well, is how music and live performance also help us alleviate some of the mental health stress that accumulates through COVID-19. Do you have any kind of data or any kind of anecdotal answer that you can maybe provide and share with the committee on how this kind of an arts council funding increase will help us address and, of course, increase our mental wellness and positive life outlook, I guess?

J. MacDonald: I don’t have anything that would be specific in terms of empirical data, but I do know anecdotal data, which is that our whole industry is about bringing people together. We know that being apart has been very hard on the mental health and wellness in our….

At our last production of the year, we had over 10,000 people, which is 10 percent of our population. And it’s particularly important for young people. In our operations, we bring about 7,000 or 8,000 young people to the theatre every year, and we provide a Stage One Theatre School, which gives them that arts education and the opportunity to be together. So particularly for racialized communities and for young people, I think that the arts really contribute to their mental health and well-being.

[4:10 p.m.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, James, there are no other questions and/or comments, so thank you very much for your presentation today.

As I said previously, good luck with that referendum when it does come forward.

J. MacDonald: Thank you so much. I really, really do appreciate your time, so much appreciated, and good luck with the rest of it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Next up, speaking of Expo 86, is Tracy Redies from Science World.

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

You have the floor.

SCIENCE WORLD

T. Redies: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the standing committee for all the work that you’re doing on behalf of British Columbians. It’s nice to see some familiar faces today, too, as I present for the second time to the standing committee.

Today I want to begin by extending a heartfelt thanks for the support from the province of B.C. with the recent grant of $20 million to support infrastructure repairs at our iconic dome. We greatly value our partnership with the province, and I want to thank each of you for your support in helping us secure this vital funding.

I would also like to acknowledge that Science World is located on the traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish peoples.

In the past year, we have worked with, and directly in, many First Nations communities across B.C. I’m also pleased to share with you that we now have four talented and committed Science World board members, representing each of the three host nations, as well as the Lytton First Nation.

Science World is highly committed to creating a culturally inclusive environment, truth and reconciliation and the principles of UNDRIP. In 2022 we were honoured to work with the Heiltsuk First Nation to host their exhibit, Sacred Journey. And during the exhibit’s run, we welcomed over 28,000 Indigenous people free of charge to the dome. I’m delighted to share with you today that Science World has made the decision to permanently keep free access for people self-identifying as Indigenous. We have now actually welcomed over 31,000 Indigenous people free to Science World.

Science World is a provincial charitable organization. Many of you know us, but for those who might not, we’re focused on scaling STEAM literacy, and STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, arts and math. Our purpose is science for all, and in our 34-year history, Science World has reached millions of students, trained thousands of teachers and ignited a curiosity and wonder to foster the future world-changers and problem-solvers of tomorrow. Last year alone, we reached almost 3½ million people through our in-person and online channels.

With StrongerBC’s focus on skills training for the jobs of tomorrow, access for underrepresented groups, climate change and life sciences, our programs at Science World are very much aligned with government’s goals.

In my last presentation to the committee, I outlined some of the critical infrastructure challenges that Science World is facing. The dome is leaking and has been shut for three years. Our HVAC system may fail if we face another heat dome. The heavy decking pilings and electrical distribution system need significant upgrades. So this list is extensive.

Our ask today is for continued infrastructure funding. Simply put, we’re still facing an infrastructure challenge that we can’t address on our own. In the next five years, we must spend about $80 million to address critical infrastructure needs. An additional $35 million is required to add classroom and meeting space, as well as rejuvenate our galleries.

Funding from the province for the infrastructure repairs is also critical if Science World is to survive, as well as to substantially reduce our carbon footprint. A third-party climate audit indicates that we could reduce our energy consumption by over 40 percent and our GHG emissions by almost 60 percent through repairs and upgrades.

We’ve asked both the provincial and federal governments to each provide $35 million in funding, with Science World fundraising the balance. We’ve received $10 million and $20 million to date from the federal and provincial governments, respectively, which is a great start. But we need more if we’re to ensure that the dome stays open for generations to come.

Last summer, our external lights went out. Luckily, we were able to keep the dome open, and we hope to light up Science World again shortly. But if one of our critical systems goes, like HVAC, we are unable to continue to keep the dome open. And this would be very problematic in terms of our programs continuing to reach British Columbians across the province.

I think this is really important, because Science World is a critical component of the educational system. We support the K-to-12 system, and we create opportunities for young learners to get confident in STEAM learning at an early age, which is vital for them pursuing that learning later on in life. Access to science centres is also critical for underrepresented or barriered groups. So that is also important.

[4:15 p.m.]

I think we are all working together to try and develop that STEAM talent pool in the pipeline, but continuing to fund the infrastructure so we can be here for generations to come, as a provincial building, is very important to Science World if we’re going to continue our programming.

We ask for the government to continue to support the infrastructure funding that we’ve requested. We thank you for your support to date, and I look forward to answering the committee’s questions. Thank you.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you for your presentation, Tracy. I recall it very well from last year.

My first question…. Your list of deficiencies that you’ve given us is very similar to last year’s, and now there has been a $20 million injection into it. We all recognize that as a committee, last year we made it a priority because the building is an iconic building for British Columbia, not just for Vancouver.

Can you just tell us a little bit as to what that first instalment of $20 million is going to solve, as far as infrastructure goes?

T. Redies: Well, let me check. The first $10 million that was given to us in October has already been deployed, for the most part. That’s going to help us reactivate our external lighting system. It has allowed us to make some electrical upgrades and rejuvenate some of our visitor experience.

In terms of the $20 million, we have put forward an application to the federal government under the green and inclusive community buildings program. The reason I bring that forward is that we want to pair that funding with the $20 million to address the HVAC issues, which are extensive, to insulate the dome and start the process to replace the technology in the dome.

These are very complicated, interconnected projects. It’s important that we understand the total funding we have and the timing of that funding. We’re working with the Ministry of Tourism right now on how the $20 million will be deployed. What we’re hoping is that we can leverage some of the funding from the federal government, as well, to make that an even more impactful pot of money.

B. Banman: Tracy, welcome, and thank you for what you do. I come from a little bit further out east, which you also have a connection with. A lot of people don’t understand or know that Science World actually has a connection with agriculture, and some pretty innovative stuff. Could you please explain why your institution is important, and the connections that you have to EcoDairy?

T. Redies: Well, as you know, we have been in 82 communities. We deliver programming, typically to about 150,000 students in B.C., through our outreach program. We do millions of programs online for students, and we train thousands of teachers annually in just about every corner of the province. I mentioned First Nations communities, etc.

EcoDairy has been a group that we have worked with in the past. They have some very interesting exhibits around vertical farming, but we continue to work with lots of different partners across the province.

B. Banman: My point is that this particular location is really the hub for the rest of innovation throughout the province. So it’s important. I guess I’m trying to emphasize the importance of making sure that this particular location gets what it needs to be viable, because there are tentacles that go all the way across the province.

T. Redies: Yeah, to be clear, EcoDairy and ourselves have been talking. Our partnership actually ended last year, but again, they have done some very innovative things. We have just gone through a new strategy development. I think we’re now looking at the partnerships that we think will be important to that strategy, going forward, but EcoDairy is a really great educational institution. They’re doing some great work.

B. Stewart: Thanks, Tracy. Hey, we’ve gone from STEM to STEAM. That’s awesome.

I just wanted to ask a little bit about the cost savings, once fully upgraded. Do you know what that budget looks like? Once you’re fully upgraded, what would the energy cost savings be per year?

T. Redies: Yeah, we are looking at about a 40 percent reduction in energy consumption. Whether or not that translates into that full level of savings, it still depends. Certainly, the energy consumption will be reduced significantly, and our GHG emissions will be reduced by almost 60 percent. There’s one advantage to having a building that hasn’t been upgraded since the 1980s, in some respects. When you do start to do the upgrades, it results in significant savings, so we’re really looking forward to that.

[4:20 p.m.]

One of our key focuses, going forward, in our strategy, as I mentioned, is regeneration of the planet. We want to be able to showcase what we’re doing, and what other great organizations in B.C., and companies, are doing in the clean energy and tech space, because I think that’s a big part of our future.

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

M. Starchuk (Chair): Well, Tracy, thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon, and thank you for being the guardian of one of those iconic buildings that British Columbia has.

T. Redies: Well, thank you, and thank you again for all of your support and your continued support. We know that Science World is a non-partisan issue, and it’s really been great to see the support across all of the Legislature. So thank you very much.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Our next presenter is Elaine Carol, Miscellaneous Productions Society.

Elaine, just so we’re clear, you have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes of questions and/or comments.

The floor is yours.

MISCELLANEOUS PRODUCTIONS SOCIETY

E. Carol: Miscellaneous Productions Society, founded in 2000 in Vancouver, B.C., is a hip hop theatre boot camp for culturally and socially representative at-risk young folks who face multiple barriers. Pre-COVID-19, we presented an original work every two years, and we continue to tour, give free workshops to at-risk youth and make digital art of our performances. We follow strict Davos-standard, film-industry-standard COVID-19 protocols and practices at all our events and activities.

A non-profit organization and registered charity, Miscellaneous Productions is currently in its 23rd year of production and of collaborating in a long-term model with youth in creating performances and media works for the public. Our website has been provided.

We serve 10,000-plus culturally and socially representative at-risk and experiential B.C. children and youth annually. We save the B.C. government millions of dollars annually in policing and social and medical services by keeping the most at-risk youth and children in the prov­ince engaged in arts-based community development. We provide long-term, intensive workshops to community partners, mainly from young Indigenous communities who tell us that we are working with the most at-risk children and youth in their regions.

In our longer-term, Vancouver and Lower Mainland–​based projects, we have an excellent success rate: 90 percent of our youth end up in university full time on partial or full scholarships. We have much proof that our programs and workshops keep young folks off the streets and fully engaged in the community. Six youth from our programs are now working as young and mid-career professionals for our organization.

My three recommendations are as follows.

One, the following major private-sector funders will not be making funding available to charities until 2025: Vancouver Foundation and Telus Vancouver community fund. These are the largest private sector funders in Canada. This will severely affect thousands of charities in British Columbia. The government must come up with an emergency plan for the thousands of B.C. charities that will be affected by this sudden, unexpected change in 2023 and 2024.

Neither funder will return phone calls or emails. Information on both of their websites is spotty at best. We have already met with the B.C. Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts about this. We notified the city of Vancouver arts and culture in an email. The city has yet to respond. Representatives from the B.C. Arts Council and the Canada Council were shocked when we informed them of this fact. We were shocked that they were shocked.

Two, make good on the B.C. government’s promise to double the funding of the B.C. Arts Council. The B.C. government campaigned on this promise. The charitable sector in B.C. is in crisis right now. This includes community-engaged arts organizations throughout the province, and it is due — along with how badly COVID-19 and long COVID have hit our sector, both staff and community participants — to both the previous and following recommendations.

Three, please stop the over-bureaucratization of the arts in B.C. The over-bureaucratization of the arts will destroy the arts and social services. Who is benefiting from this labour exploitation of leaders of small charities?

[4:25 p.m.]

If this escalating exploitation continues, it will lead to a complete burnout and collapse of our sector. Then what’s the plan of the B.C. government?

Charity leaders are expected to be accountants, social workers, COVID coordinators, administrators, artists, outreach workers, and then fill out endless forms to justify our existence, taking us away from the culturally and socially representative at-risk youth that are in dire need right now.

B.C. taxpayers are clear. They want us on the front lines, not filling out another useless form. The escalating labour exploitation speaks directly to my experience running a tiny charity for 24 years in B.C. Executive directors and artistic directors of small charities that are the backbone of this province are filling in the ever-increasing chasms in the system as the pandemic rages on. Please eliminate the bureaucracy and fund charities adequately.

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

I have a question that comes right off the rattle. When you were talking about how 90 percent of your youth go on to receive post-secondary education…. Tell us how you’re able to get that to happen.

E. Carol: A lot of hard work. A lot of commitment. A long-​term commitment to communities, to their families, to the First Nations we work with, to the immigrant and refugee groups we work with — long, long-term commitment, not always paid. There are many, many hours where we are not paid for our work, but we do it anyway. So it’s not an easy route.

It’s not like we snap our fingers and they go to university. It’s years and years of involvement with them, with encouraging them, with giving them projects, with giving them work, with touring with them, that increases their likelihood to receive these scholarships and other opportunities in post-secondary.

B. Banman: Well, thank you for what you do. Number one, I want to zero in on…. You say “the bureaucracy.” Can you boil it down and give us a live example as to what you mean by that? Give me something I can wrap my head around. It’s easy to say, but a real example is better.

E. Carol: There’s a number of issues.

First of all, all of the online systems that we have to go through are dysfunctional. That increases…. We’re not applying for one grant a year. We’re applying for up to 20 small grants per year, rather than one universal grant with one universal application. We’re applying for less than $100,000 with those 20 grants, and we’re not getting all of them.

It’s an incredible waste of time and energy. The last grant application I filled out ended up being close to 40 pages, and that’s for $30,000. It just doesn’t make sense to do.

We’ve been around 23 years. I think we’ve proved our­selves. We’re internationally renowned. Before the pandemic, we used to travel to Europe regularly. We’re well known in the United States. We’re well-known across Can­ada. Why are we still begging for every little scrap, rather than filling out one universal grant application per year for $100,000 or $150,000? Why are we running from ministry to ministry, begging for $5,000 here, $10,000 there?

It’s an absolute waste of our time and energy. When things are in crisis, the way we are…. I don’t know if you’ve seen today what the ER wait-lists are for the southwest of British Columbia, but nine hospitals and urgent cares have shut down to taking any more patients, and we feel that on the front lines.

If we’re running after all these little bits of money instead of assisting the various young people that we’re working with, it takes us away from their urgent care. If you want tangible…. Take a look at the B.C. Arts Council. Take a look at B.C. Gaming. Take a look at Creative B.C. Why are we filling out form after form after form for $5,000, for $10,000?

I’m old enough to remember, back in the day, where we used to write a letter to the B.C. government and get $5,000. Now we have to fill out 20 to 40 to 50 pages worth of forms. Why? Who is this benefiting?

[4:30 p.m.]

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

Okay, not seeing any, Elaine, thank you very much for your presentation today, and thank you for the programs that you support.

E. Carol: Thanks so much. Have a nice day.

M. Starchuk (Chair): For our listener out there that’s looking at the budget hearings that are there, we have just concluded the 268 hearings so far, and we are going to slowly switch gears right now to the other business of the Finance Committee.

We have Elections B.C. coming up to make a presen­tation regarding the supplementary funding request that’s theirs.

Anton and Tanya, it is your floor, and you are up.

Supplementary Funding Requests

ELECTIONS B.C.

A. Boegman: Thank you, Mr. Chair, Mr. Deputy Chair and committee members, for the invitation to meet with you this afternoon to discuss our supplementary budget request that’s necessary to administer the Langford–Juan de Fuca and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant by-elections. I’m joined at the table today by Tanya Ackinclose, senior director of finance and administration.

As I indicated in my May 31 letter to the Chair, we will require $1.588 million to administer the Langford–Juan de Fuca and Vancouver–Mount Pleasant by-elections. This is broken down into $776,000 for Langford–Juan de Fuca and $812,000 for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant. This budget will cover operational costs for the by-elections, including things like election officials’ salaries and benefits, district office and voting place rentals, where-to-vote-card printing and mailing, information systems support and public education advertising.

We will also require a budget of $220,000, which is ne­cessary to reimburse election expenses for eligible candi­dates and political parties. As you know, candidates and parties that receive at least 10 percent of the valid votes in the by-election can apply, under our legislation, to have 50 percent of their eligible election expenses reimbursed. This funding, which is $1.808 million in total, will be required for the current fiscal year, 2023-24.

These by-elections, of course, arose following the resignation of John Horgan as MLA for Langford–Juan de Fuca on March 31 and the resignation of Melanie Mark as MLA for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant on April 14.

Following an order-in-council which ordered the two by-elections, the writs of election were issued on May 27. Advance voting will take place over six days, from Friday, June 16 — this Friday — through Wednesday, June 21, with final voting day taking place from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday, June 24.

These are the third and fourth by-elections to be held under the modernized voting process enabled by the Election Amendment Act, 2019, and they’re the first by-elections in B.C. since the Election Amendment Act, 2023 received royal assent on May 11. Provincial by-elections are always an excellent opportunity to review processes and procedures, and they will provide important insights into our preparations for the 43rd provincial general election, scheduled for October 19, 2024.

Because the by-elections were called concurrently, there’s a potential for absentee voting, which is an opportunity that was not present in the two previous single-district by-elections. Because Langford–Juan de Fuca voting places are close to Elections B.C. headquarters, our staff will be able to gain important firsthand experience working in voting places to help them better plan and support election delivery in the field going forward.

Langford–Juan de Fuca will also have a combination of polls, using both the modernized technology footprint — that is the networked electronic voting books, which provide real-time voter-participation information to campaigns — as well as tabulators to count the paper ballots. Langford–Juan de Fuca, though, will also have a number of non-tech polls for several remote locations where network connectivity is insufficient to support the new model.

[4:35 p.m.]

In both cases, however, being able to optimize our processes and staffing levels under the 2019 legislative amendments will enable Elections B.C. to efficiently serve voters. It’s our goal to make voting easy. Indeed, in the last by-elections, over 95 percent of voters indicated that the voting process was efficient and that they found it easy to vote.

In Vancouver–Mount Pleasant, we’ll be implementing new approaches to ensure accessibility to the ballot for voters who live in the Downtown Eastside, including for those voters who are experiencing homelessness.

Based on our previous experience and on best practice sharing with the city of Vancouver, we’ve developed a custom where-to-vote card for voters with no fixed address. The cards provide information for these voters on voting opportunities, ID requirements and the option of using a social services agency address as their registration address.

We’ve heard that many voters experiencing homelessness think that photo ID is required to vote. But, of course, that is not true in B.C. Voters can provide two pieces of ID both with the voter’s name and at least one with their address, which can be at the address of a social service agency where that voter received services. They can also be vouched for. The cards provide information about what types of documents are acceptable as ID.

We’re working with community partners in the Downtown Eastside to distribute the cards. We’re also working with community partners to distribute translated information about voting in the by-elections, including translated copies of our voter’s guide, which was sent to every residential address in the by-election districts.

To the budget, and now I’m referring to the budget proposal we forwarded to the committee, table 1 on page 3 of the proposal shows the anticipated budget requirements for the by-election by STOB in the second and third columns. Now, table 1 was created by your committee staff for our use and includes both our approved core services as well as the event budgets to date for 2023-24.

On page 4, you’ll see the proposed event budgets by ex­pense line for each by-election, and this includes additional notes. Looking at this table, you will note that the largest budget item for the by-elections is $545,000 for salaries and benefits, or approximately 34 percent of the total. This budget item covers the cost of the district electoral officers, their deputies and office staff as well as the temporary staff that are hired to work as election officials during advanced and final voting and as mobile voting teams.

The other significant cost items are information systems at $253,000 and building occupancy at $218,000. Again, these are totals for both by-elections.

The information systems budget is mostly attributable to making sure our voter service applications are updated and ready for the events. This includes the electronic voting books, ballot tabulators, our where-to-vote and online voter registration apps and results reporting systems for election night.

Building occupancy is for district office rental and voting place rentals in both districts. As you can imagine, the cost of building occupancy in downtown Vancouver is quite high, which reflects a larger portion of that budget.

To provide a comparative perspective, page 2 of the budget document represents a table showing the planned budget required for the two concurrent by-elections in relation to the actual costs of the last provincial by-election in Surrey South, which was held in September of 2022.

The main variance you’ll see there is under professional services. The increase in professional services is because subsequent to that by-election, we have implemented our election finance compliance and integrity program, and we’ll need to hire external auditors to conduct post-event compliance audits of financial filings.

You’ll also notice a difference in the general office expenses between Langford–Juan de Fuca and Vancouver–​Mount Pleasant. That’s because of the greater cost in shipping supplies to Vancouver from our Victoria warehouse.

I hope that this presentation of the required budgets is clear, highlighting the key drivers of the by-election costs.

[4:40 p.m.]

I do not have further comments in relation to those budgets and will be pleased to answer any questions that you may have when we get to the discussion part of this meeting. Before we move there, however, I would also like to highlight two other key activities my office is engaged in at this time.

First, I’m pleased to share that Elections B.C.’s accessibility committee will be meeting for the first time on June 26. The committee includes members from across the province with a range of experience and expertise in relation to accessibility. The members of the committee have been reviewing Elections B.C.’s draft accessibility plan. We look forward to having that plan finalized in time for the September 2023 deadline that has been established by regulation under the B.C. Accessibility Act.

With Bill 25 receiving royal assent on May 11, work is now well underway on the electoral boundaries redistribution project. The new electoral district boundaries have been aligned in our geographic information systems, and draft voting area boundaries will shortly be sent to district electoral officers for their review. These reviews, of course, help to ensure that voting area boundaries support the accessibility and efficiency of the electoral process, as voters will be assigned to their voting place for election day based on these smaller boundaries.

Before we publish the new boundaries in the B.C. Gazette, I’ll personally review the boundaries to ensure that they’re supportive of our accessibility goals for voters and communities across the province. Once those boundaries are established, we’ll also work with our district officers in the new year to identify potential voting places well in advance of the fixed election date. This activity will support the work of our accessibility committee.

We anticipate the completion of our electoral boundaries redistribution project will be on time, as planned, for December of 2023. This will be about eight months following the publication of the Electoral Boundaries Commission’s final report and seven months after the passage of the new electoral districts into law.

With that update, I will end my formal remarks, Mr. Chair. I’m now pleased to respond to any questions that members of the committee may have on our by-election budgets.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Thank you, Anton, for your presentation and the comments about making voting easier. They’re especially timely. We’ve all heard of those times that…. People talk about the length of time that they spent to cast their ballot, and I think that you guys have done a wonderful job of speeding that up so it’s no longer the case that’s out there.

H. Yao: I really appreciate the great work you’re doing for us and for our democracy. I did want to say the numbers look great, and there’s nothing for me to be too concerned about.

I do love to hear your feedback on a comment you made earlier. You mentioned that 95 percent of voters — I assume the voters who turned out to vote — were satisfied or happy with the process. Is any kind of engagement on Elections B.C.’s part to engage those who choose not to turn out — I shouldn’t use this term “fail” — or who couldn’t turn out somehow and find out what else can we do to allow them to be part of our democracy?

A. Boegman: That’s a great question. We do conduct ongoing survey work. In particular, most of the work we do is in conjunction with a provincial election, of course, but we also do work when we can in relation to by-elections, and we also have an ongoing research partnership with a group called the Consortium on Electoral Democracy, which is a group of academic researchers that provide research to us on topics for all electoral districts.

One of the surveys we do is a non-voter survey, where we endeavour to find out reasons why people don’t vote — whether it’s a barrier that they perceive, a question about not knowing enough about the candidates and the platforms, or also a question about lifestyle, sometimes, with people that are too busy and that don’t prioritize those types of activities.

Our focus on those, of course, is wherever there is an administrative barrier, we work to eliminate or to reduce that. Whenever there’s an informational barrier, we’ll work to try to provide additional information that’s in relation to this particular by-election — where I highlighted some of the activities that we’re doing in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

In particular, we have developed a working arrangement with the B.C. Community Response Network, which distributes lots of materials within that area, to make sure our materials are available in the appropriate number of translated languages as well. One of the other strategies we’re employing is to distribute and drop off materials in common locations where voters go, whether that’s at a grocery store or other community locations like that.

[4:45 p.m.]

In response, we do try to do ongoing research. We talk, obviously, to people who turn out and find out what their experience was. We also do survey non-voters, on an on­going basis, to try to identify any issues that they may raise around accessibility and what we can do to mitigate that.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Thanks, Anton. I wanted to explore a little bit more the voting delivery model, real-time voting.

Also, as the Chair says, we want to make it easier. It’s good to see that. We want to make it as inclusive as possi­ble, but there’s always the other side, the impact that could also result from making things easier and more inclusive. For example, for those with no fixed address, no photo ID required, you need a social services address to validate that.

I wonder. I guess the question would be: is there any concern about voter fraud through this process or, maybe, politically motivated coercion, to be on the extreme side, with this delivery model? In an effort to be inclusive and in an effort to make it easier, are there any concerns about the dark side of that?

A. Boegman: I’m always wanting to make sure that our electoral model is both accessible and maintains the necessary integrity. We, of course, work in both areas, both to promote accessibility and to ensure that any measures that we put in place do maintain the integrity of our system.

Obviously, the voter ID requirements are established in legislation. They include some pieces of identification that are photo ID, government issue, which are acceptable as a single piece. They also give me, as Chief Electoral Officer, the ability to specify, I think, a broad range of other documents that, together, can verify someone’s identity and their place of residence.

You notice, of course, that it is challenging for those who are experiencing homelessness. They don’t have a fixed address, like other British Columbians do, where they can easily say: “This is where I live, and I have all kinds of identification that helps support that.” Part of our process, of course, is working with the social service agencies. They know the individuals that receive services there.

Of course, all of our materials include all of the necessary requirements to be eligible for a voter in B.C. That means you need to be a Canadian citizen. You need to be 18 years old or older as of the date of final voting day. You need to have residency requirements. All that information is clearly explained in all of our materials.

We work with partners on the voters list to make sure, as people move in and out of British Columbia, that those changes are captured and reflected back on our voters list, to make sure that someone who votes in Alberta is not also voting in British Columbia at the same time.

R. Leonard: Thank you, Anton. Confidence in our electoral system is paramount. I truly believe that you have presented the best that we can have here in British Columbia to make sure that people feel confident in our system. I really appreciate that.

I want to ask a question. This is a bit…. It’s not self-serving, but it’s just from my own experience, from having been subject to the very long wait for the absentee ballots to be counted, to know the outcome of an election. Does this new process help reduce that two-week time?

A. Boegman: I believe the new process will significantly reduce the wait times for absentee ballots to be counted.

Obviously, these two by-elections are our first experience with the potential of absentee ballots being cast. The two previous by-elections that we’ve administered under this model didn’t have absentee ballots. They did have vote-by-mail ballots.

In those cases, all of the ballots that were cast were able to be counted on election night. The first results started to be reported approximately 15 minutes following the close of voting. We had all the results in from the field 45 minutes following the close of voting. Then additionally — I believe it was approximately 90 minutes following that — all the votes by mail, which are a form of absentee ballots, were counted.

[4:50 p.m.]

Our anticipation with the new model is we will be able to count and report on 98 percent of the ballots on election night, including the absentee ballots. That is primarily through the strength of the electronic voting books and the strike-off of voters that takes place. This will allow an absentee voter to be issued with an ordinary ballot for their district, for that ballot to be tabulated, for them to be struck off to prevent them from voting again in another opportunity, and then for that ballot that’s been tabulated to be reported at initial count on election night.

R. Leonard: So the last 2 percent?

A. Boegman: The last 2 percent…. Well, we have new final count, which is four days following the close of voting on election night, as opposed to beginning 13 days following election day, and then extending for three additional days. Now, of course, if election results are very close, there may be a recount or a judicial recount, and the judicial recount, of course, is at the discretion of the courts.

S. Chant: Thank you for your presentation, and thank you very much for getting your accessibility committee moving along — near and dear to my heart.

In Alberta, they had some kerfuffle around the electronic voting or the system they put in place. Are we using a different system, or the same system and we’ve figured out the glitches, or…? Where are we at?

A. Boegman: Each province has different legislation which governs how elections are conducted. I’m very pleased that British Columbia has the most accessible election legislation in Canada, where voters can vote on any day of the campaign period. They can vote in the district office. They can vote by mail. We have six days of advance voting for all voters, as well as final voting day. We have opportunities with mobile teams. We also have opportunities with assisted telephone voting to help those vote independently who may otherwise not be able to do so at other voting opportunities.

That being said, a lot of the technology that different districts are using is the same, but the processes that jurisdictions may put in place are different. I’ll give an example. In terms of Ontario, they’ve been using a similar technological footprint that we have for their past two provincial general elections. In both of their cases, their results were reported — I think, again, initial results — maybe even as early as nine minutes after the close of voting, but very fast on election night. Typically within an hour or so, the majority of results from the tabulators had been reported.

Like you, I was watching the results come in on election night in Alberta. I have not had a chance to speak in detail with the Chief Electoral Officer. In fact, I have a call scheduled for him tomorrow, if he can make it. He still has a couple of judicial recounts that he is involved with.

The simple answer is: I don’t know why it took longer in Alberta. My understanding from the media reports and from the quotes I’ve seen was that the tabulators all worked correctly and produced the results tape from advanced voting. They also used a vote anywhere model like our own, so every tabulator from advanced voting, in theory, could be reporting on results from 87 different contests.

All I can have is my educated guess at this point. Again from reading the media reports, perhaps they entered results from each district in their process sequentially, from each of the tabulators, which would mean that if there’s…. I think they had 340-odd candidates. They would be going through, entering results for those, even if, perhaps, it was a nil result — again, I don’t know for sure; this is just my conjecture based on what I’ve read in the media — so that, of course, would take time.

I also know, factually, that a number of their voting places closed late. One location still had voters in it at 9:45 p.m., so an hour and 45 past the official close of voting. In those instances — and there were a number where there were lineups or where they opened late — counting cannot start until all voters have cleared the voting place.

I can’t say what happened exactly in Alberta. Obviously, based on media reports, the key thing is that the tabulators all worked correctly to produce the results. I think their processes around how they reported results may be different than ours.

[4:55 p.m.]

What I can say is that our approach prioritizes both results reporting and the integrity of those results from the tabulators. This has been borne out in the past two by-elections. I alluded to it in my response to Ronna-Rae, in terms of the timing — that we have seen results in the two by-elections thus far at around 50 minutes for the first results coming in, and then around 45 minutes for field results coming in.

Of course, that’s in contrast to a completely manual model, where the first results would only really be coming in, in around 60 minutes following the close of voting, and then the rest of the field results perhaps 3½ hours following the close. Then all the absentee results would not even start to get reported until beginning 13 days following the close of voting.

Our process for a general election will be to prioritize the calling of in-district results first. That will be about 90 percent of the results, and that only represents one contest. Then they’ll do other reconciliation work. Then, once they’ve received notification that the in-district results have been in, they’ll start calling in the out-of-district results.

That’s what our priorities are and what our process will look like. Of course, the goal is to have fast results on election night.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Any other questions?

Anton, I have one question. When I take a look on page 4 of appendix 1…. You briefly touched on the fact that the by-election in Langford will allow your staff to kind of take a better look at the way things are going. I see a small, little difference of $12,000 in the salaries and benefits between Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and Langford–Juan de Fuca. Is that directly related to the oversight that will be taking place, to learn some new and dear ideas that are taking place?

A. Boegman: I think it’s actually Langford–Juan de Fuca that has higher salaries and benefits, but that is more in relation to the number of voting places that they have, and the locations. That’s the key driver. I think where you’ll see the difference is in the travel budget. There’s a much lower amount of travel, because for staff going to travel to Langford–Juan de Fuca, of course, it’s just a drive from our offices. So more staff will be able to get that benefit in Langford–Juan de Fuca.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Then to add to that question, what is it that you hope to learn from that election?

A. Boegman: As I think I have mentioned, first of all, because the two by-elections are concurrent, if there is any absentee, out-of-district voting, we are hoping to just confirm that our procedures work as they’ve been designed and to make any adjustments based on lessons learned, if possible.

I think from an overall basis, the ability of our internal staff to observe what takes place to work as election officials gives them great understanding. When you think about it, in a general election, all of our staff will be supporting all of the district offices and all of the election officials that they hire in the 93 districts that we will have. Their ability to know implicitly what someone is talking about when they’re on the phone, or when they’re sharing a computer screen, will be of great benefit in their ability to provide a high level of service to our field teams, which, of course, are critical in administering an election.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Great. Not seeing other questions, thank you very much for your time tonight, Anton, and Tanya as well.

All right. We will now go to the to the second part. From the Office of the Auditor General, we have Michael, who has graciously decided to interrupt his vacation to be here virtually today, along with Sheila, Marie and John, that are here today.

I don’t know how we want to start it off.

Michael, okay. I guess we’re going to start it off with you.

[5:00 p.m.]

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL

M. Pickup: Thank you. Happy to make an opening comment. I believe that Sonya Kofler, our executive director of human resources, has joined us virtually as well.

So with us today we have our chief financial officer, John; and we have Marie, our assistant Auditor General of critical audit support services; Sonya, who I just mentioned; and our Deputy Auditor General and me as well.

I wasn’t going to walk through the documents, as they are somewhat voluminous. I think the appendix 1, to the question that outlines in detail what makes up the $640,000, well, the $667,652, lays it all out in those seven line items that are there, so lots of detail. And certainly, my thanks go to the people in the room with you today who prepared all of this stuff, in addition to Sonya, as well, who put this together for you.

Perhaps I will pause there, and our folks are happy to take questions or comments on the materials that were provided.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Okay. Well, thank you, Michael.

Are there questions and/or comments about the report that is in front of us?

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thanks, Michael. I think where we got stuck here, on the supplementary, was what happened in the fall when you came to the committee and you asked for a significant lift. I believe that it was basically a 6 percent increase across both schedule A and MCCF personnel. Then I think there was an additional three percent that was increased to the MCCF, the banded compensation model. MCCF represents about 80 percent, I believe you said, of your staff, and schedule A is 20 percent.

Then when supplemental came in…. I believe the methodology that I heard back in the fall was that the BCGEU contracts that were coming due represented about a 6 percent wage increase. I think that’s what substantiated the 6 percent lift across the board, even though the MCCF employees don’t have to correspond to the BCGEU wage increase. But I think that was the methodology.

Then in the spring with a supplemental, you came back with a $640K lift. I can only speak for myself, and I was thinking that was more of a layering, almost a double-dip to wages that were basically justified in the fall, but then there was an additional lift of $640,000. Maybe you could just clarify that, if I got that right.

M. Pickup: Sure. And certainly my colleagues can join me. But I think if you sort of walk through…. If you can go to the appendix 1, that looks at the cumulative budget pressures carried forward into 2024. And you’re right. The $412,000 is the MCCF, which makes up over 80 percent of it. And then there are some other line items in there, as well, related to pay inequities, reorganization, targeted performance and gender pay equity adjustments, adding up to the $667,000.

And then we go through on the next couple of pages, it’s showing you the inflation on ’23 and then carried into ’24 and the pressures that would go into 2024 as well. I think it’s those — I know it’s very detailed, and it’s three or four pages — but it really likely is those that is helpful.

So the OAG was approved. We were approved an increase in salary budget from ’22-23 of 3.4 for schedule A and MCCF staff. And then the actual inflation in ’23 was greater than what was approved and higher than our plans for fiscal 2024.

[5:05 p.m.]

That was some of the adjustment making up the ’23 to ’24 and breaking down that $435,000, which is that big chunk, before the planned inflation pressure on fiscal ’24.

Maybe I’ll just pause there and see if John and Marie, in particular, want to adjust or supplement anything I just said.

S. Dodds: Michael, I just wanted to speak to the question, and then I’ll let John answer and speak to the details.

The analysis that we provided does identify that it was 6.2 percent that we had approved in our budget for fiscal ’24. But there is a pressure on top of that, because the approval from the PSA is slightly higher, at 6.75. When you look at the inflationary pressures, most of it is coming from fiscal ’22-23, but there is a small amount related to fiscal ’24. I think I will just let John walk you through it.

J. McNeill: Thank you, Michael.

Thank you, Sheila.

And thank you, Member, for your question.

This is the difficult part, because we’re dealing with comparing rates at different times in different years and differences that roll forward. Even in an office full of accountants, this can get a little bit complicated and difficult, and it’s been my wonderful burden to explain it to everyone, and now I’ll do my very best to explain it here to the members.

One of the things to keep in the back of your mind as I explain this, about salaries, is that increases to salaries are not a one-time expense. When you increase somebody’s salary or the salary of a position, it rolls forward. So salary increases aggregate and carry forward.

Now, maybe I’ll start, when we’re talking about…. That’s kind of the crux of the position. You asked for 6 percent in fiscal ’24, and here you are asking again. Is it a double dip? It’s not a double dip. The analysis here is to show where our office’s budget fell short in comparison to the increases that were given.

What I’ve done here…. In the first section in the detail, the heading “Internal inflation, FY23” — that is, fiscal year 2022 to 2023 — we have the schedule A estimates increase. The increase in our salary budget from fiscal ’22 to fiscal ’23 approved by this committee was 3.4 percent. So our approved increase in fiscal ’23 was 3.4 percent. For schedule A, the actual increase worked out to be about 4 percent. So there’s a 0.6 percent underallocation there.

Then in MCCF, if we scroll down or scan down the page, the approved increase was that 3.4 percent, but the actual approved increase was 6 percent. That’s what we allocate to our staff. The MCCF rules were to allocate between 4 percent and 6 percent. We chose to go with 6 percent because inflation over that period was slightly greater than 6 percent, and we were already feeling a lot of pressure.

You can see that that underallocation of 6 percent minus 3.4 percent…. What would that be, 2.6 percent? That’s what the money we’re asking for relates to. When we came and asked for that 6 percent lift in fiscal ’24, it was assuming that everything was right as rain in fiscal ’23. When we came to the committee, the collective bargaining hadn’t been completed yet. We weren’t sure what the rates were going to be for schedule A or MCCF.

[5:10 p.m.]

We could have supposed, just knowing that we have this flexibility here to ask but also not assuming that the high inflation would last for more than a year, thinking: “Okay, 6 percent should hopefully cover us.” Then if we continue down….

That, I guess I should say, 2.4 percent on MCCF, that underallocation, rolls forward into fiscal ’24. It adds up to the $321,000.

Then in fiscal ’24, we’re finding ourselves short again. We had asked for 6.2 percent, like you’re indicating. The approved increase for schedule A says 6.8. That’s a rounding. It’s 6.75, as I’m sure we’re all familiar with from the news. Then the MCCF was between 6.75 and 8.75. The weighted average of that is 7.2.

If you compare the 6.2 that we were approved for by the committee to the 7.2 percent actual, we’re 1 percent behind. When we’re asking for more money, it’s not a double-dip. It’s that our budget was underallocated in 2023. That underallocation rolls forward into fiscal ’24.

Then no one could predict — I’m sure there were people who predicted it was going to be that high; it was even higher than the unprecedented 6.2 percent that was ap­proved to us by the committee — that we would end up with an average increase to MCCF salaries of 7.2 percent, a whole percentage point higher. That’s what we’re here to ask for. It’s for that underallocation.

That’s why, I believe, Treasury Board, when they were adjusting, say, ministry salary budgets, didn’t just adjust, in fiscal ’23, the allocated funding for fiscal ’23, ’24 and ’25. They knew it was going to roll forward and aggregate.

We’ve identified what we believe is an underallocation, based on collective agreement and PSA amounts. We’ve done our best to show the detail of how we arrived at those numbers.

I guess I should say that the $640,000 was the amount that Treasury Board indicated they would allocate to our office. Our calculations show that it’s, ballpark, about that. In fact, it’s a little bit more.

Chair, if there are any follow-up questions. I’ve done my best, at a high level, to blast through it. I’m happy to answer more questions on it and really help it make sense, because $640,000 is not a small amount. We want to make sure that it’s clear for everyone and that everyone feels comfortable with the amount that we’re asking for.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’ll give you the fact that collective bargaining came to 6.2 in the fall. Then it ended up being 6.75, so we’ve got a half percent difference there for schedule A employees.

The MCCF doesn’t necessarily have to correlate to collective bargaining or the BCGEU. I guess what you’re saying is that because of that lift to the schedule A, naturally MCCF has to follow suit there.

Maybe you could just help me out.

S. Dodds: Just to clarify, the collective bargaining happens. The Public Service Agency made a decision for the excluded staff to have that 6.75 to 8.75 for fiscal ’23-24. The challenge for us is to stay in sync with the public service. We have staff that move back and forth from the public service to our office. If we were not to be providing the equivalent increases as ministries, we would be losing a lot of staff.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): Okay. I’m going to have to come back to that.

H. Yao: Thank you so much. I apologize. Accounting is not my strength. Hopefully, you guys won’t mind dumbing down a bit, just for my benefit.

I guess my first question is: between 2023 and 2024, based upon the supplementary fall budget and the current supplementary budget, what is the total inflation increase for schedule A and MCCF? Just a simple number. What is the total percentage increase?

[5:15 p.m.]

J. McNeill: For both years combined?

H. Yao: I could be wrong. This is my second time on the Finance Committee. I’m still learning a bit.

I’m under the impression that in fall 2022…. We talked about the 2023 and 2024 budgets already once. Then this spring we talked about the 2023 and 2024 budgets again, a second time. I do believe both times there was a percentage given for the inflation rate. Based upon those both…. We will combine together, just one number. What’s the total number of inflation for schedule A and the MCCF, based upon the two reports combined for 2023 and 2024?

J. McNeill: Okay. Thank you for the question.

I’ll address the Chair and say…. One thing to acknowledge is…. There can be a pretty significant timing difference from when we make our budget request and when we find out what the inflationary rates are going to be.

We were preparing our request for the committee for fiscal ’23 in September of 2022. The collective agreement wasn’t finalized until mid to late October. Then after that, the PSA, Public Service Agency, needed to take some time to determine what the rates were for our MCCF staff. A lot of this was happening after our budget had been submitted.

Then if we go down to the detail here in note 5 — it’s basically the very last note — we can see…. Sorry, note 1 is for schedule A. The increase is on page 8.

Interjection.

J. McNeill: Thank you, Sheila.

The average increase, as a percentage, including the 25 cent increase…. That’s the thing. For schedule A, it wasn’t just a pure percent increase. It was a percent increase plus 25 cents an hour. It was about 4 percent in fiscal ’23 and 6.5 percent for fiscal ’24.

I should mention that schedule A increases are effective at the very beginning of April. So at the start of the fiscal year.

In note 5, we have the inflationary increases for the MCCF. In fiscal ’23, it was 4.4 percent. That’s the weighted average of that range, between 4 and 6 percent. Then in fiscal ’24, the approved increase was about 7.2 percent.

You’ll see, in our analysis at the very end there…. We’ve actually factored in the fact that the MCCF increases aren’t effective until July 1. They’re only effective for three-quarters of the year. Of the total inflationary difference in fiscal ’24, we’ve only included three-quarters of that.

Does that answer the question, Member?

H. Yao: Unfortunately, I’m having a hard time going around with all the numbers. I’m going back to very simple. Just looking for something simple.

I assume both the supplementary and the fall 2022 reports were for the 2023-2024 budget. Correct?

J. McNeill: If I was to add the two together, it would be — what would that be? — 11.6 percent over two years for the MCCF.

H. Yao: So it’s 11.6 over two fiscal years.

J. McNeill: If I was to add both of those together, yes.

H. Yao: Okay. I was under the impression it was for one fiscal year. That’s why there was a lot of confusion and concern too. You’re talking about the 2023 fiscal year. So basically April 2023 to March 2024. And then April 2024 to March 2025.

J. McNeill: April 1, 2022, to March 31, 2023, is fiscal year ’23. Then for fiscal year ’24, it’s April 1, ’23m so the day after the fiscal year-end for fiscal ’23 to March 31, ’24.

S. Dodds: I appreciate your question.

If you look at appendix 1, which is on page 5 of the document, and you go halfway down, it says “summary of internal inflation, fiscal year ’23 and fiscal year ’24,” for $435,000. This is a summary that identifies…. When you look at scheduling an MCCF….

[5:20 p.m.]

That fiscal year, ’22-23, where we had…. I think we had a 3.4 percent lift in our budget, but the increase was higher. That’s what the pressure is from ’22-23: the $333,000, split between $11,000 for schedule A and $321,000 for the MCCF. That’s the difference between what we were approved in the salaries with the lift and what it actually cost us in ’22-23 with the collective bargaining and the PSA decision around what the rates would be.

Then just below that, it’s the higher-than-planned inflation for fiscal ’24. The number is lower because for fiscal ’24 we did have that 6 percent approved in our budget for ’23-24. But as John has just walked through, the numbers at 6.75 for schedule A and the estimated average of 7.2 for MCCF, that drives that pressure for fiscal ’23-24. So that’s the $100,000. The pressure is higher from ’22-23 because the actual inflationary increase was more than what had been approved in the lift for the budget because we had not anticipated it to be that high.

I think with the ’23-24, it was 6 percent. Originally we had a 2 percent lift, and then when we put the submission for…. I think we had anticipated 2 percent two years ago, and we put our budget submission forward last fall. We had requested an additional 4 percent that brought us up to 6. So John’s forecasting was actually very close, but we didn’t expect the inflation to be quite what it was and the increases approved in government to be higher than that, which is what they were.

H. Yao: I just want to make sure I’m understanding clearly, because I think it makes sense for me now that fall 2022, when we did the whole budget process…. It’s really to top up the ’23 shortfall, and then the supplementary budget that gets presented this spring is for the ’24 fiscal year’s matching the anticipated inflation rate.

J. McNeill: Yes.

H. Yao: Okay. That’s good. Thank you.

J. McNeill: That’s a great way to summarize it. We’re trying to match the difference between what was approved and what actually happened. There’s a significant enough gap there that we can’t absorb it without great difficulty.

S. Chant: Thank you so much. I noticed a couple of things as I was running through the submissions, one of which was that you had some money that was allocated towards gender equity payouts, which I found very interesting. My first question is: what triggered that? How did you recognize and trigger and move forward? This is just for me to understand.

The second is…. I look at the tables on page something that outline the review of the market. It seems to tell me that the Office of the Auditor General salary ranges are still at the very low end of the market ranges. When we look at the audit managers, they’re at the really low end. The other piece of information it gives me is that there’s a difference between band 3 and band 4, between the Auditor General’s office and the comptroller general’s office. What’s being done to fix all those things?

First question, what triggered the gender equity final payout? Second, what’s being done to fix the market issues? Thank you.

S. Dodds: Michael, are you okay if I take the questions?

M. Pickup: Yeah, absolutely. I’ll just add something if I feel I have something to add.

S. Dodds: In terms of the gender pay equity, as part of the exercise that we’re going through in looking at our compensation framework, looking at where our staff are at and looking at the market, what we also identified were some inequities between the pay for some of the women in the office and what men have been being paid for the same salary. So those were rectified based on the work that’s being done — basically, equal pay for equal work. That was a historic adjustment.

Did you want to say anything more to that, Michael?

M. Pickup: I think the thing I would add is the philosophy I would bring to the table on this over the last three years as Auditor General is absolutely what Sheila is referring to. And encouraging people that if we have issues, historical, it’s not to look back and perhaps point any fingers or say “why did this happen?” It’s to fix these things and get these things on the table.

[5:25 p.m.]

Certainly, you’re going to hear about a lot of work we have left to do that I think is inherent in the answer to your question and, I think, your suggestion. Certainly, some of the encouragement we have received from the committee in the past was to look at our salaries, and if we are behind market and we do have issues, to fix them. I mean, these types of things take time, and they are taking us time.

But I think, Sheila, I would add that that certainly has come from me — to put anything on the table. If there’s anything we need to fix from the past, don’t hide it, and let’s fix it.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Susie, you had a follow-up.

S. Chant: I’m interested in whether that gender equity was retroactive or just going forward — the payment.

J. McNeill: The adjustments were retroactive to the beginning of the fiscal year.

S. Chant: To the beginning of the fiscal year. Okay.

M. Pickup: Could I just add one quick thing, Chair?

M. Starchuk (Chair): Absolutely.

M. Pickup: Before Sheila….

I know you want to go on.

I know one of the things, from a practical perspective, that gives me some comfort on the 640 is…. When that number came from Treasury Board…. We have gone through our process to show you how we get to the numbers. We didn’t give them the 640, and we didn’t lead them to the numbers, right? There was some sense of separation there when they did come up with that number. I found that helpful for me, to say: “Okay, this seems to make some sense.”

Sheila, I didn’t mean to cut you short. Sorry.

S. Dodds: Thank you, Michael.

I just wanted to speak to the second part of your question, Member Chant. We have just started to gather some comparative information, and as you can see on the chart, the provincial bands we operate within, that management compensation and classification framework…. As we get more senior with our staff, the difference between other public sectors spreads, and the difference with the private sector spreads.

The challenge for us is to figure out what is the fair compensation that is competitive but is still recognizing that we’re part of the public sector. That work is underway as part of that framework — looking at understanding the market, that broad market that we’re competing with, and to look to see that operating in those bands…. Are people placed at the right place in those bands? The other question is: are those bands the correct bands?

S. Chant: That’s what is of interest.

S. Dodds: We have explored that with the Public Service Agency in the past, knowing that the comptroller general’s audit staff are classified in different bands than our bands for the manager. I think the auditor has just changed. When we have worked with the PSA in classifying our positions in the past, there was no room to move there.

Moving forward, we do have some assistance in looking at classifications. We have a consultant that’s helping us with this work to look at: what is the work that’s required of our staff in those positions, and is it in the correct band? That’s part of that market competition, because there is competition for resources between our office and the comptroller general’s internal audit group, which is challenging when we risk losing staff because we’re classified in a different band.

You’ve read it very well, and that is part of the exercise that we’re working through.

R. Leonard: You used a word that I want to hear. When we’re talking about fiscal years, it’s, like you said, April to the end of March. What we’re dealing with is basically retroactive pay, if I am understanding this correctly, for ’22-23. Then when you build on to that to the ’23-24 budget, that’s what we’re dealing with now.

J. McNeill: A great question. Do you mind if I answer this one?

Our pay…. People have already received the increase to their wages because it’s part of the MCCF or schedule A compensation framework. There’s not going to need to be any retroactive pay. What’s happened is we’ve had to give these increases because that’s what is dictated.

[5:30 p.m.]

In order to be able to continue to afford to pay our people, we’re asking to…. That’s what’s building that pressure, that these increases have already happened or they’re going to happen. It’s creating this pressure, and that’s where the ask is coming from.

No one has been going underpaid since April 1, 2022. We’d have an empty office if that was the case. But we’ve been paying people the fair rate within the compensation frameworks, and the pressure has built.

That’s where this ask is coming from. We’re saying: “Hey, we’re not going to be able to make it to the end of the year under budget if we continue without….” Well, of course we’ll make it under budget. I shouldn’t have alluded to that. Everything is going to be fine. Everything is going to be under budget, but we would have to sacrifice and cut back in other areas — hire less people, not replace people when they turn over — in order to be under budget, if this pressure isn’t addressed.

R. Leonard: The inflation rate started to creep up — not creep up; it shot up — particularly in the fall of 2022. We’re dealing with that latter half of a fiscal year, and you’re saying that you’ve already compensated for that. My understanding was that this kind of goes back to try and cover that increase.

S. Dodds: What we’ve done when we were budgeting…. The budget for ’22-23…. Was it 3.4 that we had? Three percent that we had, I think, approved in our budget — 3.4 percent. Then we had a budget for ’23-24. That budget was based on 3.4 percent in ’22-23 as what we expected that we would be paying our staff. From that 3.4 increase, then we’re going to increase it, and we estimated 6 percent.

As John said, we’ve paid those increases in ’22-23, but what’s happened is that as we come into ’23-24, there’s a $300,000 increase in the cost of our salaries because of the increased rate that we paid because of inflation in ’22-23. So that is coming into our ’23-24 budget. That was not part of our original budget ask. So it has created that pressure. Then there’s another $100,000 related to the ’23-24 that is higher. When we look at what we’re going to be paying this year, it’s higher than what we had budgeted for.

I don’t know if that…. Maybe I should turn it back to John.

J. McNeill: To summarize, 3.4 percent was what we were approved, what was built into our fiscal ’23 budget. We gave our staff the 4 percent or 6 percent based on the compensation framework. So there’s a difference there. That difference rolls forward into the next fiscal year, building pressure.

Then in fiscal ’24, we had predicted 6 percent or 6.2 percent. The reality was 6.75 and 7.2 percent. We’ve underestimated in both years what salary inflation would be, and that pressure has built.

R. Leonard: This is going to have to be as good as it gets. I thought I understood, but I’m not sure that I am entirely sure. I see a 13 percent increase, and what I’m hearing is nothing close to 13 percent, which was in…. Is that just the schedule A folks?

J. McNeill: Is it schedule A salary percentage, 13 percent, note 3? That 13 percent is that schedule A staff represent 13 percent of our total salaries budget.

R. Leonard: So it’s not a 13 percent increase?

J. McNeill: No, it’s 13 percent of our budget.

R. Leonard: Well, you just answered all my questions.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Just like that.

J. McNeill: It’s hard, right? We’re talking about multiple years, different rates, different classifications.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): I’m almost square on this now. Don’t get me wrong. I want to ensure that we can attract and retain as many professionals as we can to make sure our statutory offices are full. It’s super important. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the PSA, the Public Service Agency, and where they play in all of this, compared to schedule A and MCCF and how it was dictated. I think that’s what you said.

[5:35 p.m.]

Is the relationship the statutory office has with the PSA broad in the recommendations, or should it be internal to each agency as it comes out with their recommendations?

Every statutory office does things a little differently. They budget differently. Some predict inflationary pressures. Some wait until it happens. Your office seemed to predict, to some degree, that those inflationary pressures had happened, yet from what I gather, the PSA did a broad recommendation to all agencies that a lift should be in order. Did they take into consideration your budget methodology in the fall?

S. Dodds: Deputy Chair, I’d like to just take that question because it is a fundamental challenge that as independent officers, we do not fall under the Public Service Agency as the Office of the Auditor General, but our staff are appointed in accordance with the Public Service Act. We follow…. There is an interesting relationship. We align with the policies the Public Service Agency has in place, but the Public Service Agency is established for ministries, established for core government.

As an independent office, our relationship has changed at different times. Sometimes in the past, I think we have been very much beholden to the activities of the Public Service Agency, but we are aligned with it. The way the legislative framework works, we align with the work of the Public Service Agency when they provided the direction in ’22, ’23 to provide between 4 and 6 percent to MCCF staff, and then we look at what that means to our staff, because we’ve classified them using the Public Service Agency’s framework for classification.

As I mentioned earlier, there’s an intent to stay aligned with core government because of…. We don’t want to be in a situation where all of our staff are recruited by ministries because we’re out of sync and they’re much higher or vice versa. It’s this balance. We are not dictated to by the Public Service Agency, but we align with that policy direction.

Did you want to add anything?

J. McNeill: I think that….

M. Pickup: Can I add something there, Sheila or Chair?

It’s just a quick add, I guess, because on top of that, as I indicated earlier, there’s also this Treasury Board who are watching what is going on and figuring out, “Okay, here’s how we think the numbers go,” and then they approach us and say, “Okay, based on what has happened with the PSA, what has happened with the numbers, you should be getting $640,000,” and we say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s not how it works. We’ve got to go back to the committee and make the case to the committee.”

Now, if they had indicated to us they thought we should get $100,000 or they thought we should get $5 million, I think that would be indicative of “Okay, what’s going on here? Why is there such a difference?” But when we approach this as sort of us on our own, then with what they sent over, they’re pretty close, which gives me some comfort as well.

T. Shypitka (Deputy Chair): To follow up, to be clear then, the question again is when the PSA, I think the quote was “determined the rates,” was that broad…? It was broad across ministries, but did they take into consideration the methodology that the Auditor General’s office did in getting ahead of that determination of rates, if that makes sense.

J. McNeill: We are one independent office with 130 em­ployees, and the broader public sector is tens of thousands of employees, and this is where sometimes the challenge comes. Our office isn’t considered, right?

We’re tiny, we’re independent from government, and that’s why we’re preparing to bring a compensation review to the committee in the fall because a lot of public sector employees compete in the public sector labour market. Our office is staffed by CPAs and audit professionals. We compete in a market dominated by international accounting firms, so there’s a different type of labour pressure.

[5:40 p.m.]

I can hear where you’re coming from in terms of why do you stick with this if it’s not working? We stick with it because that’s kind of what we’ve done and where we’re going, and we’re still committed to working within it. The plan is to present to the committee how we might change how we work within it. Maybe that’s adjusting classifications or marking different people for different levels of experience at different places in the band.

We’re going to be presenting an overall strategy in the fall that should answer a lot of these questions in a more fulsome and satisfying way, hopefully. For now, this supplementary ask is to deal with the immediate pressure that we’re facing in the short term, which can’t wait until we get to the fall.

I should mention that any of the money that’s given to us now is going to take from what that total ask might be. Imagine the total ask is, hypothetically, $2 million. Well, it’s going to be $2 million, less the $640,000. Whether we receive the funding now or not, the ask in the future is still going to be the same.

B. Stewart: I’ve heard twice now, from both Sheila and John, that you’re doing some sort of compensation review or salary review. It sounds to me like this is out of sync. I say that meaning the budget has increased by roughly about $4 million over the last few years, in overall spend, plus the $2 million for the office renovations and for employee retention.

Now here we are, at the very end of all of this, talking about doing an employee…. Are we competitive in the marketplace? That is what you just said, John. I do worry about that. I don’t appreciate this type of approach, from a business point of view.

We thought — Michael, you brought this up — that this was how we were going to retain staff. You’ve gone through and done inequity adjustments here for all sorts of staff that are over there. We were kind of caught off guard by the original presentation, which had an increase, and you’re saying it’s not enough now. I guess that’s under review.

Who is doing the HR advising to your office? Who is the expert that you rely on in human resources?

S. Kofler: I’m the executive director. My name is Sonya Kofler.

B. Stewart: All right, thanks, Sonya.

My thought is that we want to know a couple of things. We want to know that the employees are satisfied that the compensation is fair. We don’t want these fixes to keep coming in to this committee. This is what has happened over the last three years that I’ve been on the committee. There have been adjustments for these types of things, etc., for expanding the roles and for doing these types of things. It becomes a problem when it becomes a pattern. That’s all I’m saying.

From the start of this letter, it says here: “We have lost, and may continue to lose, staff to those competitors.” I guess those are concerning. That’s an alarming statement, when we have invested and we have believed in your entire group. As far as I’m concerned…. I understand that you’ve got to meet what the threshold is, what the public service and the other people are getting, but I don’t think that we want to continue to see this pattern. That’s all I’d say.

S. Dodds: Thank you for the questions and the comments.

I think it was about a year and a half ago, when we came to meet with the committee, that Michael had said that this is going to take us about two years to work through. We have been working through and looking at it. The market has changed quite dramatically in that time frame as well. It has made it challenging.

We do have Sonya Kofler, our executive director of strategic human resources, with a small team. We do use consultants to help advise on this. We do have another consultant helping to do some of the legwork on the compensation review.

[5:45 p.m.]

One of the strategies in our service plan is to look at that market competition plan. The challenge we’ve been faced with is that we have had to stay competitive in the market, as John said, where the market for CPAs has been very competitive, and we are competing with the private sector for CPAs.

In the paper here, we have identified that, for CPA students, we’re a training office, and we had to do a significant change to our compensation framework for CPA students to stay caught up to the firms. We were able to do that during the ’22-23 year, and there was a budget that was allocated for that particular piece. It does feel like we’re coming with one thing and then another and another.

We are working in this environment but working towards a clear framework that we have a good understanding of the private sector and the public service. We’re building that into a framework for our staff to ensure the ability, as we had said earlier, to fairly and equitably move people through the different salary bands. We’d ended up in a situation where our staff were at the low end of the bands, because there was no mechanism in the policy framework to be able to move them up. So we’ve had to move people up to be competitive.

When you hire somebody into a level and they’re making more to come in the door than the people that are there, those are the types of adjustments that we’ve been making to kind of keep our heads above water as we’re developing that full framework. As John said, all of these steps that we’ve been making in the last two years are sort of an early implementation of the framework that we’re establishing.

B. Stewart: My point is that I think that reactive model…. When are you going to have a more fulsome kind of presentation that is not going to shock us? That’s what the problem is: we’ve been dealing with regular increases, not only the inflationary ones but the ones that Michael asked for. I think it’s important that we know where you’re at when we get into the fall. When you come back, you should make certain that you’ve got that covered off.

M. Pickup: Thank you, Ben, for those comments.

I’m not telling tales out of school, if you will, but certainly, the messaging internally, in the discussions we’re having, has been that this fall has to be it. We come back. As Sheila indicated, and I remember us having these discussions, you were sort of saying to us: “Couldn’t you do this more quickly?” And I’d said: “This will take us time. Give us two years to get through all of this stuff.”

Recognizing, as well, that we’ve been through a pandemic, which has been a remarkable change that had an impact upon people as well. I don’t want to lose sight of that. A bunch of these fixes that we’ve come back for…. If I think of the CPA students that we talked about before, I arrived here from Nova Scotia and found out that CPA students here were making $40,000 to start, when they were making $55,000 in Nova Scotia. Well, some of that stuff we had to fix immediately if we wanted to get some of this audit work done.

To tie into what we do, I will have been three years as AG here in August, and we will have issued 32 reports to the Legislature during my three years — which is pretty amazing, from where I’m sitting, and something, I think, that all the people in the office can be proud of: the level of output.

It’s not like this money has been for naught; it has en­abled us to deliver those 32 reports and, at the same time, to remind folks, to do the largest financial statement audit in this province, in British Columbia. That’s the biggest, most complicated audit in the province, and it has had three qualifications, where in the past it has only had one.

I absolutely agree with you. I’ve said to folks: “Let’s keep our commitment.” That will be within the two years. This fall, we will be back. I’m happy to have the discussions, but we will be back for our big ask to say: “Okay, what do we think we need? This is it.” I don’t disagree with you.

B. Banman: I rarely take a pain medication for headache, but I think I may have to take one after this. It shouldn’t be this difficult, folks. It really shouldn’t.

[5:50 p.m.]

I feel like I’m listening to one of the Peanuts cartoons, literally, where it’s all turning into, “Blah, blah, blah, blah,” at the end of it. But I would hope that at the end of this, when you come in fall, we somehow get in sync with everything else. Quite frankly, it’s slightly embarrassing, I would think, that we’ve got this many people that are sitting around here scratching their heads, wondering what it is you’re asking for, because it’s not clear. It should be clear.

This should be so someone with rudimentary knowledge of mathematics can figure it out, and it’s not. I would strongly encourage you to make sure that when you come in fall, it’s simple, and it’s easy. There’s been a lot of time that’s been sat around here trying to figure out what it was in this, and it should not be this difficult.

If you were to audit yourselves on the reports that you do, I’m sure that you would not give yourselves a stellar review, based on what’s gone around this table. I would encourage you to fix it come fall.

M. Starchuk (Chair): All right. Are there any other questions?

Michael, I want to just say, right now, thank you very much for taking the time out of your vacation schedule to be here with us.

To the other virtual member, Sonya, thank you for chiming in as well, even though the camera was not on.

To Sheila, Marie and John, thank you very much for your presentation this evening.

While there may be an opinion that it wasn’t clear, I can take a look at the numbers, and I can see the clearness through the mud. I’m along the lines of Ben. What Michael says…. Hopefully, at the end of the two years, we’ve found out what the fixes are that are there, that we’ve found the bumps in the road. We needed to address those bumps as we were going along. To not address them…. I don’t know what kind of a hole that you would be in with your staffing model that you have today.

On that note, thank you very much for your presentation here this afternoon or evening, whatever this time frame is. Thank you very much for enduring some of our questions.

On that note, a two-minute recess to reset the room.

The committee recessed from 5:52 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

M. Starchuk (Chair): We will call the meeting back to order.

A motion to go in camera.

H. Yao: So moved.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 5:56 p.m. to 6:16 p.m.

[M. Starchuk in the chair.]

Votes on Supplementary Funding

ELECTIONS B.C.,
AUDITOR GENERAL

M. Starchuk (Chair): We now have some motions to pass. The first motion is regarding the by-election in Langford–Juan de Fuca.

S. Chant: I move:

[That the Committee recommend Elections BC be granted access to supplementary funding up to $776,000 for the administration of the by-election in Langford–Juan de Fuca and $110,000 for the purpose of paying election expense reimbursement claims to eligible candidates and political parties for a total of $886,000 in operational expenditure in fiscal year 2023-24.]

Motion approved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Motion 2 is the by-election for Vancouver–Mount Pleasant.

H. Yao: I move:

[That the Committee recommend Elections BC be granted access to supplementary funding up to $812,000 for the administration of the by-election in Vancouver–Mount Pleasant and $110,000 for the purpose of paying election expense reimbursement claims to eligible candidates and political parties for a total of $992,000 in operational expenditure in fiscal year 2023-24.]

Motion approved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Motion 3 regarding the supplemental funding for the Auditor General.

B. Stewart: I move:

[That the Committee recommend that the Office of the Auditor General be granted access to supplementary funding up to $640,000 for operating expenditures in 2023-24 for salaries and benefits.]

Motion approved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The next motion regarding notifying the chair of the Treasury Board. Is there a mover?

B. Stewart: Do you want me to read it out?

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yeah.

B. Stewart: I move:

[That the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services advise the Minister of Finance, as Chair of Treasury Board, of the recommendations adopted earlier today and that the Committee’s recommendations be formally recorded and included in its next report on the annual review of the budgets of statutory offices.]

Motion approved.

Committee Report to the House

STATUTORY OFFICERS INTERIM REPORT

M. Starchuk (Chair): The next motion is to approve the report titled Interim Report on Statutory Offices as amended today.

S. Chant: I move:

[That the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services approve and adopt the report titled Interim Report on Statutory Offices as amended today and further, that the committee authorize the Chair and Deputy Chair to work with Committee staff to finalize any editorial changes to complete the supporting text.]

Motion approved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): The last motion.

A. Walker: Second-last motion.

M. Starchuk (Chair): Yes, it is. Thank you very much for that reminder.

The next motion.

R. Leonard: I move:

[That the Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services deposit a copy of the report titled Interim Report on Statutory Offices with the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly; and further, that upon resumption of the sittings of the House, or at the next following session, the Chair present the report to the Legislative Assembly at the earliest available opportunity.]

Motion approved.

M. Starchuk (Chair): I’m just going take 30 seconds just to say thank you for your patience and your questions and getting us through all of this today.

A motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 6:20 p.m.