The committee met at 8:30 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Elenore Sturko. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, and I’m the Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, a committee of the Legislative Assembly that includes MLAs from government and opposition.

I’d like to acknowledge that we’re meeting today in Vancouver on the traditional territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm and səlilwətaɬ peoples.

I’d also like to welcome everyone who’s listening to and participating in today’s meeting. Our committee is currently conducting its annual consultation with British Columbians on their priorities for the next provincial budget.

British Columbians who are not presenting to the committee can still share their views by making written comments. The details on how to provide submissions are available on our website at bcleg.ca/consultations.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Good morning. I’m Jennifer Blatherwick. I’m the MLA for Coquitlam-Maillardville, and I am also the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity.

Steve Morissette: Good morning. I’m Steve Morissette. I’m MLA for Kootenay-Monashee, in the Interior, and Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Development.

Bryan Tepper: Hello, everybody. I am Bryan Tepper, for Surrey-Panorama and the critic for Community Safety and Integrated Services.

Sunita Dhir: Good morning, everybody. I’m Sunita Dhir, MLA for Vancouver-Langara and Parliamentary Secretary for International Credentials.

Claire Rattée: Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena and critic for mental health and addictions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Assisting the committee today are Jennifer Arril and Kayla Wilson from the Parliamentary Committees Office; and Danielle Suter and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services.

We’re now going to hear from a number of organizations and individuals about their priorities for the next provincial budget. Each participant will have five minutes to speak, followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members.

We’ll begin this morning by welcoming Dr. Joy Johnson from Simon Fraser University. Good morning. You may begin when you’re ready.

Budget Consultation Presentations

Simon Fraser University

Joy Johnson: Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let me begin by thanking the committee for your work. I know it takes a lot of your time, and it’s important work on behalf of the province.

I’d also like to thank you for the land acknowledgement. It is important to acknowledge the unceded territories that we’re on.

I’m going to share some priorities. I am the president of Simon Fraser University. I want to talk to you a little bit about some of the priorities that we’re thinking about that are on our minds.

Let me begin with a bit of a story. In 2014, we had two professors. They were professors in engineering, Siamak Arzanpour and Edward Park. They had an idea to develop a device to help support people who could not walk, people who were confined to wheelchairs. That vision became a reality. They developed XoMotion, the first exoskeleton of its kind, to help natural human movement.

This innovation is a game-changer for people who are confined to wheelchairs and have mobility limitations. If any of you went to see the Invictus Games, you would have seen a woman confined to a wheelchair get up and dance using the exoskeleton. It’s a wonderful story.

Today their company, Human in Motion Robotics, is headquartered in Vancouver. They’ve hired 25 full-time employees, and over half of them are SFU graduates. These are good jobs. They’ve secured series A funding. They’ve got Health Canada regulatory approval, and they’re now expanding into global markets with support from B.C.’s trade and investment offices.

[8:35 a.m.]

Their journey started and likely wouldn’t have been possible without the support of a public university funded by the province. The story of Human in Motion Robotics demonstrates how public post-secondary investment delivers a number of returns for the province. It helps develop innovation, it creates jobs, and it improves quality of life for British Columbians. That’s just one story, and there are so many others.

For SFU, one of our foci is to make a difference for British Columbia. We are a publicly funded institution, and that work has never been more important than now. British Columbians are facing real challenges, as you know, in housing, health care and affordability. I’m sure you’ve heard about all of that, and we are responding.

We’re launching the SFU medical school to educate more doctors. We’re accelerating innovation through homegrown companies like Human in Motion Robotics, which I told you about. And we’re expanding training and micro-credentials to meet the future workforce needs. We can do this because of the historic public investment in post-secondary education, but that investment must be sustained, and so we have a few recommendations at this time.

First of all, we’d like to see a commitment to a long-term, sustainable funding model for B.C.’s post-secondary institutions. This must include flexibility for institutions to pursue alternative revenue tools so that the sector can continue to educate people for good jobs, contribute to the province’s economic growth and improve quality of life.

The second recommendation is that we increase capital infrastructure funding to support the renewal of deteriorating facilities across the sector. SFU is about to turn 60 years old, which I consider very young, but we do have a number of needs in terms of our infrastructure.

Our sector has been hit hard by the federal immigration cap, and the newly elected federal government has signalled that those caps are going to remain in place. At the same time, inflation, modest base funding and domestic tuition growth have really widened the gap between our operating grant and our revenues. Taken together, all of these pressures are affecting our financial sustainability and the sustainability of a number of post-secondary institutions in the province. We are hoping that Budget 2026 will help address that gap.

In conclusion, the post-secondary sector needs your support so that we can continue to do our role in terms of supporting the province. We’re committed to working with government on a sustainable solution, because an investment in post-secondary education is an investment in people, it’s an investment in innovation, and it’s an investment in our economy. Thank you very much.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): That was perfectly timed; congratulations. Thank you, Dr. Johnson.

Questions from members?

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation. You mentioned quickly there — I didn’t quite catch it — something around freedom to find other revenues. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit?

Joy Johnson: Yeah, we’ve been thinking a lot about how we as a university can think about revenues. One of our major sources of revenues is tuition, and one of the questions that we’re thinking of is, for example: is there any flexibility in terms of the cap on tuition? That would be one tool for revenue.

We’re also thinking about other opportunities that we might have to generate revenue. Those might include opportunities internationally to educate students where they live, internationally, etc. I will say that the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education has been really supportive in helping us start to think through some of these options, but I think the time has come for us to really try to land on some options so that we can be sustainable.

Sunita Dhir: Thanks for the presentation. I have a question about the new medical school coming up. Do you have an existing building, or are you planning to get a new one?

Joy Johnson: Yes, thank you so much, MLA Dhir. We are very excited about our new medical school. We will be admitting our first students in 2026. The first class will be relatively small. We will be using temporary space for the medical school to begin with, but as the medical school scales, we will need permanent space for the school. So at this time, there is a request into Treasury Board for permanent space for the medical school.

[8:40 a.m.]

It will be based in Surrey, in Surrey city centre. We’re working closely with the city on that project, and we’re really excited about what it’ll bring to SFU and the medical school but also the way in which we’ll animate Surrey city centre. That capital build will also include a teaching clinic that will provide patient care for 30,000 people living in Surrey.

Sunita Dhir: Wow. Thank you.

Joy Johnson: You’re welcome.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, nice to see you again. I am just wondering. We talked about growth. Thank you for bringing up micro-credentialing as an option. We’ve certainly heard that from other post-secondary institutions as well, that they’d like to pursue alternate training and revenue models.

What we didn’t talk about at all was staffing and the human costs, human investment. I was wondering if, like other educational institutions, you are struggling with staffing and funding for staffing.

Joy Johnson: Yeah. To be clear, because of our budget situation, we have had to let go of staff. We’ve had, this past year, layoffs of 80 people working at Simon Fraser University. We’re doing our work to try and constrain and figure out what we can do, how we can be sustainable, given our budget situation.

In terms of micro-credentials, we would look to use existing staff. One of the issues is adding to their workload. That’s always a challenge as well.

There’s a lot of talent out there. There are people who are wanting to work and to help us with this work. It is, again, about finding, I guess, the model that will work so that we can develop these programs and then hopefully scale them. Once scaled, hopefully they will be revenue generating for universities.

We’ve had a few very successful models at SFU. We’ve worked with a B.C. digital supercluster to do digital transformation skill training for industry. We’ve provided that education for, I think, up to 500 employees out there, working in a variety of different industries, and it’s been very successful.

Steve Morissette: Immigration — how has that impacted your school? I know it has really impacted rural colleges. I’d just like to hear how it’s impacted your school.

Joy Johnson: It’s had a huge impact across the whole sector. At one point, 22 percent of our undergraduate students were international students. We’re down to about 16 percent now of international students, and it looks like it will be going even lower because of the caps and because the federal government is not able to process the visas. This is a huge hit on our budget, and that’s really why we’ve got the sustainability issue at SFU but really across the whole sector.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Dr. Johnson, for that presentation.

We’ll be moving on to our next presenter now. The next presentation is from the Capilano Students Union, Mr. Harjot Singh.

You’ll have five minutes for presentation, followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members. You may begin when you’re ready.

Capilano Students Union

Harjot Singh: Thank you so much. First of all, thanks to everyone that I’m part of this committee and I’m able to raise the sound of the students. Thank you so much for you.

Good morning, everyone, committee members. My name is Harjot Singh. I am a second-year associate of science student and current president of the Capilano Students Union, representing over 9,000 students at Capilano University on the north shore.

Students in British Columbia are struggling to afford basic living expenses, including food. We have seen demands for the security programming from our students union continue to grow. In our most recent student experience survey, many of the members reported skipping meals each month because they couldn’t afford food. We recommend that the provincial government provide financial support for low-income students, both domestic and international, who are experiencing food insecurity by reinstating the promised $1,000 grocery rebate.

The post-secondary sector is in distress. Federal policy changes are causing a decline in international student enrolment, making it difficult for institutions like Capilano University to balance their budgets. Government funding continues to decline as the share of institutions’ total revenue. Given this, we are deeply concerned that the international students, once again, will be expected to personally cover the public funding shortfall.

[8:45 a.m.]

Capilano University held that line at 2 percent for as long as it could. However, now our university, like many others, is being forced to approve higher increases in the international tuition, not just to cover educational costs but also to generate revenue.

We should not fool ourselves into believing that relying, again, on international student tuition will solve the sector financial crisis, which was caused by overreliance on international students in the first place. International students deserve stable and predictable tuition rates. We recommend that the provincial government extend the 2 percent tuition limit policy to apply to international students.

The post-secondary international students are the only people in B.C., migrant or not, who continue to pay a monthly fee for access to primary health care, even after MSP premiums were eliminated for everyone else in 2020. This is despite section 10 of Canada Health Act saying that a province “must entitle 100 percent of insured persons of the province to the insured health services provided for by the plan on uniform terms and conditions.” We recommend that the provincial government eliminate the $900 per year international students health fee.

We appreciate this is a financially challenging and uncertain time for everyone, and not just for the members. That said, given the huge economic contribution that students make to the province, we believe that these concrete steps would support a healthy post-secondary sector and healthy province. I hope this will be considered in the 2026 budget.

Thank you for your consideration.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. Looking to MLAs for questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, good morning. I just want to make sure that I clearly understand your last point. Is it that international students pay for private insurance? Is that what you said?

Harjot Singh: Yes. Health insurance.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Private health insurance.

Harjot Singh: Yes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So MSP is covered for international students, just like it is for every other person, but you pay an additional charge for private insurance. What is the purpose of that?

Harjot Singh: For the health and dental plan we have.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Sorry. Why is that restriction there?

Harjot Singh: Thanks for questioning. Our staff will contact you, the Clerk of Committees, to let you know.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, good. Thank you.

Harjot Singh: Thank you so much. Thanks for your time.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Actually, there are no further questions. Thank you very much.

We’ll go to our next presenter from the Council of Canadian Innovators, Kiersten Enemark.

Welcome. You’ll have five minutes to present, followed by up to five minutes for questions by members of our committee. You may begin whenever you are ready.

Council of Canadian Innovators

Kiersten Enemark: Deputy Chair Sturko and members of the committee, thank you for having me here today on the traditional unceded territories of the Coast Salish peoples.

My name is Kiersten Enemark. I’m the director of B.C. affairs for the Council of Canadian Innovators, a national business council representing over 150 of Canada’s fastest-growing tech companies, all headquartered in Canada, 25 of which are based in B.C., leading innovation in biotech, agritech, fintech, manufacturing and software.

Our members are major contributors to the economy by generating millions of dollars in revenue and employing over 10,000 people across the province. Our member businesses are leaders in B.C.’s innovation economy, and they are rapidly scaling up in both urban and rural parts of the province.

[8:50 a.m.]

CCI is a unique business council in that our core mandate is to optimize the growth of Canada’s innovation sector through public policy-making. Too often, policies favour foreign-owned businesses, undermining the growth of domestic industries. With the rise of buying Canadian, we applaud Premier Eby’s commitment to procure Canadian products. For ten years, CCI has championed a sovereign economy, including strengthening public procurement, and it’s exciting to see our ideas gaining traction.

Innovation is key to prosperity. For Canadian innovators to scale up, we need policies that foster an ecosystem where domestic innovation can thrive. We need to shift focus from just job creation and tax cuts to value-add strategies across all sectors, including our resource sector, to strengthen a data-driven economy where we prioritize intangible assets like intellectual property, data and homegrown know-how. By better integrating innovation with productivity, our economy will grow, become more resilient and strong.

At CCI, we use four policy levers to create the right structures for innovators to scale up: access to talent, capital, customers and marketplace frameworks. In short, we agree with government that we must be bold, but to be bold means to create the right framework to foster innovation. To that end, we have three recommendations.

First is to improve strategic procurement. We commend government for adopting a strategic procurement approach, directing ministries and Crown corporations to prioritize Canadian-made products. Procurement is a powerful tool for economic growth by investing in domestic industries. For innovators, it is more effective than grants or tax credits in validating companies and driving rapid growth. However, the challenge is that procurement processes are often inflexible, slow and risk-averse and often favour large, multinational industries.

To be clear, Canadian businesses often sell to governments outside of B.C. and outside of Canada. Our members have a track record of successfully selling globally yet not at home. There is a lost opportunity. I was at Web Summit, at which I heard that Vancouver is known as the Silicon Valley of health tech and biotech, and at the same time, 40 percent of our tax dollars go to health care. Yet the B.C. government procures very little from our domestic innovators.

To improve procurement, not just in health tech but across all industries, we recommend the creation of an advisory board made up of domestic businesses to provide guidance on how to design procurement to be more inclusive of SMEs; domestic innovators, including possible set-asides; how to share risks; and maybe a negotiated procurement option.

Our second recommendation is to add value-add strategies to major projects. Canada ranks 14th in the Global Innovation Index, excelling in innovation but lagging in productivity and tech adoption. While we have the right ideas and the innovative capacity, our existing structures hinder commercialization. We need to better integrate innovation into productivity to see our economy grow.

For example, we see government has prioritized major projects to accelerate economic growth. Applying value-add strategies to major projects would further grow our prosperity. For instance, instead of merely extracting raw materials like critical minerals or simply building new infrastructure, we ought to ensure innovation in technology is a key part of the project. Innovation has been proven to not only bring more jobs and economic activity but also expand intangible assets such as intellectual property and data.

Lastly, we are seeking for government to improve our access to international talent. B.C. is losing talent to the U.S., and we are losing talent because housing is expensive and wages are lower. Further, our members are finding that bringing in highly skilled international workers is a slow and administratively burdensome process. We recognize that government is focused on balancing the budget and seeking low-cost solutions to drive economic growth. One such solution is removing duplication in the provincial process for hiring skilled international workers.

Our recommendations we’ve shared today aim to unlock the full potential of B.C.’s innovation economy.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. Questions?

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation.

I’d really like to talk a little bit more about your second recommendation, which is around value added to major projects. You’ve referred a little bit to adding something to resource production and to other projects, but I think I’d really like to hear how you think we can, through the budget process, assist in that.

[8:55 a.m.]

Kiersten Enemark: Of course, government is very heavily invested in major projects, either from an infrastructure perspective…. Infrastructure, you could say, from building hospitals, currently…. Government has made those announcements in terms of building hospitals and other infrastructure to support community growth. I’m thinking of one of our members, Novarc Technologies, that has developed, essentially, a cobot and AI-driven technology for welding.

We should be really looking at our homegrown innovators to see what is there and making sure that that innovation is part of that process. That could be a mixture of procurement/major projects, for example. I don’t know if we’re always including and aware of all of the innovation that’s taking place in British Columbia.

The point being that when you do have innovation with these projects, it drives ideas. And with ideas, you have innovation. With innovation, you can develop intellectual property, you can have patents, and that’s actually where the real value is.

Jennifer Blatherwick: If I can just go back to your first recommendation about having an advisory board, having a repository of those ideas, having people involved in conversation that are more aware of the innovations that are out there and then being able to connect and recommend things to bring forward for projects.

Kiersten Enemark: Yeah, we would say to better integrate the development of intangible assets with major projects, we recommend establishing an independent, non-partisan provincial innovation board that would work with government to design value-added strategies around major projects.

Just by comparison as well, maybe you’re aware that the government of Manitoba has set up an innovation and productivity task force. So again, advisors to help government to really maximize those intangible assets while you are also building the economy.

Bryan Tepper: To your third point there, yesterday we actually heard from the B.C. Federation of Labour about increasing the corporate tax rate and then our top tax rates as well.

How would that affect attracting talent or not losing talent to the United States?

Kiersten Enemark: Well, again, we have to look at what the cost is of doing business in British Columbia, and certainly, looking at taxation is one of those costs. How can B.C. become more competitive? Certainly by revising taxation but also making housing more affordable, supporting really all of our domestic innovators here.

For example, we’re a unique business council in that we’re representing businesses that have headquarters in Canada. Of course, I’m with B.C. affairs, so I’m representing our members who are here in British Columbia. There is a difference when you have a headquarter in Canada versus, you know, headquartered in other countries but then a presence in Canada.

If you are looking at a tax deduction, probably from our association, really favouring our domestic innovators, our domestic firms, would be preferred.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your time, and we’ll move to our next presenter. Thank you very much for your presentation today.

Our next presentation comes from Simon Fraser Student Society. Jessica Lamb. You’ll have five minutes for presentation time followed by up to five minutes for questions from committee members. You may begin when you’re ready.

Simon Fraser Student Society

Jessica Lamb: Well, first of all, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be here this morning. My name is Jessica Lamb, and I’m here on behalf of the Simon Fraser Student Society.

I’m here to highlight three urgent areas of investment that are critical not only for students but for the future of British Columbia’s economy and workforce: student mental health and wellness, undergraduate financial aid and the Burnaby Mountain gondola project.

We’ll begin with student wellness. When we surveyed our students in 2024, over 70 percent ranked their mental health somewhere between one and six out of ten, one being the worst and ten being the best. When prompted further, these students cited issues such as academic workload, financial pressures, difficulty maintaining a work-school balance and, as a result, loneliness. These are not new issues, as I’m sure you’ve heard before, but they are becoming progressively worse, as we’re seeing each year upon year we survey students.

[9:00 a.m.]

While we would like to commend past efforts to fund culturally appropriate and identity-based counselling at SFU, expanded services tailored to BIPOC students, LGBT, mature learners and survivors of gender-based violence, the expanded funding was temporary and, unfortunately, not renewed, which has left a lot of our students to contend with extended wait periods, if they’re even able to access these services at all. This is especially important for students who are facing stigma around seeking mental health care.

We urge the province to restore and expand this expanded funding to ensure that our students aren’t just surviving their academic careers but are actually thriving. This investment would support students’ overall well-being, ultimately leading to higher completion rates and better postgraduate success.

Moving on to student financial support. According to B.C.’s labour market outlook, by 2030, over 80 percent of job postings are going to require some form of post-secondary education, making it abundantly clear that the future of this province is dependent on our ability to educate and train the new workforce.

However, as the cost of living continues to soar and especially as federal caps on international students are reducing institutional revenue, students are being pulled in all directions as the institutions are struggling to make up for funding deficiencies. Tuition is rising, operational funding is remaining stagnant, and affordability is becoming a barrier to access for more people than ever before.

While we recognize the province’s investment of $15 million into graduate scholarships, which has really helped our graduate enrolment over the years, undergraduate enrolment right now is declining and in need of support.

Expanding bursaries like the B.C. access grant for programs exceeding two years in length, as well as creating new provincial scholarships and bursaries, would go a long way in making post-secondary education in B.C. more accessible. Not only will this help us meet labour market demands, but it will also attract more students — international and domestic — to British Columbia, offsetting some of the impacts of the federal cap and bringing about vital revenue to our campuses.

Finally, I want to address something that I’m sure you’ve all heard over the years: the Burnaby Mountain gondola project. For over a decade, this project has been evaluated, consistently proving to be both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. It would connect the Production Way SkyTrain station to SFU by a clean energy gondola system, reducing reliance on overcrowded bus routes and offering a more reliable option during the winter months, when the road conditions are unpredictable.

SFU is home to over 35,000 students, and over 80 percent of those rely on public transit to get to and from the campus. With the recent transit cuts and increased ridership, we’re currently in need of bold solutions, and the gondola project is nothing if not bold. It will shorten commute times, improve accessibility, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to both the city’s and the university’s climate goals. It’s a project with enormous potential benefits not only for students but for the residents of this region as a whole.

To conclude, the three key asks — student mental wellness, undergraduate financial support and sustainable infrastructure — may seem like isolated needs, but in reality, they’re interconnected pillars of a stronger and more resilient British Columbian economy.

Again, thank you so much for your time and for your continued commitment to the residents of this province.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Questions from committee members. Okay. Thank you very much.

Seeing no questions, I’ll call upon the Students Union of Vancouver Community College, Howell Repaja.

You’ll have five minutes’ presentation, followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members. You may begin when you’re ready.

Students Union of
Vancouver Community College

Howell Repaja: Okay. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Howell Repaja, and I am here on behalf of the Students Union of Vancouver Community College. Before coming to Canada, I had a stable career in Singapore for 13 years, but I chose to come here to start a new beginning.

Since becoming a board member of the student union, I have the privilege of speaking with domestic students. Despite our different journeys, we all share common challenges: first, the burden of high tuition fees; and the second, the increasing financial strain of accessing post-secondary education.

Members of Vancouver Community College are preparing to become the next generation of health care workers, mechanics, chefs and ASL interpreters in British Columbia.

However, students at VCC and across British Columbia are currently facing significant challenges that threaten both their success and the province’s economic and workforce development goals.

[9:05 a.m.]

We have seen staff layoffs at various colleges and universities, including more than 50 instructors at VCC, because of tight budgets and government funding shortfalls. Schools are doing their best to manage, but without more support from the government, we are worried that students will pay higher tuition fees, have fewer program options and lower education quality.

Students across the province have consistently called for sustainable funding in the post-secondary sector. The current overreliance on international tuition to fill funding gaps is unsustainable. The sudden change of the federal government’s cap on international students has left institutions struggling and students uncertain about their future.

It’s a strong reminder that protecting education and ensuring long-term stability for students and institutions depends on consistent public investment. Budget decisions this year must include real, meaningful funding to support students and safeguard the future of post-secondary education in British Columbia.

Our recommendation is to, first, strengthen the tuition limit policy. In 2005, the province introduced a 2 percent annual cap on domestic tuition fee increases. Maintaining and strengthening this policy by including ancillary fees is crucial to ensuring that current and future students in B.C. can access affordable, publicly funded education.

Second is to restore public funding to 75 percent of institutional operating budgets. VCC offers programs like ASL interpreting, spa therapy and automotive services. These programs are expensive to run, but they are essential to meeting B.C.’s labour market needs.

In 2000, the government covered 68 percent of institutional operating costs. But today that number has dropped to 40 percent. To fill the gap, institutions have increasingly relied on tuition fees, particularly from the international students, which are volatile and unfair.

Chair and members of the committee, post-secondary education is not a luxury. It is essential for the future of British Columbia’s economy. Whether we are training nurses, bakers or early childhood educators, our collective success depends on strong, well-funded institutions.

We cannot expect to enjoy the full benefits of post-secondary education if we are not willing to invest. Without immediate reinvestment, we will see further erosion in education access. But with bold action in Budget 2026, we can strengthen a system that reflects B.C.’s commitment to equity, prosperity and long-term growth.

On behalf of the students of Vancouver Community College, I urge you to view post-secondary education not as a cost but as an investment in producing more talent and attracting investors for the future and economic growth of our province.

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to take any questions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation.

Jennifer Blatherwick: In your first point, you mentioned that you would like the tuition cap strengthened, including….

Howell Repaja: Ancillary fees.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Ancillary fees. I was hoping you could give an example.

Howell Repaja: Like not only the tuition fee but all the other fees that are needed by the students and that will be collected by the schools. For example, the miscellaneous fees or the books that they are going to use, laboratory fees.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Any other questions? Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your time here. Thank you very much for the presentation.

We’ll move to our next presenter from Emily Carr Students Union, Alessio Rios Diaz.

Thank you for joining us. You’ve probably heard that you’ll have five minutes for presentation time followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members, and you can begin when you’re ready.

[9:10 a.m.]

Emily Carr Students Union

Alessio Rios Diaz: Perfect. Good morning. Before I begin, I would like to thank everyone present here; my fellow collaborators behind me; of course, the committee members; and my mentors that gave me the opportunity today to present with all of you.

My name is Alessio Rios. I am a professional designer, a published author and a creative director for the animation and television industry. As an international student from Mexico and a member of the students union, all these titles are for a significant part due to the doors that Emily Carr has provided me, the same way that the university provides opportunities to over 2,000 students per year.

I believe it is only fair now to help make a path for my fellow colleagues towards thriving in their creative careers. One thing that really amazes me about Vancouver is how a city can be a perfect example that innovation is not a noun but a verb. B.C. actively takes steps towards becoming a global hub for many people in the creative fields. And with that, many students from around the world, including myself, plan to remain here and help grow culture and community through the only specialized art, design and media university in this province.

That is why I come here today with two key recommendations. Firstly, adjust the base funding to Emily Carr University to solve the chronic structural deficit. Provincially, we’re asking that the budgets for the post-secondary institutions in our province be returned to 75 percent provincial funding.

Now, for those who have never stepped foot in an art school, it’s not just about painting pretty pictures or dyeing your hair wacky colours. It’s so much more. I’m very proud to say that for the fifth consecutive year, Emily Carr University has been ranked top university in Canada for art and design according to the QS world university rankings, the largest survey of academic and employer reputation, as well as being the only Canadian university ranked amongst the top 50 globally.

Behind these amazing numbers are students in the arts, designers and media practitioners that are contributing to this province in incredible ways. I’d like to highlight three of my favourite examples.

First, the health lab, where students and faculty are using design methods towards making significant strides in innovating the user experience in hospitals and reimagining cancer care as we know it by putting the patients first.

Second, we are where the province’s aspiring animators for film and television are made, one of B.C.’s biggest and strongest assets in its sector.

Finally, our Aboriginal Gathering Place at Emily Carr is the new community for Indigenous students who are calling Vancouver home while they earn their degrees.

Given more time, I could give many more examples, proving that investing in stability creates spaces where our future innovators thrive.

My second and final key recommendation is to complete the post-secondary funding formula review and implement a new funding model that provides long-term financial stability for institutions, accounts for inflation and does not rely on student fees as the primary source of revenue. Our university has made great strides, evolving over the years from a college to an institute to a university. We’ve proven what’s possible, but to sustain it, we need support that reflects the reality of being a top-tier university.

Mark your calendars, because next year will be Emily Carr’s 100th year as the province’s premiere art, design and media institution.

Together, I hope to build this path with you all towards many more years of keeping B.C. creative, because I wholeheartedly believe that every Emily Carr graduate success story is a win for B.C.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much, Alessio. Thanks for the presentation. I really enjoyed your passion and enthusiasm.

I had the pleasure to visit Emily Carr University two months ago, and it was such a good experience. A lot of post-secondary institutes are struggling because of the federal funding cuts and enrolment cuts for the international students. But we’re having a dialogue with the federal government, and we are in the process of developing a sustainable funding model.

[9:15 a.m.]

We really encourage people to live and work here in B.C. and contribute to the economic growth here, so your recommendations are already on par with the work of the province that’s being done in this sector. Thank you so much for bringing these recommendations.

Alessio Rios Diaz: Yes, thank you for saying that. Yeah, I think I’m here today to just, even if the work is being done, really reiterate that. Year by year, time passes, but it’s great to push a reminder of what is needed, what is not so.

Sunita Dhir: Do you have any suggestions on how to increase the enrolment of domestic students in our post-secondary institutions, especially Emily Carr? Is the university taking any steps to promote itself?

Alessio Rios Diaz: Yeah, I think this is…. So far, year after year, we see a growth in the university of the amount of students that are getting enrolled.

I would like to cite specifically, for example, coming from COVID, that when people sought something to do during a time of crisis, people sought after entertainment, people sought after art, and people sought everything related to humanities to really keep them going in these times. I feel like after that, that inspired many, many students and attracted them to art school.

Like I said, art school is, a lot of times, boiled down to just painting and drawing pretty pictures and stuff like that. But no, it is a lot more. We have industrial designers, people who dedicate themselves to civil service, as in urban planning, etc. I believe that people are getting more knowledge of — and Emily Carr is promoting itself to really widen — the possibilities of what you can do with a degree in design, media or arts.

Hopefully that answers your question.

Steve Morissette: Just really more of a comment, but thank you to Jessica and Howell and yourself for presenting. You’ve painted a pretty clear picture of things we need to do with post-secondary. Thank you.

Alessio Rios Diaz: Thank you. And may I compliment your suit as well? I like it. It’s very nice.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You don’t like my suit, I assume. I’m just kidding. Thank you very much for your presentation. We’re kind of coordinated. I appreciate that.

Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your presentation. Thank you so much to all of you.

We’ll call upon our next presenter from the Alma Mater Society of the University of British Columbia, Solomon Yi-Kieran.

Good morning. You’ll have five minutes for presentation time, and up to five minutes of questions from committee members. Start when you’re ready.

Alma Mater Society of UBC

Solomon Yi-Kieran: Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. My name is Solomon Yi-Kieran, and I serve as the vice-president of external affairs at the AMS of UBC. We’re a student union that represents over 61,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Today I want to highlight three key budgetary recommendations that directly affect students at UBC and across the province. These are: firstly, enhancing student financial aid; secondly, strengthening protections for student workers; and lastly, addressing critical transit infrastructure gaps.

First, we’d like to see increases to the student living allowance and the B.C. access grant. Students urgently need more financial support; 91 percent of UBC student aid recipients are concerned about meeting basic needs, and 22 percent say financial stress affects their ability to stay in school.

Despite living costs in Metro Vancouver averaging between $2,600 and $3,600 a month, the current provincial allocation of just $220 a week in the living allowance has remained unchanged in over a decade, falling short of inflation and student need. We recommend increasing the maximum to $400 a week to better reflect increasing costs and support students with critical needs like groceries and housing.

The B.C. access grant, capped at $4,000 per year since 2020, also needs adjustment. With tuition rising with inflation annually, we recommend increasing the maximum to $5,000 per year, to help the most financially vulnerable students continue their education.

Additionally, graduate students are excluded from this grant, despite often facing even greater financial strain, and expanding eligibility is essential.

Our second ask is about labour justice. In 2022, graduate student workers at UBC began organizing in response to long hours, inadequate pay and limited protections, and the university took the case to the B.C. Labour Relations Board.

[9:20 a.m.]

Although LRB cases are supposed to be resolved within 180 days, according to the Labour Relations Act, persistent underfunding and backlogs led to an 18-month delay. With CUPE’s graduate researcher branch expected to appeal, even more delays are likely.

These prolonged timelines are unfair to both the workers and employers, and they fall short of legal standards, as repeatedly seen across cases. We’re calling for a $5 million increase to B.C. LRB funding in line with B.C. Federation of Labour recommendations to boost staffing and ensure timely resolution of future cases.

Our third and final ask is addressing shortages of a central transit for students through tangible action on the UBC SkyTrain, as well as an improved TransLink funding model. Public transit is critical for post-secondary access, but the system is under serious strain. Additionally, the business case for the UBC SkyTrain extension was projected a year ago and yet remains unreleased. This project has been on the government’s radar since 2013, long enough to complete several PhDs in that time, without any progress.

It would connect 80 percent of the Lower Mainland to UBC within one hour while supporting over 50,000 new homes in the Vancouver area. It is the only long-term solution that can meet both current and projected ridership. After close consultation with UBC, we are calling on the province to release the UBCx business case and begin allocating construction funding to this vital project.

Meanwhile, TransLink is facing a projected $300 million deficit by 2027, and service levels on many UBC routes have yet to recover post-pandemic. For instance, service on the no. 9 has dropped by 33 percent and on the no. 84 by 27 percent, and the no. 49 remains one of the most overcrowded routes in the region, with one in five trips exceeding safety capacity.

We thus recommend the province develop a long-term alternate funding model for TransLink to address this deficit, with a focus on restoring and expanding service to high-demand student corridors. This recommendation is informed by engagement with TransLink officials and with Movement YVR.

The primary mission of students should be to pursue their education and build a better life, yet students across B.C., especially in Metro Vancouver, are struggling every day to navigate rising costs, multiple jobs and limited access to reliable transit. The three proposals we’ve outlined are grounded in real data and lived experience, making them necessary, not aspirational. Each ask is an investment not only in students but also in the long-term strength of B.C.’s workforce, communities and post-secondary system.

Thank you so much for your time and consideration. We hope these priorities are reflected in a 2026 budget that advances equity, access and opportunity for all students in B.C.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. And looking to committee members for questions.

Bryan Tepper: You mentioned 50,000 new housing units. How does the SkyTrain expansion to UBC affect that?

Solomon Yi-Kieran: With the transit-oriented development laws, not only are we going to see increased density in a number of areas next to stations in the West End; it also provides the transit capacity necessary to support currently planned housing units like the Jericho lands, in leləm̓, as well as any future expansions in the University Endowment Lands, which are also subject and expected to have further densification and rezoning due to transit-oriented development laws as well. Not only would it provide the kind of legal catalyst for increasing housing in the area; it also ensures that planned housing has the capacity needed to actually roll out and be safe and provide the economic stimulus that we want to see.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions from committee members, thank you so much for the presentation.

We’re going to move to our next presenter from the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C., Kim Barbero.

Good morning. You have five minutes of presentation time followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members, and you may begin when you’re ready.

Mechanical Contractors
Association of B.C.

Kim Barbero: Excellent. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Kim Barbero, and I am the CEO of the Mechanical Contractors Association of B.C., whose members enable clean water, clean air, clean energy and comfort for all British Columbians. We represent construction’s ten primary trades, the interests of 200 businesses and more than 34,000 tradespeople. MCABC is the only dedicated voice for these trades and is ready to partner with the B.C. government to support sustainable growth in the province.

[9:25 a.m.]

I am here today with three asks. The first is to modernize the trades training and education system. The second is to dedicate funding for programs that introduce K-to-12 school children to the skilled trades. The third is to accelerate prompt payment legislation.

This industry is essential to every single person in every community throughout B.C. Without mechanical contractors, there is no circulatory system in our houses, in our schools, in our offices and in our hospitals. There’s no running water, no flushing toilets, no heat or cool air and no medical gas in the hospitals.

Right now, for example, there are approximately 1,800 tradespeople working on the new St. Paul’s Hospital, one-third of whom are mechanical contractors. But they’re at great risk for the future. According to BuildForce Canada, based on the projects that we need built, we risk a deficit of 22,700 tradespeople by 2034. There simply is no time to wait. The schooling alone takes four years, and that does not include the existing wait lists.

For example, the wait list for BCIT’s level 1 plumber apprentice program is 1½ years. The next available entry, with five seats remaining when I checked a couple days ago, is January 2027. The graduates of that program will not be qualified journeypersons until 2031 or early 2032.

In fact, provincial funding for mechanical trades has not kept pace with the need. One instructor told me recently that in 2006, they received $187.50 per plumbing apprentice per week of training. They received that exact same amount this year. That same institution has self-funded $470,000 because of a lack of provincial public funding. As a result, this year they have to reluctantly deliver less training, they’ve told me.

We are already facing skilled labour shortages in B.C., as you know. To protect and grow these critical high-skill, high-paying jobs and keep B.C.’s mechanical contracting workforce strong, again, we recommend that government modernize the trades training and education system in B.C. to align with industry advancements and infrastructure needs, including increasing the availability of trades training seats in key jurisdictions for new and retraining workers; amending and advancing the design, development, format and delivery of curriculum; and broadening competencies and developing a formally recognized pathway in the mechanical contracting industry to upskill and cross-train related certified trades.

The second is to dedicate funding for programs that introduce K-to-12 school children to the skilled trades. This action will elevate the reputation of skilled trades as a career. It will shine a light on STEM careers. It will ensure that people who normally haven’t thought of a career in the trades, especially girls, will see a path to a greater career. It will also encourage people to enter the skilled trades workforce at an early age.

Three, to accelerate prompt payment legislation, which is currently being considered by government. This legislation will provide payment certainty, particularly now, during this time of uncertainty. It will minimize project escalation in building costs and it will create financial security for workers and their families.

Mechanical contractors are essential to delivering on the provincial three-year, $45.9 billion capital infrastructure building commitment for housing, schools, health care and transportation.

On behalf of the MCABC board of directors and staff, I would like to thank this committee for listening to me today. We are committed to collaborating with government to work through the skilled labour workforce challenges facing B.C.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you, Kim. That was a very good presentation.

I do have a question. This is male-dominant industry. Is there anything being done to bring more women to get recruited in trades here?

Kim Barbero: There is. I referenced Susie’s Shed. This is a publication that we are circulating right now through school districts and various community groups. Last week, one of our members ensured that one copy of Susie’s Shed is in every library in the Surrey school district. That’s our effort to get young children, young girls, interested in the trades.

[9:30 a.m.]

MCABC has a national model, and we have the Women in Mechanical Contracting, which is a committee that is across Canada. Our focus is to ensure that we can get that 5.7 percent number up in the construction trades and really attract women. It’s a huge market.

Sunita Dhir: It is. Thank you so much.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, that concludes your time with us today. Thank you so much for your presentation.

We’ll move to our next presenter, from the Justice Institute Students Union Society, Karen Khatana.

Good morning. You’ll have five minutes presentation time, followed by up to five minutes of questions from our committee. You can begin when you’re ready.

Justice Institute
Students Union Society

Karen Khatana: Good morning. My name is Karen Khatana, and I’m the director of external relations for JISU. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today.

In our written submission, we highlighted three key areas. But since we only have five minutes, I’d like to focus on the first two, as they’re closely connected.

First is strengthening the tuition limit policy. We urge the government to maintain the 2 percent cap on tuition increases and to prevent institutions from bypassing this limit by reclassifying existing fees or introducing new ancillary fees. This issue is especially relevant at the Justice Institute of British Columbia.

While still in the consultation phase, JIBC is planning to introduce a new mandatory fee, the student support fee, starting in January 2026. The goal is to keep services like mental health support, the writing centre, work-integrated learning programs and the SAFE app running, many of which were originally funded by one-time grants that have now ended. With no long-term funding options, the cost is now being shifted to students in hopes of keeping these services alive.

As students, we’re definitely not in favour of this new fee. But at the same time, we understand the tough financial situation that the institution is facing. Like many other public post-secondary schools, JIBC has been hit hard, especially with the cap on international student enrolment. It’s now projected to run a $2 million deficit over the next two years. So while we oppose the fee, we also recognize the financial pressures that led to it.

This brings us to our second key point. We’re asking the province to reinstate public funding to cover at least 75 percent of post-secondary institution budgets. This would allow schools to continue offering essential student services and provide fair, competitive wages, especially critical at JIBC, where experienced paramedic instructors are in short supply. It would also reduce reliance on international tuition to keep operations afloat.

According to the B.C. government’s Cost of Post-Secondary Education report, JIBC currently ranks 19th in tuition and affordability and fifth in ancillary fees out of 25 institutions. If this new fee goes through, which is an additional $180 annually, JIBC will drop to 17th in ancillary affordability and become the second most expensive college or institute overall, a huge change for a school designed to train our province’s front-line responders.

JIBC is the only public post-secondary in B.C. that trains paramedics, firefighters and police officers, people who step up in times of crisis to protect and serve our communities. Yet right now, students are being asked to carry an even heavier financial load just to access the education and the services they need to get through their studies.

Even though this new fee hasn’t been implemented yet, we’re already hearing from students who are in survival mode, having to choose between attending class or working extra shifts to pay rent. Some have dropped out altogether. This new fee might mean one or two more shifts just to maintain their enrolment. We’re worried that students who came to JIBC with a strong desire to serve their communities may now feel pushed out of the system.

With all of this in mind, we respectfully ask the committee to consider these two key recommendations: (1) strengthen the tuition limit policy to prevent fee reclassification and the rise of new ancillary charges; and (2) reinvest in public funding so institutions like JIBC can support future front-line heroes without transferring the cost to students.

These two actions would go a long way in supporting the next generation of essential workers, those who will one day contribute directly to the safety, resilience and prosperity of British Columbia.

Thank you again for your time and consideration.

[9:35 a.m.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great job. Thank you very much for the presentation. Seeing no questions from committee members, thank you very much for presenting today.

We’ll move to our next presentation. That comes from University of British Columbia’s Melanie Stewart.

Morning. Nice to see you again.

Melanie Stewart: Nice to see you too.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You’ll have five minutes, of course, for presentation, followed by up to five minutes of questions. Please begin when you’re ready.

University of British Columbia

Melanie Stewart: Great, thank you.

Good morning. My name is Melanie Stewart, and I’m vice-president of external relations, here on behalf of president Benoit-Antoine Bacon, who is currently presiding over graduation ceremonies in the Okanagan and sends his regrets.

I really very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to you today, but first I want to acknowledge that UBC’s Vancouver and Okanagan campuses are located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Musqueam people and the Syilx/Okanagan Nation.

While our economy and institutions face headwinds, I’m optimistic that partnering together, we can build on B.C.’s many strengths, accelerate growth and improve the quality of life for British Columbians. B.C.’s post-secondary sector plays a central role in this success, from training students and professionals to advancing research and innovation across sectors like health care, natural resources, clean tech and social services.

UBC is the province’s largest post-secondary institution and ranks among the world’s top universities. The university educates over 70,000 students annually and recently celebrated nearly 13,000 new graduates. Our talented faculty attracted over $900 million each year in research funding, supporting innovation that benefits communities and drives innovation and economic growth across the province. The University of British Columbia is truly the university for British Columbia. As B.C. navigates global uncertainty from trade tensions to economic shifts, UBC and the post-secondary system are key partners to building resilience and unlocking new sources of growth.

That’s why our first recommendation is to continue and enhance B.C.’s longstanding approach of stable and predictable funding for PSIs. This help maintains affordability for students and is especially critical now as federal changes to international student policy are reducing institutional revenue. While we are grateful for the province’s history of stable funding, which has reflected public sector wage increases, neither operating grants nor tuition revenue have kept pace with inflation over the past two decades.

Despite these pressures, UBC has managed budgets very carefully, enhanced student services and grown enrolment. Recently, heightened fiscal pressures have necessitated that we work even more diligently to manage our resources.

We’re also grateful for the new funding to create new spaces in key health sector and technology-related programs. UBC is B.C.’s largest educator of health care professionals, training students at distributed sites in every region of the province across the spectrum from doctors, nurses, midwives, physical therapists, pharmacists, dentists and many more. We’ve expanded these programs in partnership with government and are ready to do more.

Similarly, demand remains high for technology-related programs that produce skilled graduates across B.C.’s economy. International students are vital to our academic communities, and B.C.’s public secondary institutions are a vital and important international talent pipeline for the province.

Our second recommendation is for the province to maintain its highly collaborative approach to helping B.C.’s public sector public institutions welcome international students. We encourage the province to continue engaging the federal government to ensure that institutions that recruit ethically and provide excellent education and services can recruit the talent B.C. needs.

The third recommendation we have is to invest in academic infrastructure, student housing and transit, investments that support affordability, accessibility and B.C.’s long-term competitiveness. We appreciate the province’s support for housing, which continues to be one of the largest cost pressures for students, faculty and staff. Despite UBC’s significant investment in affordable student housing, demand still far exceeds supply, and the university is ready to build more.

Completing the Broadway subway extension to UBC is a vital provincial investment that will reduce congestion and improve access to UBC while enabling the creation of more than 50,000 housing units, including at significant First Nations development sites.

[9:40 a.m.]

There’s also an urgent need for renewal and investment in academic infrastructure. UBC’s top capital priority, science central one, would partially replace the obsolete and deteriorating chemistry complex. The new facility is essential for safe, high-quality instruction in science, engineering and health programs.

Also high priority for UBC is wildfire research and training at our Okanagan campus.

Thank you for your time today and for your consideration of UBC’s input.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much, Dr. Stewart, for your presentation. It was very informative.

I just have a question about domestic enrolment. Are there any steps being taken to increase domestic enrolment students?

Melanie Stewart: Yeah. At UBC, we’re so fortunate. We never have a challenge attracting domestic students. That said, of course, we’re always mindful of the student experience and continuing to improve that and to extend our reach across the province.

As I said, we do consider ourselves a university for all of British Columbia, and so we extend that. But our enrolment is very strong for domestic students.

Sunita Dhir: With internationally trained professionals entering the workforce in B.C., would you have any programs tailored towards their cultural needs and some training about Indigenous history and…?

Melanie Stewart: Yeah, this is definitely one of our areas of specialty at the University of British Columbia. We’re very proud of the relationships that we have with Indigenous people in the province and have committed a lot to our Indigenous strategic plan, to making sure that we’re welcoming students in the best way possible from all backgrounds and experience. So, yes, the short answer is that all of our programs make sure that we’re integrating Indigenous ways of knowing and ensuring that all students feel welcome, most especially, of course, our First Nations students.

Steve Morissette: UBC Okanagan, I know, has some innovative programs working with my region in the West Kootenays around batteries development and so on. I just heard you mention wildfire resilience. Just what exactly is happening there?

Melanie Stewart: We’re really excited about this. This is a recognition, as you know, that the region suffers from real, significant concerns around wildfire. So UBC is working to establish a centre for innovation related to wildfire prevention, which is going to be really innovative. And we’re looking for contribution from the province to continue that work.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Take care.

This committee is in recess till 10:10 a.m.

The committee recessed from 9:43 a.m. to 10:11 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, we’ll reconvene our committee. Once again, it’s the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, public consultations. I’m Elenore Sturko. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and Deputy Chair of this committee.

We’ll be continuing with presentations where presenters have five minutes of presentation time, followed by up to five minutes of questions from our committee members.

We’ll begin with the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C., presented by Brent Calvert.

Good morning. You may begin when you’re ready.

Federation of
Post-Secondary Educators of B.C.

Brent Calvert: I want to thank you for making the time. It’s an important job to do on behalf of the province.

The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of B.C. represents 10,000 faculty members and staff members — what we call academic workers — at B.C. colleges, institutes, special-purpose teaching universities, one of the research universities and four private language schools. FPSE has presented to this committee for decades, and I personally have been presenting to this committee since 2013.

In that year, my first presentation drew attention to a despicable practice that exists in the loopholes in your legislation in post-secondary education that allows programs to be stood down because of imagined budgetary pressures, repackaged and then re-offered at a significantly higher tuition rate. It’s a practice that’s rampant in the system, and it continues to this day.

The important part I need to communicate to you is why this is being done. It’s because public funding of post-secondary education and education in general have been in a freefall for over two decades. This is a way that institutions are relying on to cope with this. It undermines your number one message of affordability to the province and is delaying adulthood and creating a massive amount of debt for students.

In 2016, we augmented that message with a warning about accumulating through the growing overreliance on international student tuition. Over the past eight years, those have gone unheeded, and in November 2024, the hammer dropped. International students, if you don’t know, pay about three times more tuition than domestic students, and the revenue is not subjected to the same restrictions for use in reporting to the government.

The federal government abruptly closed the easiest tap it could, to address affordability concerns. That’s a dramatic reduction in the number of non-domestic students that are being allowed into the country and their ability to study, obtain work permits and immigrate into the country. As a result, this spring over 1,000 of our members have lost their jobs as a direct result of this.

I hope you ask me a follow-up question about tariffs because that’s a huge compounding factor here.

[10:15 a.m.]

The government response has been to blame rather than to accept proportional responsibility and demonstrate leadership. By way of history, the layoffs and program cuts that we’re creating are undermining accessibility and quality of post-secondary education. Students are being displaced mid-degree, mid-diploma. Senates and education councils are being ignored. They’re being run rampantly without regard to rules, and governance is in a state of shambles in the province. The damage to the reputation of the B.C. brand and Canada brand for a destination for education is done.

By way of history, I think it’s important to read into the record that in 2001, the federal government included students as a first step towards citizenship in their immigration plan. In 2012, this very province created an international education strategy calling for the province to increase its international student numbers by 50 percent over the subsequent four years. The feds are implicit in this too. They had a 2014 strategy calling for Canadian institutions to double the number of international students by 2022 to more than 450,000. That number was surpassed in 2017.

Here’s the contrast to consider. The Conservative government of Ontario has provided $1 billion in emergency funding, and provincial attestation letters are split 96 percent to public institutions, 4 percent to private. The NDP government in British Columbia has provided zero dollars in contingency funding, and their attestation letter distribution is 53 percent public, 46 percent private.

The government has ignored the process, and the service plan that you issued last year following the budget release points to tuition increases as the way forward, once again.

I’ve got three recommendations. One, the provincial government must do more to push the federal government for change and provide transitional funding. The province’s response has been anemic in its effort to lobby the federal government to stand up for the sector.

Recommendation 2, before you ponder funding for the sector, please examine and debate your motivations. The money that you provide comes with an oversized list of restrictions on reporting requirements to prop up your public messaging. It does not serve the interests of the post-secondary education sector.

The third one is you need to include and undertake a revisiting of B.C. education, a complete revisioning in light of this information we’re sharing today. It is a driving component of the sector, and it needs to be recognized as such and worked into a plan before funding is put forward.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Looking to the committee for questions.

Bryan Tepper: I will hold off on the tariffs first. But the last part I just didn’t understand, so if you could explain a little further on the last one.

Brent Calvert: Yeah, I appreciate it. There’s a lot of rhetoric in the communication from government talking about post-secondary education as an economic driver. It really is. Globally, it’s the eighth largest sector. In Canada, it’s about a $77 billion sector. In B.C., it’s about $16 billion directly into the economy annually. It’s not being treated that way by any facet, finance or any of the public groups. It’s just empty talk right now.

Global economies are recognizing Singapore as something that you’re modelling your programming after. They’ve put education front and centre into their plan. They’ve treated it as a component of infrastructure and funded it accordingly. That’s what needs to happen here. In a world as we’re moving to artificial intelligence and a knowledge-based economy, it will be the driver of the future.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation. I have two questions.

My first question is about the loophole that you described, changing the name of the program and making the tuition higher. Is that for private institutions or…?

Brent Calvert: No, it’s for public. What happens is a program can say that this is a costly program. You had students from Emily Carr in here with arts. Music programs, art programs, engineering — they’re all costly to run compared to a business program where you need a room and an instructor. What happens is when revenue becomes a problem, the institutions go: “Well, we’ve got to look at this. Is it cost-effective?” The only loophole they can do is to actually take the program down, slightly change some of the wording and descriptions around it.

You have a 2 percent tuition cap, right? The loophole actually says if you take it down, reimagine it and relaunch it, you’re allowed to set it at a higher tuition rate one time, and then it’s subject to the tuition. There’s broad-scale unawareness of this, but they’re doing it because the public funding is just not there. It hasn’t been there for decades.

Sunita Dhir: Okay. My second question is that we do understand that international student enrolment has declined because of the federal policies. I have asked this question earlier too: Are the institutions doing anything to support the domestic enrolment, to increase it?

[10:20 a.m.]

Brent Calvert: Yeah. They’re creating a horror story because they’re reimagining the programs with the air cover of what’s happened with the international student situation. Your government has laid the path forward and said: “You’re going to need to increase tuition rates.” So they’re going to stand down programs. It’s happening right now, and they’re re-envisioning them and jacking their prices up.

The program I taught in at Capilano University went from $3,500 a year of affordable tuition to over $18,000. Every one of you, if you attended post-secondary education, likely paid somewhere in the neighbourhood of $2,500 to $3,000 a year. This is the biggest expense for young people, and it’s killing them. It’s killing our economy. It’s a simple message. You just need to hear it.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You said you had some comments you wanted to make about the tariffs. You have about a minute and a half.

Brent Calvert: Yeah, awesome. Thank you.

This, of course, is arriving at the exact perfect time, with the tariff pieces coming in. We’re looking at potentially broad-scale layoffs in forestry in rural remote communities. At the time that we need the post-secondary sector the most to help with that retraining and reallocation, helping people get into work, it’s going to be decimated.

Your provincial labour outlook report lists, by national occupation classification code, the jobs that you’ve predicted, and 75 percent of the million jobs that you’re predicting in the future are going to need post-secondary education at some time. Yet, in concert, in tandem, at the exact same time that that is happening, those same jobs are being cut. The training programs for those are being cut because of their cost due to the public funding shortfall.

It’s a simple A-B comparison between what’s in the national occupation codes in your labour market report and looking at the program that’s being cut. We’ve got the data. We’d love to share it with you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your presentation time. Appreciate that.

We’ll move to our next presenter, from the Canadian Media Producers Association, Brian Hamilton.

You’ll have five minutes of presentation time and up to five minutes for questions. You can begin when you’re ready.

Canadian Media Producers
Association

Brian Hamilton: Thank you so much. A pleasure to be here this morning. My name is Brian Hamilton. I’m here on behalf of the Canadian Media Producers Association. We are a representative of the domestic producers of film, television and animation in the province. There are approximately 150 members. These are all companies, small businesses like ours, and there are approximately 600 nationally.

I am also the CEO of a small business called Omnifilm Entertainment, which is celebrating 46 years in business this year; we were founded in the late ‘70s. Our company produces a wide range of television and film. We produce feature films and documentary series and drama series. We just had a new series we’re making announced by CBC a couple of days ago.

Our company has approximately 20 employees, and our business model involves investing upfront in original IP, which is like a patent, or the equivalent of it, if it were an invention. If we option a book or something, we own the intellectual property. We take that and derive scripts and storytelling from it, and we produce television or film, and then we hold onto the rights and distribute that internationally.

Our company is also involved in service production, so we do welcome the work that comes from Hollywood as well.

I have three recommendations that I want to put forward today. The first one is…. With aggressive trade policies coming from the U.S., it’s more important than ever to encourage the production of Canadian content and protect jobs here in B.C. So the group of companies that the CMPA represents are headquartered here, and we own our intellectual property. We own our catalogue of programs.

For example, during the pandemic and even more recently, during the writers strike, when production declined coming from outside, we were able to survive and thrive because we control our own destiny.

[10:25 a.m.]

We sell the rights to our content to Canadian buyers. But also, currently, we’re in business with companies in Mexico and France and the U.K., and we are exporters. So we take our ideas, and we sell them overseas and retain the rights.

The second recommendation is that removing the 51 percent ownership requirement that’s currently part of the tax credit program will stimulate more B.C. production through the cross-provincial collaboration necessary to sustain B.C. companies. So this is an interprovincial trade barrier that…. Of course, these days it’s more important than ever to encourage the production and value creation in between provinces.

This requirement is unique in Canada. British Columbia tax credits for domestic producers such as myself require that we own 51 percent, but that imposes unrealistic constraints. If we’re trying to partner, it should be more like we would need 20 or 25 percent. That’s my second recommendation.

The third recommendation is to renew the domestic motion picture fund past 2026 or even increase it. This is a fund that is targeting the creation of locally owned and controlled IP, and it’s been very successful. Our company has benefited from some of the programs, and we see the momentum in terms of original productions increasing as a result of this.

With that, I will close off and open, maybe…. Tariffs certainly is a question that you might want to ask me as well.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation.

I’m sorry, I didn’t really understand the second point, the 51 percent. So 51 percent of what? I’m not clear.

Brian Hamilton: One of the major ways that the province supports our industry is through tax credit programs. The tax credit pays a percentage of labour, of rebates…. Essentially, the taxes that the workers pay. A percentage of that is rebated to the production.

It requires the production company, the producer, to own 51 percent of the project. That means if an Ontario producer comes to me with a deal, saying, “Hey, I’ve got this fantastic feature film. We’re going to film it in B.C. We’re going to do post in Ontario,” I have to say: “Well, that’s all well and good, but even though it’s your idea and you did all the work getting it here, I have to own 51 percent of it, or else I can’t offer you the incentive that I should be able to offer you.”

Steve Morissette: So you’re looking for that to be around 25 percent, give or take?

Brian Hamilton: Yeah. I mean, just something where…. We negotiate deals all the time. Just give us some constraints. And this is an example of making it easier for provinces to do business with each other, as opposed to being as U.S.-focused.

Bryan Tepper: To clarify that, would that be Canadian-owned, or can that be anybody? So you would drop down to 25 percent if it’s a production out of Los Angeles…?

Brian Hamilton: There are two tax credit programs in the province. The one that I’m focusing on is called Film Incentive B.C., and it is specifically aimed at encouraging local, domestically owned production. That’s the one that has the 51 percent requirement.

The service tax credit, which is the other program, does not have an ownership requirement, because obviously the studios don’t give up any ownership.

Bryan Tepper: Just checking. But that could be from anybody else, just as long as it’s 25 percent–owned, then?

Brian Hamilton: Yes.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much, Brian, for your presentation.

For your non-budget recommendations, have you returned to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport?

Brian Hamilton: We’re in regular touch with that ministry, and they’re very aware of our position. Absolutely, yes.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Did you have comments you wanted to make specific to the tariffs?

Brian Hamilton: What’s happening in our industry, like many industries, is just a cloud of uncertainty that is dampening momentum and making it difficult for businesses to plan. Essentially, we as a company are doing what we recommend the province do, which is diversification.

[10:30 a.m.]

We are broadening our markets towards Europe, to South America. Right now there’s a trade mission happening, as you well know, going to Korea and other parts of Asia, and we have representatives from our industry on that.

What we are advocating is to lean into this group of 150 companies who are headquartered here, who reinvest our profits here.

One easy metaphor is this iPhone. The IP is owned in California, but it’s manufactured in Asia. Much of what we do in British Columbia is we build the phone, and someone else owns the IP. But how did Apple become the most valuable company in the world? By owning the rights.

That’s what we are representing here. The CMPA is a group of small businesses who own the rights to what we do. That means we move up the value chain rather than being subject to the tariffs, which may or may not happen.

In the case of the film industry, the President has announced that there are tariffs that he would like to impose. We don’t know if it’s going to happen. It’s a seesaw, but the only rational response is to lean into our own ability to own our IP.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. Well, thank you for your presentation. That concludes, I think, the questions, unless there are any further questions. Thank you for your time.

We’ll move to our next presentation: from the Union of British Columbia Performers, Keith Martin Gordey. Good morning. You’ll have five minutes presentation followed by up to five minutes of questions from committee members. Please begin when you’re ready.

Union of B.C. Performers

Keith Martin Gordey: Good morning, and thank you for being here to hear me speak. I’m the President of UBCP-ACTRA, the Union of B.C. Performers. I’m also the vice-president of ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, which is the national organization.

I’d like to acknowledge that we live, work and play and make movies and television shows on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations.

Our union represents 8,800 members, performers who bring characters to life in the B.C. film and television industry, the recording and entertainment industry, part of the tens of thousands of British Columbians who work and pay taxes in this province. Our members are principal performers, actors, stunt performers, coordinators, dancers, choreographers, puppeteers, voice performers and background performers, amongst others. They can be seen in film, TV, animation, video games, commercials, audio books — recorded media in general.

We have a resilient industry. However, we have faced major challenges over the past five years. There was the pandemic. There’s the incoming threat — to us as performers — of artificial intelligence. There were the Hollywood strikes, corporate consolidation, and shifting business models and distribution models.

We have a situation here. It’s a highly mobile industry, so a production can just pick up stakes and go somewhere else. We really need to keep the work here.

We also have an unprecedented threat from the President of the United States. I don’t want to talk about tariffs, but I’m sure you’ll hear a lot about that.

At the end of the day, our tens of thousands of livelihoods in B.C. are susceptible to external factors that are beyond our control. We’re quite resilient. We adapt. But I’m here on behalf of our members to advocate for change that protects our livelihoods and provides working families in our industry with stability, the stability they need.

We appreciate our government is committed to investing in the film and television industry through our robust and innovative labour-based tax credit system, which means that all those tax credits are for British Columbians who are working here. That’s what it supports. It will spur investment in service production, which is, as you know, foreign companies, mostly U.S., coming in here to make their product. We’re deeply grateful, and we support this government action.

[10:35 a.m.]

However, I’m here to talk about our domestic motion picture industry. It’s Canadian companies, B.C. companies, as my colleague has just told you, telling Canadian stories and B.C. stories.

The domestic motion picture fund is a targeted investment that can increase the film and television industry’s self-reliance in the face of economic aggression we are experiencing from our neighbours in the south. Further, by financially supporting filmmakers in development and production funding, their products stand a better chance at accessing funding from federal agencies like Telefilm Canada.

Quebec has been very good at that. Their funding agency, SODEC, gives about $88 million in direct support each year, of which about 25 percent is English-language. They’ve really built a robust system there.

But here’s the thing. If you’re getting money from Telefilm, if you’re in Quebec, which has 1.1 million anglophones, which is about 3 percent of the Canadian population, they’re getting $15 million in funding. If you’re in B.C., which has 5 million people, which is 14 percent of the population, we’re getting about $8.5 million. So there’s a huge imbalance there that we need to create…. We would appreciate any time you get a chance to advocate for our fair share; we’re in.

I’m looking at the clock here, and I’m getting nervous. I got lots more to say. I guess I’ll cut to the chase.

The other thing my colleague talked about, the 51 percent requirement…. There you are. I have a flashing red light. Should I keep going?

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Keep going for a little bit. I’ll let you know when you’re cut off.

Keith Martin Gordey: Okay. You’re the boss.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): If you have three recommendations, though, maybe go to your recommendation portion.

Keith Martin Gordey: Well, I think the first one has to do with the domestic motion picture fund — that it be renewed and that the funding be increased. How much of an increase? We should consult. We should talk about it and figure out what makes sense. At least that’s what I’d suggest. That’s the main one. Advocate for us with Telefilm.

I just want to talk about if we have domestic production, what it means to performers here. If we’re doing service production, we’re day players. We get one or two or three days on a show in a smaller role, and that’s it. It’s hard to build a career.

If we’re making Canadian product, if we’re making B.C. product, we get larger roles. We get to really show our talent and our abilities, and we are world-class performers, believe me. Not only that; we work more and we actually make more money, which means we pay more taxes. That’s how that works.

I think that’s it. I’ll wrap up. I’m happy to answer any questions I can.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. Well, we’ll look to our committee members for questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. Stargate.

Keith Martin Gordey: Yes. Oh, come on. That was years ago.

Jennifer Blatherwick: My kids and I are re-watching the show.

Keith Martin Gordey: Was I any good?

Jennifer Blatherwick: I think…. Do you know what? We’ve only got five minutes, so we don’t want to take it away to….

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Wow, she had notes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I do. I always have notes.

I’m just looking at your point about increasing the proportion of provincial funding when you’re also looking at Telefilm funding from the federal government. I think I’m not quite clear on the relationship.

Did you say that if there is provincial funding to a project that it is more likely that Telefilm will also provide funding, or was the relationship the other direction?

Keith Martin Gordey: I think the first one. It’s really tough to make Canadian product. Whatever you can get to help you to make a better product. For example, if you have some money to put into post, which is the soundtrack, just that alone can make a huge difference in how good your film is. You need it all. But if there is that support initially and you can get going, you can go to Telefilm, it looks more real, and they’re going to kick in.

[10:40 a.m.]

Jennifer Blatherwick: You’re advocating for the renewal of the domestic picture fund and an increase, but you also want to have some consultation with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport?

Keith Martin Gordey: If we get an increase, which would be great, how much makes sense? I could say: “Give us $100 million.” But we need to sit down and talk about it and figure out what makes sense for you and for us and what will actually make a difference.

Sunita Dhir: What’s your third recommendation?

Keith Martin Gordey: Do we have a third recommendation?

Sunita Dhir: You said: “We have three.”

Keith Martin Gordey: Copyright. Get me going on copyright. Here’s the thing. This ties into artificial intelligence. We need legislation in B.C., and definitely federally, that will protect our work. So what happens now? If you can get 15 seconds of somebody speaking, you can clone their voice and then make it say anything.

There are performers here — a friend of mine, as well, and many colleagues — whose voices have been stolen. We need copyright protection that says your performance, that data set that is your work — you own it. It’s yours. That’s the legislative thing on copyright that we need to chase, and it needs to be federal.

They’re doing a little bit better on this in Europe, and in California there has been recent legislation to protect this kind of thing. We can get that information to you. But that’s the copyright angle.

How did I do? Is that all right? Okay, thumbs up. Good.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Actually, I think that you might have come to do a presentation last year about AI at the B.C. Legislature. I was there for that, and I was going to actually ask a follow-up just on what type of budgetary allocations may be related to any AI concerns.

Looking into AI is something that actually has a potential to affect many different ministries, including arts and culture. What type of precedence do you think we should put towards looking at the AI question in terms of the arts industry?

Keith Martin Gordey: Well, I’ll speak specifically for performers. We have negotiated…. SAG-AFTRA went on strike for a long time, and the Writers Guild went on strike for a long time, to get AI provisions into their contracts.

Then ACTRA nationally, in the independent production agreement, basically took those same provisions, and then we did it with our British Columbia Master Production Agreement recently. But it’s not enough. It’s just not enough.

We need legislation that says you own your performance. Remember Napster, years ago, when it was ripping off all these musicians of their music? Then legislation was put into place in the U.S. and Canada to say: “No, you own that. You’re the artist.” We don’t have that for recorded media beyond music, and that’s what we need.

Does that answer the question, or have I gone off on a tangent?

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): No, it does. Thank you for that. We’ll conclude your presentation. We’re out of time, but we appreciate your presentation here. I don’t have notes on your performance. I know MLA Blatherwick did. But thank you very much for that.

We’ll go to our next performer — just kidding, next presenter — who will be from the B.C. Coalition of Arts, Culture and Heritage. It’s Brian McBay, please.

Good morning. You’ll have five minutes of presenting time and up to five minutes of questions, and you can start when you’re ready.

B.C. Coalition of Arts,
Culture and Heritage

Brian McBay: I guess you’ve put all the arts people together, so thanks for that. We’d be better off performing for you, maybe, than doing this, but that’s okay.

I’m here representing the B.C. Coalition of Arts, Culture and Heritage. We are 29 arts service organizations that collectively represent thousands of arts and culture workers, cultural businesses, venues, festivals and consultants, as well as artists, of course, and volunteers. That makes up 188 communities across B.C.

[10:45 a.m.]

I have two recommendations. I can squeeze in a third if there’s time, but the first is about infrastructure. We can talk about AI, too, if you guys really want. I have some notes on that.

But as you likely know, in your communities, arts and culture spaces are closing at alarming rates. In Vancouver alone, we lost over 400,000 square feet of cultural space over a ten-year period. If you quantify that with today’s math, that’s $3.3 billion in cultural infrastructure.

We know that the B.C. arts and culture economy is very strong. We do have an $8.6 billion GDP effect. We have 155,000 workers. Those are clean jobs that we can invest in. But it’s under threat. We know that arts tourism generates three times the economic impact of regular tourism.

B.C. arts funding levels haven’t kept up with rising rents and real estate costs. Between 2013 and 2023, commercial rents increased by 270 percent, based on Stats Canada. At the same time, the B.C. Arts Council has received a 25 percent increase. That change results in more and more existing cultural funding being absorbed in the commercial real estate market.

The B.C. Arts Council has a $4 million arts infrastructure fund. That new fund has been very critical for small-scale renovations and retooling. As well, there have been major funding investments in the Royal B.C. Museum as well as the Vancouver Art Gallery and the Chinese Canadian Museum, but this does not adequately address redeveloping and acquiring spaces.

This is particularly true for Indigenous, rural and ethnocultural communities throughout B.C. Despite having the highest concentration of creative talent in Canada, B.C. lacks a comprehensive investment into infrastructure for the arts, and that endangers this industrious workforce where, really, our main resource is our imagination. That’s one of the cleanest resources out there.

What are other provinces doing about it? Alberta, in partnership with the city of Calgary, has invested $660 million in the largest cultural infrastructure project in Canada. Ontario has put in place an arts and culture rezoning tax, which reduces property taxes for arts and culture groups significantly. They’ve also invested in the creation of a land trust model for the acquisition of properties, to remove them from the speculative market. And lastly, Quebec, of course, has the largest investment in arts and culture, with a $1.96 billion infrastructure fund over ten years.

While Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are taking these significant actions to make arts more affordable but also safeguarding this important economy and growing it, British Columbia — Vancouver and other places across B.C. — has no particular infrastructure plan for arts and culture.

The recommendation I’d like to make is for a $100 million investment per year for three years in cultural infrastructure. In particular, our recommendation is the creation of an independent land trust for culture, a creative land trust.

This would result in 20 to 30 announceable projects per year for three years in communities across B.C. An inaugural board would be made up of representatives across the region as well as reputable arts and community leaders and experts from the real estate industry. This model is being used across the world, so I’m happy to talk a bit more about that. It also is a way of attracting foundation and private investment.

The second recommendation is around the B.C. Arts Council. As you know, the Union of B.C. Municipalities has made a recommendation for B.C. Arts Council funding to be increased to $58 million per year. As an example, Quebec funds $160 million a year. This request is really critical for funding and enabling innovation and access to diverse communities to tell important stories and community memory.

I’ll leave it at that.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great, thank you. We’ll look to committee members for questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Land trust. You’re proposing that the government would put in funding as well as hold land in trust for arts organizations to co-own and then possibly, say, collaboratively amongst many organizations own a building or land and then maintain that in cooperation with the provincial government?

[10:50 a.m.]

Brian McBay: Our proposal would be that there’s an independent non-profit, basically, a state-owned enterprise — or you could call it an enterprise that’s separate from the state but is invested in by the state — and that there would be provincial representatives on the board but that the operation would be independent. The governance structure with real estate would be these co-ownership opportunities, as well as lease-to-own opportunities for non-profits.

We’ve done about ten years of studies independently around land and real estate, partly with my other hat. I run the largest arts and culture space operator in B.C., and we provide housing for low-income artists and families, as well as cultural spaces. We’ve seen how real estate ultimately…. The lift in land is just too difficult for rent rates to keep up with.

We’re looking for, effectively, a grandparent who can help with a down payment to support communities across B.C., non-profits across B.C., to get into an ownership position.

This basically recycles pre-existing investment from the B.C. Arts Council that are going into operating grants and then going into landlords’ pockets, which are continually escalating every year. So that’s just really driving a wedge. We see this as a critical opportunity both to stabilize a sector under threat but also to support innovation and diversity, storytelling, cultural identity, repatriation as well, in terms of UNDRIP and DRIPA. There are two DRIPA actions that we see a connection to.

Steve Morissette: You mentioned an inaugural board from across the region. What region?

Brian McBay: B.C. We’re thinking it would be 11 board members, but five would be across the different regions of B.C. You’d have six that are more in the community and real estate sector.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation. I see no further questions from the committee.

We’ll move to our next presentation, which will be from the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition, Coree Tull.

Coree Tull: Hello. I brought a copy of my presentation, just if it’s easier to read. I like to follow along. If that’s helpful, I can pass those out.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thanks for being here. You’ll have five minutes for your presentation time, up to five minutes for questions, and you may start whenever you feel ready to begin.

B.C. Watershed Security Coalition

Coree Tull: Well, thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. My name is Coree Tull, and I’m honoured to join you in the Downtown North Urban Watershed on the traditional and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ. I offer my respect to their people past and present.

I’m the chair of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition. We are 57 organizations, and we represent 255,000 British Columbians. Our work is really grounded in the understanding that B.C.’s future depends on healthy functioning watersheds that sustain our livelihoods, our food systems, our salmon, community well-being and all living things.

In B.C., we once again are facing the prospect of a provincewide drought, which has become all too frequent in the past years. Fuelled by climate change and made worse by the degradation of our watersheds, communities like McBride, Tofino and Gibsons are facing the hard truth again: will their communities run out of water?

Water insecurity is disrupting agriculture, tourism, forestry and energy year after year. There’s no version of B.C. being Canada’s economic engine without the healthy watersheds that support the water we drink, the food we eat, the nature we love and the places we call home.

B.C.’s watershed workforce, the people who restore and manage our watersheds, currently supports more than 47,000 jobs from backhoe operators to biologists, planners and Indigenous guardians, and it adds $5 billion in GDP to B.C.’s economy every year. That’s more than agriculture, and it’s equal to mining.

With investments in watershed security, we can break the costly cycle of crisis response and build lasting resilience for our communities and our economy.

Today, on behalf of our coalition, I’m bringing forward two specific recommendations for Budget 2026. The first is to raise industrial water rental rates and dedicate $50 million annually in water rental revenue to the B.C. watershed security fund to grow the watershed workforce.

[10:55 a.m.]

B.C. has a clear opportunity right now to unlock new revenue by updating outdated industrial water rental rates. The highest rate industry pays in B.C. right now is $2.25 per million litres of water, and many pay less than that. Some global companies pay only $5 for an Olympic-sized swimming pool of water. That’s less than a pint of beer, and it’s far more than what everyday British Columbians are paying.

B.C.’s rates are far below other provinces as well. The minimum charged in Saskatchewan is $17; in Quebec, $35; in Nova Scotia, $145; and in Ontario and Quebec, rates reach as high as $500. That’s up to 22,000 percent more than what industry is paying in British Columbia. At these rates, we’re essentially giving water away, not even covering basic licensing costs, let alone the staff, the data and planning needed for a robust water management system.

Aligning B.C.’s rates with Quebec would unlock at least $85 million a year in additional revenue, and the costs remain negligible for industry and well below material thresholds. British Columbians support this approach by a two-to-one margin.

One hundred percent of water rental right now in the province goes to general revenue. By dedicating $50 million annually to the watershed security fund, which is an established, co-developed mechanism, we could create 2½ thousand to 3½ thousand jobs in the next three years and up to 10,000 over the next decade.

Between 2021 and 2024, provincial investments in watershed security initiatives supported 1,800 jobs in hundreds of community-led projects across nations, non-profits and the private sector. This strengthened public safety, food security and local economies.

In Budget 2025, we saw cuts of up to 80 percent in watershed security funding. This is eroding front-line capacity, and it’s creating a public safety and business risk that we just can’t afford to ignore.

In southeast B.C., Living Lakes Canada created a 150-site water monitoring network to support drought response, drinking water management, irrigation for agriculture and wildfire preparedness. This is the kind of climate-smart infrastructure we need more of in B.C. But without sustained funding, it’s already being scaled back. We’re losing jobs, and critical data gaps are putting communities at risk.

Investing in watershed security grows the skilled workforce, and it protects water. It strengthens rural communities and economies, and it builds lasting resilience.

My second recommendation today is to allocate $5 million to $10 million per year to support local watershed boards. B.C. is one of the only provinces without a formal system for local watershed governance, so water decisions are fragmented rather than them being made at the right scale by the people who know their watersheds best.

By establishing a system of watershed boards across B.C., we can really harness this local expertise. We can empower communities, and we can create lasting solutions for our community watersheds.

We need local watershed boards that are co-governed by nations and local governments that are inclusive of agriculture and conservation and community leaders to really harness that local expertise, coordinate planning and create lasting solutions for their local water challenges.

We’re seeing this work in the Cowichan, where year after year, based off of the collaboration that’s happening there, they’re minimizing conflict during drought, and they’re minimizing the costs to that community.

We know that 74 percent of British Columbians support the creation of watershed boards. So that $5 million to $10 million investment would empower communities to really act early, reduce social conflict and take pressure off of provincial systems.

I’ll just leave you with this. Budgets are about choices. B.C.’s water crisis can remain a growing vulnerability, or we can choose to lead. By investing in watershed security, we can future-proof our communities, we can grow our economy, and we can build lasting resilience.

Thank you for your time. I welcome questions, and I look forward to working with all of you to secure B.C.’s water future.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. Thank you very much.

Any questions from committee members?

Steve Morissette: You’re recommending the industry price for water go to Quebec’s rate of $35?

Coree Tull: We’re using the rate in Quebec as an example of what is possible in British Columbia. A review would need to take place. There hasn’t been a review of our industrial water rental rates for nearly a decade. If B.C. were to increase its industrial water rental rates to match that of Quebec, we could create $85 million in additional revenue.

Just to put that in perspective, I crunched some numbers. With an increase to $35, if we were to look at the Teck Highland Valley copper mine, in 2024 they reported $220 million in gross profit. If rates were increased from the current $2.25 to $35 per million litres, that would impact just 0.7 percent of their profit. That’s 1 percent of their profit.

[11:00 a.m.]

Then, even more in perspective, the amount of water that Teck Highland Copper mine uses is 58 billion litres of water a year. That’s slightly more than all of the residents of Victoria. However, the residents in Victoria pay $109 million a year for that water, whereas Teck pays $102,000. Essentially, 400 residents in Victoria are paying the same amount for their water, for the entire city, as Teck Highland Copper mine is. So British Columbians in Victoria are paying over 1,000 times more than industry for the same amount of water.

Steve Morissette: Thank you. That’s an interesting perspective, for sure.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Any further questions from the committee?

I see no further questions, so we’ll move to our next presenter.

We had several other groups bring forward watershed presentations, so I hope you don’t feel bummed that only one MLA asked you a question. We’ve got a lot of information on this. I appreciate the presentation today.

Coree Tull: I don’t. Thank you so much. I do know some of our members are also presenting, as well, as watershed security is such an important issue right now.

Thank you for your time. Enjoy the rest of the afternoon.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. You too.

We’ll move on to our next presentation from the B.C. Gaming Industry Association, Shiera Stuart.

Hello. You’ll have five minutes for presenting time, followed by up to five minutes of questions by MLAs.

B.C. Gaming Industry Association

Shiera Stuart: Can’t do anything without my glasses. Okay, we’re running early. I thought I had five more minutes to breathe, but we’re good now. I’m ready to go.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay. Start when you’re ready.

Shiera Stuart: Good morning, everyone. My name is Shiera Stuart, and I’m the chairperson of the B.C. Gaming Industry Association. On behalf of all of us at the BCGIA, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present today.

I will provide a quick industry overview and then address the two biggest issues facing our industry and then provide three recommendations as requested. Right now there are 20 casinos, 16 community gaming centres and one bingo hall in British Columbia, and 35 of these 37 locations are members of the BCGIA. So it’s pretty safe to say we represent about 97 percent of all industry operators in British Columbia.

Our members employ thousands of people across B.C. and generate many hundreds of millions of dollars in employment income. Collectively, casinos and gaming centres serve as one of the highest and most reliable sources of provincial government revenues. In 2023-2024, casinos, community gaming and bingo operations generated revenue of $1.87 billion in net income and no less than $935 million for BCLC.

The bulk of this income is redistributed to support programs in health, education and other critical areas throughout the provincial government. Municipalities that host gaming facilities receive a 10 percent share of net gaming income, after commissions and BCLC operating expenses are deducted. So $94.4 million was disbursed amongst 32 host local governments in 2023-2024. These disbursements, however, have been declining due to shrinking industry returns, and local governments count on these dollars for a variety of reasons.

Through the community gaming grant program, $140 million of gaming revenue is annually distributed to approximately 5,000 charitable and community organizations across the province.

Finally, First Nations annually receive $107.5 million in support through the B.C. First Nations revenue-sharing agreement.

In summary, our industry is of vital importance to the province, but we are definitely facing some challenges. Many of you who I’ve spoken to about this….

Challenge 1 is that we remain in a post-pandemic recovery phase and are really having trouble pulling out of it. The biggest impediment to progress is the low-rate commission paid by the government for the operation of our casinos. Basically, our members pay the second-highest tax rate for casinos in North America, only behind Alberta.

In recent years, casino operators have absorbed massive cost increases. Our customers have less money to spend, and many are staying home. This combination of high taxes, higher costs and fewer customers has been painful. This is expected to worsen due to Canada’s fracturing relationship with the U.S.

Thankfully, BCLC has provided some short-term temporary relief in the form of a commission adjustment which is set to expire at the end of this fiscal year. This has been very welcomed by the operators and put to immediate use, but the scheduled expiry is far too soon. It has helped to drive new investments but has only scratched the surface of what is needed to maintain the industry’s longer-term viability. More relief for a longer period is essential.

[11:05 a.m.]

Challenge 2 is that BCLC and its casino operators have experienced a significant erosion of revenues, much of it driven by illicit, out-of-country, online casino operators. This is happening here and elsewhere and is well known to all provincial governments and the federal government, but little is being done to tackle the problem.

The so-called grey market operators run their unlicensed businesses with impunity and take all their earnings out of the province. With no licence, they’re actually operating unlawfully. In the absence of meaningful enforcements, government has handed them an unfair competitive advantage. This is money that could be spent in B.C. to support government and B.C. jobs.

A two-pronged solution is required. The first prong is related to PlayNow, the longest running government-owned online platform in North America, which is owned by BCLC and is currently the only legal online platform in B.C. PlayNow is well-positioned to compete with illegal operators in developing a made-in-B.C. solution that will link existing land-based operators to PlayNow, enabling both verticals to grow market position and share in the results. But BCLC needs to move fast. This will require meaningful investment and clear decision by government to refrain from adopting an open model of regulations for currently unlicensed online operators.

The second prong relates to enforcement. Simply put, the federal and provincial governments need to do more to keep illegal operators out. Until this is done, PlayNow will struggle to capture the full share of market to which it’s legally entitled.

To summarize our recommendations and asks. First, BCLC needs to extend the temporary commission adjustment currently set to expire at the end of the year and find a way to increase it. Second, BCLC needs to invest in and move quickly to stand up a made-in-B.C. solution to legal online gaming and the government of B.C. refrain from adopting an open model of regulation for current unlicensed online operators. Third and final, the federal and provincial governments, working together, need to do more to keep illegal operators out of this province.

Thank you for your time. I’m 11 seconds over. Sorry.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): That’s okay. It was 11 seconds well spent.

Bryan Tepper: Hi. How are you doing?

I’ve asked for, I guess, when I was talking to the Solicitor General…. Pushing the model of government regulated but operated by the industry website…. I would be more interested in the industry taking over something like PlayNow and making it more operable or whatever else. I was hoping that’s what you guys were going to ask for after we had met. You’ve moved back a little bit.

But do you see that there might be an opportunity for you guys to take over operation, driving an appetite to land-based casinos?

Shiera Stuart: That’s a great question. At this time, we have a good relationship with B.C. Lottery Corp., and we have spoken to them about working with them on their PlayNow. The reason is that PlayNow is focused on the land-based casinos. If people play on the PlayNow website instead of…. I’m not even going to give them a mention, all the many other ones that are operating. They will get some sort of benefit of playing on that site that works with our land-based casinos. For example, you get X many points to spend at one of our hotels or one of our restaurants.

At this moment in time — not saying forever — we don’t have really the infrastructure or technology to kind of create our own online gaming model. Having said that, that’s something for discussion, and thank you for putting the nugget in my head. But right now, we really want to focus on making PlayNow successful, because that still keeps the money and jobs in British Columbia.

Is that…? Sorry. I don’t know if that’s your answer.

Bryan Tepper: Well, it’s slightly different, but it makes sense too. That’s what you’re looking for, anyway. Yeah, great.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I just want to make sure that I fully understand. You’re looking for some kind of integration that will allow customers who come to the online platform to get real-life benefits, incentivizing them through investing in online gaming with PlayNow to then go to local brick-and-mortar establishments in order to continue their experience?

Shiera Stuart: Correct. I’ll add on to that, if that’s okay.

Basically what we don’t want to have happen is for people to go on these other online platforms that have nothing to do with B.C. — they’re not made in B.C.; the jobs are not in B.C.; the money is not staying in B.C. — spend money there, and then all the benefits of the $1.8 billion will decrease.

[11:10 a.m.]

By using PlayNow and BCLC’s platform, all of that will give benefits to the current land-based casinos. I’m going to use Gateway, which is my company, as an example. Let’s say, hypothetically, that PlayNow says, “If you bet on this game and you win, you will get a $50 gift certificate to Match,” which is a restaurant in our casinos.

You’re giving people rewards and incentives, but for the local land-based facilities, so that they stay and play here, which keeps the jobs here and the money here. That’s what we’re really trying to do: to keep the money and the jobs in British Columbia.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. Would you like to make any comments before we conclude on what type of impact the online gaming environment is having on the ability to assist with people who may have a gaming addiction?

Shiera Stuart: That’s a great question. It’s really tough to answer. What I can say is that in our land-based casinos, we have something called an RG booth, which is a responsible gaming booth. That is run by B.C. Lottery Corp. If people have addictions, which some do, they can go speak to a professional about their addiction and they can actually address it.

The other thing we have is something called mandatory ID, where if you walk into a casino — I don’t know if any of you have been in one lately — you have to put your ID in. If you are on the banned list, if you have done voluntary self-exclusion, if you are not allowed to be there, for lack of a better word, or if you are a criminal that people are looking for, you cannot get into the casino. A red light comes up, and you can’t get in.

Online, you click a button. No one really knows who you are. There’s no one monitoring you. No one knows if you’re dumping your purse out to use your welfare cheque. In casinos, we know that. Being land-based, there are people. I don’t know if you guys have been.... There are thousands of cameras, literally everywhere from the parking lot all the way in — except for the bathrooms; none there. So there’s a lot more monitoring that takes place in land-based....

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Perhaps another reason for investment that can help anchor our land-based operations, to help with that.

Shiera Stuart: Thank you, yes.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): All right. Well, that concludes our time for your presentation. Thank you so much. It’s great to see you again.

Shiera Stuart: Thank you for all of your time, you guys. I know it’s a busy day, so we appreciate it.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’ll go to our next presentation, which will be Inclusion B.C., from Karla Verschoor.

Welcome. Go ahead when you’re ready.

Inclusion B.C.

Karla Verschoor: Well, thank you all. For those of you who don’t know, Inclusion B.C. is a provincial federation that advocates for the rights of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities across their lifespan. We’re a provincial advocacy network that supports about 1,400 people and their families with direct advocacy each year, and we’re connected to 70 community organizations that provide disability-related support, sprinkled all across the province.

What I’m coming to share with you today is what we collectively think the priorities are for next year’s budget. Because we support people across their lifespan, this may feel like I’m jumping around. There are many, many unmet needs for the people that I work for and with each day, but these, we think, would have the most significant impact in people’s lives right now and represent some of the biggest funding deficiencies.

The first one is that we believe every child deserves a strong start, including children with disabilities. Early child development is the smartest investment a government can make. It supports lifelong health, learning and economic participation. B.C.’s $10-a-day initiative is an important step forward, but many children with disabilities still don’t have access. Despite being eligible, they’re often turned away or removed from programs because centres don’t have enough staff, resources or training to support inclusive child care.

This is a matter of human rights, and it does create real harm for people. Children miss out on those early learning opportunities, and families are left without support to participate in the workforce. We urge the government to strengthen supported child development programs, which help children with disabilities access community-based child care.

[11:15 a.m.]

This requires expanding funding to remove regional discrepancies, to ensure consistent access for children; hiring and training staff; and aligning with the $10-a-day model so that affordability includes all children and not just those without disability. In consultation with our members, we estimate there’s about a $10-million-per-year deficit to allow this program to flourish and meet the needs of the population base it serves.

Early child care helps children reach their potential, supports parents to work and builds a stronger B.C. It’s not just the right thing to do; it’s the strategic thing to do to support our ambitious poverty reduction targets.

The next point I want to talk about is building a province-wide complex needs strategy. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities who also have unmet mental health needs, substance use, or justice system involvement face major barriers to getting support. These people often fall through the cracks between ministries, receiving fragmented services or excluded altogether, especially from mental health and addictions care.

Without coordinated support, people are left in crisis, leading to high risk of hospitalization, incarceration and long-term harm. We’re calling on the creation of a complex needs strategy that connects systems and provides wraparound care. This should include cross-ministry collaboration between Health, Mental Health, Education, Social Development and Justice. A person-centred planning approach that respects people’s individual goals, shared accountability across the systems and dedicated care coordination to help navigate complex needs.

We estimate the cost of a pilot to start to develop a strategy in early implementation would probably cost about $1.5 million over two years. This investment will improve the lives and reduce pressures on emergency and institutional services. B.C. has an opportunity to lead with an integrated, inclusive support for those who need it most.

My final point. There are over 700 people that are currently eligible for CLBC supports that are homeless in our province. This is a very, very vulnerable group. We really need to look at expanding complex care options for people; increasing rental supplements for those that are able to enter into market housing to enter into it; and fund inclusive housing development with community partners, particularly collaborating with those non-profit housing providers who have experience supporting people with disabilities.

When I look at the average cost of providing these services and the number of people that are unhoused, I estimate that about $4.2 million a year for at least five years could make a significant improvement in the lives of people. This strategy is essential for dignity, inclusion and long-term stability. Investing in housing reduces crisis costs and helps people live safely and independently in communities.

Each of these proposed…. Sorry, I am out of time. But we do think that these are the three most strategic investments that this government could make to support people with intellectual disabilities next year. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. It does go fast. There’s always a lot to say, especially when it comes to vulnerable people and the need for complex care in British Columbia.

Questions from members of this committee?

Steve Morissette: Well, I’ll give you an open question. Could you just finish what you were going to say?

Karla Verschoor: Each of these proposed represent an opportunity to make B.C. more inclusive, equitable and resilient. The investments we’re calling for are cost-effective and long overdue. By acting now, Budget 2026 can lay a foundation for a future where all British Columbians can participate fully in community and really bring accessibility legislation to life.

Thank you so much.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions from the committee. Thank you so much for your time.

We’ll be going to the next presentation from the Building Owners and Managers Association of British Columbia, presenter Zach Segal.

Morning. Nice to see you again. You’ll have five minutes for presentation and up to five minutes of questions from members of this committee. You can start when you’re ready.

Building Owners and Managers
Association of B.C.

Zach Segal: Thanks for having me today. Nice to see you as well.

On behalf of the Building Owners and Managers Association of British Columbia, thank you for the opportunity to present our industry’s proposal for the next budget.

My name is Zach Segal. I’m the government relations director here at BOMA B.C. We have over 300 members in the province representing the commercial real estate industry. This is largely existing commercial buildings, not residential, as often gets confused. Our industry employs over 40,000 British Columbians. We’re one of the largest industries in the province.

[11:20 a.m.]

We support the province’s mission of building a stronger British Columbia for everyone. My presentation will highlight our work in this area and opportunities for collaboration in three important areas: decarbonization, support for small business and revitalizing our downtowns.

For decarbonization, the commercial real estate industry in British Columbia is taking great strides to practically reduce building emissions. However, we need collaboration with the province to meet local and provincial climate targets.

Following the creation of the 5 percent clean buildings tax credit in 2022, there have not been any new commercial real estate industry supports. This program is not large enough to incentivize any energy retrofits that would have not already been planned. It is also not particularly competitive with other programs in North America, such as Washington state’s $75 million early adopter program. Manitoba is offering $6-per-square-foot energy savings for commercial buildings.

We think there needs to be a variety of incentives and programs available, as all commercial buildings are different. They have different needs, capital levels, various degrees of retrofit needs.

C-PACE is a commercial property assessed clean energy program. It’s something other provinces have brought in that would allow an energy retrofit loan to be repaid on a property tax bill, allowing for a longer amortization period and lower monthly payments and long-term financing. The province can lead by example by certifying provincial buildings with a certification program such as BOMA BESt.

The province needs to assist with disclosure utility data for tenants, as this is something required by the city of Vancouver. Other cities are looking at it, but it is a complicated issue.

In summary, we encourage the province to continue incentivizing decarbonization by exploring new programs.

In terms of support for small business, as several pressures continue to mount on the business community, the best solution is to reduce costs and prioritize economic growth. Office vacancy rates have still not reset to pre-pandemic levels in Metro Vancouver. Downtown visits are struggling. Overall visits to the downtown core fell by nearly 8 percent last year. The storefront vacancy rate across downtown is nearly 15 percent.

There are tax levers at the provincial level to ease the cost of doing business, such as the school tax. If the province were to explore reduction in the school tax rate, as it did in 2020, to assist in relief following the pandemic…. It led to a 25 percent reduction in the overall property tax bill for most businesses.

And finally, revitalizing the downtown cores. The crime, vandalism and street disorder we have seen since the pandemic threaten the vibrancy of our major cities and towns. Security costs are exploding for businesses in Vancouver, and this gets passed down to businesses and tenants and is absorbed in final costs for consumers.

In 2024, BOMA B.C. partnered with Leger and Downtown Van to conduct an online safety and security survey of our membership, to gain an understanding of the safety challenges. Over one-quarter of offices stated they are likely to close their office or move location due to safety and security issues. Over half the respondents consider their properties to be less safe compared to the previous year.

We encourage the province to advocate, first and foremost, to the federal government for urgent Criminal Code changes and bail reform changes, and encourage a robust return to work, which will improve the state of our city centres. When there are more people, there is less disorder. The high office vacancy rate and work from home has left a dearth of people in downtown.

We need to assist building owners with the exploding costs of property crime. The province has some measures — they recently announced the CSTEP program, which is great — but some of the costs building owners and managers are incurring are just exorbitant, and they’re rising. This gets passed down, down the chain, and is ultimately hurting the business community.

We can improve public spaces and transit options by really encouraging a robust return to work. We can improve transit options and our revitalization funds.

Finally, as I’m running out of time, we have a very high office vacancy rate. A lot of provinces are exploring high office vacancies with conversion of offices to hotels or residences, and they’re subsidizing it, because it can be very expensive. This is something we think the province should consider, as our office vacancy rate is quite high in British Columbia, although not as high as other provinces.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Five minutes isn’t a lot of time for a lot of info, but you did really well.

Looking to MLA Morissette for a question.

[11:25 a.m.]

Steve Morissette: Thank you for that. It was fast for me. You’re fast; I’m slow.

On the C-PACE loan for retrofits, how does that work again?

Zach Segal: How it would work is the province would give municipalities the approval to allow a loan to be put on a property tax bill, so it’s paid through property taxes. This would allow a lender, give them the comfort, the security to give a higher amortization rate or better terms because it’s secure through a property tax bill. It stays with the property, not with one client.

Alberta is exploring it. It’s very popular in the States. It just sort of encourages retrofits because it’s a way to get better loans, better rates. When a tenant benefits from an energy-efficient retrofit because the loan is now in a property tax bill, they’re benefiting from lower energy costs. The whole loan is spread out with all the tenants on the property tax bill.

Steve Morissette: Just to clarify, the loan is through a traditional institution, but its repayment is put on the property tax bill?

Zach Segal: Exactly. And then it’s spread out through all the tenants in the building.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. That was a great job.

Seeing no further questions, we’ll go to our next presenter, from Vancity Community Foundation, Alvin Singh.

Good morning. You’ll have five minutes of presentation time and up to five minutes of questions from our committee members. You may begin whenever you’re ready.

Vancity Community Foundation

Alvin Singh: Great. Good morning, Chair and committee members. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Alvin Singh from Vancity Community Foundation. We were founded in 1989 in the belief that by working together we can build thriving, vibrant communities. At the centre of that work is restoring housing affordability. We take two tracks for this. One is to prevent homelessness, and the second is to increase affordable housing supply.

Today I have two recommendations for Budget 2026 along those lines. The first is for a sustained funding commitment to the B.C. Rent Bank. The B.C. Rent Bank is an eviction prevention program operated by VCF in partnership with provincial funding. We provide no-interest loans and support to renters facing critical financial crises, things like illness, job loss, unexpected expenses, so that they don’t spiral into eviction or homelessness. This isn’t just compassionate policy; it’s smart fiscal policy as well.

What started in 2019 as a pilot project has grown to be provincewide. B.C. became the first province to provide 100 percent rent bank coverage. Every renter in every corner of the province can access this support. The results speak for themselves. In 2024-2025, the rent bank prevented over 900 folks from becoming homeless and helped more than 1,500 low-income households avoid eviction. This work has come at a tremendous savings, $28.7 million in 2024-25, money that would have otherwise gone to increased rents or moving costs for tenants and things like emergency shelters, health care and other social services for the government.

There’s a growing need for this funding. So 92 percent of applicants to the rent bank spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, and 70 percent spend more than 50 percent on rent.

We appreciate the government’s $11 million funding boost that recently was committed, but what we’re asking for in Budget 2026 is for the rent bank to be a core component of the government’s homelessness prevention strategy. This program keeps British Columbians housed, and it saves taxpayers millions of dollars.

Now, that’s the eviction prevention side of things. In terms of increasing housing supply, we need to do more to help community-owned affordable housing providers build homes. We help do that through the affordable community housing program. The problem that we found, and that community developers find, is that these types of affordable housing projects get stuck in the pre-construction phase.

[11:30 a.m.]

Non-profits, cooperatives, Indigenous housing providers…. They don’t have the deep pockets, resources and staffs that private developers have to get through things like the permitting phase and studies and the need for consultants. What ends up happening is these programs get delayed in that early phase.

Where we come in is that we provide early-stage financing and granting to get through that phase. We actually combine government investment, and we leverage that to go out into the community and find private donor capital as well. So the funds that get put into this program don’t get spent down. They get leveraged and grown, and they cycle in perpetuity.

The track record is strong. Since 2011, these strategic investments, totalling around $47 million, have supported over 200 community housing projects across the province. They’ve enabled more than 12,500 affordable rental homes and, in some cases, have reduced development timelines by up to 14 months. This is a proven mechanism, and it could be enhanced to get more affordable homes built faster.

In conclusion, we’ve got two clear recommendations for Budget 2026. The first is to provide sustained funding for the B.C. Rent Bank. This program, like I said, prevents homelessness and saved in the last year of our program $28.7 million, to tenants and the government. Second is to support partnerships that accelerate affordable housing development, helping community projects become construction-ready faster.

Now, these two sides work closely together. Rent banks keep people housed, while accelerating affordable housing development creates homes for the future. Both are practical, evidence-based solutions aligned with the province’s affordability goals.

Thank you so much. VCF is ready to work with government and community partners on these critical issues, and I welcome any questions that you might have.

Claire Rattée: I have two questions about the B.C. Rent Bank. First of all, you said “sustained funding,” so I’m assuming that it is already being funded through the provincial government.

My second question would be: can you just explain how the Rent Bank works. Like, how do these loans work? What’s the application process like? How are tenants repaying them?

Alvin Singh: Yeah. I’ll start with the first question. The government has come in with funding envelopes that have taken us three years, two years at a time usually. Our current funding envelope with the province expires the end of the current Budget 2025. That’s why we’re coming here for 2026.

When I say, “sustained funding,” I think a lot of community programs would say this, but I think this one, the track record speaks for itself. The level of funding savings that gets generated is significant enough to warrant an ongoing commitment from the province so that we don’t need to keep coming back year after year asking more funds.

In terms of the application process, there’s an online portal people can go to. We are a provincial network that partners with local rent banks. If you are in a community with a local rent bank, the funding flows through that local rent bank. If you’re in a part of the province that doesn’t have a local delivery partner, it goes directly from us. You go to the website, you apply — you give us information about your income, your expenses, things like that, how much money you need, the rent levels — and we determine whether or not you qualify.

Qualification means: can you pay back this loan? Then, if you can, it’s an interest-free loan that’s paid over multiple years. Our intention isn’t to add more debt to people that are already struggling. Our intention is to avoid a short-term emergency, make sure these folks remain in place.

Then for folks that don’t qualify for loans, we’re really grateful for other funding streams and philanthropic organizations that have allowed us to give grants. I’ll quickly say that B.C. Hydro has some crisis grants for folks, and many of those grants are being flowed through us. We’ve got a partnership with B.C. Hydro to deliver those grants as well.

Claire Rattée: Thank you. The focus here is that this is not long-term funding for people. This is very specific to people that are experiencing illness, job loss, like you said, very extenuating circumstances.

Alvin Singh: Absolutely.

Claire Rattée: This is not intended to be like month over month. It’s supposed to just be a very short stopgap of a month when someone is facing extreme hardship, but they would have to qualify to be able to pay it back.

Alvin Singh: Of course.

Claire Rattée: So it’s probably not addressing the issue for the lowest-income people or the people that are most vulnerable. It’s kind of that middle range where there’s some kind of hardship that is experienced.

Alvin Singh: Yeah. That was how the program was conceived back in 2011 and earlier. Local rent banks were doing this work. What I will say, though, is we’re seeing rents rising precipitously across the province.

[11:35 a.m.]

People’s incomes are stagnating, and on the horizon, we see threats from tariffs and job loss and things like that. We might run into a scenario where folks in that middle gap also aren’t being able to qualify for loan repayments because their incomes don’t quite match up.

Like I said, we’ve been lucky to be able to work with B.C. Hydro and others. Reaching Home, the federal homelessness prevention strategy, also flows money through the Rent Bank, so we were able to give grants to those that qualify.

I’ll also say that the government has other programs for folks with the lowest income, Wrap and SAFER and other supports for folks with disabilities and things like that. But there is a lot of crossover. Folks that are getting those supports are also applying to the rent bank because it’s just not enough. The level of people’s rents that are being paid, and their incomes are just not keeping pace.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. I don’t see any other questions at this time. Thank you for your presentation.

We’re going to call one more presenter here before our recess, and that is from Mortgage Professionals Canada, Jasmine Toor.

Good morning. Five minutes presentation time and five minutes for potential questions, and you can begin whenever you’re ready.

Mortgage Professionals Canada

Jasmine Toor: Fantastic.

Firstly, I’d just like to start off by saying how grateful I am at the opportunity to appear in front of this committee. I value the work that you do every day for your constituents and making British Columbia a more affordable place to live, and that’s why I’m here today.

I’ll give you a little bit of a background as to who Mortgage Professionals Canada is. We are a national industry association representing the mortgage broker channel. We represent mortgage brokers and brokerages but also lenders, so both federally regulated and provincially regulated lenders, as well as mortgage insurance providers and platform providers. So we really represent a wide range of interests across the mortgage broker channel writ large, and we advocate for housing policies across provincial governments and also with the federal government.

I’m really here to talk about three things. The first is getting the federal government to commit to CRA-enabled income verification in mortgage applications as a means of preventing mortgage fraud. The second is increasing the property transfer tax exemption threshold for existing homes. And the third is a national housing round table with participation from provinces and municipalities.

Going to my first point, our ask is really to have the British Columbia government push the federal government to act when it comes to mortgage fraud and money laundering. The reason for this is British Columbia has played a really pivotal role in terms of getting the federal government to act when it comes to federal money-laundering requirements. The Cullen Commission has been a very powerful force in that.

We know that mortgage fraud and money laundering is a big issue here in British Columbia. It drives up housing costs. We don’t want to see…. Firstly, perhaps, I can elaborate a little bit on what mortgage fraud really is. What we’re talking about here is income document manipulation and fraud. That sort of exists in two forms. The first is vulnerable consumers who are really desperate to enter the housing market are being taken advantage of by various housing market intermediaries who might encourage them to engage in fraud, manipulating their income. Individuals that should have probably never qualified for a mortgage are using falsified means to inflate their income and get a mortgage.

This is a concern because, currently, about 50 percent of mortgage holders are yet to renew. This year 50 percent of mortgage holders will renew their mortgage in Canada, and 60 percent of those individuals have not seen an increase in their mortgage cost yet. Where they may have been able to service a mortgage previously, those borrowers may be unable to afford their mortgage, and they should have never qualified for a mortgage. So there is a tremendous risk to the financial sector. Also, we don’t want people to lose their home and their mortgage.

[11:40 a.m.]

That’s one part of the puzzle. The other is the more serious: money laundering as a means of cleaning money from illicit gains from criminal activity. That is a tremendous risk in Canada. We know that the real estate industry has been deemed as a risk for this, so that’s one thing that we would like to advocate for.

While I still have some time, I’d like to talk about increasing the property transfer tax exemption on newly built homes. We really welcome that the government did that in Budget 2024. We’d like to see that brought up for existing homes as well. Just given the challenges in the current market, there are not as many newly built homes on the market. For first-time homebuyers like myself, an existing home is the only viable option.

We’d also like to see a national housing round table with participation from the provinces. That is another thing we are advocating to the federal government for.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You finished exactly on time. There’s so much to be said, actually, about money laundering and some of the risks that we continue to see here in B.C. and across Canada. I appreciate that you were able to provide, actually, a pretty good summary of that.

Looking to committee members for questions.

Bryan Tepper: What are you looking to get access to from CRA? I didn’t write it down properly.

Jasmine Toor: All we’re asking for…. We’re not asking for access to the entire tax return. What we’re asking for is the ability to validate certain line items. One of the line items is line 15,000 of the tax return, which is an individual’s total income before any deductions. That is universal to every Canadian who files a tax return. Any Canadian who earns income has this line item.

We’re very encouraged that in Budget 2024, the federal budget, the federal government committed to undertaking a study to consult with the mortgage industry on income verification. That consultation is now complete. The report is final. We are just waiting for the CRA to release that report. However, given the current economic challenges in Canada, the issue of tariffs, we want to ensure that the momentum on this file does not decrease. We’d like to see an income verification tool in Canada as soon as possible.

To provide some context, the United Kingdom has had income verification in mortgage applications for 15 years. I think that there are a lot of other jurisdictions that we can point to, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union, which have an income verification in place in mortgage applications.

We would really not be an early adopter by any means for this type of verification. It’s really just to verify…. The client is providing their tax documentation to their broker and lender. We just want to be able to validate: is this a valid document or not?

Steve Morissette: I kind of missed that piece. You wanted it to increase…. There was a property tax piece there. Could you explain that, please?

Jasmine Toor: Yes, absolutely. One of our requests in the last few prebudget consultations has been to increase the property transfer tax exemption.

We were very pleased that the government, in Budget 2024, increased the property transfer tax exemption for newly built homes to $1.1 million. They also increased the threshold to $885,000 for existing homes. We would like to see that threshold brought up for existing homes. If a first-time buyer is purchasing an existing home rather than a newly built, we don’t feel that they should be penalized for that.

Also, another recommendation is to look at some other jurisdictions, such as Ontario, for example. Ontario has not increased the threshold for — in that case, it’s called a rebate — the property transfer tax rebate, but there is no clawback. So any homebuyer….

[11:45 a.m.]

Say, for example, I were to purchase a home for $1.3 million. I would still benefit from the same property transfer tax exemption that someone would purchase, say, for example, for $1 million. I think that just allows for more flexibility. It allows for first-time homebuyers to benefit from that.

I should also add that property transfer taxes cannot be rolled into a mortgage. For example, when my husband and I purchased our first condo, our starter home…. You put every penny that you have together — I think anyone who has purchased a home can sympathize with this — for your down payment, and then you think, when you speak to your broker, that you need to have closing costs as well. You didn’t think about those closing costs, and they’re oftentimes much larger than you expect them to be.

In our instance, we had family that we could rely on. Our parents were able to help us. But we also withdrew from our line of credit. Not every British Columbian has that opportunity.

I think that it does really help. Every penny of savings does help, and I think it would be a welcome change.

We are happy with the fact that the threshold was brought up, especially for newly built. I think we’re just in a situation now where there is not as much newly built housing. The value proposition is maybe not there for the developers any longer in the higher interest rate environment. Also, with tariffs now, the cost of construction has increased as well.

Sunita Dhir: I just have a question about the newcomers to Canada. If you have not filed your taxes, how can they prove…? They don’t have any papers.

Jasmine Toor: There have been some changes at the federal level, and I know from previous work experience…. I used to work at Equifax, so I worked very closely on this file, the newcomer file, and how we can have a little bit more financial information for them if they haven’t filed a tax return or they don’t have an established credit history.

One of the things now that the lenders have done…. Actually, when I was working as a mortgage specialist for a brief period of time, for about two years…. I know from many of my new Canadian first-time-homebuyer clients that you can now use a letter from a landlord to show that this individual is making payments on time, that they’re a good client.

You can also, in some instances, use their credit bureau information from another country. For example, many new Canadians may have worked in the United States first as a temporary resident, so you can use that information as well.

We’re always looking at ways that we can help more newcomers enter the housing market. I hope that answers your question in some way

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will now be in recess in this committee until 12:50 p.m.

The committee recessed from 11:48 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon, everybody. We’ll call our committee back to order.

We’re going to begin this afternoon’s hearings for the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, back up again with a presentation from Wesgroup Properties and Beau Jarvis.

You have five minutes for presentation, followed by five minutes of potential questions from members of this committee. Start when you’re ready.

Wesgroup Properties

Beau Jarvis: Thank you. My name is Beau Jarvis. I’m president and CEO of Wesgroup Properties. I’m here today to offer a measured but urgent critique of the 2025 B.C. budget, particularly as it pertains to the housing sector and the broader economic environment that supports it.

First, housing is a capital-starved sector. Despite a rapidly emerging capital crisis, Budget 2025 fails to unlock capital at the scale required to meaningfully address supply. Homebuilders across B.C. are contending with financing constraints driven by higher interest rates, soaring input costs, including taxes, and increasingly volatile demand. The budget makes no significant provision for ways to attract the required capital to stimulate housing delivery.

The Fraser Institute recently reported that if we are to meet CMHC’s housing targets by 2031, Canada will require $1.6 to $1.8 trillion of new capital. That’s approximately $300 billion per year of capital that is currently not in the system. Housing delivery remains fragmented, and this budget offers no true provincial commitment to catalyzing the scale of construction that we need.

Secondly, over-taxation and a weakening investment climate. B.C.’s cumulative tax burden on new housing remains among the highest in Canada. The continuing application of various taxes on new housing, on top of development cost charges and community amenity contributions, is contributing to a cost-of-delivery crisis that undermines the viability of new supply. Add to this a mounting payroll tax load and one of the highest marginal personal tax rates in North America. We are losing tax competitiveness just as the capital market turns defensive.

When institutional and private capital, as well as talent, are mobile, B.C. cannot afford to be indifferent. To restore investor confidence, the province must signal that it understands the housing sector not just as a social good, but as a capital-intensive economic engine, making up, directly and indirectly, 28 percent of the province’s GDP.

Lastly, real estate taxation. The budget includes a tax measure to increase the film tax credit, which ironically seems to be offset by an increase in taxes on real estate through speculation and vacancy. The budget projects a 24 percent increase in property transfer tax revenue between the 2024-25 forecast and the 2027-28 budget plan.

Revenue from property transfer tax is equivalent to between 75 and 86 percent of the revenue generated by the province from the entire natural resource sector. Combined revenue from property is the fourth-highest revenue source for the province after personal income tax, sales tax and corporate income.

Personal income tax is the largest single revenue source in the budget, and the province’s fiscal health is tied closely to wage growth and employment levels, making this budget sensitive to economic downturns. One of the largest industries, real estate and construction, is rapidly descending into a historically bad downturn, which will have severe impacts on employment.

An estimated 230,000 individuals in B.C. are employed in construction. Another 18,000 are employed in real estate sales and leasing. A 10 percent contraction in our sector could mean 24,000 job losses, $1.8 billion in wages, meaning over $270 million in lost personal income tax revenue.

In conclusion, Budget 2025 does not meet the urgency of the housing crisis, nor does it send the right signals to private sector partners who are willing to build if conditions are stable and predictable. We need targeted capital solutions, tax reforms that prioritize housing affordability and fiscal restraint that rebuilds trust in the province’s ability to manage a balanced growth agenda. Absent these shifts, B.C. risks compounding its housing deficit and losing the economic engine that underpins our communities.

I’ll leave you with one recommendation related to housing. B.C. needs to treat homebuilding as a long-term investment, not just a tax and revenue opportunity. The province invests heavily in film, gaming, mining, transit to drive future growth. But one of B.C.’s biggest economic engines, real estate, gets none of that support. Instead, it’s taxed at every stage.

[12:55 p.m.]

From 2014 to ’21, property transfer tax revenue nearly tripled, from $1 billion to $3 billion, a windfall built directly on housing and commercial activity. Imagine if a portion of that was reinvested into local infrastructure like water, sewers and parks. Municipalities could reduce development cost charges, making new homes more viable. That’s not a subsidy. It’s smarter use of existing taxes to unlock supply, jobs and future revenues.

To be clear, I am not suggesting you increase PTT, because it should be decreased. I am recommending you dedicate some of the revenue already collected. High taxes and housing costs are choking innovation. There’s no capital left for risk, talent recruitment is stalled, and households are stuck. If B.C. wants affordability and economic resilience, it must treat housing like the critical infrastructure investment it is. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for that presentation. We’ll look for any questions from our committee members. I see no questions from the committee, so I thank you very much for the presentation.

We’ll go to our next presenter, which is the Appraisal Institute of Canada, British Columbia — Andy Pham.

Hi. You’ve got five minutes for presentation and up to five minutes for any potential questions. You may begin when you’re ready.

Appraisal Institute of Canada, B.C.

Andy Pham: Good afternoon, Chair, and thank you to the entire committee for inviting me to speak today on behalf of the AIC-BC, the British Columbia Association of the Appraisal Institute of Canada. My name is Andy Pham. I am the president of AIC-BC and a designated appraiser working in the real estate lending sector of the industry.

AIC-BC represents over 1,150 professional appraisers across British Columbia and the Yukon. It is a self-regulating body with a strong focus on consumer protection, and we maintain this through a robust national disciplinary process as well as mandatory continuing education accreditation and professional liability insurance programs

Professional appraisers are an essential part of British Columbia’s real estate market. Appraisers deliver independent, third-party market and data-driven advisory services, mitigating risk by ensuring lenders, insurers and consumers have the information required to make informed decisions when buying and selling real estate. While appraisers have a unique role in the real estate industry, a large part of what we do as professionals includes working with home builders, developers, realtors, mortgage brokers, lenders, asset managers, consumers and Crown corporations by providing expertise through reliable and trusted market valuations.

To provide evidence-based reporting on the market, appraisers rely on accurate data transparency and cross-sector collaboration. The same is also needed from government when working on housing policy to ensure effective and trusted responses from the public. The Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs is mandated to reduce costs for families and has been asked to review housing programs and initiatives for efficiency and relevancy. How is new policy working at the grassroots level, and how is it impacting all parties involved in the real estate industry?

As government continues to work towards making home ownership a reality for more people, there is an opportunity to take a pulse check with industry on the existing programs but also policy to address barriers and opportunities to achieve housing targets.

AIC-BC appraisers are committed to working with government and stakeholders within the real estate industry to ensure that all parties involved in a real estate transaction are protected. We believe that unbiased opinions of value, based on strong valuation fundamentals and transactional market data, help support a sustainable and healthy marketplace. The services of our members provide help to strike the appropriate balance between access to housing and risk. This process enables all British Columbians to prosper.

Today we are asking that the provincial government create a permanent housing roundtable, comprised of AIC appraisers and other carefully selected organizations — including but not limited to market, non-market, Indigenous, rural and urban communities, as well as public and private organizations across the housing industry continuum. The real estate sector is already collaborating and hopes to expand its reach to include all levels of government in a formal and permanent manner.

This group would work closely to review existing and potential housing legislation throughout its stages of development, assuring that new policy is considerate of the collective impact and is also pressure-tested for unintended consequences and is balanced in design. This group would also work together on the evaluation of those policies to determine whether the desired impact is being achieved or if there needs to be adjustments for improved programs.

[1:00 p.m.]

A permanent housing round table that is grounded in industry advice achieves real-time market insights, policy agility and faster implementation of solutions, particularly in the instance of crisis response. It enables governments to stay closely aligned with industry trends, making housing policy more practical, efficient and effective and also offers long-term housing strategies.

A formal round table makes it clear that addressing the housing crisis is a shared effort, and regular reporting from a collective body can serve to bolster accountability and instill public confidence in housing strategies. It can also serve as a proactive step ahead of the need of society to house its people in a responsible and dignified way.

We are privileged to have been invited here today to share how working directly with appraisers and other real estate professionals can help government achieve their long-term goals. We’re pleased to answer any questions or comments you might have.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation. Looking to the committee for questions.

Steve Morissette: Permanent housing round table. Who are the partners in there, and where do you see the outcomes leading to? Where would you give the output from that?

Andy Pham: Okay, so first part of your question is who would be part of this round table. There are a significant number of associations and organizations within B.C., both private and public, that have very strong insight into the real estate market as a whole. We have in our idea what groups would make a good composition, so that can be shared if this idea were to be advanced.

The output of that would be thoughts, guidance, advice, in terms of how current policies right now affect the market and affect people’s ability to buy housing or finance housing, but it also can serve a proactive initiative in what we might see down the road in terms of how we want to — the collective we, as in people with government and policy — enact policies that would best achieve the desired outcomes of the province.

In a nutshell, it’s still something that would be put together if the idea has legs to stand on.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Well, thank you for your presentation this afternoon.

We’re going to move to our next presenter, which is Jonathan Cooper, from Strand.

You have five minutes for presentation, followed by up to five minutes for questions, if any, from the committee. You can start whenever you’re ready.

Strand

Jonathan Cooper: Thank you very much, Chair. Thank you to the committee for being here this afternoon and for giving us this forum to share our input. I’m the senior vice president of Strand. We’re a Vancouver-based real estate development, property investment company. We have over 3,100 units of housing in development or construction across the province, including almost 1,700 units of rental housing.

My comments today will relate to those comments by my industry colleague Beau Jarvis, but maybe give slightly more specific recommendations. Beau mentioned capital. So in order to build housing, homebuilders need capital. Condo pre-sales is one of the ways that we can facilitate an increase in the housing supply.

Using a representative example of a 450-unit project in Metro Vancouver, in which we’re involved, which encompasses also 130 rental housing units and an element of affordable rental, this project is currently stalled because of a lack of a vibrant and viable pre-sale market.

So in that context, the additional property transfer tax, sometimes known as the foreign buyer tax, and the anti-flipping tax act to further discourage and cast a further chill over the pre-sale market.

[1:05 p.m.]

Foreign buyers who meet the federal government’s exemptions, wherein they’re allowed to purchase real estate in Canada, generally because of a work permit and Canadian work experience, I would argue, should also be exempt from B.C.’s foreign buyer tax for the reason that they’re legally allowed to buy property here and many of them are seeking to build a new life for themselves in Canada.

At a time when thousands of units of housing are stalled due to weakness in the pre-sale market, the anti-flipping tax just serves to further discourage buyers and investors from participating in the pre-sale market and investing in housing, because in the event that their circumstances change, they may be exposed to a relatively punitive tax, depending on the time frame in which they have to sell.

I would like to remind the committee that approximately, and in general terms, when you take a newly constructed strata condo building in Metro Vancouver, the day after completion, approximately 30 percent of those units, if it’s a 300-unit building, are going to hit the rental supply. They’re owned by investors. So that’s a meaningful contribution both to the housing supply and the rental supply that’s unlocked by pre-sales.

We would recommend that the anti-flipping tax and the foreign buyer tax should be eliminated because they act to inhibit the supply of housing. We’re in a situation now, for the reasons that Beau outlined, that we need to welcome investment into the housing supply, not deter it.

On a related note, I would also like to address the additional school tax, as it imposes ongoing and substantial costs on the housing supply and the cost of delivering a unit of housing. In the context of significant market and economic factors, most of which are outside a builder’s control….

If you take, let’s say, a parcel of land on which a builder is trying to build a rental building…. Let’s say that parcel has a value of $15 million, and they’re not moving forward with construction because of escalations in costs or tariffs or interest rates. That land will be exposed to roughly $45,000, $46,000 a year in additional school tax. All that will do is either make the project less viable or inviable, or it means that the eventual housing that’s built there has to be rented or sold for more to the end user.

So we would argue, or we would recommend, that any residential land that has an active rezoning application, development permit application or building permit application should be exempt from the additional school tax. These exemptions would generally align with the instream protections that already exist for development cost charge increases.

Then in terms of spending, as you’ve probably heard from other presenters…. Sorry. Let’s just go back a step. I’d like to call an audible here and just use another example going off the top of my head.

From that same $15 million piece of unimproved land, the taxes will be half, if not significantly less than half, of the property taxes that would be realized from a completed rental building on that same parcel. In other words, the government will have more revenue from a 50- or 60-year kind of annuity perspective if the project can actually get built, as opposed to taxing vacant land which can’t move forward because of all of these external factors which are outside of the builders’ control.

Further to my colleague Beau’s recommendation, we would encourage the government to consider that a portion of the property transfer tax revenue enjoyed by the provincial government should be reinvested in local infrastructure and possibly used to offset any short-term funding gaps from deferring DCC payments from building permit issuance to the end of the project.

One second left.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much for that presentation.

Members of the committee, any questions? Seeing no questions, I’ll thank you for your presentation, and we’ll go to our next presenter.

From B.C. Care Providers Association, Terry Lake.

B.C. Care Providers Association

Terry Lake: Good afternoon, members of the committee. Firstly, let me thank you for all your great work. You’ve just come off a gruelling session in the Legislature, and now you’re flying all around the province doing this work. So thank you on behalf of all of us in British Columbia.

I’m Terry Lake. I’m the CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association, an organization that represents providers of family-funded home health, assisted living, long-term care and independent living.

First of all, I want to just point out something that you all know, and that is that British Columbia has an aging population. Across Canada, that’s true, but in some provinces, like B.C., it’s even more acute. In a few short years, one in four British Columbians will be over 65. The fastest-growing cohort of our population currently is over 80 years of age.

[1:10 p.m.]

If you translate that into the pressure on the health care system, I don’t think it takes very long to realize that our system, which is under tremendous strain at the moment, will simply collapse under the weight of that strain if we don’t take actions now to alleviate the pressure on the system.

Of the three recommendations we’re putting forward today, the first two help to keep elders out of long-term care, and the third one improves the safety and quality in long-term care. The first one is to consider a tax credit for Aging in the Right Place. Aging in place preserves personal independence and dignity and also helps to ease the burden on the health care system by reducing the reliance on assisted living, long-term-care homes and hospitals.

The cost of home health services and Independent Living, though, can be a significant barrier to those in, what you all know as, the missing middle. If you qualify for subsidies, you get some help. If you have lots of money when you sold your home in the Lower Mainland that you bought in 1965, you have assets, so you can afford to purchase that level of care or Independent Living. But the missing middle really struggles with this.

A 2020 survey by the National Institute on Aging revealed that 91 percent of Canadians and nearly 100 percent of those aged 65 and older prefer to live independently as they age. For some people, it may be in their family home that they’ve lived in forever but need some help, some home supports, and don’t qualify for any assistance from the health authority.

For some, it may mean going into Independent Living — purpose-built facilities that have social activities, have good nutrition and exercise programs. Again, people living in Independent Living communities will be less likely to end up in long-term care or in hospitals.

We’d like the province to look at a system, like Quebec has, where there’s a tax credit for home support services that is a credit that’s given towards the cost of these qualified services. It’s not carte blanche. They have to be qualified by the province. We’ve already met with the Finance Ministry on this, and we’d like the committee to consider advocating for that.

The second recommendation is to refresh the assisted-living funding model. Currently, the model is broken. It is a combination of funding from the Ministry of Health and from B.C. Housing. B.C. Housing has not kept up with increases in inflation, and the result is that people are not building more assisted living. In fact, many of our providers are getting out of publicly funded assisted living and going just to private-pay assisted living because they simply cannot make the business run on the amount that is coming through the public system.

The ministry is well aware of this, and we’re hopeful that if we all push together, we can improve assisted living, which is, again, the stepping stone between independent living and long-term care and reduces pressure on that long-term-care system.

The third recommendation is around the safety and quality-of-life equipment for care communities. There was a Health Minister at one time who created a fund to provide capital equipment for minor capital things like lifts and wheelchairs. And this program was expanded by Minister Dix, who followed me as Health Minister, and included disinfecting and other needed equipment as we went through COVID.

That has proven to be a very successful program. It’s called EquipCare B.C. Over $45 million has been distributed to only publicly funded assisted living and long-term-care homes throughout the province of British Columbia. Unfortunately, that funding was not renewed at year-end this year.

It always came from a year-end grant from the Ministry of Health, and we know there are lots of demands on the government, and so unfortunately, it was unable to be renewed. But we have asked the ministry to consider an operating contract from their operating funds to renew this program in the future.

With that, I’m looking forward to your questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Nice to see you. Thank you for that presentation. That was comprehensive and directed. Clearly, you have some experience.

I was hoping to talk about EquipCare B.C. What was the annual budget? Was it related to application?

Terry Lake: It was always a year-end funding application. Sometimes we’d get one-year funding; sometimes we’d get two-year funding. So it really depends.

[1:15 p.m.]

When you have a budget as big as the Ministry of Health’s, and you’re not allowed to go over the budget, there’s always a little bit of room at the end of the runway. Some years that plane lands very close to the end of the runway, and sometimes not so much. This year it landed very close to the end of the runway. There were lots of demands; unfortunately, there wasn’t an opportunity to renew it.

Our association has been managing that fund since 2017, when I started it. For a 5 percent administration fee, which is a very small management cost, this equipment has gone out all around the province and really improved the quality of life for residents but also for staff. You can imagine, with lifts and proper equipment, that that’s going to keep staff healthier.

One of the big challenges we have, of course, is health human resources. So retention of healthy staff is really critical.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you for highlighting that. So speaking about the refundable tax credit for assisting seniors in accessing self-funded home services and independent living services, you think…. The tax credit would go against costs that they’ve already incurred, and they’d be applying to get it back. Are you thinking that this would include equipment purchase as well, or would this just be for services?

Terry Lake: It can be designed in any number of ways. Currently there are programs for grab bars and for making your house age-friendly. This would more likely be used for things like home support. It may be for housekeeping services. We do have the Better at Home program, but it’s very stretched and can’t meet everyone’s needs.

The choice and flexibility are really critical. If I, for my aging parents, can go and get some of these services and they can pay for them and that gets partially offset by tax credit, they can design and pick and choose what works for them. For some, that’s moving into a purpose-built retirement community and offsetting some of the costs that go against that.

It’s been very successful in Quebec. It’s not unlimited. I think the cap is around $8,000 per year, and it’s based on your income. There have to be some limits around it, of course. But it has really made the Quebec seniors sector, I would say, less likely to be reliant on the health care system.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Is there any data surrounding that?

Terry Lake: There have been some analyses. I’m not sure if that’s referenced. I’ll have to double check if we referenced it. But there has been an analysis of the Quebec model. I certainly can send that to you at a later date if it’s not included in the references.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. I actually do have a question. Some care providers had come to me speaking about challenges that they’re having because of residential tenancy changes with the limit to the amount that they can charge for rent not keeping up with the cost of services being provided. Do you have any comment that you can provide on that?

Terry Lake: Absolutely. This is in relation to Independent Living. Independent Living, as I mentioned, is purpose-built housing for seniors, and it comes as a package. So you have your suite, but you also have housekeeping. You have some activities. You have a full-service restaurant. There are a number of different things that come in your hospitality package. And those two go together.

People look for this because they know that to remain autonomous, they’re going to need some of these support services. Of course, the level of nutrition is much better as well. The RTB, residential tenancy board, has ruled in the last year — although these rulings have varied over the years — that the hospitality package is also subject to the maximum rent increase.

The rental part of the package — we saw that as rent. But the hospitality part, which is often in a separate contract, was not viewed by operators as part of something that fell under the RTA. The RTB has decided that it does, and as you can imagine, food costs and employment costs have skyrocketed. So it just doesn’t meet the needs anymore.

We are in a consultation with the residential tenancy branch and the Ministry of Housing to address this. They’ve heard us, and we are on a positive road to coming up with an interim solution.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your input on that. I appreciate it very much. Thanks for your time today.

We’ll now hear from the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association, B.C. — Rebecca Casey.

Good afternoon. You have five minutes for your presentation and up to five minutes of questions from members of the committee. You can begin when you’re ready.

[1:20 p.m.]

Canadian Mortgage
Brokers Association

Rebecca Casey: Perfect, thank you. Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for having me today. My name is Rebecca Casey, and I’m a licensed mortgage broker here in the Lower Mainland, as well as president of the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association of British Columbia.

As the voice for British Columbia’s mortgage brokers and the many British Columbians we serve, since 1990 our association has worked to advocate on behalf of its members and their customers. British Columbia is a unique jurisdiction in Canada, facing pressures that other parts of the country do not. Both provincial and federal housing and mortgage policies must reflect this reality. The Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association of British Columbia will always advocate for sensible policies in this area.

Today I’m here to advocate on behalf of mortgage brokers and our customers by encouraging this committee to work with the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association of British Columbia and the Ministry of Finance by allocating resources in Budget 2026 to reform British Columbia’s property transfer tax and lengthen the cooling-off period, also known as the rescission period.

Mortgage brokers provide accurate and unbiased advice, ensuring our customers feel comfortable making the largest purchase of their lives. Unfortunately, changes and tweaks to the B.C. property transfer tax, along with a host of related exemptions, have made homebuying a cumbersome process with a lack of clarity on the various taxes and exemptions that homebuyers may face. The regime has not kept pace with the state of the housing market in B.C. and should be altered to a more straightforward process.

For example, a 1 percent tax is applicable to properties over $200,000. When the measure was first introduced in the 1980s, it included 5 percent of property sold at that time, with 95 percent of property selling for under $200,000. Unfortunately, this tax has not substantially changed in the years since, and virtually no property in the province is being purchased for under $200,000.

Therefore, the base amount for the tax should be raised to at least $750,000, perhaps maybe more, to 1.5, to match the new home exemptions. The recent changes to the thresholds and tiers, while well-intended, have introduced confusion and difficulty in interpretation and haven’t provided quite enough support for first-time homebuyers. Navigating exemptions is particularly challenging for homebuyers when financial costs or exemptions significantly impact their financing and purchasing decisions.

To address these issues, the government should pursue a more straightforward approach. Simplifying the rules and language around exemptions and setting a clear threshold would make the process more accessible and easier to understand. This approach should also include a commitment to indexing the tax to inflation and revisiting exemptions more frequently to ensure that thresholds remain proportional to increases in housing costs.

This clarity would help homebuyers make informed decisions without unnecessary complications. It would also support first-time homebuyers entering the market, allowing British Columbians to see themselves in the future of this province instead of leaving the province due to high prices and high transaction taxes. This also helps support the rental market as first-time homebuyers move through the property ladder.

As a mortgage broker myself, I interact daily with British Columbians hoping to purchase their first home. First implemented in 2023, the cooling-off period, also known as the rescission period, has been an important tool to give homebuyers time to arrange finance, home inspections and other critical elements of their home purchase, often the biggest purchase people will make in their lives.

This was brought in as consumer protection, and it’s something that we do support, but other jurisdictions in Canada have looked at this tool as well, with Ontario announcing a ten-day cooling-off period in 2024 for certain home purchases.

The government of British Columbia should examine changes to the existing program, including lengthening the period to ensure that homebuyers, especially first-time homebuyers, can secure the necessary financing to close on their purchase. You can pre-approve a borrower, but you cannot pre-approve a property.

As the pre-eminent voice of mortgage brokers and the mortgage broker industry, the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association of British Columbia supports mortgage brokers and our customers. We appreciate being invited to present to this committee, and I’m happy to spend the rest of our allocated time answering questions from the committee members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: What is the cooling-off period in British Columbia right now?

Rebecca Casey: Yeah, absolutely.

When you enter into a contract of purchase and sale, you have a mandatory three-day period of time regardless of whatever subject-removal period you negotiate with your sellers.

What we’re seeing is a bit of a trend where right now the market is not…. You know, buyers aren’t lined up in multiple offer situations. But when those market conditions do happen, we see people relying on those three days as opposed to putting in ample protection in their subject-removal period. Inside three days, we are expected to have a property appraised, ensure a buyer can have a home inspection and read through strata documentations.

During peak transactional seasons…. We’d fully expect that cycle to come back eventually. What a great time to offload a problematic property that cannot be financed.

[1:25 p.m.]

Steve Morissette: Could you explain pre-approving a property — what that would look like?

Rebecca Casey: I wish that was something that we can do. Right now in the mortgage and finance world, we can take an application from a borrower. We can review their credit, income, assets. We can review their debt servicing ability, qualification. But there’s no world where a lender will pre-approve a property.

If we are working with a first-time home buyer buying a condo, and let’s say, maybe somewhere in the strata AGMs, there’s talk about water ingress or something that causes issues with financing, no lender will review those documents ahead of time. We do our best as mortgage brokers, but that’s not really our lane. We’re not in a position to provide advice on those kinds of things.

Further to that, if we’re talking about a detached home, if there’s an issue with the foundation or something seriously wrong with the property, or it’s a stigmatized property, a lender won’t touch that. So we’re just calling for a little bit more consumer protection in allowing people to do their due diligence.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation.

I will call on our next presenter, from B.C. Building Trades — Jordan Reid.

Thanks so much for coming to give us a presentation today. You’ll have five minutes of presentation time followed by five minutes of potential questions. You can begin when you’re ready.

B.C. Building Trades

Jordan Reid: Wonderful, thanks so much. As mentioned, I’m Jordan Reid. I’m a staff director with the B.C. Building Trades, which is a council of 25 local craft unions representing over 45,000 workers in B.C.’s building, construction and maintenance sectors. Thank you very much to the committee for this opportunity.

Construction drives B.C.’s economy, accounting for 9.2 percent of our GDP in 2024, and Budget 2026 represents a major opportunity to make investments that will have a deep and positive impact on our industry, for workers, for communities and for our economy.

The first critical investment is increased funding for trades training. The skilled trades shortage is here. Latest numbers show that we need an additional 60,100 skilled construction workers by 2034 to meet demand and to replace retiring workers. Without this skilled workforce, we simply can’t build the projects we need. SkilledTradesBC provides about $89 million annually to public and private training providers combined. Per-seat funding levels are the lowest in Canada, and total provincial funding has been virtually stagnant while costs have risen.

The unionized construction industry is keeping trades training afloat in B.C. We contribute 30 cents to $1 to training for every construction hour worked under our collective agreements. We operate more than a dozen schools, and we invest $31 million in operational funding annually. We support 5,000 apprentices and 10,000 learners in our system.

But our trainers can’t meet current demand, let alone expand to help meet projected workforce needs by 2034 with the current levels of provincial funding. So we’re calling on Budget 2026 to address the skilled worker shortage by increasing funding for trades training by $50 million for each of the next three years.

We’re also calling for Budget 2026 to take on the underground economy and the misclassification of construction workers as independent contractors by re-establishing a joint compliance team pilot program that can investigate worksites, review payroll information and enforce employment standards regulations. A previous pilot in 2000-2001 cost just $290,000 and estimated that government could regain $44.5 million in tax law revenue and $40.2 million in what was then called WCB revenue by remedying these instances of non-compliance.

A new pilot funded in Budget 2026 would be a win-win-win. Workers would win the benefits that they are already legally entitled to, good employers would win a level playing field when competing for contracts and government wins increased remittances of WorkSafeBC premiums and tax revenues that fund essential programs. Adjusted for inflation today, B.C. could regain upwards of $70 million in unpaid taxes alone. The rules and laws exist, but what we need is investigation and enforcement through a joint compliance team pilot.

[1:30 p.m.]

Another major challenge in our industry is the toxic drug crisis, which disproportionately affects construction workers. One in five people who die from toxic drugs in B.C. is associated with construction. Our construction industry rehabilitation plan, or CIRP, was founded nearly 45 years ago to provide services to construction workers in our industry. No other organization matches CIRP’s industry-specific expertise and experience providing this care.

CIRP is now working on a business case to expand its services to own and operate a bed-based treatment centre for construction workers. We’re calling for Budget 2026 to provide one-time funding for land and construction costs to CIRP to build that first ever bed-based addiction treatment centre for the construction industry.

Underpinning these recommendations is the opportunity for Budget 2026 to directly create good-paying construction jobs by continuing with its ambitious capital plan and identifying the next public projects that can be built using project labour agreements.

PLA-built projects create family-supporting jobs that drive our economy. They have high safety standards that protect workers, and they address the skilled trades shortage by including apprenticeship provisions and promoting local and equity hiring practices, all while delivering the high-quality public infrastructure in the province’s capital plans.

On behalf of the B.C. Building Trades and our 45,000-plus members, thank you very much for the time to present today. We look forward to strong support for the unionized construction industry in Budget 2026, and I’m happy to answer any questions.

Claire Rattée: The bed-based treatment centre that you guys are looking at building…. I believe I’m already familiar with this project, and I think I know who you’re partnering with on it.

Could you just provide a little bit of clarity about what it is you’re looking for government to invest there and where that project is at right now?

Jordan Reid: Yeah, absolutely. This would be a project that would be owned and operated by CIRP, which is the construction industry rehabilitation plan. It would be owned and operated directly by CIRP, and what we’re looking for from government is for government to provide the funding for the land and the construction costs.

CIRP already funds bed-based care, but it gets those beds from other providers. So it already has the funds available to operate them. We just need to build the facility. There’s currently a business case that is being worked on, which we anticipate will be ready by the end of July.

Claire Rattée: I understand you guys are still working on the business case. Do you have an actual cost or a rough cost of what the ask is?

Jordan Reid: Yeah. I should stress that this is an incredibly high-level preliminary number because, again, that business case is still underway. We expect to have those refined numbers, but at this point, the estimate would be about $73 million. Again, that’s for the land and the construction costs.

Claire Rattée: Sorry, one more follow-up.

For that cost for the plans as they stand right now, how many beds would you be looking at doing? Is there a plan for whether it’s a 30-day program, a 90-day program? Are there plans for sober living attached?

Jordan Reid: I would have to get back to you on those specific details, because it does all come out of CIRP, but what I can say is that they’re looking to replace…. I believe CIRP currently has access to 12 beds, and we’re looking to continue on with 12 and expand beyond that with this new owned and operated bed-based treatment centre.

Sunita Dhir: Thanks, Jordan. So nice to see you again.

Do you have any special programs for women trying to enter the trades, as well as internationally trained skilled professionals?

Jordan Reid: Yeah. What I can say is that through our college of the trades in B.C., which is sort of the umbrella organization of our various trades training schools, we are significant sponsors of women apprentices.

One of the things you’ll see is that when our unions are on projects, we see higher-than-average rates of women working on those projects. We also see higher-than-average rates of Indigenous apprentices working on those projects. We sponsor significant numbers of underrepresented groups to get into the trades and to be then working on these major projects.

Sunita Dhir: How about internationally trained, new-to-B.C. immigrants?

Jordan Reid: I would have to get back to you on specific numbers with regard to newcomers.

[1:35 p.m.]

Most folks are not entering the trades through permanent streams of immigration, when it comes to newcomers to Canada. But we do have a whole report on immigration in the construction industry, which I’d be happy to provide, which goes into many pages of details and analysis on all of the different streams and how many folks are coming in through the different streams and into the different trades as well.

Steve Morissette: Hi, Jordan. Your ask was to increase skilled-trades training. Your ask was $50 million per year for three years?

Jordan Reid: That’s correct.

Steve Morissette: Thank you. Just wanted to clarify that.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, no further questions. Thank you very much for your presentation this afternoon.

We’re going to take a short recess.

The committee recessed from 1:35 p.m. to 2:05 p.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’re going to end our recess and call this committee back to order, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, having presentations on budget consultations for the 2026 budget. We are having our next presentation from MOSAIC B.C., from Olga Stachova.

Welcome. You have five minutes for your presentation. You have then up to five minutes of questions from committee members, and you can start when you feel ready.

MOSAIC

Olga Stachova: Great. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to begin by acknowledging that I am meeting today at the traditional unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, səlilwətaɬ and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Nations, and I’d like to pay my respect to their Elders.

For close to 50 years, MOSAIC has been committed to improving the lives of immigrants, refugees and temporary foreign workers in B.C. as one of the largest providers of settlement, employment, language, interpretation and translation services. Today I would like to share a few recommendations that, in MOSAIC’s opinion, will lead to the improvement of the well-being of newcomers and also contribute to positive economic outcomes of the province.

First, waive the waiting period and the minimal residency requirements for B.C. MSP coverage for essential temporary foreign workers, granting access upon arrival. As B.C. and the rest of Canada face uncertainty with U.S. tariffs, focus on strategies to overcome this threat has been the centre of every level of government’s agenda. To this end, it has been widely demonstrated that achieving our goals in food, self-reliance and building infrastructure in a short time frame can only be achieved when British Columbians work hand in hand with the talent represented by temporary foreign workers.

Economic statistics show that there are simply not enough Canadians to fill the gaps for the growth in key industries such as construction, agriculture, caregiving and hospitality. Migrant workers cover these gaps and have been declared essential to produce food for our tables, build our homes and cities and care for our loved ones.

Despite paying taxes, these essential workers are not protected. They have to observe a three-month waiting period and a minimum six-month residency to be eligible for MSP coverage. Without access to health care upon arrival, as is the practice in Ontario, essential migrant workers are left to the patchwork of expensive and insecure private insurance, often ending up in emergency rooms and costing the province 4.9 times more than if they were able to visit a family physician or a walk-in clinic.

Second, funding for Canadian work experience program for recent immigrants. Lack of Canadian work experience remains one of the most significant barriers recent immigrants face to finding skills-commensurate employment.

Targeted funding would allow employers and service organizations to work together to provide newcomers with occupation-specific training and hands-on workplace experience through internships. By modelling an approach after the robust framework already in place for young people in gaining work experience through co-op placements, internships and employer incentives, B.C. can optimize the contribution of recent immigrants to the labour market and provide employers with the skilled and experienced workforce they need.

Given the pace at which technological advancements are changing the nature of jobs and the skill sets required for emerging jobs, we need to recognize the role that employers will increasingly play in the on-the-job training. For over 15 years, MOSAIC has been delivering successful programs engaging employers in the design and delivery of training programs. The programs that included a job placement component consistently led to 85 percent of clients landing full-time positions in their field of expertise.

Through our experience in supporting immigrants with credentials in experienced occupations like engineering and nursing, we have seen the significant benefit of work placements directly related to the target occupation of clients. This has led to ongoing employment in their fields of choice even before their credentials have been fully recognized. We recommend creating a permanent funding envelope for this type of a job placement program for newcomers, as well as enhancing existing employment programs, such as the career paths for skilled immigrants, with wage subsidies for paid work placements.

Three, expand housing capacity for refugee claimants. Refugee claimants arrival in B.C. has surged in recent years. The vast majority are arriving in Metro Vancouver area where vacancy rates remain critically low. Existing non-profit housing programs are overwhelmed, and many refugee claimants are diverted to homeless shelters. Most shelters had to allocate between 50 to 70 percent of their beds to claimants in recent years. These spaces are not designed for refugee claimants and often lack the trauma-informed, culturally appropriate support needed.

[2:10 p.m.]

As an active member of the Refugee Claimant Housing Coalition of B.C., a network of leading housing and settlement organizations, MOSAIC recommends that B.C. complement the existing B.C. safe haven funding with additional targeted funding to expand housing capacity for refugee claimants, specifically to match the federal interim housing assistance program investment and unlock scalable and durable housing solutions for refugee claimants while alleviating pressure on B.C.’s shelter system.

The goal is to establish a scalable, cost-effective model to address a crisis and build long-term infrastructure for refugee claimant housing, tapping into existing federal financial supports. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much. I’ll look now to committee members for questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I want to go back to one. There’s a three-month waiting period, which I am familiar with, but the six-month residency?

Olga Stachova: I can explain. If you look at our farms, B.C. farms rely heavily on temporary foreign workers who come and pick and bring food to our grocery stores. When they arrive, they come for a short time, usually between five and eight months.

When they arrive, they have to wait for three months; then they are eligible for MSP. But if they become sick and unable to work, let’s say, five months after arrival, before the six-month residency requirement kicks in, and they need to leave and go back home because the employers are not going to provide housing and keep them if they cannot work, then they are stuck with the medical bills because they haven’t spent six months in the country.

They work here, pay taxes, they became sick on the job, they have to go home, and then they are left with a bill for the medical card.

Jennifer Blatherwick: If I can explain it back, then, at three months then they stop individually paying their MSP, and their MSP will be covered. However, if they leave before the six months, they are then responsible for their medical bill.

Olga Stachova: Yes.

Sunita Dhir: Thanks, Olga, for the presentation. You talked about occupation-specific training. What do you have in place right now and what kind of occupations are you recommending in future?

Olga Stachova: I think this recommendation is mainly about the workplace component, because even through training, even after credential recognition, the biggest barrier for newcomers remains lack of Canadian work experience. No one offers you the job in your field, and you can’t get experience in your field to demonstrate that you have it.

What we are proposing is a job placement program or internship program. All employers now bought into the idea that we have to support youth. We have co-ops, we have internships, and we take summer students. When we plan our hiring, we know we’ll be supporting youth with experience.

I’m proposing doing something similar for newcomers. We’ve worked with ESDC on a pilot, again, changing the culture of hiring with industries. This is not something that we could change. Industries will have to change the culture, change the way they hire, and create those on-the-job placements in their organization.

For example, we were with Metro Vancouver, which created internships for engineers while they were getting their accreditation — because that’s a requirement for the accreditation too — so that people could get a job in their field even before they were accredited. That’s the piece that is missing currently, that on-the-job opportunity to gain the Canadian work experience that everyone requires.

Sunita Dhir: From July 1, 2025, foreign-trained, internationally trained professionals do not require Canadian work experience, but the kind of programs you’re suggesting still….

Olga Stachova: Employers, when they look at résumés, are looking for someone who has demonstrated they can work in the Canadian context. Unfortunately, that’s how hiring works. We need to myth-bust a little bit and create change in the culture and employers so that they have trust in people who have never worked. If you have candidates who worked in Canada and the ones who are unknown, usually with strange résumés and gaps, you’ll probably go for the one who has had experience in Canada.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, thank you. I don’t see any further questions from our committee. Thank you very much for coming and presenting to us today. We’re going to continue with presentations.

[2:15 p.m.]

Our next presentation is from Rainbow Refugee’s Brandon Piva.

You’ll have five minutes to make a presentation, followed by as much as five minutes for questions from members of the committee.

Rainbow Refugee

Brandon Piva: I appreciate your time today. Just as an introduction, my name is Brandon Piva, as has already been mentioned. Pronouns are he/him. I’m appearing as a volunteer member of the board of directors of Rainbow Refugee society.

For 25 years, Rainbow Refugee has provided essential support to some of the most vulnerable members and residents of our province: people fleeing persecution based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or HIV status. Vancouver-based, we are proud to collaborate with organizations across Canada to create safer pathways to communities and to provide direct support to over 900 local LGBTQI+ refugees as they make Vancouver their home.

Since 2020, we have seen a 900 percent increase in local membership, and it obviously has made for great changes for the organization and a great strain on the supports that we provide. The individuals we support are on a journey as new British Columbians to contribute financially and culturally to benefit the province, ultimately, when they have proper support to get there. The support needs for this community are particularly high, because they face combined systemic barriers as new immigrants, LGBTQI+ folks and, often, trauma as refugees.

I’m here today to discuss the challenges faced by the community we support in Metro Vancouver and, specifically, the loss of important community-support programming spaces and services. We’re deeply concerned by what has ultimately been the displacement facing Rainbow Refugee, impacting its ability to provide programming services.

For some context about what that displacement is, our offices, and historically our programming space, has been located in the heart of Davie Village, at 1033 Davie Street. That’s the location of what we have called the Rainbow Lounge, which is a multi-purpose gathering room on the ground level of that building.

Rainbow Refugee hosts a wide range of vital programming for LGBTQI+ refugees in that space. That is conducted in multiple languages, including Spanish, Arabic and English. This programming includes support for navigating the refugee claim process, connecting with legal and social services, counselling, psychosocial support, community-building and much more. The Rainbow Lounge was much more than just an office; it was a safe haven, a place of healing, dignity and hope for the community we support.

We recently lost this space. Development plans for the building have displaced Rainbow Refugee. We were denied the opportunity to renew our lease on the Rainbow Lounge, due to the landlord’s intention to combine the neighbouring space into a new restaurant. This endangers not only Rainbow Refugee’s operations but also the well-being of the individuals who access our vital programming.

Losing the Rainbow Lounge is detrimental to Rainbow Refugee members and the organization as a whole. It is also a loss for the social infrastructure of Davie Village and Metro Vancouver. Davie Village is distinct as a hub for the 2SLGBTQI+ community, which needs to retain space for community programs. The province has an interest in ensuring queer-friendly resources and programs are prioritized for LGBTQI+ communities, particularly trans people and ethnocultural groups within that community.

There’s a serious concern about a failure to reverse the historical loss of spaces serving different minority communities, including the communities that Rainbow Refugee serves. Losing these spaces exacerbates inequities and undermines B.C.’s ability to meet its human rights obligations. Losing this space leaves Rainbow Refugee society and the community it serves in a very precarious position.

Given Rainbow Refugee’s vital role, we seek your support in ensuring that we can maintain our programming in the community that needs it — in particular, in Davie Village. In terms of what we hope the province can help us address, we are seeking support for continued and increased funding to organizations like Rainbow Refugee and specifically to allow for funding for operational costs faced by those organizations. That includes necessary costs for space and administration, given the increased costs associated with inflation that we see now.

[2:20 p.m.]

I had a couple of other points, suggestions of how that might be addressed. I just went over time a little bit.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): It’s okay. You may go ahead if you have just a couple more points.

Brandon Piva: Thank you. Fundamentally, we’re asking the committee to consider what it can do to help us fund programming space within Davie Village and, through that, considering things like rent subsidies or a subsidized space or similar opportunities to ensure the important programming Rainbow Refugee society and similar organizations offer remains a resource for our high-need community.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for the presentation.

Any questions from committee members?

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you for your presentation, and thank you for the work that your organization does.

This has been a common theme that we’ve heard from several non-profits that have come to visit us today and in the past: the challenge of finding commercial space amidst the rising rental prices that exist across the province. A couple of previous organizations have asked us about the possibility of land trust, where organizations would partner with the province to purchase.

Now, you are a smaller organization than some of the other ones that have visited us today. So something that might be possible for a larger organization might be very challenging for a smaller organization like yours.

Would a land trust be something that would work for your organization, or have you focused on rent subsidies because that’s a more achievable goal for a smaller organization?

Brandon Piva: I don’t think it’s been a serious consideration of ours, partly because maybe we weren’t aware of the opportunity but also, of course, in part because we’re focusing on providing the programming and not necessarily that specific aspect of how we retain this space long term.

I’ll give some context, because in 2020…. Well, previously we shared a space with QMUNITY, which is another organization on Davie Street. We outgrew that space because, of course, of the increase in need and obtained our own space during or just after COVID. We’re relatively new to having our own space, and so we’re learning the ins and outs of that to a certain extent, and then, of course, the precarious nature of renting from a market where you’ve got competition with for-profit corporations for space.

I think that it would certainly be something we’d be happy to explore, and we’ve also mentioned with the municipality and other entities the possibility of a cohabitation type of space with other organizations or with government entities if they own space or something of that nature.

So if perhaps a land trust is being considered, then some kind of a collaboration amongst different non-profits that are looking for that type of space and to be able to then allocate space within some kind of shared land trust…. I don’t know exactly the details of what that would look like at this time, but I would like to explore that.

Jennifer Blatherwick: To be clear, that was something that people were requesting. I don’t want to create an expectation of a thing.

But it certainly has been a shared challenge across many non-profits that have visited and talked to us about their challenges — commercial space and being able to provide reliable, sustainable space for their activities and their programs. That’s the real challenge. Thank you.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much, Brandon, for all the work that you’re doing. My question is about…. Because you only serve refugee people who are here, are you working with the federal government to sponsor refugees who are facing challenges because of their sexual orientation to come to B.C.?

Brandon Piva: Yes. That is one of the programs that we run. It doesn’t require as much physical space, which is why I was focusing on the people who are already here who we support.

[2:25 p.m.]

The organization also runs a program where we assist a group of volunteers we call “circles” to sponsor individual refugees from other countries to come to Canada. And we do that across Canada. So there are people coming….

We assist other organizations across Canada to bring people to different communities, but a lot of them do end up in Vancouver and that’s where most of the people we sponsor from outside of Canada come. We do that through a federal program called the Rainbow Refugee assistance program. There is certainly some work being done to do that as well.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): No further questions from our committee?

Thank you very much for the work that you are doing. Thank you for your presentation today. I will put this committee in a brief recess while we reset with our next participants, for five minutes.

The committee recessed from 2:25 p.m. to 2:27 p.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I’ll call the committee back to order, and we’ll continue with presentations. The next presenter is Gordon Matchett. He’s from the Take a Hike Foundation.

Welcome. You’ll have five minutes to give your presentation to the committee, followed by five minutes of time for any questions that might arise for committee members.

Take a Hike Foundation

Gordon Matchett: Fantastic, thank you. First, can I congratulate you on being early today? This is unheard of. Good work.

All joking aside, committee members, I’m coming today with deep concern for the youth of British Columbia and the charitable sector. Youth experiencing vulnerabilities in B.C. rely on the charitable sector for services related to mental health, education, housing, food security, employment and recreation, only to name a few.

Like B.C. businesses and yourself and the government, we too are worried about the economy right now. A recent survey from the Charity Insights Canada Project shows 48 percent of charities are experiencing reduced funding, 37 percent increased cost of program and service delivery, and 33 percent are experiencing increased demand for services.

If charities are concerned, we need to be concerned for the youth of B.C. that they serve. The government needs to be prepared to fill the gaps, either now or in the future, in downstream social costs.

I am the CEO of the Take a Hike youth mental health foundation. We serve some of the most vulnerable youth still connected to the school system. The youth that we serve have two possible life courses. One, they can change, or two, they can end up part of the mental health, toxic drug, homelessness and public safety crises.

As of April of this year, we lost $2 million per year of federal government funding. We’ve already reduced our budget by $2 million for next year, and that meant we had to say no to three school districts and 60 youth in need of mental health support. Imagine if those kids broke their arms, and we said, “No, you’ll need to wait for treatment.”

After this reduction, we are now funded 96 percent by philanthropy. Recent data released by Statistics Canada is showing that while donations are remaining relatively stable, fewer donors are giving money. That means fewer people are giving larger amounts of money, and in Canadian society, we’re losing the middle class of donors.

[2:30 p.m.]

As charities experience decreasing funding, there is more competition to reach the donors who are still giving. That never helps anyone.

In a normal economic environment, I would be extremely confident that we could raise the $7.2 million that will be required to support the youth that we will serve next year. But during this period of economic uncertainty, donations are coming in slower than they’ve ever come in before.

In response, we have implemented cost reduction measures to reduce our budget by as much as 25 percent or $1.8 million, and that could mean a reduction of services by 25 percent in the coming year or two. We are hopeful that our committed group of philanthropists or the government will step in to cover up that gap.

I’m deeply concerned for Take a Hike’s future and, therefore, for the future of the kids that we serve. Without early intervention mental health supports, they may end up going down a path where they are reliant on the social safety net and placing additional pressure on the government.

A few years ago, Take a Hike partnered with PwC to understand the financial return on investment that society sees as a result of our work. PwC determined that for every dollar invested in Take a Hike, society sees a return of up to $13.60. If Take a Hike were to see just a 25 percent decrease in capacity, we can extrapolate from that that it would cost society $25 million in government program spending and reduced income tax income. Unfortunately, the bulk of that will be placed on the provincial government.

I know that there are many other charities that have a very similar return on investment, so the government needs to be concerned about declining funding, increasing demands on services and increasing costs faced by charities.

I have three recommendations for you to consider. First, ensure charities are provided with sufficient monetary support during this period of economic uncertainty.

Second, increase investment in the mental health of young people. While the Foundry, integrated child and youth teams and other government supports are a fantastic start, reports show that two-thirds of youth mental health needs go unaddressed.

And finally, provide emergency funding to Take a Hike in the amount of $1.8 million. Take a Hike’s donors will triple this amount and invest $5.4 million into the program. The combined amount will have a positive net impact of approximately $100 million for next year alone. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Excellent. Thank you so much for the presentation.

Questions from committee members?

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for the work that you do. This is an excellent program.

I don’t know if you heard us talking to the last presenter, but charities and non-profits are really struggling right now with increased commercial costs, increased cost of operation, increased cost of supplies.

Looking at the kids, how many of the kids that you serve are connected to other social services?

Gordon Matchett: There are some that are connected to other social services, but most of them are not. We predominantly look for kids that aren’t connected so that we can make sure that we’re serving the most youth that we have. They are all, however, connected to the school system.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So they’re K-to-12?

Gordon Matchett: Grades 10 to 12 are what we serve.

Jennifer Blatherwick: This means it’s very challenging, because there is very little independent contracted funding that you can provide. If they were a little older, you could go through the SAJE program. There are other options.

When you are working with school districts, what’s your ratio of monetary expenditure to in-kind? Are you using staffing from school districts?

Gordon Matchett: Yeah. We partner with the school district. We ask them to provide everything they’re required to under the Education Act. So they provide the teacher, the youth worker, classroom space. They provide all the education that the kids need to graduate.

We layer on top activities that are evidence-based and proven to improve engagement in mental health. We take them outside once a week to learn on and from the land. Then we provide a mental health clinician right in that classroom all day, every day, so the kids can access that mental health support when they need it. They don’t need to go and wait. They have all the barriers removed.

Jennifer Blatherwick: You’re providing one-on-one clinical support during their entire school day?

Gordon Matchett: Yes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So the cases that you are taking on are kids who have complex needs?

Gordon Matchett: They have complex needs. The youth that we serve typically have experienced more than their fair share of trauma. We use the ACEs scale to look at youth trauma, and most of the youth that we serve have three or more ACEs. Now, ACEs are things like abuse, mental health concerns at home, divorce, incarceration of parents.

[2:35 p.m.]

If a youth has three or more of these ACEs, then they’re shown to have poorer outcomes in life — economically, with their mental health and also their physical health.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for the work that you’re doing. What’s the intake process? Does the school contact you? Or the children? Or the parents? How do you help these kids?

Gordon Matchett: The answer is yes to all of those ways. Typically, we’ll partner with a public school district. We look for school districts that are willing and able to make the partnership. That’s the key to being able to have a successful program run.

Once we have the kids, we really do leave it up to the school districts to identify the youth. They know the youth best. But we often have parents and grandparents calling in and saying: “My child needs help, and I’m at the end of my rope. There are no services where I am. Can you help?” Often, we’re able to.

But my favourite way that we get kids is when they say: “I saw my friend doing really cool things on social media. Can I do that too?” It really is great when kids are able to help their friends get the mental health support they need.

Sunita Dhir: I have another question.

What’s your current funding model? What does it look like? Do you get only provincial grants, or do you also apply for municipal and federal grants?

Gordon Matchett: We receive about $300,000 a year in government funding. There’s about $200,000 of that that comes through the provincial government, through B.C. Gaming as well as B.C. civil forfeiture, neither of which is guaranteed from year to year — we need to reapply every year — and then a little bit from municipal governments.

That amounts to about 4.16 percent of our funding. The rest of it comes from individuals and corporations that care about kids — British Columbians that want to make a difference.

Steve Morissette: This program has been going on in the school district where I live for quite some time, in Trail. It’s a really great program. I think one of the good things about this is that the funding…. Because the capital needs are supplied by the school district, the money that you need, that you get, supports programming pretty much solely.

Gordon Matchett: Exactly. Yeah. I’m so happy to see someone from Trail here. Trail is where I first learned about the Take a Hike program, and when I first started, I was up there all the time learning about it. I absolutely love the Kootenays.

Steve Morissette: Awesome. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your time today. That concludes all the time that we have, and we’ll move on to our next presentation, but I appreciate your presentation.

Gordon Matchett: Thank you, committee. I appreciate the work that you’re doing as well.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’re going to hear from the B.C. Schizophrenia Society, presenter Jack Middleton.

Hello. Great to see you. You’ll have five minutes for presentation time, followed by five minutes for potential questions from the panel, and you can start when you’re ready.

B.C. Schizophrenia Society

Jack Middleton: Sounds good. Thank you so much. My name is Jack Middleton, and I’m the president of the B.C. Schizophrenia Society board, BCSS. Thank you for the opportunity to present today.

I’ll be talking about increasing support for community-based severe mental illness services across B.C.; increasing information-sharing and collaborative partnerships between B.C. mental health care systems and families; and maintaining the judicious use of involuntary treatment as outlined in the current B.C. Mental Health Act.

But first I wanted to talk about mental illness and mental health. Mental health has become a hot topic in recent years. We’ve all become more aware of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and addictive behaviours. Despite this, some serious brain illnesses, including schizophrenia, have not gotten the attention and support they so desperately deserve.

Schizophrenia is a psychotic disorder, and it leads to significant distortions of reality, including hallucinations, delusions and disordered thoughts. It affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves. It’s severe, it’s persistent, and it’s disabling.

The latest research shows that the prevalence rate of schizophrenia in Canada is 1.8 percent, which means that approximately 100,000 British Columbians have this illness. This number does not include the impact on families, friends and communities overall. The likelihood that you know someone with the illness — somebody in your life has someone in their life — is very high.

[2:40 p.m.]

Patients with schizophrenia occupy one in every 12 hospital beds in Canada, more than any other ailment, including cancer and cardiovascular disease. Those living with schizophrenia and psychosis make up 35 percent of hospital emergency department visits in B.C.

More than 50 percent of people living with schizophrenia do not recognize that they have an illness and therefore do not seek services from the health system. This makes it very challenging to provide treatment to people who don’t understand that they need help.

There is no known cure, but treatment includes medication and therapy, and it can be highly effective. With treatment, a person experiencing schizophrenia is no more likely to be violent than any other person. Unfortunately, stigma related to schizophrenia makes it extremely difficult to get support for research programs and for organizations like ours.

In 2022, the economic cost of schizophrenia in Canada was estimated to be around $10 billion a year. That includes direct health care and non–health care costs — lost productivity due to unemployment and absence from work. In advance of the 2026 provincial budget process, BCSS recommends support for the following.

First, the government of British Columbia should increase information-sharing and collaborative partnerships with B.C. mental health care systems and families. A family that understands what’s happening with their loved one is better equipped to provide continuity of care and more effective discharge planning. Families who provide continuity of care for loved ones as they shift from a psychiatric hospital to outpatient services save significant funds for the health care system.

Second, the government of British Columbia should provide financial support for community-based severe mental illness services across B.C., including voluntary supports and services.

And third, the government of B.C. should maintain the judicious use of involuntary treatment. As outlined in the current B.C. Mental Health Act, involuntary treatment is a protection for people who pose a risk to themselves or others. Without it, patients experiencing schizophrenia and unaware of their illness can find themselves caught in a vicious cycle, too ill to be discharged from a hospital but not receiving the treatment that they require. This would also mean that untreated individuals in hospitals would end up blocking beds for others who could be treated.

BCSS appreciates the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the families and the people that we represent, and we hope you’ll consider the recommendations for the 2026 provincial budget. With you, a fulfilling life for people with schizophrenia is possible. Thank you very much.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much. Just before I ask my colleagues for questions, I wanted to just give you a ten-second update that I had Bill M205 in the Legislature about improving communication between families and the mental health care system.

After the Lapu-Lapu tragedy, that bill was withdrawn with the agreement to work together with the Health Minister. Two policies are coming into effect immediately, with work already underway, from what I understand — a stand-alone policy to direct the communication between families and patients upon admission and upon discharge under the Mental Health Act. That’s one piece of good news that will involve some further consultation as well, including with Indigenous communities.

The second piece that is beginning immediately is another policy for new training across the entire province, so there will be standardized training for all staff who work with individuals who are under the Mental Health Act to improve those services.

Thank you for your continued advocacy, and I turn to my colleagues for any questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I was hoping…. Can we talk a little bit more about maintaining the use of involuntary treatment? Now, the shift that was recently made was to change who could authorize the continuance of involuntary treatment. Could you outline, a little bit more, your concerns about the changes?

[2:45 p.m.]

Jack Middleton: I’m not sure that we have concerns about the changes. I think the focus is on maintaining the judicious use of involuntary treatment. Maintaining that section in the Mental Health Act is just a core part of the health system in this province and getting people help.

I think there’s sort of a misnomer here where people think that involuntary treatment is doled out in all cases and at random. But it’s a very serious system, and it’s something that needs to be used in that judicious way, in a thoughtful way.

Obviously BCSS supports voluntary treatment, voluntary admission. We support access to psychiatrists and better services in that way. But in situations where people are a harm to themselves or others, it’s necessary, and it saves lives. It’s very important.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you for explaining.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions. Once again, I really want to thank you for your advocacy, for the B.C. Schizophrenia Society’s input and continued work. Thank you for your presentation.

Jack Middleton: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We will continue with our presentations by hearing from the Association for Mineral Exploration, from Trish Jacques.

Good afternoon. You have five minutes for presentation, followed, of course, by five minutes of questions. You may begin when you feel ready.

Association for Mineral Exploration

Trish Jacques: Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee. My name’s Trish Jacques, and I’m the board chair for the Association for Mineral Exploration, AME. AME represents 6,000 members across the province, and it’s our members who search for, discover and develop mineral deposits. Our members find the critical minerals that are needed now and needed for future economies. It’s a bit of a hot topic lately.

Every single one of B.C.’s current mines were found by explorers, found by individual prospectors or junior mining companies. I’m here today to ensure that the explorers in the exploration industry are meaningfully supported and thus able to continue providing generational opportunities for First Nations, the government and the people of British Columbia.

Our explorers have a big impact. In 2024, over $550 million was invested and over 4,000 workers were employed in the B.C. mineral exploration sector. Importantly, 97 percent of mineral exploration expenditure stays in British Columbia, with more than 150 often rural remote communities benefitting throughout the province.

Unfortunately, over the last number of years, legal and policy challenges have been casting uncertainty over our province, limiting the amount of investment in the exploration sector. Since 2022, spending on B.C. mineral exploration has declined by 26 percent, and the number of metres drilled has declined by 45 percent.

AME anticipates continuing decline in exploration expenditure and metres drilled due to the additional uncertainty created by the government’s implementation of the new mineral claims consultation framework and the recent land-use planning announced in the northwest. A declining exploration sector is happening at a time when discovering and developing critical minerals has never been more important.

Today we are bringing forward three items for consideration to assist the government in ensuring British Columbia is a desired location for exploration investment and to allow the exploration industry to effectively function.

First, the government must ensure that the mineral claims consultation framework delivers timely decisions. Mineral claims are the core mechanism that allows explorers the exclusive right to explore on a portion of land in a non-invasive manner, utilizing hand tools only.

On March 25, 2025, the government launched a court-mandated new system for consulting called the MCCF framework. This has built-in timelines, yet depending on the consultation outcomes, the process can take up to 120 days to find out if a claim application is approved to be an actual claim. It’s a massive delay for explorers and creates delays in exploration expenditures throughout the province.

The MCCF has been accepting new mineral claim applications for two months now, yet only a few claims have been accepted. Government must ensure application reviews are completed within the framework timelines and that decisions are transparent to ensure certainty in the exploration sector.

[2:50 p.m.]

Second, reducing notice-of-work permitting timelines. The notice-of-work permit is the regulatory permit that consults with First Nations and guides the work that can be done on a mineral claim, such as a drilling program. Each notice of work can facilitate an average of $195 million in expenditure dollars that gets injected into rural and remote communities. Currently, there are 130 permits sitting in that pipeline — which, if permitted, would inject approximately $254 million into those communities.

In 2016, the B.C. government had a 60-day goal for notice-of-work permits. Now in 2025, it takes an astonishing 144 days, on average, to obtain a permit, more than double. Of additional concern is the significant backlog of permits that have been waiting for several years for approval. Explorers are waiting for years to find out if exploration activities can progress.

The good news is that setting firm permitting timelines is in the Minister of Mining and Critical Minerals’ mandate letter, and we will be paying attention to ensure that firm permitting timelines are put in place.

Lastly, resourcing the Ministry of Mines and Critical Minerals. While permitting might not seem like a budgetary issue, the ministry is continuing to operate on a flat budget of $61 million, with no planned increases and all these changes. Investing in staff and resources to speed up permitting must be a vital part of the 2026 budget, to include support for First Nations capacity and consultation capacity within the ministry itself.

By adopting these three recommendations, this government can support the exploration industry, ensure that future mineral resources are able to be found and send a message to the world that B.C. is truly a place to explore and invest in.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to your questions.

That was tight.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): A lot of info in a short time, but you did it. I appreciate that.

Looking to my colleagues.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I am so new to understanding anything about minerals. So forgive me if this question is....

Trish Jacques: That’s the greatest opportunity about this.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Perfect, okay. The current…. If you want to make an application to do exploration of land, you apply under...?

Trish Jacques: The mineral claims consultation framework.

Jennifer Blatherwick: That is the new one that just came in?

Trish Jacques: It is. It was regulated by Judge Ross through the Gitxaala case. That one started implementation in March 2025.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, and the previous framework....

Trish Jacques: The previous framework was called the Mineral Titles Online system. There, if you hold a free-miner’s licence — we’re still using the Mineral Titles Online system — you go on to that system, you can pick a cell and apply to, basically, stake a claim.

The new system requires you to apply for the opportunity to stake a claim. The application goes in to the government, and then there’s consultation with First Nations to determine if that is indeed an area that can be explored.

Jennifer Blatherwick: That helps me understand. Of the 130 permits sitting in the pipeline, have they just been there since the new framework has come in? Or are those pre-existing from the Mineral...?

Trish Jacques: Pre-existing, and we anticipate more to be sitting in the pipeline because, of course, this is an additional obligation on both the government and First Nations. So it’s going to continue to delay the ability.... Especially when the ministry is under-resourced and not increasing its staff, it becomes more problematic to be able to consider those claim applications and approve them.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, we’ll go to our next presentation. Thank you so much for your time.

Our next presentation will be Viveca Ellis, from the Centre for Family Equity.

You may begin. You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by five minutes for questions.

Centre for Family Equity

Viveca Ellis: Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today. The Centre for Family Equity, formerly known as the Single Mothers’ Alliance, is dedicated to eliminating family poverty in B.C. through community-engaged research, community engagement, public policy solutions and support programs. We are a registered charity and a network of low-income parents and caregivers throughout 41 B.C. communities.

[2:55 p.m.]

We have four recently renewed strategic areas of focus over the next two years: access to quality jobs, equitable systems and services, health equity and strong social security. We work to address disability justice, gender equality and racial equity to ensure systemic change for marginalized families.

We understand the economic challenges of our present moment. Our three recommended priorities reflect this, yet strongly recommend we stay the course with B.C.’s new ten-year targets to reduce overall poverty by 60 percent and poverty for children under 18 by 75 percent by 2034.

As of 2022, over 147,000 children were living in poverty in B.C., a 16.7 percent increase from 2021, with one in six children affected. A staggering 76,190 children are living in lone-parent households.

As I am sure you are all aware, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is still being felt today. Our research with UBC on the impact of the pandemic and $10-a-day child care on lone mothers below the poverty line revealed significant job loss, income erosion and yet the profoundly positive impact of publicly funded, quality, affordable, $10-a-day child care for lone-mother-led families struggling to rebuild and re-enter the labour market.

Those who could access a $10-a-day space were able to transition back to work, access health care, community life and family well-being. It became possible to shift off income assistance to quality, full-time work and pull their families out of poverty.

However, our $10-a-day system expansion has significantly stalled. There is a dire need for more publicly funded spaces, particularly in small towns and rural areas.

We recommend that Budget 2026 provide significant funding to finish the promised project started in 2018 and prioritize the expansion of B.C.’s $10-a-day system to 50,000 spaces to ensure all parents and caregivers can work and thrive.

Our second recommendation is regarding legal aid within our family law system for low-income families impacted by family violence. Following the conclusion of our Charter challenge with the collaborative agreement established with Legal Aid B.C. and the Ministry of Attorney General announced in February 2024, progress is being made with additional hours and a new holistic clinic model that provides wraparound and significantly increased legal support for those who are low-income and impacted by family violence.

However, based on many years of community engagement, we know that existing need in B.C. surpasses legal aid thresholds, and we cannot afford to leave any at-risk family behind. Lives depend on this. We recommend to the committee that an additional $8 million per year be added to the $29.1 million already budgeted to impact an expansion of services at the two new legal aid clinics in Victoria and Surrey, their satellite services throughout B.C. and the additional hours available should the clinics be at capacity.

Our third recommendation regards the income and disability rates in this province, which remain far too low. Recent community engagement with our members revealed extreme struggles with inflation and the cost of living for those below the poverty line on fixed government incomes. They have been cruelly left behind as prices skyrocket and a tariff war poses a greater threat, causing these families significant duress and stress.

Welfare rates must be tied to a realistic estimate of the basic cost of living. The rates need to be brought up significantly, and an important shift must be made for long-term progress. Our primary recommendation today is to begin adjusting the rates every year to inflation, starting in Budget 2026, to ensure B.C.’s most vulnerable and at-risk families can eat, keep the lights and heat on and clothe their children, to name a few of the basic necessities of life they have a right to.

The Canada child tax benefit, our B.C. family benefit and our minimum wage are all tied to inflation, and yet we leave those on income and disability assistance behind. We feel such a move is fair, just, long overdue in this province and crucial at this time. Let’s leave no family behind.

On behalf of the Centre for Family Equity, thank you very, very much for your time and consideration today.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I turn to my colleagues for questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. I’m really happy to hear about the reflections on the improvement in the legal aid hours, in the income levels.

[3:00 p.m.]

One of the other projects that’s further out, in rural, remote and northern regions, is the family justice support workers that are working at — I see you smiling, so you know what I’m talking about — the Aunties project, which is a parallel Indigenous project. It’s helping people who are navigating the justice system, especially single mothers, navigate that in the courtrooms.

Have you heard anything from your members about the effectiveness? How many of them are uptaking that service?

Viveca Ellis: We don’t poll our members on how many are actually uptaking the service, but we do frequently consult them on access to legal aid. You know, we’re making progress in B.C. on this front, and our recommendation today is to build on the success of the $29.1 million investment, the new holistic wraparound service and the quality and the holistic approach that you described.

We know there is just such great need, unfortunately, and we’re calling for this additional $8 or $9 million per year for Legal Aid B.C. to expand the services and potentially more for the innovations you mentioned.

Jennifer Blatherwick: The family justice law centres, as well. In PoCo, they are so supportive of these programs. But you’re right. I think one of the things is getting to ensure that people access them and have the opportunity to fully engage with those services, to even know about them.

Viveca Ellis: Well, that’s what we hear. We mainly hear from people who don’t access services, right? Those are the ones that come to our organization to tell us their tale of lack of access. So that’s what we bring here today.

I would say, based on what we’ve heard, that there’s much more need. It would be a sound investment to protect, especially with the risk of lethality at the time of separation and during those really tenuous years when families are going through the family law system, when you’re in poverty, and you don’t have access to the resources you need in that time, let alone access to justice.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): That concludes our question portion, and we’ll move on to our next presenter. Thank you very much for your presentation today.

Next, we’ll hear from the Mining Association of B.C., Michael Goehring. Good afternoon. So you have five minutes for your presentation time, up to five minutes for questions, and you may begin when you are prepared.

Mining Association of B.C.

Michael Goehring: If I do my job, I should be just under five minutes.

My name is Michael Goehring, and I’m the president and CEO of the Mining Association of B.C. I’m pleased to be here today on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations. I’m pleased to follow my colleague Trish Jacques from the explorers association.

MABC represents 19 operating mines and two smelters in British Columbia. We’re the voice of B.C.’s steelmaking, coal, mineral, metal and development companies. Our industry benefits all British Columbians and supports more than 40,000 jobs across the province and nearly 4,000 small, medium and Indigenous-affiliated businesses in every corner of B.C. through an annual spend of some $3.7 billion.

We generated $18 billion in economic activity — most recent data, 2022 — and $3 billion in tax revenue. It’s no secret we’re facing unprecedented economic insecurity. The whipsaw of U.S. tariffs is a threat to our nation and our economy, and those pressures aren’t abstract. Every British Columbian feels them. I know you do, as do I.

Amidst this turbulence, B.C.’s mining sector can drive a new wave of economic growth and secure a stronger, more resilient future for our province and for Canada. We do have the minerals, precious metals and steelmaking coal that the world needs and wants.

We released an economic impact study in early May. We looked at 27 potential mining projects in the province. The estimated near-term economic impacts of the construction and development of those projects include $41 billion in near-term investment, tens of thousands of new jobs that will generate some $27 billion in income for B.C. workers and $12 billion in new tax revenue for vital government services. All told, the economic activity of the construction and development of those projects would be some $90 billion.

However, unlocking our province’s mining potential requires urgent and bold action, and we have three key recommendations for the committee to consider.

[3:05 p.m.]

First, accelerate mine permitting. We’re pleased to see mining and expedited mine permitting received bipartisan support in last fall’s provincial election, and critical minerals were featured prominently in the recent federal election. The creation of a stand-alone Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals is very encouraging, and the explicit recognition of the need to modernize and speed mine permitting is reflected in Premier Eby’s mandate letter to Minister Brar.

These are good signs, but words need to be followed with action. Let me put that into perspective. The last time the Canucks made the Stanley Cup final was 2011, well over a decade ago. That’s roughly how long it took to get the new Blackwater Mine approved in northern B.C., and they just formally opened that mine last weekend. That’s far too long. We must adopt a streamlined, efficient and predictable permitting framework.

Work is underway in this regard. However, I must bring to the committee’s attention that the new Ministry of Mining and Critical Minerals is funded through a reallocation of funds. It received no new funding and no lift.

So MABC and our industry, and the Premier for that matter, are talking about growing the size of the economic pie in B.C. with mining and critical minerals. To do this, new funding for the ministry and the environmental assessment office is necessary. In the absence of that new funding, we will be limited in our ability to grow that pie.

Second, support First Nations capacity and partnerships. The province must ensure First Nations communities have the governance, administrative and technical capacity to participate in reviews of mining and other major resource projects. It is time for the Crown to fund or to create a new funding envelope to support capacity-building within nations on whose lands there are projects cited, and this funding should be released well before the regulatory process begins, not after.

Further, two budgets ago, the province announced $1 billion in funding to backstop First Nations co-ownership and equity in mining projects and related infrastructure. It’s time to get that $1 billion out the door and working for First Nations in B.C.

Third, we need to expand B.C.’s electrical grid and improve road and rail access to support the development of new mines and mines extensions. In addition to the North Coast transmission line, it’s also imperative to twin the existing northwest transmission line that runs from Terrace to Bob Quinn and the Golden Triangle. There are a number of critical mineral projects in the region like the Turnagain nickel project and Galore Creek, which is a world-class gold project that can increase Canada’s copper production by 35 percent.

It’s a nation-building project and must go ahead. The province must provide a solid indication to industry that we can count on that, and the upcoming provincial budget is the place to show that.

In closing, our recommendations are about standing up for B.C. and for Canada at a tumultuous time when the world needs stable, trusted partners more than ever, and $90 billion in economic activity is on the line, along with thousands of jobs and tax revenue. Let’s get those mines built and secure B.C.’s economic future. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you. Committee members, questions?

Jennifer Blatherwick: For the northwest transmission line, you’re proposing that we twin?

Michael Goehring: That’s correct. Currently the province and B.C. Hydro are working on the development of the North Coast line which runs from Prince George to Terrace. There is an existing line above that, north of that, called the northwest transmission line, and the proposal is to twin that line.

That fits into the recent agreement between Premier Eby and the Premier of the Yukon when they were talking about collaborating on electricity, to bring electricity to the Yukon.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, that’s a massive commitment, and it would also require the projects to be in place to move, to generate the electricity.

We talked a little bit, previously, with the exploration about permitting. I understand that there is some movement underway to streamline mine permitting?

[3:10 p.m.]

Michael Goehring: That is correct. The minister is beginning to move ahead on his mandate letter direction. The ministry in terms of major mine permitting is doing work, as is the environmental assessment office. They’re doing, I would say, two things.

One is they’re learning, advancing and employing new processes as they go on the four major mines that are on the top of Premier Eby’s list of 18 projects. They’re taking learnings and applying them as they go.

Second, there is more of a systemic look at major mine permitting in tandem with industry. We’re going to be providing recommendations on roadblocks, overlaps, etc. And it is our hope that the government will receive that — we believe they will — and take our learnings and apply those as well.

Steve Morissette: The other piece I’ve heard two or three times now is some new funding for the Mining and Critical Minerals Ministry to speed up the permitting. It’s going to be tough to speed up the permitting without the personnel there. That’s what I’m hearing.

Michael Goehring: That’s correct. I think I should say, first, that more people in the ministry doesn’t necessarily equate to better outcomes. It’s about doing it smarter and reducing duplication and overlap, etc. But if we are looking ahead, and certainly Premier Eby is, with his northwest strategy and looking at critical minerals across B.C., one would assume that there would be a lift in that budget if it was an area of importance to the government and to British Columbians.

For example, AME just talked about the new consultation standard that must be used in exploration. I mean, that’s going to require…. We don’t want there to end up being more lengthy permitting timelines on the exploration side of things.

Steve Morissette: Yes, we’re certainly looking forward to getting new mines online faster and the Stanley Cup to B.C. sooner.

Michael Goehring: I’m with you on that. And I would say, when we’re talking about speeding mine permitting — for the record; it’s important for Hansard — we are not talking about…. We’re talking about continuing to respect section 35 rights for First Nations and to maintain environmental protection. You can speed permitting and do those two other things at the same time.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no other questions, we’ll conclude your presentation, but thank you very much for that today, and we’ll continue on with presentations, next calling on the B.C. Society of Transition Houses, Amy Fitzgerald.

Amy FitzGerald: Good afternoon.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good afternoon. We’ll have five minutes for your presentation and then five minutes for any potential questions from our committee. You may begin when you’re ready.

B.C. Society of Transition Houses

Amy FitzGerald: Great. Thanks very much.

Thank you for this opportunity to testify before the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services for the Budget 2026 consultation. My name is Amy Fitzgerald. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Society of Transition Houses.

Our office is located on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, but our 137 members operate on 200-plus Indigenous lands across the province.

We began in 1978 with six transition houses who came together to provide shelter and support to women, children and youth fleeing violence and abuse. Today, as stated, we support a network of 137 member organizations that represent anti-violence workers across the province who provide a wide array of women’s transitional housing, safe homes, long-term housing, peace counselling programs for children and youth with experience of violence, and the violence is preventable program that goes into schools to present prevention and awareness. Their services are making a difference in thousands of lives each day.

The mandate of our society is to work collectively to support our members, to join our voices and to join and support their work every day so that we can ensure that women, children and youth have a violence-free future in British Columbia.

Thirty percent of our members are in rural and remote locations. Twenty-three are Indigenous-led organizations. Fifty-three percent of the people served by the women’s transition housing and supports programs are women and self-identified women, and 47 percent are children and youth. On average, our houses support and house 18,000 people fleeing domestic violence across the province.

[3:15 p.m.]

Our three investment requests today focus on responding to these needs and to investing in existing successful programs to address the epidemic of gender-based violence, which has been identified in mandate letters. The Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity’s mandate letter specifically indicates that, which reflects the increase in intimate-partner violence and also femicides in B.C. and beyond.

Our first request is an increase of $10 million in the PEACE program at the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General so that all B.C. children have access to free, timely counselling services, instead of the current system that has multi-year wait-lists representing a denial of essential services. The increase in $10 million would allow for full-time hours for the 85 PEACE programs in British Columbia that are supported by the Ministry of Safety and Solicitor General, which would meet the demand.

It would also support the growth of the program. This program has not had a new PEACE program for 20 years. We have daily requests from communities that do not have the PEACE program asking for this, including Indigenous, Métis, immigrant and refugee women-serving communities. So we have 13 communities that are asking right now for a new PEACE program.

The PEACE program was started in 1992 by the transition houses to provide specialized support services for children and youth, because the transition houses identified that they were a significant portion of their portfolio, and they needed specialized support services. The services are free and confidential.

For six years, the PEACE programs have had wait-lists that have been a key barrier to accessing the PEACE program services, and 51 percent of our programs right now are carrying wait-lists. At present, in 2022 to 2024, 58 percent of the PEACE program counselors left their positions, primarily because of the challenges of wait-lists and described them as spiritual pain.

PEACE was identified by Wage Canada as a promising preventative practice to stop intergenerational violence, and we’re asking the province to recognize that and support it so that it can meet its mandate.

The second request is that the budget double the operating budgets of the women’s transition housing portfolio at B.C. Housing from $86 million to $174 million, which would meet the actual needs of the 18,000 women, children and youth fleeing violence that our members support. This portfolio consists of 159 anti-violence housing and supports programs, but the heart of the work they do are the supports programs. It’s not just housing.

Currently the operating budgets only received a 3 percent increase, with no increase in FTE staff. They do not align with the need and the demand of our houses. Food scarcity at the houses have been reported by members and women and families staying at the women’s transition housing supports portfolio. We’ve never had these concerns raised by women at the portfolio, who’ve indicated to us that there isn’t sufficient food for them and their families. Programs are relying on food banks, food shares, food donations, restaurants and bakeries to meet the needs of the people.

I’m running out of time. So I will add, quickly, that we also are asking for an increase in staffing and resources. Fifty-three percent of the women’s transition housing supports program operates with just one staff for ten to 24 hours during a day, and that is an increase from last year of 50 percent. Single staffing at our houses is unsafe and creates high stress for the staff and residents. A minimum of double staffing for the transition house portfolio should be supported by the budget moving forward and is consistent with other B.C. Housing-supported programs.

For second-stage and long-term housing, often there is no staffing on site, causing houses to send staff from the transition houses if they have staffing. Also, many of my houses do not have budgets for counselors, children and youth support workers, child care and other essential resources, such as transportation.

Finally, the last ask that we have, and I’ll skip to it, relates to the homeless prevention program. That is an existing program that only 20 percent of my members have at a cost of $4 million. We’re asking that the budget consider increasing it to $20 million, which would allow for all of our programs to have this.

HPP workers support women to set goals, find employment and develop strategies to maintain long-term safe and affordable housing. And domestic violence is a primary cause of women’s homelessness, because of the affordable housing crisis in B.C. and Canada. So that’s an existing program that’s successful but that’s woefully underfunded.

[3:20 p.m.]

I will read a quote, and then I will stop talking. This is from one of our transition house program workers:

“Single staffing and lack of support resources proves to be a major issue with our program specifically. If the government funding could be increased to allow for double staffing and more supports, the amount of support work we could do would be able to provide us and maybe meet the critical needs required. But as of right now, we cannot meet those critical needs with the budgets that we have.”

You will hear from other members of my membership across the province as you move and take testimony, and we collectively all ask that you invest in the existing front-line programs, which is an investment in B.C. and the future of women, children and youth across B.C.

Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Steve Morissette: Doubling the operational budget. Does that suffice to increase the staffing?

Amy FitzGerald: Yes. We were hoping to go from a single-staffing model to a double-staffing model for our members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Amy FitzGerald: Yeah, nice to see you. Sorry I went over. Apologies to the universe.

Jennifer Blatherwick: That’s okay. Nice to see you in person too.

I’m really hoping that while we have a moment, you could tell us more about what the PEACE program does, how it functions and how it breaks those intergenerational cycles of violence.

Amy FitzGerald: Sure. The PEACE program was started, as I indicated, in 1972. It was the transition house workers and the houses that said: “We need to set up a program for children and youth that are coming through our door, because they’re a significant part of our portfolio, but we don’t have specialized support services for them.” So they designed, in concert with foundation money from the Vancouver Foundation, a psychoeducational counselling program for children between the ages of three and 18.

They work directly with children and youth. They also work with non-offending caregivers, which are typically the moms or the self-identified moms that are supporting them. About 77 percent of the people who are receiving supports from the PEACE program right now are children and youth, and 23 percent are the non-offending caregivers.

We’ve grown the program, and we’ve currently now got 85 PEACE programs across the province. They are supported by the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, but most of them are supported at a 17.5-hour…. So it’s a part-time position for many of them, and it’s not sufficient to meet the needs. So 50 percent of them are carrying wait-lists right now, and they’re wait-lists of six months and beyond.

The PEACE program also goes into a school, if resources allow, to deliver violence is preventable, which is a prevention and awareness program. Again, the front-line workers came to us and said: “We need to get into schools and spread the word that violence is preventable and that you’re not alone and there are people that can help and I’m a person that can help.”

So in 2004, we developed the violence is preventable, or VIP, program. That program is delivered by the PEACE program counsellors in the schools. It’s a lovely hand-in-glove model, where they deliver the prevention and awareness, and then, if there are disclosures of violence, you get immediately referred to the PEACE program for counselling and to determine what other additional support services the children and youth need.

Immediate response to disclosures of violence with children and youth is the critical thing. When they don’t get that immediate response…. And it makes it easy because it’s a person they just met in the school.

We have now 75 of the 85 PEACE programs delivering violence is preventable in schools, and that’s actually because of the investment from the gender-based violence action plan, Safe and Supported, that Parliamentary Secretary Blatherwick oversees. We did receive funding to grow the violence is preventable program, and we’re really watching that and the impact on the PEACE programs to see if that’s going to increase their wait-lists.

That’s our concern, to be honest. People want to be in the community delivering this program, but they’re worried about the impacts to their wait-lists. So we’re watching, and we have a report on that that we’ll be sharing with the gender equity office shortly.

But they’re really wonderful programs, and they really represent the work of my front-line folks. They’re the brilliant ones. They’re the ones that figure it out and bring the issues to us, and then we just try and facilitate and fund them and keep them moving forward. Thank you for asking.

Jennifer Blatherwick: No, thank you. Any time we can talk about the good work that you do and what you do to prevent further violence to help children….

[3:25 p.m.]

Amy FitzGerald: Yeah. It’s identified as sort of an upstream, preventative…. Because when they go into schools, they talk to everybody. They talk to the friends. They talk to the teachers. They talk to the administrators. So it’s this whole community of folks that say, “Hey, this is happening in our community” and how we can work together to ensure that people get the supports and that it doesn’t happen moving forward.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, seeing no further questions. Thank you very much.

We’re going to move to our next presenter, Genome B.C., with Suzanne Gill.

Hello. I’m sure you’ve heard a couple times now, five minutes for presentation, followed by five minutes for questions. You may begin when you’re ready.

Genome B.C.

Suzanne Gill: That’s great. Thank you.

Good afternoon. It is my pleasure to be here today to speak on behalf of Genome B.C. We are an organization that has been foundational to the growth and success of B.C.’s life sciences sector. My name is Suzanne Gill, and I’m president and CEO.

While our work spans the entire province, I would like to acknowledge that Genome B.C.’s office is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Coast Salish people.

This is an incredible time for B.C., for life sciences and for Genome B.C. and genomics. Genome B.C. was founded nearly 25 years ago to harness the promise of personalized medicine emerging from the mapping of the human genome. That moonshot initiative to sequence the entire genome and map all the genes in the human faced immense technological and data science challenges. It took 13 years and cost $3 billion.

Almost ten years later, in 2010, B.C. had one of the first patients in the world to have their cancer mapped for about a quarter of a million dollars, and that influenced, to some degree, their treatment. Today we can do the same for a few thousand dollars. Imagine what could be possible for every citizen in this province, whether facing cancer, a rare disease or emerging public health threat, as we harness an unprecedented depth of knowledge about life at the molecular level.

With advances in life sciences, engineering and AI, we are entering a new era of innovation. Over the past two decades, Genome B.C. has invested in world-class research, first and foremost, supported innovative companies and forged strong partnerships with academics, industry, government and Indigenous communities. Through our work, we’ve helped build a strong, collaborative research and innovation ecosystem which is foundational to this country’s fastest-growing life sciences industry.

I’ll just share a few examples of Genome B.C.’s breadth of research and our impact. In health care, our research is utilizing genomic data and cancer profiling to personalize treatment. We are enabling rapid diagnosis and curbing the spread of infectious disease — the next COVID; there will be another one — advancing health equity for Indigenous communities through initiatives like the silent genomes and the Northern BioBank, improving diagnosis and outcomes for children with rare diseases, and reducing adverse drug reactions.

We take everything we learn in human health, which is almost half of our portfolio, and we go and apply it to the natural resources sector. So we also keep our forests healthy by ensuring we have climate-adaptive tree breeding programs, ensuring trees are better suited for warmer, drier conditions. We even improve copper extraction and minesite remediation by harnessing soil microbial communities through biomining.

We also strengthen food security with precise, efficient diagnostic tests for crop and animal disease surveillance. The avian influenza, for example, and chronic wasting disease are current projects we’re doing with the public system. And we use environmental DNA, eDNA, to assess and benchmark the health of our ecosystems.

Genome B.C. manages a cumulative portfolio of over 600 B.C.-based research and innovation projects with over 1,300 collaborators around the world. We’ve advanced more than 200 B.C.-based companies and generated 893 patent applications. And importantly, our work has attracted over $1 billion to B.C. for this research.

Genome B.C. is also increasingly focused on advancing the translation and commercialization of genomics to strengthen our economy. Our early investments over a decade eventually benefited companies like AbCellera, Xenon, Aspect, Acuitas, among others.

We also continue to engage and educate the public. Our Geneskool program reaches all corners of the province, and this year alone, we connected with 4,000 kindergarten-to-grade-12 students. By working with partners such as Science World and initiatives such as our summer internship for Indigenous students in genomics, we continue to inspire kids to pursue science.

We are very grateful for the unwavering support of the provincial government.

[3:30 p.m.]

By March 2026, we estimate Genome B.C.’s cumulative work to have contributed nearly $5 billion to B.C.’s GDP and created more than 51,000 jobs. The health of our people in B.C., our environment and our economy will increasingly benefit from genomics, and it all starts with world-class research first.

It’s our job at Genome B.C. to accelerate the translation of this research into real-world impacts and create value for every community in this province. This committee has exceedingly been a strong supporter of Genome B.C. and B.C.’s leadership in genomics, and I hope you will once again recommend continued provincial investment in Genome B.C.

Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Perfect. I’ll look to the panel for potential questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I remember when the Human Genome Project started, and we thought it was an impossibility to have it done within our lifetimes, and then it just accelerated. I remember using CRISPR when it first came out. Long time ago.

This ask is very non-specific in terms of budgeting and assignment, and I’m hoping you can give us a little bit more detail and specificity in what you’re looking for.

Suzanne Gill: Yeah, oh sure. Over 25 years, the provincial government has supported Genome B.C. The last publicly announced funding was $78 million for three years. With that, we can go raise at least $3 for every one of that. That’s about $26 million a year.

We’re funded at end-of-year budget, and we rely on delivering value for the province. We see value in Genome B.C. being able to do what the government needs to do to ensure that human health, first and foremost, is accessible and has available the latest technologies and innovations for our citizens and then also ensure that our economy is strong when it comes to resource development. You heard some of the examples around mitigating environmental impacts from mining, increased traffic in our marine environment from ports, etc.

Jennifer Blatherwick: And which ministry are you funded through?

Suzanne Gill: Right now…. We’re funded, traditionally, with end-of-year money from the Ministry of Health. If you go way back in the days, it was from other groups. But I think that’s the only one in the last couple of years.

Jennifer Blatherwick: And where are you in your three-year funding? You said there was $78 million for three years. Where are you in that cycle right now?

Suzanne Gill: We have three-year plans. Our next plan takes us to 2026, and we have funding for that. We are looking for funding for our next plan. It’s very handy for us to be able to have our carrot in hand when we go and partner with these groups.

I’ll just say the Canadian precision health initiative that was launched by Genome Canada out of Ottawa has federal funds, and we compete for those federal funds. When we do that, we need our provincial dollars. Our research team has just garnered $49 million of research in four or five projects, and at least 25 percent of that comes from the province’s contribution.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So it helps, when you go to apply to federal funds, if you have the guarantee of provincial funds to increase that stability for your research project.

Suzanne Gill: Yeah.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay. Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your presentation. Thank you for your time.

We’ll move on with another presentation, this time from First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society, Adrienne Montani.

You’ll have five minutes for your presentation followed by five minutes for potential questions, and you may begin when you’re set.

First Call Child and Youth
Advocacy Society

Adrienne Montani: Okay, thank you. Well, hello, committee members. Thank you for your time.

I’m Adrienne Montani, executive director of First Call Child and Youth Advocacy Society. Along with our affiliate network of over 100 member organizations — which include non-profits, professional and industry groups and unions — we are dedicated to advocating for the welfare and well-being of children and youth in B.C.

This year First Call is celebrating 30 years of doing this work. We know that child and youth issues, we hope, are on everyone’s radar. So I’ll go straight to our three key budget recommendations for 2026.

(1) targeted poverty reduction. B.C.’s child poverty rate rose by 26 percent in the two years between 2020 and 2022, a deeply concerning trend. Children in lone-parent families face a shocking 46 percent poverty rate. Indigenous, racialized and newcomer families are also especially vulnerable, as are families living with disabilities and youth transitioning out of government care.

[3:35 p.m.]

Yet we know what works. Government transfers such as the B.C. family benefit and the Canada child benefit that we’ve championed — both, for many years — helped lift 99,000 children out of poverty in 2022. They did the heavy lifting.

We find that once again we are falling behind. So we urge the province to strengthen income supports like the B.C. family benefit and social assistance rates, ensure these keep pace with inflation and expand portable rent supplements for low-income working families.

I do invite you to read all 24 of our recommendations in our 2024 Child Poverty Report Card, which touches on living wages and housing policy and other things, among other issues, and watch for our 2025 report, which will be released at the end of this year.

Recommendation 2, invest in early childhood intervention. A third of B.C. children start kindergarten with developmental vulnerabilities, an urgent signal that we are underinvesting in the early years. Proven cost-effective programs like family resource programs, child development centres and young-parent programs are starved for funding despite their very strong impact. Access to quality, affordable, inclusive child care — which is a critical poverty reduction measure, both for single-parent and for couple families — is in dire need of greater investment in Budget 2026.

Early childhood educators need decent wages so they can afford to stay in this profession. We urge increased and sustained funding for drop-in family resource programs to support parents and increased funding to child development centres to eliminate wait times for access to early interventions such as speech and physical therapies.

We also urge increased funding for high-quality, affordable and inclusive child care, including raising wages for early childhood educators to address the recruitment and retention challenges; and expand supports for urban and on-reserve Indigenous families, including the infant development support and supported child development programs for children with disabilities, who families find are often excluded from child care programs without extra supports.

Third recommendation: strengthen public education. In the school system, we find a chronic shortage of the additional hands or staff needed to support students and classroom teachers. School staff are stretched very thin. This underfunding is harming children’s learning. Some students with disabilities and unique learning needs are being sent home due to a lack of support or waiting years for educational assessments.

Many parents have told us that the lack of access to school-age child care means they can only work during school hours, trapping them in poverty. Growing school districts are paying for portables while they wait for capital investments in new classrooms.

So we urge funding for more education assistance, especially in primary classrooms and for a counsellor in every school; expansion of before- and after-school care, preferably on school sites, to support working families; continued investments in healthy school food programming, not just to help meet the nutritional needs of low-income students but also because of the multiple benefits these programs have on children’s learning and social development; and immediate capital funding for growing districts to relieve overcrowding.

Those are our three. I’ve lots. Three is hard for First Call. We have a very big coalition with lots of interests. But thank you for your attention, and I welcome your questions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay. Thank you very much for that.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Thank you so much. You do an enormous amount of work in your organization to promote the health and well-being of children, especially children who are in crisis, and it’s very appreciated.

One of the things you’ve emphasized is ensuring that we have food security for children who are living in poverty. So the recent feeding futures funding that went to the school districts has been going out, and it’s been really effective. However, my experience is mostly in urban districts, where there’s a really close communication between school staff and the kids and the parents. It’s geographically very close as well.

I know that you do some work outside of the Lower Mainland, and I’m wondering if you have any reflections on how you’re seeing that in your families outside of the Lower Mainland.

Adrienne Montani: I can’t say I have a lot of on-the-ground knowledge about that. I think you’d have to ask the school districts. Things like Backpack Buddies…. That’s more of a Lower Mainland initiative, so we know that kids still….

I mean, school food programs are really important. Lots of other countries have them, and they’re no-brainers, to have that kind of social eating time and learning about food and maybe even growing some on your school sites and all that kind of stuff. It’s great for low-income kids to get fed at school.

[3:40 p.m.]

That’s why we focus on income support so much, because families should be able to afford groceries. Whether it’s income supports if you’re on income assistance, or living wages if you’re working, that’s a better solution.

I don’t know exactly how food programs are rolling out in rural districts. I’m sorry, I can’t answer that.

Jennifer Blatherwick: It’s okay. It was a very wide-ranging question. Don’t worry about that.

Then I know that you have asked about early intervention and child care. I just wanted to say thank you for focusing on reserve care as well. That’s one where the province navigates that space with the federal government as well, but it’s an important area that requires attention. I appreciate your bringing it up.

Adrienne Montani: I didn’t cite the stat here, but I think it’s 35 percent of children. We only have a snapshot of Indigenous on-reserve data in each report card, but it was 61 reserves, and I think it was a 35 percent poverty rate, so much higher than the overall 17 percent child poverty rate, which is still too high. That’s the comparison.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, seeing no further questions, thank you very much for your time today.

We’ll move to our next presenter. From the Canadian International Dragon Boat Festival Society, it’s Dominic Lai.

You have five minutes for your presentation, followed by up to five minutes of questioning. You may begin when you are ready.

Canadian International
Dragon Boat Festival Society

Dominic Lai: Before I begin, I just want to acknowledge that our work primarily takes place on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ territory. Also, we operate in Sts’ailes territories, the territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, including the Esquimalt and the Songhees, the K'ómoks, the Stó:lō, the Snuneymuxw and other Coast Salish territories.

All of our work is grounded, very much so, in the fact that dragon boat is a traditional Chinese sport but also a culture that spans almost 4,500 years. We’re privileged to be able to do this work in a way that upholds our relationship to Indigenous communities and to the land that we operate on.

A few years ago when I sat before this very same committee, obviously with different membership on this committee, we flagged a couple of things that, I think, remain relevant to the general non-profit sector at large, primarily related to, of course…. In our case, events are a very critical part of what we do, but also, speaking more broadly, lead to the non-profit experience. The community gaming grant program is a catch-all that supports programs large and small across every corner of the province.

To provide a little bit of context for what we do, for those of you that are not familiar, we operate as Dragon Boat B.C. We operate the largest paddling club in the world, right here in Vancouver, just a few minutes away, serving almost half a million visits a year. We also operate the largest dragon boat festival in the world, here in Vancouver, coming up in about 2½ weeks. Last year we had 300,000 visits to that.

Then we also operate a fleet of 16 events and programs all around the entire province, on top of our cultural work in the music industry, in Chinatown, recreation, sport. Pretty much if you ask it, we do it. That exposes us to a wide range of experiences and exposes us to a wide range of industries.

With community gaming grants, the value of that is that it elevates non-profits across the entire province and gives them the tools that they need to deliver value in their community. The team of grant analysts there make very good use of the budget that they’re given, but that program has been stagnant in funding for quite a long time.

There have been efforts to increase it, but among the tools that the province has at its disposal, community gaming grants do provide that flexibility and broad-based approach to make sure that every corner is properly represented. So we urge for that to increase, for that funding to make a greater impact, and to give those analysts the tools that they need.

The second thing — this is particularly evident in some of our more urban communities, but even in smaller communities in the North and in the Interior — is that events and non-profits are struggling. Rising costs are impacting them, and with non-profits being restricted in terms of how much of a reserve they can have….

When economic times get tough, the non-profits are on the front lines delivering fun things — like, for example, events, programs and recreation opportunities — but also food security, and all of those become at risk.

[3:45 p.m.]

Speaking of events, I think the most obvious one in Vancouver that has collapsed in the last year is the Vancouver Mural Festival. That event, of course, generated a lot of tourism activity to the area. Above and beyond that, it also inspired locals to find value in their own community.

Especially in these times, when we’re saying that we need to support local and that we need to believe in what is happening here and now and celebrate who we are, that’s value that obviously has economic value but also has cultural value and holds us all together as British Columbians.

Looking at other places, of course, you know…. In Victoria, we’re seeing some events staring to come back, like the Symphony Splash. I think finding a way to stabilize these non-profits is absolutely critical. Whether that comes through the community gaming grant or special non-profit funds or re-evaluating some of the criteria in which non-profits are held to, it would be a critical start.

The last thing that I will bring to the attention of everyone…. The province introduced, over COVID, the British Columbia fairs, festivals and events fund, which has been a significant boon. In this current fiscal, that has now changed to the destination events program, which is a continuation of the 2019-2022 tourism events program. That represents a $5 million investment in events that generate economic activity, and while that’s a very critical step, it does represent a decrease in funding from where we were previously.

Obviously, the events sector requires this funding to support their operations and generate economic value for the province, but British Columbia is, of the four major provinces, the one that does not have a dedicated events fund that celebrates culture. For example, Ontario has Celebrate Ontario, valued at a $20 million annual program, and there are other things.

With something like the destination events program, that’s a critical first step, but I would call and ask for some way to again celebrate who we are as British Columbians — provide that funding so that we can come together.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Great presentation.

Looking for questions from the committee.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you for your presentation.

I note that you did not advocate so much for the Canadian dragon boat society as you did for all non-profits. Thank you, because I think your point is so well taken that non-profits share a lot of the same challenges across the province.

Dominic Lai: Thank you for your comment.

In response to that, what I would say is that, again, we do a little bit of everything, and we, as a non-profit sector, speak on behalf of some of my colleagues I work with on a daily basis at organizations like Pride; like the Tam Kung Temple in Victoria, that’s currently trying to rebuild the oldest temple in Chinatown; and, out in Harrison, a paddling club that’s trying to rebuild after they had issues over COVID.

These problems are multiple, and you’re never going to want to get into every single detail of every single community, or else we’d be sitting here forever. And providing people that know what they’re doing and have proven results will generate good foundations. From there, that’s where we’re going to start to see a lot of lift on the ground.

There are big steps that can be taken, but sometimes it’s just a little bit of additional investment at the grassroots basis that will generate the most impact.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Now, am I remembering correctly? Is the destination program just for sports-related events?

Dominic Lai: The destination events program is for any event that will generate economic activity and that is defined specifically by overnight hotel-room nights. The challenge there is that it does cut out a lot of other community-serving events.

Of course, the MRDT is the primary, I believe, driver of that revenue, so it makes sense to tie it to that, but it does leave a few events out in the cold that are more community-oriented and might not have the same tourism economic value but do have a localized economic impact.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. Many of the other organizations that have come to visit us talked about how one of their biggest challenges outside of inflationary supply pressures is commercial space, the real struggle of commercial space. I notice that you asked about not just expanding the community gaming grant program but relaxing some of the rules within the program.

Were you thinking specifically of the administrative overhead?

Dominic Lai: I think administrative overhead is one of the common challenges that non-profits and charities face because it is sometimes, to some degree, a good barometer of whether or not funding is being applied properly to actual operations. But at the same time, if you don’t have a strong core, you won’t be able to deliver programming on an effective basis. I think there perhaps needs to be some adjustment and some flexibility on those definitions, from time to time.

[3:50 p.m.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Further questions from the committee? Seeing no further questions, I thank you for your presentation.

Now we’re going to hear from KidSport B.C. We have Katelynn Ramage.

Thank you so much for joining us today. You’ll have five minutes presentation time, followed by a potential of five minutes of questions from members of this committee. You may begin when you’re ready.

KidSport B.C.

Katelynn Ramage: Good afternoon. My name is Katelynn Ramage, and I’m the operations manager with KidSport BC.

I would like to respectfully acknowledge that while the work of KidSport and our volunteers takes place throughout British Columbia, the office of KidSport and our supporting organization, Sport B.C., is situated on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations.

I am proud to stand before you today to share the importance of the KidSport program for kids and families across our province. The sport registration grants KidSport provides have a profound, lasting impact, offering meaningful opportunities to build life skills and set a path to success. How do I know this? It’s because I’m living proof.

In Canada, one in two children are left out of organized sport due to cost. In households earning less than $60,000, only 60 percent of children participated in sport, compared to 73 percent of families earning over $100,000.

In B.C., one in six children now live in poverty, up from one in eight just two years ago. This sharp increase highlights a critical barrier to making sport accessible to all youth, which must be addressed collectively.

But this is about more than just sports. This is about strengthening our communities, supporting our collective mental health and physical well-being, and reducing inequities. Sport fosters essential life skills like teamwork, resilience and leadership. It brings communities together. For families new to Canada, 87 percent report feeling more connected to their community when their child plays and volunteers with a team.

Founded by Sport B.C. in 1993, KidSport provides registration grants to help families facing financial barriers get their kids into organized sport. In 2024, we supported 10,695 kids from 230 communities across B.C., distributing over $3.6 million. This isn’t just an investment in the individual kids. It’s also vital to support B.C.’s amateur sport sector as a whole.

So 2024 was a record-breaking year for us, with the funds distributed increasing by $1 million from 2023 and doubling our totals from 2022. In 2025, the rising demand for our program continues to grow exponentially, placing significant strain on our financial resources, and making it difficult to keep up with the needs of families across B.C.

Our work directly impacts B.C. communities, as shown by the appreciation we receive from sport clubs where KidSport grant recipients participate. In the Kootenays, a therapeutic riding program shared: “We serve many at-risk youth and children with disabilities. KidSport gives them something to look forward to. It builds their confidence, self-esteem and gives them a sense of belonging.”

Two different soccer clubs in the Okanagan shared: “Our region is home to many families new to Canada. Being able to join a soccer team helps kids integrate, make friends and feel part of their new community. KidSport grants mean so much to so many.”

I can speak firsthand to the power of the KidSport program through my own experience. I grew up in a single-parent household that depended on income assistance. My mother struggled with her mental health and addiction, which nearly took her life multiple times in my teens. Knowing how to access sport and having the finances to afford it was something I never considered, as keeping up with bills and other essentials was enough of a struggle.

I’m thankful to a family in my school that suggested I should apply to KidSport so I could continue to pursue track and field and be part of an organized sport program for the first time. Without the support of KidSport, I wouldn’t have attended and graduated university — the first and only in my family — compete for Team Canada and now stand before you today on behalf of KidSport to ask for your support so that thousands of other kids across our province are given the chance to experience the power of sport too.

We’re grateful that since 2012, KidSport B.C. has received $400,000 in annual funding from the province, which in 2024 supported approximately 1,180 children. This investment in KidSport is a direct investment in the amateur sports sector and our province’s health and well-being. As our granting has dramatically increased since 2012, when we only distributed $1 million, we’re now respectfully asking for an increase of $600,000 for a total of $1 million annually. This additional support is essential to sustain the KidSport program and ensure that sport remains accessible for all British Columbians.

KidSport is a key part of our amateur sports sector, and I fully support, also, the upcoming presentations you’ll hear from my colleagues in the coming weeks.

In closing, I’d like to share a message of thanks from a recent grant recipient, a 15-year-old girl who plays hockey.

“Thank you for making it all possible for me to play hockey this season. Your support motivated me to work harder and truly value every game and practice. That hard work paid off. I was named the most dedicated player on my team, earned two MVP awards at tournaments.

“I’m so grateful for the chance to play hockey, and now I’m volunteering with a try-it programs for girls. The work your organization does is deeply appreciated by kids like me, their families and the communities they live in.”

[3:55 p.m.]

I just want to thank you again for your time today and listening to my experience with KidSport. This program didn’t just give me the chance to participate in track. It gave me the opportunity to grow and build confidence. Without sport, and the support that KidSport provided, I wouldn’t be who I am today. This program truly changes lives.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

Committee members? MLA Blatherwick.

Jennifer Blatherwick: My family received a KidSport grant many years ago.

What event do you do in track?

Katelynn Ramage: Race walking.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Evan Dunfee.

Katelynn Ramage: My good friend and coach. Also another phenomenal ambassador for our organization, and a huge advocate as well.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, absolutely fantastic. Chris Wilson is another one.

Katelynn Ramage: Yes, in Tri-Cities.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I’m just…. So $400,000 to $1 million.

Katelynn Ramage: It’s a lot.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I’m hoping that you can talk to us about the number of kids that you’re serving now, and then what you’re hoping to move to with an increase in funding.

Katelynn Ramage: As I mentioned, in 2012, it was $1 million we got out the door, and we were receiving $400,000 then. So 40 percent of our funding at that point came from the government. Thank you. Now we’re supporting almost 11,000 kids a year, and we’re still receiving the same $400,000. That’s $3.6 million out the door.

The reality is that in some of our communities, our program is not going to be able to continue, because the demand is going far beyond what a mostly volunteer-led organization is able to keep up with. We’re trying to get creative with ways in order to keep the program going in communities, but it’s getting to a point of the affordability crisis.

It’s so great that so many families are prioritizing sport still, but we’re having a hard time keeping up. It’s something we want to make sure we can keep doing, because sport is more than just the physical part of it. It’s everything else that kids and families gain from it as well.

Steve Morissette: The program that Canadian Tire has — does that support you, or is that a different program?

Katelynn Ramage: That’s a completely different organization, yes.

Part of the increase in demand we’re seeing for our program is that JumpStart is moving away from individual grants, which was kind of their hallmark, and they’re providing more organization grants. With them shifting away from the work that we do, it’s only increasing the families that still need that support in order to get their kids onto the playing field.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Any further questions? Okay, thank you so much for your presentation. Thank you for coming down.

This concludes our public hearings in Vancouver. We look forward to our public hearings being held throughout the province next week, beginning in Nelson on Monday.

With that, I look to members to see if there’s any further business. Seeing none, I’ll seek a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 3:58 p.m.