The committee met at 8:00 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Elenore Sturko, and I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and the Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

I’d like to acknowledge that we’re meeting today in Vernon, which is located on the traditional territories of the Sylilx Okanagan peoples, and I’d also like to welcome everyone who’s listening 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 the committee members to introduce themselves, starting with MLA Steve Morissette.

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

Sunita Dhir: Good morning. 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.

Bryan Tepper: Morning. I am Bryan Tepper, Surrey-Panorama MLA, and I am critic for Community Safety and Integrated Services.

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

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning to everyone.

Assisting the committee today are Darryl Hol and Kayla Wilson from the Parliamentary Committees Office and Simon DeLaat and Amanda Heffelfinger. I’m going to get that right one of these mornings. The committee is just long enough that at the end, I’m sure I’ll get it.

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 for questions from committee members.

We’re going to begin this morning by hearing a presentation from Thompson Rivers University Students Union from Crystal Yamak.

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

Thompson Rivers University
Students Union

Crystal Yamak: Hi, everyone. My name is Crystal Yamak, and I’m a second-year studying supply chain management at Thompson Rivers University. I am also currently serving as the campaigns committee representative for the Thompson Rivers University Student Union, which provides advocacy, services and entertainment to the 29,000 students who study at Thompson Rivers University.

I would like to begin by thanking you for the opportunity to share our recommendations for how the 2026 British Columbia budget could and should invest in the post-secondary education system. We believe that completing the post-secondary funding review and expanding the B.C. access grant are not only investments that will benefit students and their families but that are also timely given the current financial crisis facing B.C.’s universities and colleges.

Let’s begin with our recommendation to complete the provincial post-secondary review. As you may or may not be aware, the Thompson Rivers University Student Union has been working on the issue of funding since 2014. At the time, TRU ranked 18 out of 25 post-secondary institutions in B.C. in per-student funding, and over 5,000 individuals, several regional municipalities and a large number of community organizations joined together with us under the Fund the Future campaign banner to call for a review of the province’s funding model.

Before jumping to the position of “give us more money,” we thought it prudent to attempt to better understand how the existing model was allocating public dollars and why. So as you can imagine, we were very excited in 2022, when the government committed to conducting a systemwide review. As good-faith participants, our student union both organized a stakeholder engagement session and made a written submission to the review.

Nearly four years later, nothing. No response, no report, no next steps. As if the whole thing never happened. While some of our colleagues have appeared before you and have requested specific amounts of money in new funding or funding that meets a certain percentage of the university or college budget, our request is not that but is the same as it has been since 2014 and as the government committed to do in 2022: review the current post-secondary education system funding model and publish that report.

Ideally, we would have done this before the current financial situation in the sector became dire for many institutions. It then was best; now is second best.

[8:05 a.m.]

We simply cannot have an informed conversation about how this system might need to move forward into the future unless there is a shared understanding of how it is being funded now and how that model is working or not working.

for many institutions. It then was best. Now is second best.

We simply cannot have an informed conversation about how the system might need to move forward into the future unless there is a shared understanding of how it is being funded now and how that model is working or not working. We urge you to complete and publish this review.

Our second recommendation is to expand the B.C. access grant. In 2020, the government introduced the B.C. access grant as a form of non-repayable financial aid. The literature is clear. First, that the B.C. access grant reduces real and perceived financial barriers, leading to increased enrolment, enrolments that are more important now than ever. And second, that the B.C. access grant increases a student’s likelihood of completion. As a student’s share of non-repayable student financial aid grants increases and their share of repayable financial aid student loans decreases, the probability of that student graduating increases.

Given the high demand for public tax dollars across a range of sectors and the importance of graduating folks to become the next labour force and tax base, maximizing the public investment in students is a no brainer. Growing the B.C. access grant and reducing dependency on students’ loans and ultimately post-graduation debt will both attract new students into the system and maximize the investment in students already in the system. In short, increasing the B.C. access grant is good for students, for taxpayers, and for the economy. We recommend a gradual and continual increase to the B.C. access grant.

This concludes our recommendations for you here today. We would again like to thank you for your time and consideration, and we are happy to take any questions you may have.

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

Looking to committee members.

Steve Morissette: I don’t have a question, just a comment.

We’ve heard lots of input from student unions, and we hear you. And yeah, that’s why we have no questions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, we’ll go to our next presenter.

Thank you so much for coming and being first up today. I appreciate it.

We’ll now hear a presentation from UBC Okanagan’s Dr. Lesley Cormack.

Welcome. I’ll just repeat again for everyone that it’s five minutes for presentation followed by up to five minutes of questions. And you may begin when you’re ready.

Lesley Cormack: Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Lesley Cormack, and I’m the principal of UBC Okanagan, which is situated on the traditional ancestral and unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

UBC Okanagan is proudly celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. Over our first 20 years, we fostered a close-knit learning community where students know their profs and have unique opportunities to engage in research alongside renowned experts in the field. Building on our foundational partnership with the Okanagan [inaudible recording] the B.C. Interior [inaudible recording] prior [inaudible recording] research and applied learning to address critical regional challenges that have global implications.

In reflecting on our first 20 years, we’ve identified “resilience” as our core academic focus, looking at this through a variety of lenses, including research and teaching that supports resilient people, communities, economies, and environments in a context of global uncertainty and climate change.

All of this informs the initiative that I want to talk about today, which is our proposal for the UBC Okanagan FIRE facility, FIRE standing for Fire, Innovation, Research and Education. As we all know only too well, the wildfires of today are more severe, complex and expensive to manage, and they often exceed the capacity to respond. The impacts of increasingly severe wildfire seasons on ecosystems and our natural resources, as well as the severe health and economic impact of smokier summers, will cost the province billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, the need for more housing in all regions will see more British Columbians and their houses under threat of wildfire in the coming years. This untenable situation requires new approaches to develop proactive solutions. We propose to create a unique-in-Canada applied research, education, and public safety platform at UBCO, one which is complementary to the work of other universities and partners in this area, but which fills crucial gaps.

[8:10 a.m.]

The UBCO FIRE facility will have three key areas of focus: testing, training, and technology development and deployment. Testing. Equipped with a wind tunnel, tilting burn table, and large-scale combustion chamber, the facility’s testing function will support the study of fire behaviour, flammability, and wild land fuel interaction with the built environment to develop

training and technology development and deployment, testing equipped with a wind tunnel, tilting burn table and large scale combustion chamber. The facility’s testing function will support the study of fire behaviour, flammability and wild land fuel interaction with the built environment to develop proactive solutions such as FireSmart principles rooted in empirical data.

Training programs housed at the facility include a proposed Canadian prescribed fire training program currently under discussion with a national foundation, which will build on the work with First Nations to support the restoration of Indigenous cultural fire and stewardship and support the B.C. Wildfire Service, municipal fire departments, industry and communities in building capacity in prescribed fire and risk mitigation.

Finally, technology. The facility will serve as the future home and operations centre of a provincial wildfires camera network announced by the Ministry of Forests and B.C. Wildfire Service just yesterday, which will detect and monitor wildfires throughout B.C. The operations centre will provide 24-hour operation of the camera network during the wildfire season and serve as an on-demand emergency management centre. Each of these functions of the facility will offer unique contributions to UBC’s wildfire challenge and complement the work in other institutions such as TRU, UVic, SFU and UBC Vancouver.

Despite the ever-growing threat of wildfire in our communities, there are no facilities like this in Canada dedicated to the empirical study of wildland fire and focused on developing proactive solutions which consider diverse Canadian ecosystems. The nearest comparable facility is in Missoula Fire Services Laboratory in Montana, which is dedicated to the U.S. Forest Service uses, while existing fire research facilities in Canada have tended to specialize in structural fires.

A “Made in Canada” solution to wildfire research and training is essential, and UBC Okanagan is ready to get to work. We live at the epicentre of Canada’s wildfire challenge. We have the experience across two campuses and the necessary partnerships, and we’ve secured an existing building right next to our campus.

What we need is capital support in the amount of $32 million for renovations and outfitting. My recommendation is that the provincial government invest in the UBC Okanagan fire facility and help create a critical node of network focused on developing the solutions B.C. needs to manage and coexist with wildfire.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Excellent, thank you.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation. This is a great idea.

Do you have anything currently in place for fire facility, fire research?

Lesley Cormack: We have lots of fire research going on. We have, actually, 32 researchers working in the area of fire in the Interior, both in terms of wildlife management and in terms of fire itself.

We have already an agreement, as I said, with the Ministry of Forestry and B.C. Wildfire to develop a camera network, much like the California system, which would have early notification of fires all over British Columbia. So we’re working on that. When it’s fully in place, we do need a kind of centre that will allow us to manage all of that, in working with the data scientists and the analytics in that.

We’re already doing some training modules, not just for firefighters, but TRU specializes in training of firefighters. We’re also looking at urban planners, fire chiefs, city workers, as well, because the interface is always a really important part of this, as well as planning for foresters, that we need to change the way we plan and manage our forests.

Bryan Tepper: Hi. Thank you for being here. The question I have is: is this in any way designed to bring people in from out of province, out of country? Or is there a possibility for any revenue being brought in to help fund it?

Lesley Cormack: That’s a super interesting question.

First and foremost, we are concerned about Canada and the forest fires that are here. We are already attracting graduate students and some researchers who want to work here.

The national training program, which we are hoping is going to be funded by a major foundation, will bring in people from all across Canada, but also wherever there are fires. So we anticipate people from Australia, people from California, for example, will come here to learn as well.

[8:15 a.m.]

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you for the presentation. So you’ve got the building. It sounds like you have a significant number of the staff that would be involved in that facility, and you’re already cooperating with ministries and developing tech.

So is there any way that there could be like a staged development of the renovations? If there was like a smaller amount of seed money that would get you started, what would be your seed money number?

Lesley Cormack: Now, that’s a very

and you’re already cooperating with ministries and developing tech. Is there any way that there could be a staged development of the renovations? If there was a smaller amount of seed money that would get you started, what would be your seed money number?

Lesley Cormack: Now, that’s a very... I mean, we are talking to everyone and looking for a variety of sources that might help us to fund this. As you probably can imagine, it’s much easier to get program money than it is to get infrastructure money, which is the challenge. So we can probably do it in tranches of a third, I would say.

We definitely do need the full $32 million in order to create the burning table and the Wi-Fi system and all of that kind of thing. But we could we could certainly manage a staged development.

Steve Morissette: Thank you. This is a great idea, to have the research to be able to fight fires with more knowledge. Further to MLA Blatherwick, so the money is to refit the building, that’s the main thing, like the wind tunnel, the tilt deck, all that sort of thing?

Lesley Cormack: Right. And the scrubbers, because obviously we have to make sure that whatever we burn doesn’t go into the atmosphere. So there’s technology involved there as well.

Steve Morissette: Okay. Thank you.

Sunita Dhir: So the $32 million would just go towards the infrastructure investment, or does that also include the training and all?

Lesley Cormack: No, it is the infrastructure. It’s that the building needs to be renovated. There needs to be machines put into it, because it’s going to deal with the camera network that involves quite a strong internet and IT structure. So all of that. That’s the kind of money that that will take.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Any further questions?

Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude your presentation. Thank you so much for your participation.

Lesley Cormack: Thank you very much.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’ll go now to presentation by CUPE Local 4879, Cindy Ozouf.

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

CUPE Local 4879, Thompson Rivers
University Support Staff

Cindy Ozouf: Thank you. Good morning, weyt-kp, and hello, everyone. My name is Cindy Ozouf, and I serve as the first vice-president of CUPE 4879. We represent nearly 700 workers at Thompson Rivers University and Kamloops and Williams Lake.

Our members include utility workers, technicians, admissions officers, electricians, library staff, course editors — just to name a few. Many of them are co-op and work study students as well and teaching assistants. Our work spans a wide range of roles. Some directly support students and faculty while others ensure the smooth operation of campus facilities and administration.

I’m proud to be speaking to you today, and I’m coming from the territory of the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc, within the Secwépemc’ulucw. Thank you again for this opportunity to share three recommendations. I know that together we can save B.C.’s post-secondary institutions and support this generation and future generations of students.

The first recommendation is to restore majority public funding for post-secondary institutions. An existential challenge facing B.C.’s post-secondary sector is chronic underfunding. Over several governments, we’ve seen a shift from majority public funding to a model where many institutions now rely heavily on private revenue. This has left institutions under-resourced, forced to compete for enrolments, raise fees, fundraise and market education, particularly to international students, as a commodity.

Today, we call on this government to restore majority public funding for post-secondary institutions by progressively increasing support to cover 75 percent of base budgets, including enhanced funding for research and institutional capacity.

B.C.’s world-class institutions have been devastated by the harsh consequences of the cap on international student visas. In the face of declining public funding, institutions increasingly relied on international students to balance their budgets, treating them as cash cows rather than learners.

[8:20 a.m.]

The moral issue is this: we are recruiting mostly racialized international students to prop a system that has long excluded and underpaid racialized workers, yet the system still fails to adequately support diverse communities and First Nations, Métis and Inuit learners.

At the same time, student and academic supports have been stripped away, leaving first-generation students with little support due to a funding model that prioritizes financial survival over equity in education.

also adequately support diverse communities and First Nations, Métis and Inuit learners.

At the same time, student and academic supports have been stripped away, leaving first-generation students with little support due to a funding model that prioritizes financial survival over equity in education. This approach was never sustainable. We’re now seeing job losses, program cuts and the erosion of services students rely on. Without significant reinvestment, the future of some B.C. colleges and universities is at risk. Students and the communities we serve are at risk.

The provincial government must move away from the block funding model and return to enrolment- and service-based funding that reflects the actual cost and value of programs. B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions need a significant funding increase and a stable model with dedicated support for student services, academic programs and campus operations critical to addressing the province’s growing skill shortage.

Our second recommendation is to support women and other underrepresented groups in the trades. Thompson Rivers University is…. We have a school of trades and technology which offers foundation and apprenticeship training in 20 trades supported by Red Seal instructors and SkilledTradesBC.

Our union also represents many tradespeople, giving us a clear understanding of the underrepresentation of women, Indigenous, Black and racialized individuals in B.C.’s skilled trades workforce. Barriers like geographic isolation, discrimination and poor workplace culture have long hindered their entry and retention. Increasing participation from these groups is essential to fostering diversity and addressing the ongoing skilled trade shortage.

While major investments in the care economy, largely dominated by women, are vital to our province’s success, it’s equally important to create opportunities for women and gender minorities in traditionally male-dominated sectors.

I’m running out of time, so I’m going to move on to my…. Finally, the third recommendation is: should increase funding for campus services, bring outsource campus services back in-house and provide additional resources to address deferred maintenance.

Chronic underfunding has placed significant strain on all areas of our post-secondary system. The funding model forces institutions into new high-profile programs. [Inaudible recording] cities neglected. Precarious work and the impacts of outsourcing in the post-secondary sector are mostly deeply felt by those in food service, custodial and facilities. This government deserves the high praise for repatriating public sector work into health care, and it makes sense to extend the same approach to post-secondary institutions.

Universities and colleges are major employers, and privatization weakens both campus and communities and the surrounding areas. So if our government and institutions are genuinely committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, we must stop outsourcing public funds to predatory corporations that insult B.C.’s women, Black, racialized and Indigenous workers through poverty wages with inadequate or no benefits.

B.C. is rich with talented and dedicated workers who can provide the essential campus services and maintenance we urgently need. So we call on this government to recognize the value and impact of the labour funding through in-house positions at universities.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’ll now move to the question period.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation.

Just on your third request, bringing outsourced campus services back, and you mentioned…. So that’s largely maintenance, custodial, that sort of thing?

Cindy Ozouf: And food services.

Steve Morissette: And food services.

Cindy Ozouf: Food services. I know our particular campus, we have Aramark, and I know some Aramark are unionized. Thompson Rivers University staff working for Aramark are not. The same with janitorial services. Those are all private.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation.

We do understand that a lot of post-secondary institutes are in the same situation because of the federal international student intake model. Most of the institutes are developing strategies to increase domestic involvement and to find a sustainable funding model. We are in dialogue with the federal government to see if we could support the post-secondary institutes by having more support. But we hear you.

[8:25 a.m.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude and move to our next presentation.

Thank you for your time today.

Our next presentation is from the Students Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan, Olivia Lai.

Seeing no further questions, we’ll conclude and move to our next presentation.

Thank you for your time today.

Our next presentation is from the Students’ Union of the University of British Columbia Okanagan, Olivia Lai.

Olivia Lai: Rising fees are killing degrees.

Good morning members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today.

My name is Olivia Lai, and I’m here on behalf of the Students’ Union at UBC Okanagan. We represent 12,000 students who are living, learning and contributing to one of the fastest-growing regions in British Columbia. We’re training to become the next teachers, engineers, health care workers, leaders, entrepreneurs.

But more and more students are being priced out of their futures. Tuition keeps rising, but supports keep shrinking. The system is reaching its breaking point. At UBCO, we’re feeling the real human cost of chronic underfunding in B.C.’s post-secondary system.

Rising fees and shrinking budgets aren’t just numbers. They’re disrupting lives, delaying dreams and dismantling support that students rely on. These cuts have caused service delays and facility cutbacks. For instance, deferred infrastructure upgrades mean students are waiting weeks for basic services like academic advising and mental health support. Some have even dropped courses or postponed graduation simply because the help that they needed didn’t come in time. Furthermore, to mention, students are paying for these buildings to even be operating.

Community program cuts. One example that hits especially hard was the closure of the Sunshine Eatery, one of the only affordable and gluten-free options on campus. Staff were laid off, students lost access to meals, and a place that once brought people together is now gone.

Layoffs and course reductions. UBCO is freezing hiring, letting term contracts expire and laying off dedicated faculty. One of my classmates was heartbroken when her favourite English professor, a true mentor who inspired so many, was let go. Now the course that she is counting on for this next semester won’t be offered.

Rising tuition and deeper stress. Domestic tuition is set to increase by 2 percent, while international tuition, which is unregulated, is rising by 5 percent and could even go higher. I pay the capped 2 percent, but my friend from China is already juggling two jobs. She pays nearly $60,000 in tuition. Through tears, she told me she will have to drop out if tuition rises again.

These stories are not isolated. They are part of a trend driven by declining public funding. In 2000, the provincial government funded 68 percent of institutional costs. Today it’s just 40 percent. To fill the gap, universities have relied heavily on international tuition, which now makes up over 22 percent of UBC’s total revenue.

But this model is collapsing. At UBCO, international enrolment dropped by 10 percent this year, with another 6 percent drop expected in 2025-2026. The financial strain is real. It’s hurting our students, staff and our local economy.

We know B.C. is balancing critical priorities, but the strength of our health care, child care, housing and economy all depends on one thing: people. Post-secondary is where we train them. That’s why we’re asking you to take three bold targeted actions.

One: restore public funding to 75 percent of institutional operating budgets. This is a monetary ask and one that pays off. Public education must be publicly funded. Reinvesting in core operating grants will stabilize our institutions and reduce tuition pressure on all students.

Two: complete and implement the funding formula review. This review must be finalized and actioned. The current model is outdated and doesn’t serve rural or growing campuses like UBCO. The needs of Indigenous, mature and first-generation leaders are being left behind.

Three: strengthen the tuition limit policy and end backdoor fee hikes. The 2 percent cap is essential, but institutions are sidestepping it, adding new fees and reclassifying existing ones. At UBCO, we’ve seen fees or ancillary fees rising for things like recreation, technology, student records and even building infrastructure — services that used to be included in tuition. This impacts affordability and transparency.

Chair and members of the committee, UBC Okanagan is one of Kelowna’s largest employers. Our students volunteer, work, rent and build their futures around here. When post-secondary is underfunded, our whole region feels the loss.

[8:30 a.m.]

Students are doing their part, working multiple jobs, caring for siblings and navigating mental health challenges, but we need government to do its part too.

Post-secondary isn’t a luxury; it’s essential infrastructure. If you invest in it now, you’ll be investing in the next people who will lead B.C. through the next generation of challenges.

caring for siblings and navigating mental health challenges. But we need government to do its part too. Post-secondary isn’t a luxury; it’s essential infrastructure. If you invest in it now, you’ll be investing in the next people who will lead B.C. through the next generation of challenges.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. Committee members, questions?

Steve Morissette: Thank you, great presentation. Just clarify for me your third recommendation. I didn’t quite catch it.

Olivia Lai: My third one is to strengthen the tuition limit policy and end backdoor fees. By backdoor fees, I mean like ancillary fees.

Steve Morissette: Right, so you want to maintain the 2 percent cap, but you want us to somehow control the ancillary fees?

Olivia Lai: Well, what I’m trying to say is the 2 percent cap is essential right now because of inflation and what’s going on financially. As for the ancillary fees, what’s happening is since the institutions are kind of having a loss at the finances and the budget that they have, they’re taking and adding more fees in other areas from the students, like infrastructure, so that students are actually paying extra on top of their tuition fees. So it would be great to get more funding so that institutions don’t have to push that to students.

Steve Morissette: Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, thank you so much for the presentation. Have a great day.

We’ll move to our next presentation, which is Air Rescue One Heli Winch Society, Jeremy Vandekerkhove. Good morning.

Jeremy Vandekerkhove: Morning.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I thought you might winch in from the sky. That would have been a great presentation. But I guess this’ll be good too though.

Jeremy Vandekerkhove: That would have been a great presentation.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Well, you have five minutes presentation time followed by up to five minutes for questions, and you may begin when you’re ready.

Air Rescue One Heli Winch Society

Jeremy Vandekerkove: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jeremy Vandekerkhove, and I’m the executive director of the Air Rescue One Heli Winch Society or AROHWS for short. We are a registered charity dedicated to helicopter winter rescue operations. While AROHWS was formally established in 2017, our team has been saving lives since 2014. We work closely with search and rescue groups, government agencies and B.C. Ambulance Service to deliver critical air rescue support across British Columbia.

Our dedicated rescue helicopter is equipped with a 290-foot winch and a full medical interior. Every mission-ready crew includes paramedics, emergency physicians, rescue technicians and registered nurses. To date, AROHWS has rescued over 200 people from some of the most rugged and remote regions of this province, from Blue River in the north to the U.S. border in the south, from Manning Park in the west to the Alberta border in the east. We are a truly regional asset delivering advanced helicopter winter rescue to urban, rural and Indigenous communities throughout B.C.’s interior. Today, we serve as the primary winter rescue provider for over 750,000 British Columbians.

Over the past decade, we’ve carried out hundreds of complex life-saving rescues. Just a few months ago, our team airlifted a critically injured patient from a remote mountain, hours from the nearest hospital. We stabilized the patient in flight and delivered them safely to a trauma centre. Before the engines had cooled, we were airborne again, this time retrieving a patient with a shattered spine stranded on a steep avalanche slope in another isolated area. That patient too was stabilized on scene and flown directly to care. These back-to-back missions are just one example of what we do. They were only possible because our team was fully trained, equipped and ready. But staying mission ready takes sustained support and serious resources.

AROHWS isn’t a concept or a pilot project. We are an experienced operational life-saving service. We operate where other emergency services end. Our team pioneered winter rescue integration into B.C.’s search and rescue system. Unlike the Canadian Armed Forces, we’re faster, more cost effective and dedicated solely to the B.C.’s interior. Unlike North Shore Rescue, we go beyond SAR to work with a broad range of emergency partners, and we operate our own helicopter assets.

We are not asking you to help us start; we are asking you to help us continue and to help build a sustainable future for this essential service. Air rescue is high risk and high cost, but it delivers unmatched impact.

To secure long-term operational capacity, AROHWS is seeking a $10 million investment from the government of B.C. From the $10 million, $5.5 million is to purchase our own rescue helicopter, eliminating reliance on costly short-term contracts and ensuring 24-7 availability; $3 million to construct a permanent hangar and operations base, improving safety, readiness and maintenance capacity; $500,000 to provide fair, stable wages for highly trained flight crews and technical staff; and $1 million to acquire critical spare parts, keeping our helicopter airworthy and deployable at all times.

[8:35 a.m.]

This is more than operational funding. It is an investment in sustainability, independence and regional emergency capacity. With this support, we can eliminate leasing costs, reduce downtime, expand coverage and reach more people faster.

AROHWS is a force multiplier. We enhance the reach, safety and effectiveness of search and rescue and emergency services across the region. Every dollar saves lives. Every flight is someone’s second chance. We are seeking $10 million from the provincial government to secure the future of

in cost, reduce downtime, expand coverage and reach more people faster. AROHWS is a force multiplier. We enhance the reach, safety and effectiveness of search and rescue and emergency services across the region. Every dollar saves lives. Every flight is someone’s second chance.

We are seeking $10 million from the provincial government to secure the future of AROHWS as a frontline emergency response provider. This is a legacy investment, one that guarantees a trained crew, a dedicated helicopter and a permanent base of operations. The opportunity is immediate. We have a helicopter ready for purchase. We have detailed building plans and contractor quotes in hand. Our team is trained, experienced and ready to go.

With the rising frequency of major emergencies driven by climate change, a growing population of British Columbia and more people venturing into remote areas, the demand for our service continues to grow. We may not be needed every day, but when we are, what we provide is irreplaceable. No other service can deliver the same level of rapid, specialized rescue in these environments.

We’ve built something rare, but if we cannot secure long-term financial sustainability, this program and the life-saving work we do will not survive the decades ahead. We’re already flying missions, already saving lives. Now we need the provincial government’s help to keep doing it.

Thank you for your time and for your consideration.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great, thank you for the presentation.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, interesting. I had never heard of this operation before. So you’re asking for some money for capital, a base, a helicopter and so on. Can you maintain the funding to operate?

Jeremy Vandekerkhove: Yes, we have revenue streams right now through our operations. This gives us a leg up where it would take us potentially decades to get to this point infrastructure investment. We have revenue streams when we do missions.

But everything’s currently based on…. We have a small amount of fundraising based on the grant system that exists, but for every mission we fly, that’s actually where most of our money comes from. And then that would continue with this, so we can then maintain all these assets and use these assets to purchase, basically, our next helicopter.

Steve Morissette: Where does your funding come from for the missions? Is that the provincial emergency…?

Jeremy Vandekerkhove: It goes through EMCR and various MOUs with the SAR groups and things like that, and also revenue sharing with the air carrier.

Jennifer Blatherwick: MLA Morrissette asked my questions.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Any further questions? Seeing no further questions, thank you so much for your presentation today.

We’ll go to our next presenter, which is from the Whitevalley Community Resource Centre, Christine Lishman.

Good morning. You’ll have five minutes presentation time followed by up to five minutes of questions by committee members. You may begin when you’re set there.

Whitevalley Community
Resource Centre

Christine Lishman: Good morning. My name is Christine Lishman, and I’m the executive director for the Whitevalley Community Resource Centre in in Lumby, B.C. I’ve been in this role for 2½ years, but my history with the agency spans over 17 in between raising my family and life events.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to convey our priorities around Finance and Government Services, especially with only five minutes and a max of three recommendations. It’s tough because, like so many rural agencies, we don’t just have one focus. We need to be everything to everyone in order to support the health and wellbeing of our community.

I know many presenters today probably jumped straight into their asks, but I want to take a moment and share with you a little bit about myself and the place I call home. I grew up in an even smaller town of Midway. Rural living is in my heart. It’s where I was raised with values of community, giving back and knowing your neighbours.

Lumby is the same kind of place. It’s where I’m raising my children with those same values, teaching them what it means to be part of a community and giving back. Unless you’ve lived in a small town, it’s truly hard to grasp how interconnected people can be, how we show up for each other through thick and thin, and how we work together to fill gaps wherever they might appear. This is the lens that I’m bringing to my three priorities.

[8:40 a.m.]

Our first is increased funding for child and youth mental health services. In particular, we urgently need resources to expand staffing to meet the growing demand, especially among elementary-school-aged children. The youth mental health crisis isn’t new, and I know you’ve all seen the data. I won’t spend my time convincing you of what you already know, but I will say this. It’s real. It is accelerating. And in a small town like ours, the resources are stretched impossibly thin.

Our second priority is core operational

I know you’ve all seen the data. I won’t spend my time convincing you of what you already know, but I will say this: it’s real, it is accelerating, and in a small town like ours, the resources are stretched impossibly thin.

Our second priority is core operational funding to address infrastructure and space barriers. This is my biggest passion and probably my biggest challenge. Everyone talks about the need for services and programs. While that’s critical, our largest barrier as a rural community is far more basic. We don’t have anywhere to put them.

Office and program space is scarce in small towns, and administrative recovery rates from funding contracts don’t come close to covering the rent, leases, or the cost of purchasing or building a space. Fundraising is always an option; however, in a population of 5,000 and more than 18 community organizations fundraising from the same families and businesses, many of whom are already stretched due to the rising cost of living, there simply is not enough to go around.

To put it plainly, small communities like Lumby need dedicated core operational funding to sustain services and build a community services hub — a place where multiple service providers can co-locate, improve access for residents, share operational costs and offer a welcoming, functional and accessible environment for staff, clients and future professionals we’re trying to recruit and retain.

If we’re dreaming big, it could include upper floors with affordable housing, another serious issue in our region. Lumby is one of B.C.’s fastest-growing communities. Static funding and a lack of infrastructure are holding us back from meeting current needs, let alone future demand.

This brings me to my last point: recognition that rural services can’t be one-size-fits-all. It is often suggested that people can commute to larger centres for services, but here in Lumby, our average household income is $20,000 less than our neighbouring city. So even the cost of fuel becomes a barrier. Our residents deserve services where they live, designed for geography, our demographics, and our local realities.

In closing, what I want to say is that small towns aren’t small problems. We’re growing, we’re resourceful, and we’re resilient, but we need stable, targeted investment to keep serving our people well.

Steve Morissette: I know the struggles of small communities. I’m from a small community. I know small communities can be very resilient and think outside the box. I’m just thinking. I know Lumby is small, and you mentioned 18 community organizations.

Have you talked together about potentially coming together to do something like that? B.C. Housing has done similar projects in other communities, where you put three floors of affordable housing; on the main floor, you have some sort of community centre or space that different groups need. Is that a possibility?

Christine Lishman: Absolutely. I mean, we all collaborate every day. We’re constantly on each other’s phone calls for everything that our community needs. I think what we need to keep in mind is the capacity of those groups to take on such a big project, including our municipality, which is incredibly supportive.

I’m the ED, I’m the HR, and I supervise 20 plus people. It’s the same with the other organizations. It’s just, you know, having that ability to hire extra people to help with that and can continue doing what we need to do within the capacities that we have.

Steve Morissette: You’re looking for funding for capacity, potentially, or…?

Christine Lishman: We need a community services hub, a place where our agency can locate. We’ve outgrown where we are, so we can’t expand our services. We have nowhere to put anybody. We’re in multiple different locations to be able to serve the multiple different people. Seniors are here, zero-to-six programs are here, our after-school program is there. That spread-out cost of having to rent different facilities is not sustainable.

[8:45 a.m.]

Our health society can’t recruit more doctors, because they have nowhere to put them. Their ED literally works out of an exam room when it’s empty. Having a space where we can all collaborate together in a building would be ideal.

is not sustainable. And our health society can’t recruit more doctors, because they have nowhere to put them. Their ED literally works out of an exam room when it’s empty. So having a space where we can all collaborate together in a building would be ideal.

And then the children and youth mental health. I wasn’t kidding. That really is something that needs to be addressed.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, thank you so much for your presentation today and the time that you took to help us understand the needs in Lumby.

We’ll go to our next presentation, which will be the Okanagan Basin Water Board, James Littley. Good morning.

I’m sure you’ve heard me say it. I’ll say it again. It’s just that we have five minutes of presentation time, followed by up to five minutes of questions. You can begin when you’re ready.

James Littley: Thank you. Good morning to the members of the committee, and thank you for having me here to speak again this year. My name is James Littley. I’m the chief operating officer for the Okanagan Basin Water Board.

I’d like to start by asking you to imagine that it’s 1990 and someone tells you that for $5.5 million a year, you can prevent the pine beetle from devastating B.C.’s forests. Would you spend that money in retrospect? This is the position that you’re in today.

There are many water-related funding needs across B.C., but today our board directors have tasked me to focus on just one: invasive mussels. Why? Because once introduced, these mussels permanently transform aquatic ecosystems. They could cause a collapse in Pacific salmon populations. They clog critical infrastructure, including hydroelectric, agricultural and drinking water intakes. They devastate recreation and property values with razor-sharp shells, foul odors and toxic algae blooms.

And they multiply explosively. If even a few of these mussels get into B.C. this year, in three years we could have billions. In almost all cases, there’s no way to eradicate these mussels once they arrive.

As of 2023, these mussels are in Idaho, the closest they’ve ever been, and they’re still spreading west from Manitoba. Now, for years this was assumed to be an Interior issue — that the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island were safe. That’s no longer true.

Last year, golden mussels were found for the first time in California. These invaders bring all the same destruction as zebra and quagga mussels but with a terrifying difference. They need almost no calcium in the water to survive, and they can survive in brackish or partly salty water in the ports. That puts Metro Vancouver, the Port of Vancouver, Victoria and most of the rest of the province at risk.

I will add that the Site C dam area was already at risk. This puts it at even more risk.

An established mussel invasion would cost B.C. hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Zebra and quagga mussels alone have cost over $50 billion globally since 1980. In the Great Lakes, they’ve cost up to $500 million annually. That’s just to manage. If you drink water or use electricity in B.C. and the mussels get in, it’s going to affect your pocketbook.

The good news is that prevention works. These mussels don’t travel on their own. They come in on boats. The existing provincial program has kept mussels out for over a decade and has already intercepted more than 170 mussel-fouled boats. That may have already saved the province over a billion dollars.

But that program is underfunded, and it’s falling behind more each year. We have two clear and achievable recommendations, both of which represent major returns on investment not only financially but for the environment and our way of life.

One, fund the existing invasive mussel defence program at a minimum of $5.5 million per year, indexed to inflation. This level of funding is needed to properly resource the existing prevention program, including policy support, early detection, rapid response planning, water monitoring, procurement and the inspectors themselves. It is the minimum level of funding to reduce the unacceptable risk.

Two, establish a one-time $5 million emergency response and program expansion fund. When Idaho detected invasive mussels in 2023, they had to allocate $6.6 million U.S. just to respond in that first year. To my knowledge, B.C. currently has no contingency fund in place. Alternatively, that fund can be used to expand inspections, significantly reducing risk compared to the current system.

[8:50 a.m.]

We hope to see regulations introduced before next summer that would finally require all watercraft entering B.C. to be inspected prior to launching in our waters. Depending on the model chosen for that, this could actually reduce annual inspection program costs for the province in the long run. But a fund is needed to help with the initial phases of establishing that program.

This is your pine beetle moment. The risk has never been greater and neither

our waters. Depending on the model chosen for that, this could actually reduce annual inspection program costs for the province in the long run. But a fund is needed to help with the initial phases of establishing that program.

This is your pine beetle moment. The risk has never been greater and neither has the opportunity to stop the invasion. Please act now to prevent the next environmental and economic disaster from taking hold in our beautiful British Columbia.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Informative and terrifying.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for emphasizing this. I don’t think you could possibly have overstated the risk that especially golden mussels, the low calcium requirement, their tolerance for waters that were previously thought…. Yeah, I could talk about this all day.

So we currently have an inspection program, but it’s spot — right? — not consistent. So I was hoping…. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between interprovincial inspection and cross-border between us and the United States?

James Littley: So both programs are essentially supported by the provincial invasive mussel defence program. The Canadian Border Services agents have been given direction to stop watercraft, and they’ll perform the first few steps of an inspection to identify whether a watercraft is high risk or not, depending on where it’s coming from, how long it’s been out of the water, things like that.

But they will often then turn it over to provincial inspections. So it takes more provincial resources as they have to go to those border crossings to inspect, decontaminate and quarantine watercraft.

So we’re lobbying the federal government, as well, to kind of do a better job. A lot of the border crossings do a really good job and stop most watercraft, but it’s not 100 percent. The provincial program is mostly focused on the east west border between here and Alberta. The issue right now is that if you pass an open inspection station, you are legally required to stop and get inspected. But if you don’t pass an inspection station on your route or if it’s closed hours or if it’s out of season, there’s no legal requirement to get inspected before you launch in B.C. waters.

The Legislature has just passed enabling legislation for regulations that should be in place next summer. We need to know what that looks like.

But there are models, such as in Arizona, where it isn’t entirely left up to the state inspectors. They partner with marinas and environmental professionals that can offer a certified service.

So that’s where I talk about if we invest now, in the long run those costs could potentially go down using other models, private public partnerships or even user-pay models. So if you’re bringing a boat into B.C., maybe you pay for your inspection rather than leaving it up to us.

I’ll just add, also, that Alberta is moving forward with similar regulations, and, of course, your provincial staff does an outstanding job collaborating with all of the other jurisdictions around us.

I think that was a little more than you asked for.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Nope. I think if you used all of your five minutes and the next five, you could talk about how important this is forever. Thank you.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation. I agree with MLA Blatherwick. You know, it’s so critical, and in my region in the Kootenays, we’ve been really trying to focus on getting things inspected before they come in our lakes because we know that impact is huge on water systems and 5½ million will seem like peanuts if they get in here. So thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, this committee will take a 15-minute recess.

The committee recessed from 8:53 a.m. to 9:10 a.m.

The committee recessed from 8:53 a.m. to 9:10 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning, again. We’re going to call our committee, the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, back into session here with a presentation from Maggie Spizzirri from the Exposed Wildlife Conservancy. You’ll have five minutes presentation time, followed by up to five minutes of questions from our panel.

I understand you have two separate presentations. After the first set of questions, we’ll follow up with your second presentation. You can begin when you’re ready.

Exposed Wildlife Conservancy

Maggie Spizzirri: Sure thing. Okay.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Maggie Spizzirri and I’m the executive director of the Exposed Wildlife Conservancy, an organization dedicated to ethical, evidence-based wildlife policy in B.C. and across Canada. I also formally led the Revelstoke Bear Aware Society, working directly on human-wildlife coexistence strategies.

Today I’m here to share two recommendations that support public safety, fiscal responsibility and ecological resilience in B.C. The first recommendation is to expand wildlife overpasses, fencing and signage along provincial segments of Highway 1. The stretch of Highway 1 through the Columbia and Rocky Mountains is not only a critical wildlife corridor; it’s also one of B.C.’s most dangerous.

Over 11,000 collisions involving animals occur annually in the province, with many concentrated in the mountain parks corridor. These collisions are not only tragic for wildlife; they cost the province millions in emergency response, vehicle damage and human injury. According to ICBC and B.C. ministry data, highway cleanup alone accounts for an estimated $700,000 annually, not including health care and insurance costs.

There is clear evidence that wildlife passes and fencing significantly reduce these incidents. In Banff, where overpasses are paired with fencing, wildlife-vehicle collisions have dropped by more than 80 percent. However, on sections of the highway where the province of B.C. retains jurisdiction for certain stretches, this infrastructure is incomplete or absent.

I also recognize that not all areas are suitable for fencing due to avalanches, unstable terrain, winter maintenance challenges, but in these cases, carefully targeted wildlife crossing signage and improved enforcement in high-traffic wildlife zones can still be highly effective. B.C. has the opportunity to design smarter infrastructure solutions tailored to both species movement and landscape realities.

Importantly, this stretch of Highway 1 is also notoriously difficult for emergency response, especially in winter. When collisions occur here, whether involving wildlife or people, response times are simply long and access is limited. Investing in mitigation infrastructure is not just about preventing wildlife deaths; it’s also about also a public safety issue. This corridor should be considered a top priority for strategic planning to reduce emergency incidents and improve outcomes when they happen.

We are recommending the province of B.C. proactively invest in expanding fencing, signage and crossing structures in these provincial sections. The costs of prevention are significantly lower than the compounded costs of collisions, wildlife mortality and public risk.

Our second recommendation is to increase provincial investment in the B.C. conservation officer service, a vital but underfunded enforcement and education body. COS officers enforce 33 federal and provincial statutes and are often the first call when wildlife and people come into conflict, and yet staffing levels have not meaningfully increased since 2018. The entire province is served by only 150 officers, many of them overburdened, covering massive geographic areas.

COs are now fielding more calls for service, often without sufficient backup. In 2013, a record 603 bears were destroyed. In many cases, RCMP officers with no wildlife training are dispatched to deal with bears, cougars or moose.

During my time as the executive director of Revelstoke Bear Aware, our small community of only about 8,500 people, I received upwards of 200 to 300 calls per year. Many of these calls come because there was no COS officer located near our community, with the closest being two hours away.

But this isn’t just about enforcement. COS has demonstrated proactive approaches to coexistence. Programs like these are already working, but they need to be expanded, funded and staffed consistently across regions.

[9:15 a.m.]

Last week, the B.C. Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution at their AGM recognizing the urgent need for expanded capacity within the conservation officer service, a resolution we strongly support. They recognize this matter as protecting business assets, communities and natural resources.

Our recommendation is in alignment with the B.C. Chamber of Commerce to provide additional funding, offices and staffing

capacity within the conservation officer service, a resolution we strongly support. They recognize this matter as protecting business assets, communities and natural resources.

Our recommendation is in alignment with the B.C. Chamber of Commerce to provide additional funding, offices and staffing for the B.C. conservation officer service, to reduce the caseload for individual COs and more effectively manage conservation services, particularly in wildlife-heavy corridors where proactive response can prevent animal destruction, public safety incidents and ecological responsibility.

Together these two recommendations represent a forward-thinking investment in public safety, in responsible land use planning and in the long-term stewardship of B.C.’s natural heritage.

Thank you for your time.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. Can we go back to your first recommendation? You were recommending that protection — fencing, overpasses — be installed along provincial structures, and I’m so sorry, I missed which….

Maggie Spizzirri: Highway 1.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Highway 1. Okay. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions, I’ll move to your next presentation, please.

Brain Injury Alliance

Maggie Spizzirri: My name is still Maggie Spizzirri, and my second hat…. I’m also the executive director of the Brain Injury Alliance. The alliance is a provincial, non-profit organization formed in 2014 to create a coordinated, transparent system for delivering provincial funding to B.C.’s community-based brain injury societies. These organizations support thousands of survivors each year by providing essential health, housing, mental health and reintegration services in communities across B.C. Through this fund, we have distributed over $10.7 million, thanks to government funding, and supported more than 380 community programs, helping over 40,000 British Columbians with acquired brain injury.

Our current funding will expire in 2026. Without renewal, these vital services and the cost savings they generate for the health care, housing and justice systems are at serious risk. Community-based ABI programs in the last three years have reduced emergency room visits by over 7,800 and police and justice system involvement by over 895. They also reduce homelessness, housing instability and long-term disability claims. They have also helped gain or retain over 360 jobs.

Alliance-funded organizations are increasingly supporting individuals with concurrent mental health and substance use disorders, survivors of intimate partner violence and people affected by the toxic drug crisis. However, current short-term funding models prevent long-term planning, hinder staff recruitment and retention and place vital services at risk during periods of budget uncertainty.

If this program is not sustained, qualified experienced professionals will disband and move on to something else, and the rebuilding of the program will be from the ground up. The metrics of outcomes being delivered won’t just simply happen again. There’ll be a considerable runway needed to ramp it all back up.

Our work is directly aligned with the government of B.C.’s health priorities as outlined in the 2025 mandate letter to the Minister of Health. Programs support key directives, including expanding access to community-based care, reducing emergency room demand, supporting those with concurrent disorders and improving health outcomes for Indigenous Peoples. Alliance-funded services help address issues the province has identified as urgent.

Additionally, we support the mandate’s focus on improving system efficiency and reducing administrative burden by distributing funds through a single, coordinated provincial channel with strong accountability mechanisms. As the government seeks to protect front-line services while managing costs, the alliance offers a proven, community-based solution that saves the province money and improves lives.

We are requesting the establishment of a secure, annualized and ongoing funding agreement, including renewal and expansion of the brain injury fund for at least five years, a 20 percent increase in funding to meet rising demand and need and long-term exploration of a legislated B.C. brain injury support fund, modelled on other stable provincial funding streams.

Why now? The brain injury is a public health issue tied to addictions, homelessness, violence and incarceration. Community-based responses are more cost-effective and deliver better outcomes than institutional care. Without a renewed commitment, B.C. risks losing a network of trained, trusted and deeply embedded service providers.

[9:20 a.m.]

This spring I had the opportunity to visit brain injury associations across the province. Without fail, every single survivor told me two things. The first: “I wish I had walked through these doors sooner.” The second: “This association saved my life, full stop.”

B.C. must choose between sustaining this proven, cost-saving system or allowing it to unravel, leaving thousands of survivors without essential care. That is the impact your investment makes. Every year over 22,000 British Columbians sustain a brain injury. Over 180,000 people in our

this association saved my life, full stop.

B.C. must choose between sustaining this proven cost-saving system or allowing it to unravel, leaving thousands of survivors without essential care. That is the impact your investment makes. Every year, over 22,000 British Columbians sustain a brain injury. Over 180,000 people in our province live with the effects of ABI today. They’re your constituents, workers, parents, veterans, students, children, many of whom will only seek support when their situation becomes desperate. This isn’t just a fiscal decision; it’s a human one.

The Alliance ensures that support exists when they finally reach out for help. Stresses run high due to several political climates and their potential impacts. It may seem counterintuitive to increase spending, but in reality, this is a time to lean into programs that have proven to save money for the health and justice systems.

We are now asking for a secure multi-year provincial funding agreement to ensure this work continues. Survivors can’t afford a lapse in services, neither can B.C.’s health care, housing and justice systems. On behalf of the Brain Injury Alliance, its member agencies and the thousands of British Columbians we serve, thank you so much for considering our request.

Steve Morissette: Thanks for the presentations. So you’re asking for a five-year extension of the funding with a 20 percent increase. And is that…? Or your preference is stable ongoing funding?

Maggie Spizzirri: The preference would be stable ongoing funding. Failing that, five years with a 20 percent increase to address just…. We’ve seen a large gap in Vancouver. There isn’t a really stably built association of any kind in that area. It’s where all of our associations, including ours and others, get calls for help.

Steve Morissette: And the 20 percent is just because of ongoing rising costs over the last number of years?

Maggie Spizzirri: Yeah, ongoing rising costs and to address Vancouver.

Steve Morissette: Okay. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I’d like to ask a question, if that’s okay. I just wanted to know if you would be able to tell me where the stats on the ER visits and police calls came from and if you have information on how that data was collected and tracked.

Maggie Spizzirri: Yes, I do. All of our member agencies that apply to us through a granting type system, they are required to report on who comes through their doors and how they are being helped. So each member agency provides us all of those stats. We take them all, calculate them all, add them all up and report them back to the government. So we do have all of those reports all ready, and I’m happy to forward those along.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Sure. My question only being that if a person comes in and they’re, let’s say, a person with acquired brain injury, they come to one of your service providers, how do we know that they also didn’t subsequently visit the ER?

Maggie Spizzirri: That they have…. It’s based on…. From what I understand, and I can clarify this as well, there’s a full intake into what they’ve previously done. They share medical documents where it is available or they are willing to do so. Also, a lot of these numbers have to do with instead of going to the ER, they’ve come into their brain injury association because they feel more accepted and heard there, and their issues are addressed at that location.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): So is that data compared with, then, health authority data? For example, if that was in my health region, which is the Fraser Health region, if services were being provided, the information of one of the clients of your services compared against Fraser Health data?

Maggie Spizzirri: We don’t compare it against Fraser Health data. We are very happy to. What we find is that a lot of the time when somebody initially gets a brain injury, they obviously go into the health care system and get treated for, you know, if they’re in a car accident or whatever has happened. From there, they are then released and have limited access to any kind of care. And that’s where they end up into our associations, at that time after the initial assessment and they’re capable of walking out of the hospital on their own.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Because I think to truly be able to say that we’ve reduced a hospital visit, we need to be able to compare it with the actual reduction in hospital visits based on health care data that corresponds to the person’s health number. So maybe that’s something in the future that we could do. It’s great to track, I think, the number of users, especially when we want to see an increase in funding for people with acquired brain injuries. I do agree we actually have an epidemic of brain injury in British Columbia.

[9:25 a.m.]

But I think it would be, just to get it on the record, very helpful, I think, for organizations like yours to be able to have partnerships with health authorities to do that data comparison by tracking health numbers.

Maggie Spizzirri: Yeah, absolutely.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Awesome.

Maggie Spizzirri: We’re absolutely happy to do that. And that’s one of the things with working with the province. What would you like to see? And we’re happy to gather that data.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Very good. Further questions from…?

organizations like yours to be able to have partnerships with health authorities to do that data comparison by tracking health numbers.

Maggie Spizzirri: Yeah, absolutely. We’re absolutely happy to do that. And that’s one of the things with working with the province. What would you like to see? And we’re happy to gather that data.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Very good.

Further questions from…?

Jennifer Blatherwick: You had some of my same questions as well. I was like: how do you know that you have reduced RCMP visits?

Maggie Spizzirri: Yeah. It’s based on kind of after the fact of what people are doing and what they’ve experienced and whether or not they’ve gone back into the system.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Then you mentioned a brain injury support fund. What would you be wanting to get covered out of that fund?

Maggie Spizzirri: How, currently, it operates…. It operates as a grant-based system. So we have 13 associations across the province that apply for funding based on the programs that they have and the needs that they have. That is how the system has been set up for the last ten years.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I’m sorry. So this is the same fund. This is not a new fund.

Maggie Spizzirri: This is not a new fund.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Ah, okay. There we go.

Maggie Spizzirri: Yes, sorry.

Jennifer Blatherwick: All good.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Further questions from the panel?

You’re our first back-to-back. Very cool. Thank you so much for that.

Maggie Spizzirri: Scrappy non-profits.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you so much for that presentation. We’re going to move now to a presentation from the mayor of Kelowna, city of Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas.

Good morning.

Tom Dyas: Good morning, and thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for being here. We have five minutes for presentation time, followed by five minutes for potential questions. It’s good to see you, and you can start when you’re ready.

City of Kelowna

Tom Dyas: Well, good morning, and thank you to the committee for the opportunity to speak today. I’m here on behalf of the city of Kelowna to share our three priorities for B.C. Budget 2026, priorities that are critical to the safety, livability and resilience of our community.

Crime and safety — Crown prosecutor resources. Public safety is a top concern for our residents and a top priority for our council. In 2023, 20 repeat offenders were responsible for more than 3,500 negative police contacts in Kelowna. These individuals are cycling through the system without timely accountability, undermining confidence in our justice system and negatively impacting residents, families and businesses.

The B.C. prosecution service annual report shows that the Crown office manages a 30 percent heavier caseload than the provincial average within Kelowna. Kelowna’s median file conclusion time is 204 days compared to the provincial average of 170 days. We echo the call from Adam Dalrymple, president of the B.C. Crown Counsel Association, who identified the Interior’s Crown prosecutor shortage as acute, particularly in Kelowna.

The provincially commissioned Lepard-Butler report recommended Crown prosecutor resources for large communities with high volumes of repeat offenders. Kelowna is the seventh-largest municipality in B.C. We are asking the province to invest in five additional Crown prosecutors in Kelowna, including one focused specifically on bail for repeat property offenders. This will reduce burnout, improve justice system performance and restore public confidence in justice and safety.

Infrastructure — predictable, flexible funding. Municipalities are facing escalated challenges — aging infrastructure, inflation, supply chain disruptions and tariff impacts. There is concern with the uncertainty of federal changes indicating potential changes and restrictions to traditional city revenue streams. The lapse in federal-provincial infrastructure programs has left a major funding gap that municipalities rely on to support infrastructure and essential projects aligned to population and housing growth.

Cities like Kelowna cannot pause capital plans indefinitely while waiting for unpredictable grant decisions. We need consistent multi-year funding that enables municipalities to plan and deliver infrastructure efficiently for the local context.

We strongly encourage the province to expediate the development of a new fiscal framework with municipalities. The scope of municipalities’ responsibility has grown, but the legislation and funding tools have not kept pace, creating a growing gap between expectations and local governments’ capacity to deliver.

[9:30 a.m.]

As the province sets housing targets under the new Housing Supply Act, municipalities stepping up must be supported with correspondence and infrastructure investments. This includes prioritization for programs such as the Canadian public transit fund, which is vital for fast-growing communities like ours.

Compassionate mandatory care

municipalities stepping up must be supported with correspondence, infrastructure and infrastructure investments. This includes prioritization for programs such as the Canadian public transit fund, which is vital for fast-growing communities like ours.

Compassionate mandatory care in the Interior is needed.

Finally, we ask for the province to urgently advance and prioritize compassionate mandatory care and dignified secure care in B.C.’s interior. The Central Okanagan lacks a regional facility to support individuals with complex mental health and substance use issues who are unable to voluntarily seek treatment. This places additional strain on emergency rooms, RCMP, bylaw and fire services that are often forced to respond to what is ultimately a health care need.

We see two immediate opportunities to address this gap. First, repurpose the Okanagan Correctional Centre in Oliver for dignified secure care, similar to the recent Surrey facility announcement. This is a $200-million-dollar provincial facility built in 2016. It is currently operating at just 25 percent capacity. The infrastructure could be quickly retrofitted and repurposed to address a pressing need.

Second, expand the Red Fish Healing Centre model into a provincially distributed system with localized Indigenous-led sites. Without appropriate care options, communities are forced to respond reactively to escalating crises with the wrong tools. Local and First Nation governments are ready to collaborate provincially, including and identifying land for purpose-built facilities.

In Kelowna, we have spent more than $20 million in recent years addressing these challenges where homelessness, mental health, public safety and the opioid crisis intersect. But mental health is health care, and we need the province’s leadership to provide long-term compassionate solutions.

Thank you for your time and consideration. We look forward to working together to build safer, healthier and more resilient communities across British Columbia.

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

Questions from the panel?

Steve Morissette: Thank you for your presentation. Yeah, infrastructure is a challenge throughout the province, in local government for sure.

One of your recommendations, repurposing of Oliver correctional centre — a portion of it to…? Is that what you’re asking for?

Tom Dyas: Well, currently, at this particular point in time, the Oliver correctional centre…. And just to state that both the mayor of Oliver and also the Osoyoos Indian Band have been communicating along with all the other mayors through up and down the valley with regards to this consideration.

It has a facility which has 378 beds available in it, and currently, at this particular point in time, 280 of them are available. So there’s only 25 percent occupancy within the facility. It’s a $200-million build and has the ability…. And recognizing that need for mandatory compassionate care is something that the province is looking for and has implemented in other areas of the province

But infrastructure is a major cost. So what we’d be dealing with here is just the operational cost. So it’s a way to get to addressing this situation quickly while continuing to plan for other options.

Steve Morissette: Great, thank you.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. Your Crown prosecutor. What is your current staffing for Crown prosecutors?

Tom Dyas: Current staffing is…. And just to make certain that it ends up being…. You know, I don’t know exactly what the current staffing is right at this particular point in time.

I am aware that when the recent allocation of 20 Crown prosecutors was initiated throughout the province, there were supposed to be five additional ones that were coming to the Interior. None of them came to the Interior at that particular point in time. So the average case count for one FTE is about 70 reports. In Kelowna, it’s 102.

And the LePard-Butler report recommended increasing overall Crown counsellors, and that hasn’t happened, as the population growth…. Our population growth has basically gone up about 43 percent since 2012, but there has been no change in the accessing of those Crown prosecutors.

[9:35 a.m.]

We ourselves have taken…. In 2012, we had 144 RCMP officers and are now sitting at about 250. So we’ve increased our budget substantially to try to deal with some of the effects that that happen within these communities, but it’s become a little bit of a hamster wheel for those individuals not being able to get the proper recommendations on those cases just because of the volume.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank

It’s 250, so we’ve increased our budget substantially to try to deal with some of the effects that happen within these communities, but it’s become a little bit of a hamster wheel for those individuals, not being able to get the proper recommendations on those cases just because of the volume.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you, Mayor Dyas.

One comment I’ll just make, so we can refer to it later, is that the B.C. prosecutors association has recently filed a grievance with the B.C. prosecution service, and I believe that they identified that the Interior region, the Okanagan region, was short 24 Crown prosecutors based on caseload.

Mayor, do you know how many secure care beds are currently available in the area of Kelowna and Vernon sort of region, whether it’s forensic, psychiatric beds or other forms of involuntary care outside of your regional hospitals?

Tom Dyas: Secure care in a sense of mandatory or voluntary?

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Well, in the sense that someone who is under the care of the Mental Health Act and receiving involuntary care, where would they be able to receive help at this time outside of a hospital?

Tom Dyas: My assumption — and I will say that when we’re looking at involuntary type of care or that compassionate mandatory type of care — right now, they are all referred to Red Fish, which is in the Lower Mainland. There are not facilities that deal with that in the Okanagan.

That was a concern that we had in considering looking at the Oliver institution or also having discussions with First Nations, because I know that First Nations have been having discussions with the province also, about establishing a similar type of Red Fish within the Okanagan.

One of the concerns that have happened with the Red Fish throughout the province is that there is the allocation of individuals from one community into that particular community. Then it’s causing excessive work for the RCMP and everyone else, because now there’s a relocation of that person into a different area than they’re used to living in. So what our request is, that if it moved to the Okanagan that it be something that treats individuals within that region more than trying to have someone treated and also relocating them and then adding them to that community footprint.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. Well thank you very much for that.

We’re out of time, unfortunately, so we’ll move to our next presentation, but we really appreciate your input today.

Tom Dyas: Truly appreciate your opportunity to come and speak before you today. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Next, we’re going to hear from school district 23, Julia Fraser. Good morning.

Julia Fraser: Good morning.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’ll have five minutes for presentation time, followed by up to five minutes for questions from members of the committee. You’re just getting set there, but please begin when you’re ready.

School District 23, Central Okanagan

Julia Fraser: Well, good morning, hon. MLAs. Thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Julia Fraser, and I’m honoured to be the chair of the board of education for the Central Okanagan public schools, school district 23. I’m here today on behalf of our board to provide input into the 2026 provincial budget consultation and to highlight the ways in which your continued investment in public education is both necessary and impactful.

Making the most of government investment, first off, I’d like to acknowledge the value of the past budget decisions. Central Okanagan public schools is making strong, effective use of the government’s investment in education. Our student learning outcomes clearly demonstrate this. Over the past decade, student achievement in our district has steadily improved.

Our six-year graduation rate for B.C. residents has averaged 96 percent over the last three years, which is significantly above provincial and national averages. For Indigenous students, our six-year average is 84 percent, and we’re deeply committed to continuing that upward trajectory. These are not just statistics. They are also the result of deliberate strategic investments in teaching classroom supports and school environments, and they are changing lives.

However, the pressure of growth in our region is urgent, and our district is operating at 112 percent capacity, overall, and our central corridor is at 117 percent capacity. We currently have 127 portables in use, which are being funded through our operational budget, not our capital, placing strain on resources intended for classroom instruction. In the 2025-26 school year, we anticipate having to relocate 8 to 10 portables at a cost of $1.4 to $1.8 million.

[9:40 a.m.]

We are grateful for the $330 million of capital investment over the past 10 years, which include two middle schools, Dr. Knox addition, the new George Pringle secondary, as well as prefabricated classrooms on Weber Road, Chief Tolmat and Hudson Road Elementary. But the demand continues to grow and our board is

for the $330 million of capital investment over the past ten years, which include two middle schools, Dr. Knox addition, the new George Pringle secondary, as well as prefabricated classrooms on Weber Road, Chief Tomat and Hudson Road elementary.

But the demand continues to grow, and our board is respectfully requesting continued capital investment, particularly for the following needed projects: a new Glenmore middle school, a middle school on the Wilden property, a second addition to Dr. Knox Middle School to transition it to a secondary school in our central zone, an addition or full replacement of Rutland Middle School and the replacement of the Cole Glenmore Elementary.

With regards to inflation and budget pressures, while we appreciate the 1.12 percent increase to per-pupil operating funding, this unfortunately does not keep pace with inflation or the actual operating costs or cost increases districts are experiencing. For 2025-26, our district is projecting a $5.2 million shortfall due to inflationary pressures and rising operational needs. With inflation forecasted at 2 percent, this gap is only expected to grow.

So we are also asking the Ministry of Education and Child Care to fully fund all costs arising from negotiated collective agreements, in particular, increases to extended health and dental benefits. The outcomes of most recent bargaining processes are not being fully covered, and for our district, these benefit increases alone represent a $2.1 million pressure for the upcoming school year. We urge the government to honour the full financial commitments of those agreements to ensure districts can maintain stability without having to reduce services to students.

With regards to additional ongoing cost pressures, several additional ongoing pressures continue to impact our district. One is portable classroom costs, including relocation and maintenance, are being absorbed through the operating grant, further straining our ability to meet classroom needs.

Sick leave costs for teachers and teaching on call and casual CUPE staff are also increasing, particularly with the requirement for five-paid sick days under the Employment Standards Act, an unfunded mandate adding $200,000 annually to our budget.

Thirdly, staffing for increasing student complexity and diversity continues to stretch our ability to support learners effectively. Despite these fiscal challenges, our board remains steadfast in its commitment to providing safe, inclusive and engaging learning environments for all students.

We will continue to use resources as efficiently and strategically as possible, prioritize supports for the increasing complexity in our classrooms and advocate for the necessary investments to keep pace with growth and ensure success for every learner.

In closing, I want to sincerely thank the committee for your continued partnership and investment in public education. The evidence in our district is clear. When you invest in education, students thrive, and when students thrive, so does our province.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

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

Questions from committee members?

Jennifer Blatherwick: Not a question. We’ve heard presentations from multiple school boards, so that’s why we have no more questions. It’s not your presentation.

But I just wanted to say that I was a school trustee before this.

Julia Fraser: Oh, yes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: A 96 percent graduation rate for a teacher — very impressive, as is 84 percent.

I was just going to see if you knew: what is your graduation rate for students with disabilities and students in care?

Julia Fraser: Oh, that’s a good one. The two that we focus on are those ones, but we don’t parcel it out like that, but I can get back to you. In the past, I’ve actually emailed the entire of what I’ve said here to the committee. Would you like me to do that, along with the answer to your question?

Jennifer Blatherwick: It’s publicly available. I can look it up.

It’s a very, very high-quality result.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great, I see no further questions, so thanks for your time today. We’ll move to our next presentation. Okay, take care.

Next we’ll hear from Community Futures North Okanagan, Leigha Horsfield. Good morning. You’ll have five minutes presentation time followed by up to five minutes of questions from members of this committee. You could begin when you’re ready.

[9:45 a.m.]

Leigha Horsfield: Great, thank you for having me. My name is Leigha Horsfield.

I am the executive director of Community Futures North Okanagan, and we support the entire North Okanagan region. We focus on economic development as it relates to workforce development, so jobs and skills, business enhancement and retention.

members of this committee, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Community Futures North Okanagan

Leigha Horsfield: Great. Thank you for having me. My name is Leigha Horsfield. I am the executive director of Community Futures North Okanagan, and we support the entire North Okanagan region. We focus on economic development as it relates to workforce development — so jobs and skills — business enhancement and retention, and entrepreneurship. As well, we respond to project needs economically in our region and initiate initiatives that will support our local economy.

We have a lot of ideas, ways to invest, for workforce development and business enhancement strategies. But today I’m going to talk about a priority that might just seem a little outside of our scope: health care.

First, I’m going to tell you about what we’ve done to support the health care sector. And then I’m going to tap into the one and only recommendation that I have for the committee today.

In our community, as we see across the province, the two main economic issues that we’re seeing are labour and housing. It affects nearly every business and ultimately individuals in our community. In 2023, our board of directors decided to examine how we can support workforce housing as a means to attempt to address both issues. One concern that we encountered when we looked at workforce housing is that it’s typically a partnership with a business or corporation of some kind. The rub for us is if you lose your job, you lose your house. And that didn’t work for us.

But then we found out in 2023 that UBC announced a brand-new medical residency program in our region. And their primary concern was where they’re going to house these medical residents. This is a family practice residency program. So we partnered extensively. We searched out individuals to support this in the community, and we mobilized. In July of 2024, we brought in our first residents. We built workforce housing in our community to address the issue. Once we have them, we need to figure out how we keep them here. So we partnered with Okanagan College to create a retention strategy.

Through that strategy, we consulted with brand-new doctors, existing doctors, health care professionals, nurse practitioners. We consulted extensively. What we learned was the strategy had to include the preferred working environment for these brand-new physicians. They’re not going to start businesses. They don’t want to deal with the overhead. They don’t want to deal with the admin. You probably know this already.

So combined with the loss of our last walk-in clinic in our region, it led us to the community health model. As you know, the community health model is a non-profit led team-based care model that provides wraparound services and focuses on social determinants of health.

Today we are recommending the province invest in the North Okanagan Community Health Centre that would attach over 6,000 patients in our region to primary care and serve marginalized populations in the North Okanagan. On the urging and expressed support of former Minister Adrian Dix, who stated to us that if Community Futures does this, we will fund it. As well, we had a visit from Premier Eby who expressed the need for a CHC in our region. And then we were invited to submit a proposal for a community health centre.

You might be wondering why would Minister Dix say that to you in a meeting where there are minutes? Because we are a very well-established non-profit. We have the WorkBC contract, I’ve had that for over 12 years. We understand the fee-for-service billing model. We have longevity in the community; we have 50 staff. We are a very well-established organization. So he clearly saw how we as an organization could take this on.

The proposal was submitted. It was sent a year ago that outlined the model, the cost, the partnership, the location, the substantial benefits to our region. And it outlined exactly how we would invest in both the renovation and operational costs. We did this because, for context, there are about 22,000 people in our region that don’t have access to primary care. They don’t have access to a family doctor. Specifically seniors and young moms and babies are disproportionately affected in our region. And that’s what we focused on in our proposal.

Emergency services are stretched. A new UPCC, urgent primary care centre, is slotted for our region, and it will serve walk-in patients. It won’t attach anyone. It will make it so that if you still need labs and referrals, you don’t have access to that with this new service.

[9:50 a.m.]

The CHC model, as I’m sure you know, is very successful in the province, throughout the province. There are lots of them that exist. It not only provides primary care, but it addresses all the social determinants of health. We have community partners, and we have community funders that are set up and ready to go for this.

successful in the province, throughout the province. There are lots of them that exist. It not only provides primary care but it addresses all the social determinants of health. We have community partners, and we have community funders that are set up and ready to go for this.

What we learned in our consultation is that, yes, this is the working model of choice for many new doctors. We currently have 13 doctors locuming in our community that have not attached patients. We met with them about a month ago and asked what they want. Many of them are waiting, because they know we submitted this, for this model in the community. They love the team-based care. They love the flexibility that this provides.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Why don’t we begin our question portion, and my colleagues will have an opportunity to ask you further questions about your model.

Leigha Horsfield: Yeah, happy to.

Steve Morissette: You can have the time to finish what you were going to say.

Leigha Horsfield: Oh, okay. I was going to say that in a press release last Monday from Minister Josie Osborne, she expressed — I’m sure that you know this — that CHCs have a high quality of need and quality of care, that there’s going to be $50 million available to assist with the creation of new CHCs.

Our region is hoping to be earmarked for one of those. The project is shovel-ready. It will take us weeks, months, not years, to get this going. Community partners are lined up, health professionals are lined up, and we’re excited about this.

We’re also resubmitting sections of the proposal to be sensitive to the fiscal needs of the province. The original location, while it was fabulous, was semi-expensive to renovate, so we’re now seeking another location.

I would say that this, along with the housing and our strategy, is the most significant way we can keep doctors in our community — and a pipeline of doctors in our community, because the residency program is going to use this space as a training ground for the residents.

I will say that there are CHCs all over the province. We need one here for the unattached patients and for the community.

Steve Morissette: Okay, further to that, you had a location, but it’s not suitable. It’s too expensive. So you’re looking for another location to do this?

Leigha Horsfield: It’s suitable and expensive but I think probably too expensive for the renovation. So now we are sourcing another location that we’re in the midst of drawing a schematic for.

Steve Morissette: Okay, so you’re looking for a piece of land or a building.

Leigha Horsfield: A building.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, okay. And then you’ll make a plan to renovate.

Bryan Tepper: What do you need to get the community care working?

Leigha Horsfield: To get the CHC going?

Bryan Tepper: Yeah.

Leigha Horsfield: We need to renovate a space, and we need the CHC funding in order to bring on both the health professionals and the support professionals.

Bryan Tepper: What are you estimating that as?

Leigha Horsfield: Oh, the project cost. We’re estimating just in and around $1 million for the renovation, because as you know, when it comes to a health care building, there’s a really, really high standard, And the operating costs are about $3 million a year if we’re fully staffed.

Steve Morissette: Do you have a team to manage it? Because that’s part of the community health centre. Doctors don’t want to manage it.

Leigha Horsfield: That’s right, yeah. That’s a team of me and my team that would oversee and manage that.

Steve Morissette: Okay, thank you.

Leigha Horsfield: Yes, our non-profit would take care of all of the administration.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Well, thank you for the presentation.

Leigha Horsfield: Thank you for having me.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Seeing no further questions. We appreciate your time, and we will take a 15-minute recess to prepare for our next round of presentations.

The committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. 10:15 a.m.

The committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. 10:15 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. We’ll call our committee back to order, and we’ll begin again with a presentation by the B.C. Network of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres, Brooke McLardy.

You may begin

The committee recessed from 9:53 a.m. 10:15 a.m.

[Elenore Sturko in the chair.]

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Great. We’ll call our committee back to order.

We’ll begin again with a presentation by the B.C. Network of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres, Brooke McLardy.

You may begin when you’re ready, with five minutes for presentation time and up to five minutes for questions from committee members.

B.C. Network of
Child and Youth Advocacy Centres

Brooke McLardy: Hello. I am Brooke McLardy. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Network of Child and Youth Advocacy Centres.

Thank you for meeting with me today on the unceded and stolen lands of the Syilx people.

I’d like to talk to you today about an issue in our province that is within the power of government to fix. That issue is that 60 percent of children under the age of 15 will experience some form of abuse and that B.C. lacks a mandated, coordinated response to these horrific crimes. With a stat that staggering, it is incumbent on the provincial government to have a solid response in place for when children come forward.

I’m going to ask you to imagine a child you love. Now imagine the unthinkable has happened, that they’ve experienced sexual abuse. In our current system of response, your child would report their experience to a police station to whatever police officer is available. They would be referred over to a ministry office to speak to a child protection worker and tell their story again. If they’re one of the very lucky few, they’ll be referred to victim services and maybe medical services.

They are very unlikely to receive a mental health assessment or any kind of specialized trauma response. Their caregiver will have to navigate all of these systems while trying to cope with their own trauma and grief.

The long-term well-being trajectory for this child is not good. They will become one of the many in our province dealing with homelessness, substance use and mental health issues. They are more likely than their peers to experience interpersonal violence as adults and to experience poor physical health. They are likely to access government and social services for the rest of their life, and this is a result of the failing of our system.

Now imagine that child you love lives in a community with a coordinated response, a child and youth advocacy centre. That child is referred to the CYAC in their own community where they meet a specially trained advocate who will help navigate services for them as long as they need. They are interviewed by highly trained police in a safe and comfortable environment especially designed for children. Child protection workers monitor the interview so they only have to share their experience once. Caregivers receive culturally informed and trauma-informed needs assessments, and services are put into place right away.

Information sharing between government services and other professionals is seamless and proactive, allowing strong decisions to be made in a timely manner, and the family is kept at the centre of all service.

The path of this child is much more positive. The system is working for them, and they have the opportunity to heal from their trauma and grow into high-functioning adult members of our communities.

Unfortunately, in B.C., the latter example is very rare. In the majority of our communities, the integrated and coordinated service does not exist. While some government policy is in place that speaks to coordination, this does not happen at the community level because there’s no framework in place to make it work.

I have two recommendations for your consideration. Firstly, while we know these are dark times financially, we ask you to recommend that when the time is right, CYACs are provided funding contracts to provide the framework to coordinate child abuse response. You heard from our members last week in Victoria and Vancouver that CYACs are fundraising millions of dollars to do what the government does not have the capacity to do. These non-profits are creating efficiencies and cost savings for government, and they require a foundation of reliable funding to continue this work.

Secondly, we’re asking that while we wait for the financial picture to improve, the B.C. government develop strong policy that compels collaboration amongst government services when responding to cases of child abuse. This policy would ensure that police, child protection, victim services, medical professionals, schools and others all work together to address the safety of children.

We often hear that all the simple problems have been solved, and we are certainly facing very complex issues in our communities. However, the solution does not need to be complicated if we just start taking steps forward. When B.C. creates a mandate to compel government services to work together on cases of violence against children, that will be one step towards a safer and healthier British Columbia.

We are asking for your recommendations, and we are also offering our help. Our network has the experience and the knowledge of how cross-ministry response works at the community level, and we are here to help the B.C. government meet the moment. When that strong and meaningful public policy is in place, our network has the framework to ensure it is followed. Together we can ensure that all children in our province who have experienced the unthinkable have access to the best possible response and an opportunity at a healthy and positive future.

[10:20 a.m.]

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

Looking to members of this committee for questions.

Steve Morissette: Number one, just to clarify. CYAC’s — you want stable, ongoing

Great. Thank you for that presentation. I’m looking to members of this committee for questions.

Steve Morissette: One, just to clarify…. CYCs — you want stable, ongoing funding to support intervention in cases of abuse?

Brooke McLardy: That’s right. Right now, we do not have provincial contracts for this service.

On the back page of the handout I gave you, it shows a little bit about our funding model. We do get a small amount from the federal victims fund. That fund has not increased in a decade, and it is very likely that we’ll lose that at some point.

Provincially, we’ve been very grateful to receive civil forfeiture office funds, but that, unfortunately, is year-by-year. The amount can vary greatly, and it’s never guaranteed. So what we’re looking for is contracts to provide that framework in communities so that government services can coordinate their responses.

Steve Morissette: Second piece, if I may. An incident with a child, an abuse, should compel government services to work together? We should…?

Brooke McLardy: That’s correct. Right now, there’s no mandate for government services to work cross-ministry on these cases together, which means police can do their own thing. Child protection can do their own thing. Health is out here somewhere, and nobody…. They’re not talking.

That’s what we see in the majority of our communities. There’s that lack of coordination happening, because it’s not compelled and there’s no framework for it. So we’re the framework. We can put that in place, and we’re doing that very successfully in 11 of our communities. But we do need the baseline funding in order to continue that work.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions from the committee, but thank you very much for your presentation. Very important work you’re doing, so thank you for doing that as well.

Brooke McLardy: Thank you, and safe travels to all.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

We’ll move to our next presenter, from Archway Society for Domestic Peace, Micki Materi. Good morning. You’ll have five minutes of presentation time, followed by up to five minutes for questions from our committee. You can begin when you’re ready.

Micki Materi: Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. I will endeavor to keep it short and sweet and give lots of opportunities for questions.

My name is Micki Materi. I’m the co-executive director of programs for Archway Society for Domestic Peace here in the North Okanagan. Our purpose is to create a future free from violence through supporting women and their families to live a life with dignity and respect, free from domestic and sexual violence.

We provide a continuum of supports through 18 programs and services at six different locations, which actually includes one of the CYACs that Brooke was talking about. It includes shelter, outreach, counselling, victim services, sexual assault services and advocacy. We provide school-based presentations on healthy relationships and how violence is preventable. We chair the North Okanagan violence and relationships committee, sexual assault services committee and the North Okanagan high-risk domestic violence team.

Now, our main funders are B.C. Housing — they fund our transition house and our homelessness prevention program — and PSSG, which funds our Stopping the Violence counselling, our Children Who Witness Abuse–type counselling outreach and sexual assault services, victim services. Then MCFD supports our support young parents program, which is like residential support for young moms and pregnant teens between 15 and 29.

Of course, we recommend the establishment of multi-year increased operating funding for all of our programs. The demands for supports and costs to deliver supports in the Okanagan continue to increase while the funding provided doesn’t. Our overhead costs alone in the last three years have increased: our auditing costs have increased 15 percent; communications, 11 percent; insurance, 105 percent; security, 38 percent; utilities, 36 percent; and our food and supplies by 43 percent.

Now, these are costs that are needed in order to even exist, and we have no control over them. They continue to increase, but really, we don’t have the funding. Over the last year, we actually had to make the difficult decision to reduce some staffing hours.

[10:25 a.m.]

We’ve applied for grants. We do fundraising. We do get donations, which certainly helps supplement the programs. But it just, over the last few years, hasn’t been enough to really fill the gap without creating a whole lot of stress, and it has been very difficult. In making the decision, we tried to reduce the supports, the staffing that wouldn’t…. To minimize

helps supplement the programs, but it just, over the last few years, hasn’t been enough to really fill the gap without creating a whole lot of stress, and it’s been very difficult. In making the decision, we tried to reduce the supports, the staffing that wouldn’t…. To minimize the impact on our client’s support as much as possible, and we’ll continue to apply for grants and stuff.

I wanted to take a different approach because I know it’s challenging to think of all of the needs in our province here. I just wanted to identify the costs of paying for violence across the board and the benefits of investing in women’s services. Based on a study done by the Department of Justice in 2009, they estimated that the national financial cost of spousal violence alone was at approximately $6 billion annually. This includes costs such as health care, legal services, lost productivity and intangible costs such as pain, suffering and lost life. The estimated costs in B.C. were determined to be approximately $808 million.

Just a note, these estimates are based on 2009 figures, and now it’s 2025. They only reflect spousal violence. The actual costs of gender-based violence in B.C. today are likely significantly higher due to factors such as rising rates of reported and unreported violence, particularly among Indigenous, racialized and marginalized women; increases in mental health, trauma-related and chronic health conditions, all associated with gender-based violence; and also the hidden and unreported cases leading to delayed or compounded costs.

The benefits of investing in services, we would see reduced health care costs. I mean, they say that every dollar spent on early support saves $3 to $5 in downstream health care costs, and survivors of gender-based violence have higher health costs generally.

Increased economic productivity. Women-centred services help survivors return to work and education. And it’s been determined that…. I’m running out of time already. I was going to be faster. At any rate, overall, the savings investing in our supports actually can be significantly less than what it costs over the long run.

We’re also looking for some funding to support our community-coordinated initiatives. I mean, we chaired the committees, and there are some costs associated to that. We also want to see more support for school-based presentations and educating parents around sexting and those kind of issues that are impacting our youth.

I just want to say, in closing, that I do recognize the difficult financial times that we are in and the uncertainty of economic success with the volatility of our next-door neighbours. However, as my mommy used to say: “Where there is will, there is a way.” It has also been said that if you educate a man, you educate an individual; if you educate a woman, you educate a nation. I will also say that if we ensure a safe community for women, we do create a safe community for everyone. Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I’ll ask the committee members if they have questions at this time.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, thank you for your work. I’m actually the Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, and the PSSG funding comes from my office.

I know that you do the violence is preventable program, and I’m hoping you can talk about how many schools you go into and how many kids you educate.

Micki Materi: Oh God. We have significantly increased…. We probably are doing every school in district 21, like in the school district. I always forget the school districts. But we are seeing most of the school districts in the Vernon area but also in Armstrong and Enderby.

The challenge is having the time and having the human resource capacity, because we can do so much more.

Jennifer Blatherwick: It’s a specialized skill, really, to have those conversations with children. Not everyone comes equipped with that skill.

Micki Materi: True.

Jennifer Blatherwick: With your funding that you’re asking for, what I hadn’t heard before was funding to support community coordination.

[10:30 a.m.]

Micki Materi: Okay. I’ll give you an example of how well working…. Because community coordination, we work together across all the sectors. Many years ago, when we had victims of sexual assault show up at the Vernon Hospital, they would often be sent to Kelowna because we didn’t have any sexual assault nurse examiners or any doctors that were

because community coordination. We work together across all the sectors.

Many years ago, when victims of sexual assault would show up at the Vernon hospital, they would often be sent to Kelowna because we didn’t have any sexual assault nurse examiners or any doctors that were specialized. So the community came together and developed the sexual assault services committee. We raised funds locally to be able to train the sexual assault nurse examiners, who would then volunteer their time. That’s how we were able to create the ability for people to not have to go to Kelowna. It was by coming together that we were able to actually increase our capacity.

We also are involved with the integrated case assessment team, and that is where we all come together and assess the highest-risk domestics with the outcome potential for lethality. So through that we have RCMP, MCFD, income assistance, us, probation, mental health, victim services, who all come together to assess the highest risks. We’re actually pretty busy. We meet every two weeks. We generally have at least one to assess every two weeks. Over last year we had like 23 over the year in this area alone.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So you are already doing integrated community services, and you know how well it works?

Micki Materi: Yeah.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thanks.

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

We’ll be going to our next presenter, from the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance, Taryn Skalbania.

Taryn Skalbania: Hello.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Hello. Welcome.

Peachland Watershed / Protection Alliance

Taryn Skalbania: Welcome. Way̓ , in Syilx. I’m Taryn Skalbania from the Peachland Watershed Protection Alliance.

First, I’d like to really acknowledge that I’m on unceded Syilx territory, and as keepers of the land, we want to leave it better than what we found it as uninvited guests.

I’d also like to appreciate you, our elected officials, for allowing the community to be heard. I love in-person visits. We get to see that you’re not just a person we elected, but you’re human, and we have human issues on our side.

And I also really want to apologize. I was to be this morning, but my day job is a farmer. We’ve been really suffering from this avian flu, and I had an opportunity to get to Vancouver yesterday and pick up new heritage birds to fill my flock, a hatchling. Flying back this morning proved difficult. So thank you for sneaking me in.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): We’re happy to have you. So please, five minutes for presentation time and up to five minutes for questions.

Taryn Skalbania: Great.

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

Taryn Skalbania: This is my fourth or fifth time presenting live and written submissions on behalf of the watershed security fund. That is what we ask for. We have lobbied for it. It became a line item on the budget, and then a couple of years back, it became a budget item.

However, recently it has been cut. You’ve cut it back by 80 percent. So I’m hoping to renew the reasons why watersheds like the Peachland watershed need protection.

Most of you are MLAs from the coast. You probably have never heard of a fire in your watershed or a flood or a mudslide that killed people or a court case fighting to protect your watershed. You’ve never had to sue the forestry licensees or logging or the government to protect your watershed. You’ve never had to chase cattle out of your water intake, but that happens every day in our Peachland watershed.

I’m a member of the Interior Watershed Task Force as well. We’ve joined 22 Interior watersheds. Our purpose is to oppose multi-use land management in Interior watersheds. We need more community say, and we need more protections like your Vancouver and Victoria watersheds, where you’ve decided that water and purveying water to at least 50 percent of the population is far more important than cattle ranging, 2-by-4s and forestry extraction, mining.

Water. Biodiversity. That’s really what’s important. So I’m asking you: if you’re not going to increase funds to the watershed security fund, can we increase protection to watersheds? This would happen in only one way. It’s legislation. We have to change the laws that govern the Land Act and the use of watersheds in B.C.

I came from Vancouver. It was protected. I went to school in Victoria. It was protected. I lived in Whistler for ten years. It was protected.

[10:35 a.m.]

When I moved to Peachland…. It was appalling, the state of affairs. We used to be a much more resource-extractive industry and province.

That’s not the case. I was just listening to CBC this morning while I was waiting in the airport. Community forestry representatives are meeting here in Kelowna right now

the state of affairs. We used to be a much more resource-extractive industry and province.

That’s not the case. I was just listening to CBC this morning while I was waiting in the airport. Community forestry representatives are meeting here in Kelowna right now. The rural economy isn’t what it used to be. Forestry is not living up to its expectations. We’ve subsidized forestry greatly in this province, as you all know. Hydro subsidies, carbon emissions subsidies, carbon taxes, just the stumpage itself. We had subsidized it with community forests, and we subsidized it with Forest Enhancement Society grants.

Perhaps if we subsidize forestry and the business of forestry less and put that money towards communities and community protection, the watershed security fund, it would be more beneficial. I think the collateral damages and losses to communities are great. Peachland had to build a $25 million water treatment plant because we had dirty drinking water. It has been absolutely proven by the Forest Practices Board to be caused by excessive forestry in our watershed. Sedimentation.

Other communities have lost salmon due to forestry. Of course, we all know Grand Forks — 40 homes expropriated, 400 other people out of homes. Businesses lost $100 million in flood damages. That’s a lot of collateral damages caused by forestry. Again, a forestry practices report confirmed that excessive logging is happening. Right now, there’s a class action. How many more class actions do we want from the communities of British Columbia actually affected by logging?

Again, it comes down to paradigm shift. That’s what B.C. keeps promising us — a paradigm shift in forestry. We have a Minister of Forests and a ministry that only has 14,000 people employed in forestry right now. I got that number off yesterday’s WorkBC government website: 14,800 people in the entire province employed by forestry, and only 1.69 percent of the GDP. Is that ministry worth all the collateral damages?

Vancouver Airport employs more, has 6 percent GDP. Film industry in B.C. employs 60,000 people, has far more percent of GDP. Gas stations, for example, employ 60,000 people in B.C. They don’t even have a ministry. Why are we protecting forestry so much when we know the communities are needing to diversify and the industry needs to buckle up and do it sustainably?

Obviously they can’t do it sustainably, so we have to tell them we need to protect our watersheds. If you’re not going to log sustainably, then you’re not going to log in our watersheds. That’s my presentation.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Yes. Thank you very much. And questions from committee members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. So you were asking for protection from multi-use water areas, right? Now, I’m from Vancouver, so like you were saying, my knowledge of unprotected watershed is very small, because it’s not a condition under which I live.

I was hoping you could give a little bit more example about how you think a budgetary ask would help to create protections.

Taryn Skalbania: Two things. An audit of the Ministry of Forests for one to actually see where all that subsidy money is going. It’s $1 million a day, every day, the taxpayers are giving to the Ministry of Forests to manage its affairs. Not all of it is forestry. Some of it is river forecasting and dams, some of it is, of course, parks and sites. But we need to find out really are we getting our money’s worth?

Is forestry giving back to B.C. in the way it was? Licensees are abdicating. They’re leaving B.C. left, right and centre, and 200 mills have closed in the last 25 years. The so-called 140 forestry-dependent communities in B.C. is now down to 100. Communities like…. Port Alice used to be a forestry community. They’re now a tourism economy.

So I’m hoping, one, an audit. Actually crunch the numbers, do the budget. See what forestry is providing this province and what we really should be putting our money towards instead of subsidizing forestry. It’s a big ask. And it might not happen today, but as long as we start talking about it….

Like you said, you don’t know what’s going on. You don’t know that there are hundreds of miles of barbed wire in our province due to cattle. There are clear cuts that are never going to regrow. They’re never going to be a forest again. They’re going to be a tree farm, a fake forest. They can’t supply water, shade, forage, biodiversity.

[10:40 a.m.]

I think the time of resource extraction has come and gone. Serious resource extraction. We need a much-reduced industry in B.C. All the experts are saying about 80 percent of what the forestry industry is now is what could be sustained. They’ve already left — 52,000 jobs gone in the forestry industry, again, in the last 25 years. Not sustainable.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for your presentation. I am rural. I come from the Kootenays. The

percent of what the forestry industry is now is what could be sustained. They’ve already left — 52,000 jobs gone in the forestry industry, again, in the last 25 years. Not sustainable.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for your presentation.

I am rural. I come from the Kootenays. The challenge is how do we replace 14,000 jobs? Lots of those are 200 jobs at this little town, 200 jobs at that little town. How do we replace those jobs to keep those communities viable? That’s a challenge.

Taryn Skalbania: I know a lot of those situations very well. Tolko just closed its mill in Kelowna. We lost 300 jobs.

Grand Forks — Interfor has been saying for the last three to five years they’re going to be closing that mill. There are only 200 or 300 people. It’s seasonal. It’s not high-paying. They’re blue-collar jobs. Grand Forks has a high, high population of farming, tourism, and they’re trying to reach out. There’s only a population of 20 to 500, I think, right now in Grand Forks. So 200 to 300 jobs, yes, will be hurt.

But every single community has a ghost town for mining. They manage to survive. Every single forestry community that was a vibrant forestry community has managed to diversify. We haven’t fallen off into the Pacific. Nova Scotia thought they had a vibrant cod-fishing industry, until they didn’t. They over cod-fished. We are overlogging. Those communities will diversify.

Right now I know of 4,000 jobs needed ASAP in forestry wildfire fighting. I know of 3,000 jobs needed today, exactly, in tree planting. Those are 7,000 forestry jobs right now. Transition, training….

Steve Morissette: Thank you.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions.

Taryn Skalbania: Well, you can always email me. I’ll leave my information.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): And sorry to hear about your struggle with avian flu on your farm.

Taryn Skalbania: Yes, it wasn’t me so much, but everywhere I try to procure birds from — they’re shutting down, they can’t fill orders. And I specialize in heritage birds and exotic chickens, because I like to look at them: Polish-crested, because of my family’s Polish origins. And you cannot find them anymore. So when there is a hatch, you go for it. I did.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay. Wow.

Taryn Skalbania: I thought I could get back in time, and the airline said I could.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Well, you made it in time. You got to present. So thank you for being so adventurous and making it back for us.

Taryn Skalbania: You guys were very generous. Thank you so much. Thanks for doing this.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, take care.

We’ll go to our next presenter now from the Canadian Mental Health Association, Vernon and District. It’s Vicki Proulx. Good morning.

Vicki Proulx: Good morning. How is everyone?

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good. It’s great to see you. And you’ll have five minutes for presentation time, followed by up to five minutes of questions from our committee. You can begin when you’re ready.

Canadian Mental Health
Association, Vernon and District

Vicki Proulx: Absolutely. So my name is Vicki Proulx, and I’m the director of fund development and communications at CMHA in Vernon. On behalf of the Canadian Mental Health Association, Vernon and District, thank you for having me here today, and we wanted to recognize and honour and respect the unceded territory of the Syilx Nation and the people of the Inka-Nupplups, whose traditional and ancestral territory CMHA, Vernon and District, offices are situated on.

I’m here today to let you know about some of the needs in the North Okanagan community that we are seeing through the work with adults, youth and families. For over 65 years, CMHA Vernon has stood beside individuals and families through their most difficult moments, offering support, compassion and resources needed to heal. Through adult programs, crisis intervention, counselling, youth-integrated services, employment opportunities, affordable housing and psychosocial rehabilitation, CMHA Vernon has been dedicated to building a healthy, inclusive community in the North Okanagan, one that supports mental wellness for all.

Today I’m going to provide recommendations on three areas of need we continue to see in the North Okanagan, including counselling services for youth and adults, affordable housing and suicide prevention and intervention.

The need for short- and long-term counselling for youth and adults continues to be a support that’s lacking throughout the Okanagan. CMHA Vernon is proud to be one of the 18 communities that are in development of a Foundry centre, preparing to open the doors to Foundry North Okanagan within the next two years. This will be a lifeline for youth age 12 to 24 and their families. No more confusion, no more being passed from service to service, just one door to open, a door to connection, to care and to hope.

However, Foundry counselling models are solution-focused and not long-term. We need greater long-term and expanded supports for both youth and adults as we continue to see more complex needs. Deeper exploration of challenges, personal growth and the development of healthier patterns of thinking and behaviour will allow agencies like CMHA Vernon to strengthen the impact that counselling can have on the health of our communities.

[10:45 a.m.]

Peer support for both adults and youth are proven and cost-effective programs that have positive impacts on mental health, offering numerous benefits to individuals with lived experience of mental health challenges and the wider community.

We would recommend that the province of B.C. continue to expand funding through proven programs like peer supports, as well as exploring additional funding opportunities for long

that have positive impacts on mental health, offering numerous benefits to individuals with lived experience of mental health challenges in the wider community. We would recommend that the province of B.C. continue to expand funding to proven programs like peer supports, as well as exploring additional funding opportunities for long- and short-term counselling programs throughout the North Okanagan.

New and affordable housing continues to be a priority, not only for this community but throughout the province. While we applaud the recent opening of CHF and ongoing investments in BC Builds, additional investments and new community funding are still needed for affordable housing. Much of the current focus seems to be on private market development, which continues to not be affordable in the North Okanagan region.

CMHA Vernon is proud to offer housing to the North Okanagan community, with nine housing units in Vernon, but we need more still, with over 1,500 people on wait-lists to find a home. We would recommend that the province create access to more funding for affordable housing projects led by non-profit organizations.

Lastly, CMHA Vernon is proud to be a part of the suicide prevention and crisis intervention programs both nationally and at the provincial level. More support for CRCL will reduce reliance on emergency services and increase low-intervention models, allowing for health care and peer support to expand the reach of the program. We recommend and encourage the province to continue to fund suicide prevention work in the North Okanagan community, expanding services into rural communities and smaller towns and districts.

Thank you so much for listening to this today. We look forward to working with the provincial government to create healthier communities.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your work. I would like to talk a little bit more about your suicide prevention initiatives. You use CRCL?

Vicki Proulx: We do 988 as well, and we have Care to Speak, and 310 crisis line, 1-800, and CRCL.

Jennifer Blatherwick: The current funding — where does that come from?

Vicki Proulx: We do get funding from the province, and we do have federal funding for that as well. Really, the need, with our crisis lines, is for volunteer recruitment and retention. Many of our crisis lines are volunteer-run — peer support as well. Having that retention and recruitment of volunteers is probably our biggest struggle right now.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I think that’s universal across all sectors that have volunteer bases. It’s an increasing challenge.

You’re looking for more support for those services. Can you tell me the current level of financial support from the provincial government and what you’re looking to increase it to?

Vicki Proulx: That number I don’t know off the top of my head, but definitely, expansion into rural communities is something that we’re hearing a lot of.

Right now most, if not all, of the crisis line services in the North Okanagan are based out of Vernon. A lot of people don’t access them, because they think they’re going to be directed to someone nationally or in Vancouver, not locally. So really, creating that education around who you’re talking to in the Interior, I think, is important — and accessing volunteers and people who can help with the crisis line from the rural communities as well.

Steve Morissette: I’m curious about the affordable housing challenges. I’m in the West Kootenays, and it hasn’t really been a challenge. If the municipality is on board and a non-profit society is on board, it has been pretty easy to get funding to build affordable housing. What are the challenges here?

Vicki Proulx: Something we’re seeing in the North Okanagan is that a lot of the focus is on private market development right now. We’re seeing that there are more private organizations that are trying to create affordable housing, but it’s not necessarily, exactly, affordable housing.

For us, I think the biggest challenge is the seed money to get a project started. There’s only so much funding that goes around to create seed money for projects. For land acquisition or for buying an existing building, the seed money is really important for non-profit-led projects.

[10:50 a.m.]

Steve Morissette: Okay, I understand. Typically, municipalities are on board, want that affordable housing and usually have some skin in the game with a piece of property that they’ll lease to B.C. Housing or such. That’s not happening here?

Vicki Proulx: Yeah, I don’t really know enough about the history of the relationship between the city of Vernon and CMHA. Like I said, we do have nine units in Vernon that CMHA runs. They are affordable housing units, but it’s

B.C. Housing or such and that’s not happening here?

Vicki Proulx: Yeah, I don’t really know enough about the history of the relationship between the city of Vernon and CMHA. Like I said, we do have nine units in Vernon that CMHA runs, and they are affordable housing units. But it’s still not enough. We’re just continually looking for opportunities to build more.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I see no further questions but really appreciate your time. Thank you for your presentation and the work that you’re doing for the province.

We’ll move to our next presentation from Kruger Kamloops Pulp, Mr. Thomas Hoffman. Good morning.

Thomas Hoffman: Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You’ll have five minutes for your presentation followed by up to five minutes of questions from members of our committee. and you may begin when you’re ready.

Thomas Hoffman: Thanks again. My name is Tom Hoffman. I do work for Kruger Kamloops Pulp, and I’m a founding member of the B.C. Pulp and Paper Coalition of which I represent today. My discussion here today is with regards to provincial rather than localized. I work for Kruger, but I’m representing the B.C. Pulp and Paper Coalition. Thank you for this opportunity.

As all of you are completely aware, there’s a very big hole in the provincial budget, and health care, education, roads, bridges and other infrastructure and social services are badly underfunded. Where is the money going to come from to meet these needs, along with the new requests that I’m sure that you’re hearing as you travel across B.C.?

Our coalition, the B.C. Pulp and Paper Coalition, has two requests as well. But we also offer the opportunity to increase government revenue if we can realize opportunities in some key areas of provincial responsibility.

I’m going to repeat that. We offer up an opportunity to increase government revenue.

The pulp and paper companies represented in our coalition directly employ 4,321 people and, when indirect and induced jobs are included, the number is over 10,000. The sector also produces about $3 billion in economic activity every year.

The 11 mills in our group included are the backbones of their local communities, from Kamloops where I’m from, Castlegar, Nanaimo, Crofton. Unfortunately, we have seen four pulp and paper mills shut down in B.C. since 2021.

When you combine the highest operating costs of any jurisdiction on the planet with pulp and paper industry with a lack of available fibre, mills will close, as we have seen in Prince George, Powell River, Taylor and Mackenzie.

So to keep B.C.’s remaining pulp and paper mills running and being able to pay family supporting wages for those 10,000 jobs that I just spoke about and being able to pump millions in revenues into the provincial coffers, we need one thing above all. That’s more certainty that we will have the fibre that we need.

Historically, about 70 percent of the fibre used by the pulp and paper coalition mills has come from sawmills in the form of chips and other residuals. They, of course, manufacture lumber but also chips and hog fuel.

As B.C. sawmills close — there have been more than 30 since 2017 — fewer and fewer sawmill chips are available. So we need to find more fibre available from other sources. Three years ago, our coalition and the Ministry of Forests set up a fibre task force, aimed at finding about three million cubic metres more of fibre for the pulp sector every year.

The good news is that we have made good headway. In the past two years, we have sourced three million cubic metres of incremental fibre, so our member mills were able to operate at a higher level and keep those 10,000 jobs and those communities alive.

A big component in closing this gap were programs and projects funded by the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. Obviously, I won’t be able to explain all of that today, but I would encourage you to look it up. I’m going to use the acronym FESBC. for the rest of my presentation.

[10:55 a.m.]

Local, practical projects in dozens of communities were able to gather fibre through such things as thinning forest and brush around communities to make them safe from wildfires — certainly, you and MLA Rattée will be very familiar with the northern B.C. situation — while producing fibre that went to the local mill to produce pulp that is shipped worldwide.

In other cases, a small portion of all of those wildfire-killed stands were salvaged. A burn tree can be used in a pulp mill if it is processed to remove the majority of the char.

and while producing fibre that went to the local mill to produce pulp that is shipped worldwide.

In other cases, a small portion of all those wildfire-killed stands were salvaged. A burned tree can be used in a pulp mill if it is processed to remove the majority of the char. So we access some of that damaged timber, but really only a small percentage of the potential volume that’s out there.

B.C. has about 10 million cubic metres of burned timber at 44 sites throughout the province. Doesn’t it make sense that it be used while it has some value with the industry that’s already there? Doesn’t it make sense that local jobs be created to gather and process that burned wood? And does it not make sense that FESBC continue to be funded so that more communities can be protected from wildfires, so that local mills can keep going? And maybe we won’t have to keep spending $1 billion a year. It’s actually $6 billion since 2017 — the number I heard yesterday — on firefighting every year.

Unfortunately, this year’s provincial budget doesn’t appear to have any funding allocated towards the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. FESBC was funded at $25 million in each year of the last three years. This year’s budget allocation is $20 million, with the majority earmarked for fire prevention.

So the pulp and paper coalition that I’m representing has two asks. One, the province meets its annual harvest target of 45 million, as outlined in the minister’s mandate letter. COFI has calculated that the incremental stumpage revenues from increasing the harvest levels from the current 32 million to 45 million would generate $270 million towards provincial coffers.

Two, FESBC should be funded at $50 million each year for the next three years. Without that funding, without those forest thinning and salvage projects, the fibre gap I described will start growing again as well as the fire situation.

B.C. needs to generate more revenue, not less. Pulp and paper is an existing industry that is already here and able to help that revenue problem. We are operating today, keeping more than 10,000 people at work and supporting the province and communities with tax revenues and supporting hundreds of suppliers and entrepreneurs throughout B.C.

Please consider our request for quickly achieving the 45-million-cubic-metre harvest level as well as the funding for FESBC.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

Questions from committee members?

Claire Rattée: I don’t really have a question, just a comment, I guess.

Thank you. I appreciate you presenting to us on this. Losing the pulp and paper mill in my community was incredibly devastating. And I have family in Houston, so I know how difficult this has been, and I know that it is a sector we need to support because these are important jobs. It’s important for our economy, so I appreciate it. Thank you.

Steve Morissette: Your request is that FESBC get $50 million a year annual funding, and it’s around $20 million right now?

Thomas Hoffman: The last year of funding — and it’s not…. I don’t see it in the budget forecasts thus far — is $20 million. At $50 million, we were able to do fire prevention work as well as working with First Nations in accessing timber that was burned seven years ago, 2017, seven years ago. And we converted it into pulp and power.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. I didn’t realize that we could use burnt timber for pulp, and there’s got to be an excess amount of that.

Thomas Hoffman: The shelf life for saw logs, which provide 70 percent of our chips, is about a year. Depending on the species, one to two, maximum two years, but usually around a year. But pulp, we can still utilize it, but we need assistance in accessing it. It’s just too expensive when you consider access, reforestation and all of the other…. And we do employ — and I can readily provide the committee examples — First Nations that are doing this work for us.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I see no further questions, so I want to thank you for your time and your presentation. Very informative.

Any other business from the committee?

Seeing no further business, I’d like to thank everyone who presented. That concludes our meeting today. Our committee will be in Cranbrook this afternoon for our next public hearing.

I’ll now seek a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 11:00 a.m.