The committee met at 8:32 a.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Good morning, everyone. My name is Paul Choi. I’m the MLA for Burnaby South–Metrotown and Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

I’d like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the legislative precinct here in Victoria, which is located on the homeland of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking people, now known as the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

I would also like to welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting. Our committee is currently conducting its annual consultation with British Columbians on their priorities for the next provincial budget. British Columbians who are not presenting to the committee can still share their views by making written comments. The details on how to provide submissions are available on our website at bcleg.ca/consultations.

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

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning, Chair. It’s Elenore Sturko. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale. I’m the critic for Public Safety and Solicitor General, and I’m looking forward to hearing today’s round of submissions.

Bryan Tepper: Hello, I am Brian Tepper, MLA for Surrey-Panorama and critic for community safety and integrated services.

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

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

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

Sunita Dhir: Good morning, I’m Sunita Dhir. I’m the MLA for Vancouver-Langara, as well as Parliamentary Secretary for International Credentials.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much, members. I’ll also like to acknowledge that there are many people who are assisting the committee today in and around the precinct. Thank you very much for all your help.

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

First up, we have Annabree Fairweather, from Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C. Thanks for joining us today. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Budget Consultation Presentations

Confederation of University Faculty
Associations of B.C.

Annabree Fairweather: Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to present today and for the important work that your committee does to engage British Columbians in this provincial budget process. My name is Annabree Fairweather. I’m the executive director of the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of B.C., or CUFA B.C.

[8:35 a.m.]

We represent 5,500 academic faculty staff through their unionized faculty associations at B.C.’s public research universities. These include UBC, SFU, University of Victoria, UNBC and Royal Roads University. Our members are professors, researchers and academic staff who deliver the academic mission and the

academic faculty staff through their unionized faculty associations at B.C.’s public research universities. These include UBC, SFU, University of Victoria, UNBC and Royal Roads University.

Our members are professors and researchers and academic staff who deliver the academic mission and the practical mission of our institutions. For some context, our members teach 69 percent of the undergraduate students and 95 percent of the graduate students in public universities. It’s an incredible amount of work that our members are responsible for, and they do it to great effect.

B.C.’s research universities are more than just learning institutions. They’re society’s anchor institutions. They drive the creation of ideas, innovation and economic growth and educate people for good, meaningful jobs that further contribute to this province’s success.

The financial health of our institutions is under threat. There’s a gap between institutional costs and government operating grants. This is due to several factors: the federal policy changes around international student enrolments, high inflation and the province’s modest base funding increases over time. The results of this are that we’re seeing layoffs, hiring freezes and cuts to the programs deemed too costly to run, even in areas with strong student enrolments and strong job market demand.

With the government’s own prediction of 1 million jobs coming on the market, most of these requiring post-secondary education, now is the time to reinvest in our sector. It’s a direct investment in the future prosperity of British Columbia.

We have three recommendations for the upcoming budget. The first is that government must commit to a long-term, sustainable funding model for B.C.’s public universities. We were encouraged that this year’s budget protected the public sector from cuts, including post-secondary institutions. That commitment must continue. Institutions need stable, predictable funding to plan effectively, attract and retain talented faculty and students and break the cycle of overreliance on tuition revenue from international students, an issue we’ve raised for many years.

Part of this mission for sustainable funding must also look at the attestation letters for international students, since the ministry has allocated only 53 percent of the province’s enrolment caps to public institutions, further exacerbating the financial pressure on public universities.

The second recommendation is to enhance provincial support for academic research at our research universities. B.C. faculty are leading world-class research that directly supports this province, from wildfire prevention and climate adaptation to addressing B.C.’s toxic drug crisis and developing eco-friendly food packaging that will reduce plastic in our local landfills and waterways.

There’s so much wonderful opportunity for faculty, students and communities here, but the federal research funding is stagnating, and with the consequences of massive research funding cuts in the United States and lost research collaborations from this, we risk losing a generation of talent and irreparable loss of research knowledge.

Part of the solution lies in transforming the B.C. knowledge development fund. We can talk about more of this in the follow-up — this is an anchor — but we need to expand it beyond STEM to include social sciences, humanities and the arts; invigorate investment in whole projects, not just research infrastructure; and expand it to support work-integrated learning opportunities for student researchers.

Again, we can follow up with this. But by nurturing a vibrant research ecosystem, we can attract world-class talent, retain world-class researchers and students and foster continued collaboration between academia, industry and government.

Our third and final recommendation is for renewed capital investment to address aging infrastructure across university campuses. Deferred maintenance is growing and unfunded, and the lack of modern, functional research space is limiting innovation and collaboration. It compromises the student learning experience, both in the classroom and in the labs.

We want to emphasize that B.C.’s research universities are a vital part of this province’s success story, but they need your support to remain strong. Sustained public investment in teaching research and infrastructure is a down payment on our collective future.

That’s all I have to say. I kept it short and sweet. Thank you for your time, and I would welcome any questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We will now turn to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. You threw it out there, so I will take the bait. Please tell me more about the B.C. knowledge development fund and the funding priorities you have around that fund.

Annabree Fairweather: Yeah, so specifically with the knowledge development fund, it is open to both academic researchers and universities, as well as researchers that are in the private sector, involved with researching the interests of government’s priorities. But with the knowledge development fund, it means it’s quite stretched already, as a small fund.

[8:40 a.m.]

It also narrowly focuses on what we call STEM, which is the sciences industry, rather than including social sciences, humanities and the arts. We think that that limits some of the research that’s really important to have going on in our areas, where we’re seeing the kinds of social science collaboration addressing toxic drug

as a small fund. It also narrowly focuses on what we call STEM, which is the sciences industry rather than including social sciences, humanities and the arts. We think that that limits some of the research that’s really important going on in our areas, where we’re seeing the kinds of social science collaboration addressing the toxic drug crisis.

I’ll use UVic as an example. We had two award winners for our awards gala this year who are coming from chemistry and social work, and they’re collaborating on addressing what is a toxic drug crisis in B.C. and having incredible outcomes from this, but it wouldn’t be eligible for the funding from the knowledge development fund, because its application of social sciences is the primary focus here. So we have more research than just the STEM focus that can be covered.

The other part is that it’s only exclusive to research infrastructure — meaning it’s physical items that the money can be used for — but it’s not supporting the projects that have to hire the staff, the student researchers, the people to deliver the research and to do it and to do the writing parts after. So, while we have federal grants that cover those, those are dwindling resources. They haven’t maintained federal funding to support the kind of research that we have in B.C.

Then, it doesn’t allow, again, the hiring of student researchers and work-integrated learning opportunities that are prime for the kind of job market skills that people can develop in school and then transfer immediately into the private sector industry where those skills would be used.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your time to present to us.

Annabree Fairweather: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Moving on to the next presenter, whenever they pop up on the screen. Okay. We have the next presenter, Calder Azak, College of New Caledonia. I hope you can hear us. Also, if you can turn on your camera, that would be great. Amazing. Okay, thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for the questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you

College of New Caledonia

Calder Azak: Great, thank you. Good morning, committee members. My name is Calder Azak. I’m the elected Indigenous students representative. I’m also the BCFS federation representative at CNC Students Union. I’m originally from the Nisga’a Nation, but today I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on unceded and traditional lands of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation.

I would also like to acknowledge that I’m very new to these roles, and I may not know everything right now in regards to your questions you might have after. I will get back to my team and discuss, and we’ll get back to you guys via email.

Now I’d like to talk about why we’re meeting today. The CNC Students Union has been serving students since 1978, currently representing more than 3,000 students studying at CNC. Our members are preparing to become the next generation of health care workers, educators, tradespeople, entrepreneurs and public servants in British Columbia. But right now, students at CNC and across B.C. are facing serious challenges that threaten both their academic success and the province’s economic and workforce development goals.

At our campus, we are seeing firsthand the impacts of the systematic underfunding of B.C.’s public post-secondary institutions. In the past year alone, CNC had to cut down on many programs, such as human resource management, kinesiology, associative arts, tourism and hotel management and a few more. Also recently, CNC had to reduce their cafeteria and bookstore hours.

At CNC, we can easily see how much they rely on international students, due to declining international enrolment. The institute predicted losing more than $7 million in fees revenue than the last financial year, which will have serious financial and academic consequences for students and staff alike.

We all know how they’re going to cover this loss, and that’s by increasing tuition fees again. Students are paying more and getting less.

[8:45 a.m.]

They’re facing delayed graduations, overcrowded classrooms, cutbacks to mental health and academic advising support and growing ancillary fees, reduced course offerings, even in major semesters, such as the fall, all while juggling jobs, high rents and caregiving responsibilities. It’s clear that these negative impacts on students will

and academic advising support and growing ancillary fees, reduced course offerings even in major semesters, such as the fall, all while juggling jobs, high rents and caregiving responsibilities. It’s clear that these negative impacts on students will ripple through our province’s economy and workforce as well.

At Prince George, we all know how much international students have contributed to its economic and infrastructural growth, but there are still so many cases, at times, where seven to eight international students are living in two-bedroom basements, using a community food bank for meals — just to get by — and working unsafe and unregulated jobs to pay high tuition fees.

We are calling on the government to take three bold steps to restore stability, quality and long-term planning in B.C.’s post-secondary system. This is why our first recommendation is that the government should amend the current tuition fees limit policy to include international student fees and cap their increases by 2 percent annually, just like domestic students.

Secondly, complete and implement the post-secondary funding formula review. The current model is outdated, lacks transparency and fails to meet the needs of today’s students and communities, especially rural and Indigenous learners. A modernized, responsive and inflation-adjusted model is long overdue.

Strengthen the tuition limit policy and end fee circumvention. The 2 percent cap on domestic tuition increases is critical. But institutions are undermining their intent by introducing new fees or reclassifying costs. The policy must be enforced and strengthened to ensure affordability and transparency.

Chair and members of the committee: post-secondary education is not a luxury; it’s essential infrastructure for British Columbia’s future. Whether we’re training nurses, carpenters, early childhood educators or clean energy workers, our success depends on strong, well-funded institutions. As a society, we cannot reap the benefits of post-secondary education if we are unwilling to invest in post-secondary education. Without immediate reinvestment, we will see further erosion of access, quality and opportunity.

But with bold action in Budget 2026, we can build a system that reflects the province’s commitment to equity, prosperity and long-term growth. On behalf of students at CNC, I urge you to re-treat post-secondary education not just as an expense but as an investment in our province’s future. Let’s include students in building stronger B.C.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation.

Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Thank you so much for your presentation. We don’t have a ton of questions, because I see that there’s been a lot of collaboration on the presentations from post-secondary and student organizations. So we’ve heard very similar presentations already from equally as passionate groups.

What I was hoping…. Is there anything that’s specific to the College of New Caledonia that you’d want to advocate for?

Calder Azak: Specifically, I think it’s just a 2 percent cap for international students, just so it’s fair.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Do you know what the proportion of international students is at your school?

Calder Azak: Unfortunately, I do not know that number, personally.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you.

Bryan Tepper: That actually was my question, and that was the cap on international students. If we’ve got the international students subsidizing our local students, why are we capping that? What’s the purpose of that for you?

Calder Azak: That is a good question, actually. Thank you. Honestly, I’ll have to get back to my team, and we’ll get back to you via email.

Bryan Tepper: Okay.

Paul Choi (Chair): Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for your presentation today.

[8:50 a.m.]

We will move on to our next presenter. We have our next presenter as Dr. Geoff Payne from University of Northern British Columbia.

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for the questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

University of Northern B.C.

Geoff Payne: Good morning. Thanks very much. I appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with yourselves and the committee this morning.

I’d like

University of Northern British Columbia.

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for the questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

University of Northern B.C.

Geoff Payne: Good morning. Thanks very much. Appreciate that. Thanks for the opportunity to speak with yourselves and the committee this morning.

I’d like to start by acknowledging that I’m joining you today from the traditional territory of the Lheidli T'enneh. Here at UNBC, we’re very respectful of that important relationship as we live, work and play on these traditional lands.

In addition, UNBC works with many Indigenous and First Nations communities throughout the North where our campuses reside. And again, that is important — that relationship — to us here at UNBC.

With my remarks this morning, and then happy to take the questions as you said…. As a province focuses on economic growth and sustainable health care system and affordable living, I want to highlight how the investment in post-secondary institutions and education is not only aligned with these priorities but essential to achieving them in the North and across rural British Columbia.

We are recommending strategic investments in three areas where post-secondary education plays a vital role. These include community sustainability, health and education, and regional innovation. I will go through each of those three in more detail.

The first one being that investing in community sustainability grows the economy. Economic growth depends on strong, resilient communities. In northern B.C., UNBC, a cornerstone of that growth, our campuses train the professionals that keep the North moving — engineers, entrepreneurs, educators and more. Our graduates overwhelmingly stay in the region, contributing directly to the local economy. Just by way of a fact, over 63 percent of UNBC graduates stay and remain in the North and engage in those spaces.

But northern post-secondary institutions face unique challenges: higher cost of delivery, smaller class sizes and lacking in infrastructure. That is why we’re recommending stable, increased core funding. This investment will help sustain regional campuses to deliver education close to home for the vast North and ensure our programs remain accessible, high quality and relevant to the local needs.

We also recommend reviewing policy and regulations that allow diversification of revenues such as land trust. Right now post-secondary such as ourselves rely on core government funding and tuition costs. We need to be able to diversify. Without post-secondary education situated in the North, the province would face far higher costs of trying to deliver the skilled workforce, economic development and services that our northern communities require.

The second area is that strengthening education and research supports sustainable health care. UNBC is deeply integrated into B.C.’s health care system, especially in rural and Indigenous communities. Our nursing, social work and biomedical programs are producing the health professionals urgently needed across the region, and our northern medical program, delivering in partnership with UBC, is building doctors who train and stay in the North.

But we can’t stop there. We need to expand our health care education, deliver new micro-credentials for mid-career professionals and invest in rural health research that addresses health disparities and unique challenges facing northern communities.

The final one that I want to talk about this morning is driving innovation for northern industry transformation. Affordable living isn’t only about housing. It’s also about local opportunity and economy. When people can study, train and work where they live, they don’t have to relocate. Frankly, because many cannot relocate given the financial costs of such decisions.

At UNBC, we’re driving place-based innovation that strengthens local economies and helps communities adapt, from clean energy to wildfire resilience to forest-based bioeconomy and sustainable mining. As jobs of the future are created, post-secondary institutions are developing the workforce for those jobs right here in the North.

We’re asking for support to expand research infrastructure, create new pathways for commercialization and entrepreneurship. This is how we diversify our economy and make life more affordable in the long run — by giving people meaningful, future-focused work in the communities they call home.

In closing, these are not just post-secondary issues; these are provincial issues. And the post-secondary institutions are partner in delivering what B.C. needs: economic growth rooted in regional strength, a more sustainable, locally responsive health care system and affordability living through community-driven opportunity.

I thank the committee for their time today, allowing myself and on behalf of UNBC and on behalf of the North to convey what I think is important. In the end, we’re all in it for British Columbia, and a strong North is a strong British Columbia.

With that, I’ll end my comments and remarks and give my 20 seconds back to committee.

[8:55 a.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for that, Dr. Payne.

Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much, and thank you for your presentation.

I’m wondering…. Could you please talk a little bit more about your ideas around diversification of revenue? I think you mentioned land trust, but I’m wondering if you have

Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much, and thank you for your presentation.

I’m wondering…. Could you please talk a little bit more about your ideas around diversification of revenue. I think you mentioned land trust, but I’m wondering if you have other ideas or you could expand on the idea of land trust.

Geoff Payne: Absolutely. Yeah, much appreciate the question.

Institutions like UNBC have land that is part of the entire university land envelope. What a number of institutions have done, like UBC, like Thompson Rivers University, they have taken their land and developed it. That does two things. One, it allows, from an economic development standpoint, investing in the community itself. Second, what’s important then for the institutions such as UNBC is the revenue that’s generated from that land trust goes back into the institution that can be reinvested in the core mission.

By doing that revenue diversification, what we’re trying to do is (a) add more revenue so we can invest but (2) reduce the burden on the provincial government in terms of the block grant system and tuition costs. This will reduce our reliance on the provincial government and allow us to, again, still meet the mission of the institution through other revenue.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Sorry, so you mentioned that institutions like UBC already do this. Is there a specific regulation or something that prevents UNBC from doing this?

Geoff Payne: There’s no regulation that prevents. There is a process that goes through that.

We’re in the process of doing that, about creating a land trust. We’ve got about 30 acres of land adjacent to the institution here that we are developing. The process does take some time. It could be upwards of 18 months to 2½ years as you go through all the different processes.

I’m not advocating for getting rid of the process. I’m advocating for the opportunity to continue to invest in such areas that allow post-secondaries to sort of develop those and even broaden the scope of what a land trust could do.

Again, the ultimate goal is additional revenue, reducing the burden on the provincial grant for institutions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. Did you have any other thoughts around diversification of revenue?

Geoff Payne: Yeah, through innovation and industry partnership, adding more revenue, again, into the system.

I’ll give you one concrete example. We work with Rio Tinto here in northern British Columbia. Two concrete examples of what they’ve been working with UNBC on — one, creation of two research chairs that, again, allows their investment, not necessarily provincial or federal investment, into that, so it’s revenue diversification for all intents and purposes. The second thing that Rio Tinto is working with us on is on youth programming. They see the value of supporting communities.

Through our programs here at UNBC, which Rio Tinto is investing in, we’re adding revenue into the system through other means, other than the provincial government. That’s how we’re seeing revenue generation.

The third one is through developing innovation that can be commercialized, and that additional revenue then can be invested in the institution and the people that are developing those innovations and invest it back into the communities which have those industries and innovation occurring.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. That was a very fulsome answer, and you were prepared. I appreciate it.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation.

The land trust, are you looking…. Would that be housing primarily? Is that what you’re looking at?

Geoff Payne: It will be mixed use. There will be some economic pieces. At the end of the day, it has to align with the mission and values of the institution. Not to be flippant, but we couldn’t just put any old thing on it. It has to make sense and align to the mission and values of the institution.

There will be mixed use. There’ll be housing, opportunity to diversify our housing. At UNBC, we’re mostly undergraduate residence, so we need to diversify our residence to family housing as well as graduate housing that we cannot currently have on our campus. This is a way to bring more students to UNBC. Then, of course, putting services such as potentially, you know, things like a supermarket and things like that, things that align with where it is. So it would be mixed use — economic as well as housing, which also, then, I guess would have….

Steve Morissette: Okay, so there would be some opportunity for B.C. Housing, BC Builds, Northern Development Initiative Trust to assist?

[9:00 a.m.]

Geoff Payne: Absolutely. The land trust is a separate entity, so we have to create a separate board. It makes investments based on what the university would like. Opportunities for developers and economic drivers such as the NDIT and things absolutely would occur. B.C. Housing, absolutely.

Again, as long as it aligns with the core mission of the institution, because it’s not just a straight up development…. Because with the regulations, it’s got to fit within the parameters of what would be a land trust embedded within a post-secondary institution.

would occur, B.C. Housing, absolutely.

Again, as long as it aligns with the core mission of the institution, because it’s not just a straight-up development…. With the regulations, it’s got to fit within the parameters of what would be a land trust embedded within a post-secondary institution.

Steve Morissette: Great. Thank you.

Geoff Payne: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? No?

I have a quick question. For you to create the land trust, is there any funding that the government needs to chip in for that to happen? Also, have you discussed the idea with the ministry? I’m just wondering what their response was, if there was any. Thank you.

Geoff Payne: Thank you. Yeah, there were initial conversations, obviously, with ministry, and before we embarked on a land trust, because there has to be approval at the end of the day with the government and the ministries associated with that.

In terms of funding put in, the university takes its own revenues and invests in the land trust at the upfront costs, knowing that once it moves to fruition that the university would recoup its investment and then additional revenues from the land trust proceeds itself. So there is an upfront investment from the institution, but knowing that there will be a long-term benefit that we can then reinvest in the institution long-term.

Paul Choi (Chair): Amazing. Thank you so much for that and for taking the time to present to us today.

Geoff Payne: Thank you very much. Enjoy the rest of your meetings this morning.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Geoff Payne: Bye now.

Paul Choi (Chair): Moving on to our next presenter. We have Dr. Gerry Turcotte from Corpus Christi College.

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for the questions after. You can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Corpus Christi College

Gerry Turcotte: Well, thank you so much. And firstly, I do want to thank the committee for giving us an opportunity to present to you. Corpus Christi at UBC has been delivering really quality education and courses for over 25 years. We’ve done this with no funding from any agencies, despite being a not-for-profit institution. So this is a really exciting chance to present some of our projects.

Our college is open to all, where almost 100 percent of the fundraising we do goes towards scholarships for both high academic achievers but also learners from non-traditional or disadvantaged backgrounds. Our specialty is offering small class sizes with enhanced academic support so learners can flourish and begin their university careers on a dynamic note. And this really usually means that our students in their first and second year often achieve successes that most students don’t see until their graduate years.

One example of this is our first-year students beating out all the universities in Canada to compete in the Oxford University map to system program, and then, once in Oxford, winning over 1,000 international universities to get the best undergraduate award.

Our students add to their academics by building dynamic portfolios and volunteering and support for their communities, and we provide this amazing experience with no funding. So this opportunity for us today is really, really welcomed and appreciated.

Our three areas of interest that we’ve submitted to you are pretty modest in many respects. And indeed, the first is perhaps completely cost-neutral. I’m not entirely sure even if this committee is responsible for this, but it’s really asking that we be allowed to be a destination institution for a wide range of scholarships and bursaries that the government makes available at the moment only to public universities, this despite the fact that many of these scholarships are to support learners who would specifically benefit from being in a smaller institution. These are for low-, middle-income students, for former youth in care, for Indigenous students and so forth.

So that’s really our first request. We could provide a list of those kinds of scholarships.

Our largest cost area and request is around receiving support for us to replace our aging student information system with a more modern and robust program. The government, quite rightly, is expecting increasingly meaningful and reliable information on student mobility and outcomes. Much of this reporting for us has to be done manually or not at all. We’re keen to upgrade our student information system so that we can centralize all of our student data to meet our government regulations. But it is a costly process requiring an investment of approximately $400,000 a year for five years. And that’s outside of our scope.

[9:05 a.m.]

Again, the students that we teach here are largely British Columbians, and they choose to study with us before moving on to UBC or McGill or Harvard because of our size and the support we provide. Supporting this for Corpus Christi is not supporting a for-profit college. We are not for profit. I often joke that we put the not in not-for-profit.

Our final area of interest is asking for support to help us make our aging building on our campus more accessible for students with mobility issues. Specifically, some of our key refurbished lecture halls are currently inaccessible to students who are wheelchair-bound. We have an opportunity for roughly

not-for-profit.

I guess our final area of interest is asking for support to help us make our aging building on our campus more accessible for students with mobility issues. Specifically, some of our key refurbished lecture halls are currently inaccessible to students who are wheelchair-bound. We have an opportunity for roughly $200,000 to add a lift and access ramps that would open up our major lecture halls.

This is really about social justice. And if this committee supports this opportunity, again, you are supporting a college that continuously gives back to its community with regular volunteering in the Downtown Eastside. Our students prepare food for food-insecure communities and are very much a part of our B.C. community.

In closing, really, Corpus Christi specializes in delivering this value-based educational experience. It means we’re committed to reconciliation, to social justice, and it’s an integral part of the academic journey that we produce for our students. As such, the British Columbians who study with us, we feel, go out into the world knowing that they have to give back and transform it for the better. I hope you can help us to transform our college equally for the better. I’ll leave it there, ahead of time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes, thank you so much for that presentation. Moving on to questions by members, starting with MLA Rattée.

Claire Rattée: Thank you. Sorry, two things on your last ask there. I missed the dollar amount for making the buildings more accessible to disabled students. I was also wondering if you guys have already looked into grants for that work, because I feel fairly confident that there are probably grants out there that exist. I just missed the dollar figure. So I don’t know if it’s maybe a lot more.

Gerry Turcotte: No, it’s actually fairly modest what we’re proposing. It’s about $200,000. And we have looked for grants, including Rick Hansen, but again, as a smaller institution, we don’t always have that kind of success. We’ve been very proactive looking for other funding opportunities as well. But again, it is a bit of a struggle when you’re smaller to have access to some of those opportunities.

Claire Rattée: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for presenting to us today.

Gerry Turcotte: Okay, I guess, I’ll just close by saying that, partially, having the support of this committee is especially important for us because we are outside of the funding mechanism. It is again a vote of confidence in an institution that’s, this year, celebrating 25 years of quality post-secondary education that’s open to all. So thank you so much for this opportunity.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for presenting to us today. Thank you.

Moving on to next presenter. We have Dr. Pauline Greaves from Langara Faculty Association joining us. Thanks for coming. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you are ready to go. Thank you.

Langara Faculty Association

Pauline Greaves: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to address you today. My name is Pauline Greaves. I am an instructor at Langara College in the School of Business and Management and the president of the Langara Faculty Association.

Like most post-secondary institutions in B.C., we have been decimated by the decisions that have been made by governments, federal and provincial, and by administrators in our institutions. Post-secondary education, as you know, play a crucial role in shaping individuals and society as a whole. It provides students with specialized knowledge and skills that are essential for their chosen careers fostering personal growth and critical thinking. Furthermore, higher education is linked to better job opportunities, higher earning potentials and improved quality of life.

However, the impact of this education is often undermined by inadequate funding. Many institutions in our province are struggling to maintain programs, keep tuition affordable and support students from diverse backgrounds. When funding is insufficient, it can lead to larger class sizes and fewer resources and diminish educational experiences. It can also pressure institutions to reframe and reposition this fundamental asset into a business model, further diminishing its quality and availability to communities and individuals.

[9:10 a.m.]

The current instability of post-secondary education in B.C. illustrates the dire consequences of neglecting education as a society building priority and instead treating it as a business. This has been particularly true as manifested through our decade-long reliance on international students. As colleges face chronic underfunding from provincial governments, the

in education as a society-building priority and instead treating it as a business.

This has been particularly true as manifested through our decade-long reliance on international students. As colleges face chronic underfunding from provincial government, the opportunity to make money from international tuitions created a gold rush mentality, swelling student numbers and temporarily obscuring the sad level of investment by our domestic leaders in our domestic students.

Investment in post-secondary education not only benefits the individuals who pursue it but also the broader society. A well-educated workforce drives economic growth, innovation and social mobility. Therefore, it is vital for governments and communities to prioritize and enhance funding for post-secondary education to ensure that all individuals have the opportunities to succeed. The Langara Faculty Association asks that the government undertake the following three things.

Better budget. Improve budget transparency, which includes audit of institutions that show a detailed breakdown of budget allocations, such as the proportion that are spent on student services, administration and faculty. This will ensure transparency and accountability.

Complete an impact assessment to truly understand why post-secondary education has become so heavily reliant on a high ratio of international students compared to domestic students. It appears that surplus profits from international students have been hoarded in capital funds when they could be deployed to help support operational shortfalls that are impacting education quality and faculty employment as the system struggles to regroup.

And finally, the LFA emphasizes the need for the plan to reinstate post-secondary education review process that outlines financial goals and sustainability measures for the next five to 10 years, ensuring the government can effectively manage its resources, respond to emerging economic challenges and ensure post-secondary institutions can continue to serve our students.

Thank you very much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Now moving on to questions by members. Okay, seeing no questions, thank you for your….

Oh, I have a question from MLA Dhir.

Sunita Dhir: Thanks, Pauline, for your presentation. You covered everything, but we have heard this thing from many other post-secondary education institutes, so that’s why we don’t have any questions at this point. But we hear you. Thank you.

Pauline Greaves: Thank you for the opportunity.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation today.

Moving on to our next presenter. We have Dr. Brett Fairbairn from Thompson River University.

I hope you can hear us. Thank you very much for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Thompson Rivers University

Brett Fairbairn: Well, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. As I near the end of my term as president at Thompson Rivers University, I want to offer a few reflections that I hope will be helpful in these fiscally challenging times. British Columbians rightly expect value from public institutions, but they also expect something more — a sense of vision. I believe it’s not only possible to do both but essential.

TRU is not just a place of learning; it’s an organization rooted in community, grounded in our region and focused on the public good. We strive to redefine what a university can be, a place of belonging, guided by the Secwépemc concept of Kw'seltktnéws, which reminds us that we’re all related and interconnected. These values shape what we do, from building a hydro-powered low-carbon district energy system to launching regenerative agriculture and nurse practitioner programs that directly serve our region’s needs.

[9:15 a.m.]

One of the most urgent challenges facing our province, especially in the Interior, is wildfire. wildfire is no longer just an environmental or safety issue. It also affects public health, community well-being and regional economies. Meeting this challenge requires that we centre Indigenous knowledge and land stewardship practices alongside science and innovation.

especially in the interior, is wildfire.

Wildfire is no longer just an environmental or safety issue. It also affects public health, community well-being and regional economies. Meeting this challenge requires that we centre Indigenous knowledge and land stewardship practices alongside science and innovation. It also demands deeper investment in regional research, training and workforce development.

At TRU, we’re responding. We’re building academic capacity in wildfire science, expanding training opportunities for communities on the front lines and working in partnership with Indigenous communities and the B.C. Wildfire Service to integrate traditional knowledge with operational expertise.

Our first recommendation is that as the government crafts its next budget, it recognize that complex and growing challenges, like wildfire, require not only innovative solutions but also strategically targeted provincial investment. Strategic resources for training and education brought to bear now will unlock additional funding from federal and private partners for research and innovation.

Our second recommendation is that the province take this opportunity as part of its broader review of programs and expenditures to complete the post-secondary funding formula review. It’s more important than ever to ensure that funds be distributed in ways that support effectiveness. That means aligning future funding, incrementally and thoughtfully, with measurable outcomes and activity.

I would propose three principles for a new funding system. First, provide equitable funding for programs with similar outcomes. Two, provide a long-term, stable planning environment in which funding changes incrementally over time in response to activity levels. Three, incentivize stewardship of provincial resources and the attraction of federal philanthropic and private revenue.

My third recommendation is this: to support efforts to restore the regional economic role of universities adversely affected by federal policy shifts. Over the past 18 months, federal policy changes have caused real damage to post-secondary institutions both financially and reputationally. For regional universities, the consequences have been especially acute, with ripple effects across local economies, labour markets and community planning.

Governments now have an opportunity to help repair that damage. By affirming the distinct role that regional universities play in economic development and population retention, they can help restore public and international confidence in Canada’s higher education system.

British Columbia has an opportunity to take a more proactive role in international student recruitment, working with institutions to lead a coordinated Team B.C. approach that highlights the province’s strengths as a study destination.

Stronger brand positioning, strategic missions abroad, Premier Eby’s recent Asia mission, which I joined, and public affirmation of the value of international students can help B.C. institutions compete globally and recover more quickly from federal disruptions.

At TRU, we see the impact of international students every day. In graduates who stay in the Interior, in former international students who now call the region home and in research that addresses local needs.

With the right support, regional universities can again be engines of economic resilience, demographic renewal, and place-based innovation.

My three recommendations — strategic funding, responsive base funding and international damage repair — are all facets of a single principle: that post-secondary institutions are foundations for Canada’s future economy, for regional economic growth and for vibrant communities.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for that presentation. Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. Obviously, you’ve spent a great deal of time and effort preparing for this one, and you’ve put a huge amount of thought into how we can make our post-secondaries more resilient.

I found, in fact, it was so dense that I was writing and I lost track of a few points. At one point, you were talking about incentivizing stewardship. I’m hoping you can go back to that expand on that point.

Brett Fairbairn: Sure. I think as a principal for funding, it should be to make public funding go as far as possible and be as effective as possible.

[9:20 a.m.]

Universities operate with a mix of different kinds of funding. At TRU, our operating grants from governments are our largest single source of funding. They’re nearly half of our total revenue, but the other half comes from student tuition fees, it comes from all sorts of other operating revenues. And I think encouraging that kind of stewardship…. In our case, things like land developments, building up endowments, partnerships with public and private sector partners

They’re nearly half of our total revenue, but the other half comes from student tuition fees. It comes from all sorts of other operating revenues.

I think encouraging that kind of stewardship…. In our case, things like land developments, building up endowments, partnerships with public and private sector partners — these are all ways to make really scarce operating dollars go further. So I think a funding system should incentivize that kind of expanding of the impact of the operating grants.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much. I must say that your presentation was very thorough.

I do have one question about…. You suggested that we should use the same funding formula for programs with equal outcomes? Could you expand on that, please?

Brett Fairbairn: Thank you very much. Another great question.

I think for allocation of funding to be fair, the province should look at the impact of funding. That requires consideration, I think, first of the inputs into providing a service, so what the costs are, and then the outcomes in terms of graduation rates, perhaps employment rates. It’s really about the relationship between the two.

I mentioned equitable funding for programs with similar outcomes because I know, as someone who has been involved in the university world for a long time, that different programs have different costs and revenue structures. So it’s difficult to be rigid and have, for example, dollars per seat. It is important to consider the cost of the different programs and the revenue opportunities.

I would also say that in looking at impacts, it’s important to keep quality in mind. It isn’t good public policy to encourage a race to the bottom, so to speak, in simply the lowest costs. It’s really about value rather than just low cost. What’s the impact for the resources invested?

Paul Choi (Chair): Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for your presentation and your time today.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Cari Lynn Gawletz from Association of B.C. Public Library Directors. Thanks for joining us today. We have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Association of B.C.
Public Library Directors

Cari Lynn Gawletz: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today on behalf of the Association of British Columbia Public Library Directors. I’m Cari Lynn Gawletz. I serve as the chair of ABCPLD, and I’m also the library director at the Grand Forks and District Public Library.

Throughout this morning, you guys are going to hear from three of my colleagues, each representing a different part of the province’s public library sector. We’re here today with one coordinated message. B.C.’s public libraries need sustainable funding. Specifically, we’re asking the province to increase the core annual provincial grant to $30 million a year and to ensure that that amount grows with inflation.

B.C.’s 71 public library directors operating from more than 250 locations are vital social infrastructure. These are not just book-lending institutions. They’re, really, the last truly free public spaces. They are a cornerstone of a democratic society. Libraries help people access government services, connect with one another and build skills. We support newcomers, seniors, families, job seekers and small businesses. We provide safe, inclusive spaces where everyone is welcome and where people can access programs, technology and learning opportunities regardless of their income, age or background.

With more than 60 million visits annually to our branches across the province, B.C.’s public libraries reduce costs for families; contribute to a strong, future-ready workforce; help keep people safe and connected; and support the very same priorities that the province is working to advance: health, education, economic development, reconciliation and climate resilience.

Let me give you a few examples from across the province that show this impact in action. First, we have in Surrey. One library patron recently shared that her local branch helped her earn a master’s degree in counselling psychology. As a mature student without internet access at home, she depended on the library’s resources, space and support system to succeed in her studies.

In Coquitlam, English practice groups, which are offered in partnership with other community organizations, are giving newcomers a place to build language skills and social connections. These are the kinds of welcoming, low-barrier programs that help people feel like they belong.

[9:25 a.m.]

And in Gibsons, a small library meeting pod became an unexpected economic development tool. A developer, an architect and an engineer used it to finalize plans for a new project before walking across the street to file them at city hall. None of them had offices in town.

That’s just one of the quiet but really powerful ways that libraries

that help people feel like they belong. And in Gibsons, a small library meeting pod became an unexpected economic development tool. A developer, an architect and an engineer used it to finalize plans for a new project before walking across the street to file them at city hall. None of them had offices in town. And that’s just one of the quiet but really powerful ways that libraries help keep small communities working.

And all of this is at risk. Since 2009, provincial funding for public libraries has been frozen at around $14 million a year, even as inflation, population and community needs have surged. That’s not just a funding gap. It’s a growing structural deficit that is now threatening core services.

The province has made several important one-time investments: $3 million in 2020, $8 million in 2022 and $45 million in 2023. And we are incredibly grateful for that support. Those funds allowed libraries to extend hours, to meet growing demand and to invest in technology.

But they were one-time grants, and the most recent one is coming to an end this year. Without renewed investment, many libraries are going to be forced to make hard cuts. They’re already making hard cuts. Directors across the province are bracing for reductions in opening hours, layoffs and rollback of essential programs, particularly in smaller and rural communities.

These are the services that help British Columbians navigate a changing world: digital literacy, job search report, climate resilience, senior outreach, newcomer programs and more. Those services are all at risk. That’s why we’re asking for a core annual grant of $30 million. It’s not a new ask. It reflects the amount if that 2023 one-time funding were made permanent, and it also reflects the amount needed to restore the province’s essential share after 16 years of erosion.

We’re asking for a commitment to sustainability moving forward. Without inflation indexing, we will be back at the same position in just a few years, doing more and more with less and less and making difficult choices about what to cut.

Municipalities have increased their contributions to libraries year after year, but they can’t shoulder this alone. Library funding has always been a shared responsibility between local and provincial governments. We are simply asking that the province match the commitment that local governments are already making and to restore its role as a reliable partner in library service.

British Columbians rely on their public libraries. Now libraries are relying on you. So thank you for listening, and I welcome any questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for that presentation. Moving on to questions by members, starting with the Deputy Chair.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): I don’t want to take up too much question time if one of my colleagues has a question, but love libraries. Had an opportunity, actually, to meet with our chief librarian in Surrey. I think that the work that’s being done…. People don’t realize libraries are not just about books anymore. There are so many essential services, particularly in my community, that they’re providing in terms of places for newcomers and just safe spaces for people.

Funny anecdote. When I was a teenager, junior high and high school, we would sneak out of class — I’m not advocating for that, kids — and we would meet in the library to meet our friends, because it was a place where the librarian always had our back. We weren’t going to get…. If we were being quiet, studying, it was a safe place for us. And I think that, oddly enough, the friend that I most often snuck off to see became a librarian.

Anyway, thanks for the work that you do. Libraries are very important. Appreciate hearing about the work that’s being done, and look forward to hearing from your colleagues. Thank you.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for those very carefully chosen locations for the anecdotes that you gave. I was thinking: “Librarians do research. Look at that.”

So I am so sorry. We were going really quick there, and so what I got was that you had additional one-time grants in 2020, $3 million dollars, and then I missed the one in the middle. There were three altogether, right?

Cari Lynn Gawletz: Yeah, it was a like a pandemic recovery grant of $8 million dollars.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, there we go. And so the one-time grant you have right now is no longer a pandemic recovery grant, right?

Cari Lynn Gawletz: Yeah, it was part of that big pocket of funding that municipalities got a huge share of too. Ours was called the enhancement grant. It was $15 million for the sector for three years in a row. So 2025 is the last year.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay. And the enhancement grant was for like capital improvement, infrastructure improvement?

[9:30 a.m.]

Cari Lynn Gawletz: It was very open. It was mostly funding for whatever libraries need. Because it’s one-time funding, some libraries were more cautious and used it for fixed projects like capital spending. Others really needed it just to keep the lights on and to maintain operating hours that they had, and others used it to expand some services.

So as that is ending, I think

some libraries were more cautious and used it for fixed projects like capital spending. Others really needed it just to keep the lights on and to maintain operating hours that they had, and others used it to expand some services. So as that is ending, I think — well, I know — across the province, we’re all looking at cuts. How much that cut is going to look like in your community will vary depending on how cautious the library director was with that area, with that grant.

Jennifer Blatherwick: There you go. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for your time today.

Cari Lynn Gawletz: Thanks everyone. Have a lovely day, and enjoy hearing from my colleagues.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Kenji Maeda from Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance.

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after. You can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Greater Vancouver
Professional Theatre Alliance

Kenji Maeda: Great, thank you so much. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today.

My name is Kenji Maeda, and I’m speaking to you from the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ First Nations.

I’m here as the executive director of the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance, which includes more than 200 members, largely within Metro Vancouver but also spans across the province. We’re also a member of the B.C. Coalition of Arts, Culture and Heritage, which represents thousands of organizations and individuals in more than 188 communities across B.C.

Theatre is where stories are told, witnessed and uncovered. You might have seen productions like Children of God by Urban Ink, a story that guides audiences through the legacy of residential schools, creating a space for deeper engagement and healing through storytelling. Or rice and beans theatre’s Peace Country, which is inspired by the playwright’s experience growing up in Chetwynd, as it explores intercultural friendships and the climate crisis. Or perhaps you’ve seen one of many site-specific outdoor performances at Caravan Farm Theatre based on an 80-acre farm just outside of Armstrong.

And these performance spaces, whether a municipal theatre, a school gym, in a tent or on a farm, aren’t just venues. They are catalysts for community, empathy and connection.

Beyond stories that connect, the arts and culture sector is a driver of economic value. Our sector fuels tourism, supports jobs, fills restaurants and hotels, improves workplace skills and experiences. For example, Tourism Nanaimo’s five-year destination strategy includes a goal for deeper engagement with arts and culture organizations to support experience development. In Fort St. John, their economic development strategy shares that they will empower arts and culture as economic development enablers, recognizing the sector as a method to build community connection, downtown revitalization and tourism.

And of course, B.C.’s arts culture and heritage sector is strong. Its GDP contribution in 2022 was $9.3 billion with over 115,000 jobs. But our sector is at risk of losing artists, workers, organizations, spaces and venues. Pacific Theatre in Vancouver recently announced that after 30 years, they’re moving out of their space and pausing programming at the end of the year. Their building requires more than half a million dollars in major structural upgrades that they don’t have.

Just in Vancouver, more than 400,000 square feet of art spaces were lost between 2009 and 2019 due to redevelopment, increasing rents and inflation. And these aren’t isolated figures.

Our communities are at risk of losing the opportunity to gather, to witness arts and culture practices, to be entertained. Small businesses like restaurants, bars and shops are losing the opportunity to connect with customers who are in the neighbourhood because of that play, gallery opening or festival. Live performance matters, arts matters, cultural practice matters, which brings me to my two key requests for you today as you consider the next fiscal year.

Earlier this year, the Union of B.C. Municipalities and, specifically, the community economic development committee, along with their executive committee, endorsed a resolution to urge the province of B.C. to increase the B.C. Arts Council’s budget to $58 million. That’s what we would like you to do. This level of support from UBCM is a key indication that arts and culture is meaningful, valued and essential to small and large, urban and non-urban, communities across the province.

[9:35 a.m.]

The second piece would be to invest in arts infrastructure. Many organizations are working in precarious or outdated spaces, and we need access to capital infrastructure funds to modernize venues, improve accessibility and ensure long-term sustainability.

I really want to recognize the work of our colleagues, 221A, who had also presented to this committee. They are leading the proposal for the cultural land trust to look at

are working in precarious or outdated spaces, and we need access to capital infrastructure funds to modernize venues, improve accessibility and ensure long-term sustainability.

I really want to recognize the work of our colleagues, 221A, who had also presented to this committee, and they are leading the proposal for the cultural land trust to look at new ways of bringing power and ownership of cultural spaces back to the sector and not just be beholden to speculative landlords.

Between 2017 and 2023, investments from this government led B.C.’s cultural sector toward GDP growth, while other provinces saw declines, which is a clear sign of what sustained investment can do. During this time of embracing a buy-B.C. strategy and encouraging cross-provincial tourism, these investments will strengthen local communities through job creation, partnerships, social belonging and supporting the wellness of British Columbians who value practicing, consuming or experiencing arts and culture in their everyday lives.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for that presentation.

Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation and your advocacy for this group of people. Live theatre, live music, art — it’s hugely important to our community.

I just want to clarify. During your presentation, you said that from 2016 onwards, we’d lost 400,000 square feet of space?

Kenji Maeda: That’s correct. This comes directly from the Eastside Arts Society report from 2019. I’m happy to share that report, or it’s available on their website as well.

Jennifer Blatherwick: You obviously have a large number of organizations that you’re representing and that you partner with and collaborate with. We’ve heard from other organizations, as well, about the idea of having a mechanism where small non-profits or organizations can achieve ownership of their spaces. I’m wondering if you have any examples of places or jurisdictions where that works, where that’s already a plan that’s in place.

Kenji Maeda: The thing that I would kind of look to for this is I would lean to my partners at 221A. There are organizations that do this work more closely.

The way that I kind of position myself within the sector is within collaboration with the B.C. Coalition of Arts, Culture and Heritage. We all have our expertise. We all have our kind of experiences in understanding different contexts within communities. This is where I would say 221A is a really great resource for answering that kind of specific question.

Jennifer Blatherwick: That was a very tactful way to say: “I don’t know, but here’s where the answer is.” That was amazing. Very well done.

Okay, well, thank you. Great presentation.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Sarah Murray from B.C. Apparel and Gear Association.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I can see you have a big army of people behind you. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for the questions after, and you may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

B.C. Apparel and Gear Association

Sarah Murray: Thank you so much.

Hello, distinguished MLAs. I’m Sarah Murray, and I would like to just take a breath and a moment of pause so we can all just land here together.

I am on xʷməθkʷəy̓əm lands, and I am in the studio of Old Fashioned Standards. I’m representing the B.C. Apparel and Gear Association and our 250 members from across the province, some of whom have joined me here today.

As the industry association, we know the obstacles to running an apparel business in B.C., the depth of talent in our province and our impact on the local economy. We also know that the apparel industry in B.C. is critically underrepresented when it comes to provincial funding. While provinces like Ontario and Quebec have robust support for their sector, B.C. lacks even basic inclusion in frameworks such as Creative B.C.

[9:40 a.m.]

I’d like to start by just sharing a couple of stories from our industry. The cost of doing business for an apparel brand starts before they even see an order. Samples of each piece in a collection need to be made, and buyers only pay for orders 30 days after delivery. According to designer Allison Wonderland, in a season with 20 looks, she will spend $60,000 on fabric, notions and labour, which can result in $100,000 in wholesale orders

Samples of each piece in a collection need to be made, and buyers only pay for orders 30 days after delivery. According to designer Allison Wonderland, in a season with 20 looks, she will spend $60,000 on fabric, notions and labour, which can result in $100,000 in wholesale orders. That’s a $40,000 profit. There are times, though, when she’s paying for the next season’s fabric, when she hasn’t yet been paid for the previous season.

According to Invest Vancouver and their 2024 apparel company list, there are over 200 apparel companies operating in the Lower Mainland, and over 52,000 people are employed by the sector in this region. While B.C. likes to focus on the $9 billion brands like Lululemon, most of these apparel businesses are struggling or closing due to lack of support.

One of these companies, Fabcycle, has navigated the funding landscape creatively by reframing their business outside of its core identity. By running an e-commerce platform, they have repositioned as tech, to access grants available to that sector, and they’ve accessed subsidies through sustainability programs, when they emphasize their circular-economy mission. These are examples of the need to mislabel an apparel brand to get any support.

Finally, JAC by JC will celebrate 40 years in business in 2026. When RozeMerie Cuevas started her brand, the Matinée Fashion Foundation was offering brands to fashion brands across Canada. Over the course of seven years in the 1990s, she received over $150,000 in funding.

That money allowed them to build a successful business here in B.C., but when they were ready to scale, the grants had dried up, and the only source of investment came from China. In 2016, they laid off all their B.C.-based employees and moved their head office to China. Today they have one store in Richmond and over 100 stores across China, and the money JAC was contributing to B.C.’s economy left our shores.

Now, Creative B.C. says the enabling factors of a thriving creative industry include structured training and development programs to advance skills, the exchange of ideas through industry networks and mentoring, investment in community resources and spaces, and access to funding. These are the things that the B.C. Apparel and Gear Association believe are needed to build the brands of tomorrow. We would like to see $900,000 in the B.C. budget to incubate our industry. This includes:

One, adding apparel to the roster of Creative B.C.; apparel is currently not listed, effectively excluding our industry from many available grants and support programs.

Two, developing an apparel business development incubator to give early-stage companies access to start-up funding, shared studio space, mechanical and technical resources to help get them established. It has been shown that incubators will help a survival rate of 87 percent, for businesses supported through that process.

Third, running a mentorship program to help maintain knowledge in the community and connect established brands with start-ups to share advice and support growth. Apparel has always fallen between the cracks of arts and business, and if B.C. truly values the creative economy, the apparel sector must be included.

There is so much design talent and economic potential from apparel companies in B.C. We’re ready to take action, and we want to work with you. The B.C. Apparel and Gear Association could be a strong partner in facilitating these programs. We can provide letters of support and additional data to help shape what a meaningful investment in our sector looks like. Imagine that instead of having four billion-dollar brands, we had 40. How much better would that be for the B.C. economy?

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Thank you for your presentation. You are the first person from the apparel industry to present to us, other than the outdoor guides. They have a similar focus but are not nearly as focused on apparel and manufacturing garments as you are.

When you’re talking about the business incubator, some of the incubators that are supported are virtual, but you’re talking about a physical space where you would not just share expertise and HR resources. You’re speaking of where you’d share equipment and manufacturing space.

[9:45 a.m.]

Sarah Murray: Exactly. I mean, it could be either. Both have benefits, but yes, when we think about an incubator for apparel, it is imagining a space with shared sewing machines, shared space and shared expertise from people mentoring them as well.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay. Thank you.

Sarah Murray: I think you’re talking about KORE. In terms of outdoor apparel and outdoor gear, we are familiar with them. Actually, one of their members is on our board. We’re definitely friendly with them

shared expertise from people mentoring them as well.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you.

Sarah Murray: And I just…. I think you’re talking about KORE. In terms of outdoor apparel and outdoor gear, we are familiar with them. Actually, one of their members is on our board, so we’re definitely friendly with them and try to collaborate.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Bryan Tepper: Hearing those numbers there, they’re not huge for income from the first one you were talking about. The taxes that you end up paying right now for all the corporations, does that help you out or is it more the funding what you’re…? I guess we’re looking at…. Are we looking at startups more? Or what are we looking at?

Sarah Murray: Yes. I would definitely say funding and grants are more the avenue that we’re looking at; and yes, startups, small, mid-sized brands, that have the potential to be the next Lululemon — that’s where they started as well. But they definitely need a little bit of support. JAC by JC that I mentioned had a very successful company here because they had $150,000 of funding over seven years, which allowed them to build a really successful brand. So it is possible, but the support is needed.

When you think about what’s happening in Ontario and Quebec, their industry has been supported. I’ve been here in B.C. for 20 years, and they’ve always had some sort of incubator funding for their companies. And those sectors there are quite well established at this point.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, that’s what…. I think the JAC is my concern as well. Though, I mean, that’s great. We’re getting them started. We don’t want to lose them either. So I think there’s a balance we’re looking at. That’s excellent. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for your time and presentation today.

Sarah Murray: Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you.

Moving on to our next presenter. We have Don Gorman from Association of Book Publishers of B.C. Thanks for joining us today and coming a bit early. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin whenever you’re ready. Thank you.

Association of Book Publishers of B.C.

Don Gorman: Great. Thank you very much. I really appreciate being here.

Good morning, Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I’d like to begin by acknowledging that I’m joining you from Victoria, on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, now known as the Esquimalt and the Songhees, and the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.

My name is Don Gorman. I’m the publisher of Rocky Mountain Books based here in Victoria and the 2024-2025 president of Books B.C., the professional association representing 26 B.C. owned and operated book publishers. Together, these publishers form the backbone of B.C.’s vibrant book industry, contributing to an ecosystem that generates $84 million annually for the provincial GDP.

We’re grateful for the province’s continued support for arts and culture. However, I’d like to speak to how we can build on this foundation. The 2025 budget projects a steady investment in culture, holding flat at $192 million through 2027 and 2028. On the surface, that may appear stable, but for our sector, it also signals a missed opportunity and a call to do more, especially as we look to grow our reach and impact in a challenging ecosystem.

There are three main areas in particular where small, well-placed investments from the government could have an outsized impact. First, the B.C. book publishing tax credit. This program is already working and working well. It allows publishers to claim a credit of up to 90 percent of their federal funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada book fund. Year to year, the cost of the book publishing tax credit hovers between $2 million and $3 million. Yet this modest provincial investment delivers outsized results for book publishers throughout the province, giving us the flexibility to invest in ongoing operations, take creative risks and build long-term plans.

Notably, the province has already removed the sunset clause from the film and television tax credit and, in Budget 2025, made the interactive digital media tax credit permanent as well. These decisions reflect a broader recognition of the cultural and economic value of B.C.’s creative sectors.

[9:50 a.m.]

We, therefore, respectfully suggest that the book publishing industry tax credit deserves the same long-term commitment. Removing the sunset clause from the B.C. book publishing tax credit would send a strong, clear signal that the province believes in the future of its own literary and

cultural and economic value of B.C.’s creative sectors.

We therefore respectfully suggest that the book publishing industry tax credit deserves the same long-term commitment. Removing the sunset clause from the B.C. book publishers tax credit would send a strong, clear signal that the province believes in the future of its own literary and cultural producers.

Second, market expansion support. Through both the B.C. Arts Council and Creative B.C., funding for reaching new markets remains limited. The current book publishers market fund caps out at $150,000 a year, giving a maximum of $10,000 per publisher. Historically, the U.S. has been the primary export destination for Canadian books, but this is increasingly at risk. If B.C. publishers are to grow and survive, we need expanded, dedicated funding for international outreach.

The B.C. Arts Council funding hasn’t seen a permanent increase in over a decade. In 2017, the B.C. NDP pledged to double the B.C. Arts Council’s budget to $84 million, but this has never happened. Adjusted for inflation, that would be approximately $58.7 million in 2024. Since then, however, there has been no permanent or sustained increase.

The 2025-2026 provincial budget proposes raising the B.C. Arts Council’s budget only marginally, from $38.97 million to $39.16 million, an increase of just $186,000. While inflation and demand continue to rise, core funding has remained effectively stagnant for over a decade.

Our third issue is copyright. While copyright is governed federally, its impact is felt locally. Weak protections discourage investment in new work and harm creators at every level. We urge the provincial government to advocate for stronger copyright protections and to support educational programs that build understanding of intellectual property. A well-informed sector is a stronger, more sustainable one.

So to summarize, our three recommendations for Budget 2026 are: remove the sunset clause from the B.C. book publishing tax credit and reaffirm long-term support for a proven tool that supports growth and stability.

Two, increase our market expansion funding through Creative B.C., enabling publishers to explore new audiences and revenue streams beyond the U.S. This would be through an increase to the B.C. Arts Council’s annual budget to $58 million.

Third, support our work to strengthen copyright protection through both advocacy and education so that B.C. creators can continue to invest in their work with confidence.

Thank you again for your time and consideration. I welcome any questions you may have.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for that.

Moving on to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. Is Lone Pine Publishing one of your members?

Don Gorman: They are not. No, they aren’t.

Jennifer Blatherwick: They aren’t. I own every single one of their books about the birds of British Columbia.

Don Gorman: Is that right?

Jennifer Blatherwick: And so I was wondering…. I was thinking, I’m doing my part to support British Columbia book publishing.

Don Gorman: Wonderful.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I just want to go back through the complexities of your second request. So you’re asking for an increase to the B.C. Arts Council funding, but also you talked about two things in there. One was about the limitations on the amount of funding that’s available to each publisher, but I think I got confused between the two different funds. You were talking about a different fund. Which one was that?

Don Gorman: Yes, sorry. That is the market expansion fund, which has now been renamed the book publishers market fund. It caps out at $150,000 a year total, giving a maximum of $10,000 per publisher. So that is strictly for market expansion.

The greater question here is increased funding to the B.C. Arts Council as a whole.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Sorry, so the market expansion fund is underneath the Arts Council funding?

Don Gorman: It’s a subcomponent.

Jennifer Blatherwick: It’s a subcomponent. Ah, okay. There you go. Thank you, that helped a lot.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Don Gorman: Thank you. I really appreciate it. Good luck with everything.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

At this time, the committee will take a recess.

The committee recessed from 9:54 a.m.to 10:28 a.m.

The committee recessed from 9:54 a.m.to 10:28 a.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): We will call the committee back to order. Thank you very much, Members, for coming back. We’ll call the committee back to order and move on to our next presenter. We have Rina Hadziev from B.C. Library Association.

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after and you can begin when you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Rina Hadziev: Excellent. Thank you so much. And thank you for letting me come to you today and talk about public libraries.

My name is, as you said, Rina Hadziev. I’m coming to you from the territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən-speaking peoples, specifically the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. I am the executive director of the B.C. Library Association, or BCLA, and I’m pleased to be here to speak to you on behalf of our members.

The B.C. Library Association was founded over 100 years ago, and we lead the library community in advocacy, professional development and support for intellectual freedom. We ensure that all British Columbians have equitable access to information, ideas and works of the imagination.

We represent unionized and non-unionized staff from large and small libraries across the province. We also represent B.C. libraries as institutions, ranging from the biggest university libraries to the smallest public libraries. And we’re also privileged to represent many library stakeholders in B.C., including publishers, literacy organizations and library vendors.

[10:30 a.m.]

I know you’ve already heard from my colleague at the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors and that you’ll be hearing from the B.C. Libraries Cooperative, and the B.C. Library Trustees Association will be speaking to you next. So lots of library talk.

I’m here because BCLA members, even those who are not connected in any way with public libraries, have told us that advocacy for public libraries is essential, and they recognize the pressing community need for increased funding to public libraries. The role of public libraries has changed and expanded

will be speaking to you next, so lots of library talk.

I’m here because BCLA members, even those who are not connected in any way with public libraries, have told us that advocacy for public libraries is essential, and they recognize the pressing community need for increased funding to public libraries.

The role of public libraries has changed and expanded over the past 15 years in response to social changes, community needs and demands, and a lot of that expansion is actually tied to provincial priorities and responsibilities, including health, social services, housing, education, reconciliation, emergency response, community resilience, accessibility and government services, just to name a few.

I wanted to highlight a few ways that libraries support their communities. Public libraries drive economic development. They provide workforce support by helping with job searches, résumés and printing. They provide business resources and meeting space for small business and entrepreneurs. They provide online training, from résumé basics to LinkedIn Learning courses when people want to skill up.

Public libraries also support social well-being. They provide inclusive programs, building community for seniors, new parents and more and reducing isolation by offering events that bring diverse people together. They bridge the digital divide, providing computers, Wi-Fi and support to help people stay in touch with loved ones and access health information, resources and appointments. Public libraries also build community resiliency and, most notably, recently, by providing safe spaces during the increasing number of heatwaves, cold snaps and other extreme weather.

Finally, public libraries help grow the economy by creating good jobs across British Columbia. They purchase B.C. books. They’re anchor tenants in buildings, bringing in other tenants and businesses. And they employ British Columbians.

The B.C. Library Association is joining our public library partners in asking the provincial government to increase annual funding for public libraries to $30 million per year and index funding to inflation going forward. That’s been our ongoing ask for several years. We deeply appreciate the one-time funding support the province has provided over the past several years, which has helped to temporarily stabilize public libraries. But without sustained consistent funding, many local libraries will find it difficult to continue operating without cutting services or hours. The amount of annual provincial funding for public libraries has been frozen for over a decade, while community demands on libraries have multiplied and costs to provide library services have dramatically increased.

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking to this committee several times, and I’ve heard members in previous years talk about the important role that libraries play in their local communities. So whether it’s parent-child Mother Goose programs in Coquitlam, STEAM coding programs for kids in Kitimat, employment services for newcomers in Surrey, helping folks sign up for income assistance in Vancouver, exam invigilation in Vernon or hundreds of other examples, I know that you already know this work is essential to helping communities thrive.

I wanted to close by speaking just on behalf of library workers who do this work. They do it because they care about their communities. They take pride in making them safer, more affordable and more successful, but they’re also getting really tired. They’re community members, too, facing all these same challenges, and they need support. So we’re asking you to help support them and the people they serve by increasing core annual provincial funding for the public library sector to $30 million.

Thank you so much for your time and the chance to speak to you, and I’m happy to answer any questions or hear any comments you might have.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

Moving to questions by members, starting with MLA Rattée.

Claire Rattée: Thank you.

I do just have one question, because we’ve had a number of different presentations around libraries or pieces of, where people have mentioned libraries. One thing I feel like I just haven’t fully understood yet is: what is the annual funding from the province currently for libraries? I know there’s this comment of increasing the annual funding to $30 million, but what is it right now for core ongoing stable funding that the province provides?

Rina Hadziev: Yeah. It’s $14 million and change, but it’s basically held at $14 million for over a decade. It was cut, and then it stayed there.

Claire Rattée: Okay. So it’s already $14 million. You want to increase to $30 million, not an additional 30, just increase to 30 and then index to inflation. Thank you.

Rina Hadziev: Yes. Thank you. Great question. Numbers are super important, as a numbers person myself.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you.

Any other questions by members? Seeing none, thank you so much for your time and your presentation today.

Rina Hadziev: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Moving to our next presenter, we have Sarah Felkar from B.C. Libraries Cooperative.

[10:35 a.m.]

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

B.C. Libraries Cooperative

Sarah Felkar: Thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all this morning on behalf of the B.C. Libraries Cooperative. My name is Sarah Felkar, as you just heard, and I am the interim executive director there.

five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

B.C. Libraries Cooperative

Sarah Felkar: Thank you very much. Good morning everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all this morning on behalf of the B.C. Libraries Cooperative. My name is Sarah Felkar, as you just heard, and I am the interim executive director there.

The B.C. Libraries Cooperative is a member-driven cooperative with over 200 members across Canada. All B.C. public libraries are members. The cooperative helps libraries help people by providing technology services. So what this looks like is providing a shared core library software, website services, digital resource licensing and access to accessible material for those with print and perceptual disabilities.

All services are opt-in, but 73 percent of B.C. public libraries are part of our shared core library system, 54 B.C. libraries and library federations use our website services and all B.C. libraries participate in the shared consortial digital licensing.

So what does this look like? We recently underwent an evaluation project to better understand and share with our members the value of the services we provide. So what does that consortial collaborative process provide for folks?

We found that for every dollar in fees paid to our core library service software, Sitka Evergreen, members received at least $7.02 in services back. For every dollar paid by members to access digital resources and have the avoidance of administrative costs, that was valued at $1.83. And specifically for our consortium e-book and audiobook collection for public libraries, the value for every dollar spent is that members have access to $60 in materials.

These savings represent the power of the collective, that when working collaboratively, we are able to achieve much more than if we were working alone. The core value of cooperative work across the public libraries of B.C. have allowed for many rural and remote communities to provide core services that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to achieve.

The provincial grant, especially the recent one-time operating lift and the digital enhancement grants, have allowed the co-op to offer several projects supporting our members. This has included increasing the training, support and member communications available to libraries but also ensuring that all public libraries have access to some key digital resources. This includes making sure that all public libraries and their cardholders have access to the skill-building service LinkedIn Learning, if you’ve heard of that before.

We’ve also been able to support hold relief for digital book collections, where specific funding was put aside to lower the wait times for digital books as well as audio books for members.

Additional projects are underway to ensure that British Columbians have access to digital content and services that meet their needs and the needs of their communities. This work would not have been possible without the one-time enhancement grants awarded by the government to our organization, for which we are very grateful.

As you will have heard in earlier presentations, the lack of sustained stable funding is undermining public libraries’ capacity to meet the needs of these communities and effectively plan and scale where required. Without a substantial increase to operational funding, we, the co-op, other partner organizations within the public library sector and public libraries themselves across the province will find it difficult to continue to operate without cutting services.

We are asking for a core annual grant of $30 million. This reflects the amount if the 2023 one-time funding were made permanent. We are also asking for the provincial government to ensure that B.C. libraries will receive provincial financial support at a sustainable level in subsequent years that includes inflation considerations for public libraries in B.C.

This has been our main ask for government for several years, and we join in our partner organizations — the Association of B.C. Public Library Directors, the B.C. Library Association and the B.C. Library Trustees Association — within the public library sector in uniting behind this ask.

So thank you for your time, and I look forward to any questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ll now turn to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation and your advocacy for libraries as a public space and resource.

When you mentioned your membership, you said that there were 200 members across Canada. Did I hear that correctly?

Sarah Felkar: Yes. We originally started off in British Columbia, but we have members now across Canada but with a focus in British Columbia. That’s why B.C. Libraries Cooperative.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, why confine the benefits of bulk buying to just British Columbia, right?

[10:40 a.m.]

So I just want to make sure that I understand. You are basically using the power of the group to buy both library resources, but also — am I hearing correctly? — you’re buying like administrative back-end software? Is that correct?

Sarah Felkar: So we provide sort of the back-end spine software

want to make sure that I understand. You’re basically using the power of the group to buy library resources, but also — am I hearing correctly? — you’re buying administrative back-end software? Is that correct?

Sarah Felkar: We provide sort of the back-end spine software for public libraries, the part that does check-ins, checkouts and those sorts of things. We provide a shared resource for that to B.C. public libraries. That software…. They get that consortial cheapness from it, but also, we provide the support for that. We have staff that do training, administrative support and development to make sure that it stays up to date.

Jennifer Blatherwick: And you’re funded by contributions from your member libraries?

Sarah Felkar: Yes, correct.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions by members? Seeing none, thank you so much for your time and presentation today.

Next presenter. We have Christine Middlemass from the B.C. Library Trustees Association. Thank you so much for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for the questions after, and you may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

B.C. Library Trustees Association

Christine Middlemass: Okay, thank you so much. Good morning. I’m Christine Middlemass. I’m the interim executive director of the B.C. Library Trustees Association, and I thank you for this opportunity.

I acknowledge that I reside in Richmond on unceded land in the stewarded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm people and that the members of the British Columbia Library Trustees Association come from communities on unceded land across the province. We are committed to decolonization and to respecting traditional territories.

BCLTA is the professional association representing over 700 community leaders and local government officials. We collaborate with our member library associations and federations to coordinate our activities, including professional development for staff and trustees. We pool our expertise and our financial and other resources to make the best use of provincial funds for the betterment of libraries and their communities.

Public libraries operate under provincial legislation, the Library Act. Locally established, autonomous boards are responsible for managing these libraries. These boards, composed of elected or appointed members, set the strategic priorities and policies for library operations.

Trustees are concerned about maintaining funding for public library services. BCLTA’s members are grateful to the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs for the annual grants libraries receive each year, as well as the one-time grants awarded in 2020, 2022 and 2023.

These grants have helped libraries and their communities, whether for COVID, to get a leg up on strengthening digital collections and improving physical and digital access, to enhance their facilities or to increase their abilities to support local economies, as well as to respond to community emergencies.

However, local governments now provide over 90 percent of total library funding in B.C. In 2009, it was 84 percent. Their share of total library funding has grown significantly. While municipal funding has increased, provincial funding has been frozen at the 2009 level for 16 years, while inflation has impacted our buying power. What you could purchase for $1 in 2009 now costs $1.43.

[10:45 a.m.]

Restrained funding not only impacts services and collections. It impacts the ability of library boards to recruit and retain trained staff, an increasing challenge for small, rural libraries. Funding that fluctuates undermines public libraries’ capacity to reliably serve their communities and to effectively plan

of library boards to recruit and retain trained staff, an increasing challenge for small, rural libraries. Funding that fluctuates undermines public libraries’ capacity to reliably serve their communities and to effectively plan and scale where required.

We are asking for an increase in the core annual provincial grant for public libraries in B.C. to $30 million a year. This represents the amount libraries would receive if enhancement grants provided in 2023 were ongoing.

We further ask the provincial government to ensure that library funding does not continue to be eroded by inflation and that inflation rates are considered along with the annual operating funding. Without substantial increase in operational funding, we will find it difficult to continue to operate without reducing services. Economic pressures are already showing in reduced hours of opening in some libraries. This has been our main ask of the government for several years.

We join our partner organizations in thanking you for considering this important and increasingly urgent request. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you. I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Moving to questions by members.

No questions. We have had many other library entities come and present to us, so it’s something that we already heard.

Christine Middlemass: Yes. I’m certain you did.

Paul Choi (Chair): Yes. Absolutely. And it’s something where you did such a good job presenting to us no follow-up question is needed. So thanks for your time and your presentation today.

Christine Middlemass: Thank you very much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Christine Middlemass: Have a good day, what’s left of it for you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you.

Christine Middlemass: Okay. Bye-bye.

Paul Choi (Chair): Bye.

Moving on to the next presenter. We have Emiko Newman from B.C. climate emergency campaign with us.

I hope you can hear us? Great. Perfect. Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready. Thank you.

Emiko Newman: Great. Thank you so much. Good morning, hon. Members. Thank you very much for this opportunity. I’m representing the B.C. climate emergency campaign, whose call for a renewed B.C. climate emergency plan has been endorsed by over 600 diverse organizations across B.C., including businesses; labour unions; Indigenous groups; housing, health and faith groups; and so many more.

I want to acknowledge the challenging context in which the province finds itself right now, given the difficulties coming from south of the border and the ensuing fiscal pressures that are placed on the government. At the same time, we are also in the midst of a climate emergency, and it is crucial that the collective response to this challenging new political context prioritizes climate action, including updating B.C.’s plan to drive down our carbon pollution.

So here are three recommendations that can simultaneously hasten B.C.’s transition off fossil fuels, refresh our climate plan, boost employment, expedite the building of new public infrastructure and decrease our reliance on the U.S.

First is a youth climate corps. As Canada wrestles with unemployment impacts caused by U.S. tariffs, it will frequently be young people experiencing the brunt of those impacts. Funding a national Youth Climate Corps is an opportunity which is purpose-built for this moment. This should be a two-year, public program that would provide a good, green job to anyone under 35 who wants one.

The work would fall under three categories: emergency response to extreme weather; strengthening community and environmental resilience to climate change; and also building infrastructure that drives down emissions.

We are urging the province to invest $100 million a year in a Youth Climate Corps, and we believe that if the B.C. government invited the federal government to cost-match this spending, the new federal government could do so. So with a combined investment of $200 million a year, an exciting YCC could employ 4,000 young people annually in B.C., paying them a living wage while getting set on a path to a well-paid career.

[10:50 a.m.]

The second recommendation we are advancing relates to transportation, which is the second-largest source of GHG emissions in B.C. Making public transit more accessible and affordable will lead to greater access to education, health care and employment; stronger public-sector jobs; less pollution; and healthier British Columbians.

The second recommendation we are advancing relates to transportation, which is the second largest source of GHG emissions in B.C. Making public transit more accessible and affordable will lead to greater access to education, health care and employment, stronger public sector jobs, less pollution and healthier British Columbians.

The Connecting B.C. report, co-published in 2024 by the B.C. Federation of Labour and the CCPA, offers a vision to fully transform public transit and transportation provincewide. And $15.4 billion in additional investment over ten years is needed to build a public transit system that provides frequent, speedy and reliable service within and between all communities, including rural and First Nations communities.

Currently, there’s $9 billion in highway expansion projects spanning multiple years already on the B.C. budget docket, and many of this is in areas with existing public transit service. So all of those funds for highway expansion should be reallocated towards public transportation and active transportation infrastructure. Highway expansion just makes traffic worse, and it increases carbon pollution.

If the government ambitiously invests in public transit, as we are proposing, then it will relieve pressure on roads and highways, such that a large portion of the Connecting B.C. plan could be funded. Connecting B.C. also calls on the B.C. government to increase its annual funding to all transit services in B.C. from $350 million today to $1.5 billion at the end of the plan’s ten-year scope.

Our final recommendation is to highlight the importance of increasing revenues. Eliminating the consumer carbon tax this year meant also eliminating the $3 billion in annual revenues the tax was collecting used to pay for climate action and the low-income carbon tax credit. To generate additional revenue, B.C. could eliminate subsidies to the fossil fuel sector. B.C. is the second largest provider of fossil fuel subsidies in Canada, second only to Alberta. Fossil fuel subsidies are expensive and they incentivize pollution, while the B.C. government struggles to afford billions for floods and wildfire damages. B.C. could also increase revenues by taxing windfall corporate profits. This would raise needed income and build social solidarity.

So we are in a climate emergency. It’s straining our economy, our health care system and our environment. Introducing a YCC, prioritizing transit and increasing revenues to pay for climate action will address all of these issues and create countless co-benefits for our province. And these ideas are well supported by a diversity of British Columbians. Thank you so much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation.

Moving to questions by members. Any questions?

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thanks very much for the presentation. That was like, honestly, perfectly timed. You must have rehearsed.

I don’t really have a question, just a comment that we had a couple other groups talk to us about biodiversity. So we do recognize the importance of that. I think there were a few questions asked and answered by previous groups.

So thanks for your presentation and taking the time to give this meaningful information to our committee.

Steve Morissette: Yes, thank you for the presentation. And just a question on the Youth Climate Corps. What is their existing funding currently?

Emiko Newman: So I’ll make a clarification, which is that a provincial B.C. Youth Climate Corps does currently exist. But what exists is a non-profit organization. And we are asking for something that is actually completely different. We are asking for something much bigger and bolder. We want this to be a new public program, as I mentioned, that’s funded both provincially and federally.

And I just want to say thank you for supporting the BCYCC, and we hope that we can take it even bigger and bolder than what exists currently.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Seeing no other questions, thank you for your presentation today.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Lori Goldman joining us today.

[10:55 a.m.]

Thank you for joining us. If you can unmute and have your camera on, please. Thank you very much. You have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for question after. You can begin when you’re ready.

Lori Goldman

Lori Goldman: Thank you very much. My name is

You have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions after. You can begin when you’re ready.

Lori Goldman

Lori Goldman: Thank you very much. My name is Lori Goldman, and I’m a low-income senior living alone in a mobile home in Penticton. I deeply desire to retrofit my home, but I’m stymied, and we’re in a climate crisis. I’m going to address challenges that homeowners face to reduce emissions, lower energy use and utility costs and increase physical safety.

Design teams at the Pembina Institute’s Reframed Lab estimate that deep retrofits can cut energy use by as much as 90 percent and reduce operational carbon emissions by 68 to 99 percent. The CleanBC program hopes to lower emissions 40 percent by 2030. It’s a great, bold idea. It provides rebates for heat pumps, windows, insulation and air sealing. Energy coaches, sometimes helpful, assist participants.

The Better Homes energy savings program for low-income families offers up to $44,900 in rebates. But there’s a problem. It’s limited and incredibly complex.

B.C. has two groups, Community Energy Association and City Green Solutions, that have separate programs to guide retrofits, but a municipality has to fund the program, so many municipalities don’t have a concierge system. Participants must use approved contractors, but rural areas or smaller centres might not be served. Contractors are also not guaranteed, and so may not be reliable. They also increase costs, taking advantage of generous rebates, such as for heat pumps, and that hurts the homeowner.

Each contractor is only concerned with their field, not the whole house. For example, if a house needs leak sealing and insulation for a heat pump to be efficient, a heat pump installer doesn’t advise the owner to do those renovations first. That leaves the homeowner spending more money on heating and cooling without properly preparing the home.

Old equipment must be physically disconnected and removed. Like a large gas furnace outside my house — if I take it out, it’s my expense, and if there’s any property damage, again, I have to cover that cost.

Vulnerable populations cannot easily access this program, because it’s terrifically confusing. It leaves us paralyzed. When I wanted to get a hot water heater, it would cost me $2,000 above the rebate for a heat pump hot water heater, so I had to get an electric hot water heater, not as efficient, with only $1,000 without the rebate. So I haven’t been able to do any upgrades because I can’t navigate the system.

There’s a proposal for a total home retrofit program which would assist homeowners to cut their addiction to polluting fossil gas. In B.C., the HomeZero Collective is a model taking homeowners through all the steps of a deep energy retrofit. Based in Vernon, it has run a successful pilot project of 11 homes and has data proving the benefits of whole-house retrofits, not just heat pumps, along with 90 percent emission reductions. It provides energy audits and evaluation, assesses each resident and consults about budget and limitations, provides funding, hires and manages contractors and reduces costs by bulk purchasing appliances.

HomeZero guides the homeowner through the entire process, relieving stress and expense, helping them stay within budget, facilitating efficient improvements, increasing safety, benefiting the owner and the community. It can handle homes rapidly, which drastically reduces emissions, and it reduces energy demand in B.C.

With $5 million, HomeZero Collective could scale up and become self-sustaining and do hundreds of homes every year. The model can be replicated across B.C. They received funding from the federal government last year, and in the next phase, they’re looking for a partner to match federal funding of $5 million. The remaining $20 million will come as financing from a local credit union.

In conclusion, we need to act urgently to meet the climate emergency. This collective needs funding to go to the next level. I hope that B.C. can see that ordinary people need simpler systems to really end our dependence on fossil fuels, improve the health, safety and finances of vulnerable homeowners and truly address climate change. Thank you so much.

[11:00 a.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation.

Going to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. Having tried to navigate the web of granting programs, I have a lot of familiarity with bureaucracy and

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation.

Going to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. Having tried to navigate the web of granting programs, I have a lot of familiarity with bureaucracy and paperwork. There were definitely times I found myself tilting my head going: “Hmm, what am I supposed to be doing here?” I understand what you’re saying.

I’m hoping you can clarify for me: the Home Zero Collective, is that a non-profit?

Lori Goldman: Yes, it is. It’s a collective non-profit. They work to help the homeowner and to…. Their goal is to reduce the stress and make retrofits affordable for homeowners.

The people who were in the program last year were all really happy with the assistance they got and also with the costs that were reduced and the emissions that were reduced because they can track it all.

Jennifer Blatherwick: One of the points that you made earlier in the presentation is that with individual contractors, they focus on their area of expertise. So they may recommend changes that perhaps, you know, made out of order can make it more challenging to implement a full home energy retrofit in a logical way, or they may not even realize that there are other retrofits that are available because that’s not their area.

You’re saying that a project like the Home Zero Collective does project management basically for....

Lori Goldman: I’d say that would be what it is. It’s project management.

They make sure that you have your energy audit, which I’ve already got. I can’t read it, but I’ve got it. I gave it to my heat pump people, three different people, and they all gave me incredibly high quotes for just equipment and a day’s worth of installation. I just said: “I don’t think that’s right.” Like, a heat pump shouldn’t cost $20,000 for a 1,300 square foot mobile home.

But I can’t do this. I simply can’t do this, and neither can millions of other people in this province. This kind of a program where it really helps people to manage the whole project would really be able to scale up these whole-home retrofits, reducing emissions.

I’m really worried about wildfire. I have an air conditioner, but I don’t have a heat pump, so the air conditioner doesn’t filter as much wildfire smoke particulates out. I mean, in this time of anxiety, we need things that really work for us, and having something like Home Zero Collective managing a program would just be a real way for many homes to be done rapidly.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation. I didn’t catch…. Home Zero Collective, are they just based in the Okanagan?

Lori Goldman: Right now. They just started in Vernon, and they’re hoping to expand in Vernon area. Of course, I’m not in Vernon area; I’m in Penticton. So I want them here. I want somebody here to help me.

My city does not have a concierge, and so without a community energy association or some other group to assist me in that, I can’t move forward. But they don’t do all of it. They say, “Here, you can do this,” and I’m still stuck with that website. Those people on the phone, the coaches, they are not helpful. They made mistakes before in my advice.

It doesn’t really work for people like me — an older woman living alone with no background in this. This is not my field. I can’t move forward. I want to. I desperately want to. My whole focus is climate solutions, and I can’t move forward.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation today.

Lori Goldman: Thank you, and thank you very much for giving us the opportunity to speak to the committee. We really appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, moving on to our next presenter, we have Samantha Agtarap.

[11:05 a.m.]

Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you are ready to go.

Samantha Agtarap

Samantha Agtarap: Thank you very much. My name is Samantha Agtarap, as mentioned. I’m a resident of Port Moody, an engineer and a city councillor. I’m here as a citizen, and while I do not speak for the city of Port Moody, my position is informed by my work on council and our shared experience with climate-related

again whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Samantha Agtarap: Thank you very much. My name is Samantha Agtarap, as mentioned. I’m a resident of Port Moody, an engineer and a city councillor. I’m here as a citizen. While I do not speak for the city of Port Moody, my position is informed by my work on council and our shared experience with climate-related impacts.

I’m here today to speak in support of the Youth Climate Corps B.C. and urge the committee to prioritize it in the 2025 budget.

In 2024, at the annual UBCM convention, the city of Port Moody brought forward resolution EB55, calling on the province to expand the Youth Climate Corps. We did this because the impacts of climate change, including wildfires, floods and deadly heat waves, are no longer theoretical. They are damaging infrastructure, threatening public safety and taking lives in communities across B.C. Convention delegates endorsed this resolution.

At the same time, governments are looking for ways to better engage youth and to train the next generation of workers for the low-carbon economy we know we need. In a time of rising unemployment, especially amongst young people, the Youth Climate Corps offers a clear win — living wage green jobs that are supporting climate adaptation and mitigation projects in communities across the province. That includes wildfire mitigation, building retrofits, ecosystem restoration and public engagement.

It directly addresses three urgent provincial priorities: the climate crisis, youth unemployment and the skilled labour gap.

My recommendation to this committee is to provide sustainable and ambitious multi-use funding for the provincial Youth Climate Corps to grow green jobs across B.C.

Here are three reasons why it deserves your support. One, it’s a proven effective employment model. In just 14 months, Youth Climate Corps B.C. served nearly 50 young people delivering over 3,400 days of climate work and training in wildfire mitigation, energy retrofits and Indigenous-led food security and more.

A recent pre-apprenticeship program delivered with the B.C. Insulators Union led to 88 percent of participants pursuing Red Seal certification. This is what future-ready training looks like.

Two: it solves multiple government priorities at once. Youth unemployment in B.C. is now 12.9 percent, more than double the provincial average. Meanwhile, nearly half of new job seekers over the next decade will be young people. But employers struggle to find candidates with the right experience.

YCCBC bridges that gap by providing real, local, climate-focused work experience while supporting local governments, First Nations and non-profits in essential mitigation and adaptation projects.

Three: demand far exceeds supply. In some regions, up to eight times the applicants have applied for positions. Municipalities like Nelson and Kaslo are actively requesting wildfire resilience programs from Youth Climate Corps, but current funding limits the delivery.

This model has strong cross-sector support from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, Federation of Labour and the B.C. Teachers Federation. It was even referenced in the federal Liberal campaign platform with a $56 million commitment.

To summarize, the Climate Corps is not just about climate solution; it’s a workforce solution, a public safety solution and one that delivers measurable climate action, meaningful employment and long-term economic benefit, all for modest investment.

If we want a future that is resilient, equitable and economically strong, we need to fund programs like this that meet the moment and build for the long term. Providing stable funding will build on the successes of Youth Climate Corps B.C. for our youth, for our economy and for our collective future.

This is the kind of spending that British Columbians want to see: practical, forward-looking and hopeful. I hope you can support the Youth Climate Corps expansion in this year’s budget.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation. Moving to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Nice to see you, Councillor Agtarap.

I appreciate the support for the idea of the Youth Climate Corps as outlined in our previous presentation. Our previous presenter was asking for provincial government contribution of $100 million, with the anticipation that it would be matched by a $200 million contribution by the federal government.

But we didn’t have a conversation then about multi-year funding. I just want to be clear, you’re thinking that the contribution would be $100 million annually?

[11:10 a.m.]

Samantha Agtarap: No. Me, personally, I don’t have any recommendations on the amount of funding. I would expect that that would be sorted out or worked on in collaboration with Youth Climate Corps B.C., based on conversations with them and perhaps the federal government.

But I do think it is necessary that it’s not a one-time contribution thing. I do think it’s a long-term solution and a long-term commitment to funding these programs.

and worked in collaboration with Youth Climate Corps B.C., based on conversations with them and perhaps the federal government. But I do think it is necessary. It’s not a one-time contribution thing. I do think it’s a long-term solution and a long-term commitment to funding these programs to ensure that we get the results that are needed.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Perhaps I misunderstood. So the previous presenter was talking about a provincial…. Like not contributing to the non-profit, the Youth Climate Corps B.C. They were talking about forming like a provincial government entity on….

Samantha Agtarap: Oh, I see.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah. So, sorry. I think that was where the presentations diverged there.

You’re talking about like an increased amount of support for the currently existing non-profit.

Samantha Agtarap: Yes. The B.C. government, I believe, had contributed $3 million over the past, I think it ends in 2026. And so I was talking about that funding that was allocated previously and increasing that amount.

Jennifer Blatherwick: There you go. Okay. Thank you so much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Moving to our next presenter. Okay, there she is. We have Jinhwa Hwong-Ambrose from For Our Kids joining us.

Thanks for coming and presenting to us. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

For Our Kids

Jinhwa Hwong-Ambrose: Hello, Chair and members of the committee. Thanks so much. I really appreciate your time today. My name is Jinhwa Hwong-Ambrose, and I’m here to speak on behalf of an organization called For Our Kids.

For Our Kids is a network of parents and families advocating for bold climate action that will protect our children’s futures. We operate across Canada, but we have 1,500 supporters in B.C., including local teams in Vancouver, Victoria, Richmond, Burnaby and the Sunshine Coast. We’re proud to be a volunteer-led organization with a small staff team, which I am part of, and the staff team supports volunteers to connect and organize with each other. So that’s what we’re all about.

At For Our Kids, we say that you don’t have to be an expert to make a difference and that your love for your kids is a superpower. So I’m here today not as a policy expert but as someone who communicates regularly with parents who are deeply worried about climate change, and I’m here to relay some of those concerns to you.

As you know, budgets reflect values. And we believe that the B.C. government does value climate action, but we noticed that it’s not mentioned in the recent B.C. budget consultation paper.

So our first recommendation is to please prioritize climate action within the 2026 budget. We recognize that the province has taken great steps in addressing climate change, but our emission reduction targets are not on track. When we look at the CleanBC plan, we’d committed to reducing our emissions by 16 percent as of this year. The recent Climate Change Accountability Report tells us that we were down by 2 percent as of the last measurement in 2022. Working to ensure a safe climate for our children and their future children needs to be a priority. So we ask that this is reflected in the budget.

Our second recommendation is to dedicate funding for climate mitigation and adaptation in our K-to-12 schools. As you probably know — I know some of you are parents — schools in B.C. are already experiencing the impacts of climate change this summer: high temperatures in classrooms, wildfire smoke. Funding for mitigation and adaptation in our schools is an investment in the health of our kids. Beyond environmental responsibility, this protects them while they are at school and demonstrates to them that the adults in their lives are taking climate change seriously.

Schools could do all kinds of projects. They could install electric heat pumps that provide clean energy cooling during heat waves. They could build green spaces and shades to give relief during recess from the heat. They could implement waste-reduction programs to include composting. This is a great way to reduce emissions. They could install on-site bike storage to encourage active transportation. These are just a few ideas. Parents that I talk to have lots of ideas, but they know that the schools need funding support to implement them.

[11:15 a.m.]

Our third recommendation is to please continue funding electric school buses so that all new school bus purchases will, by default, be electric. We’re so grateful for all the support from the province so far in the purchasing of electric school buses. We ask to please continue this funding. Beyond our climate responsibility, it does also address health concerns

school buses, so that all new school bus purchases will, by default, be electric. We’re so grateful for all the support from the province so far in the purchasing of electric school buses, and we ask to please continue this funding.

Beyond our climate responsibility, it does also address health concerns. Diesel exhaust is linked to higher risks of lung cancer, cardiovascular impacts and asthma. Kids are at greater risk because of their developing lungs, and we know that they are exposed to diesel exhaust when they ride the bus or when those buses idle in parking lots.

I was one of those kids, riding one of those buses back in the day; maybe you were too. I still remember what it felt like to be in the parking lot with all the buses idling.

Electric school buses do cost more initially, but operational and maintenance costs are lower than for diesel models, and it does work out economically in the long run. At about the halfway point in the lifespan of an electric school bus, the investment is paid back. There are also savings from the avoided health costs, which has been documented in studies.

In summary, my recommendations are to please continue funding for electric school buses, to dedicate funding for climate mitigation and adaptation in our schools, and to put priority on climate action within the 2026 budget.

Thank you very much for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation. We’ll move to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thanks so much for your advocacy, especially around schools. I think school districts certainly work endlessly to reduce emissions and to be as environmentally responsible as they can, and it’s so nice to see a parent group trying to be dedicated to that goal as well.

I just want to check in here. On the ideas for climate mitigation in schools, there is some funding for programs like this already, but you’re asking for a dedicated provincial stream of funding that would be reserved for those programs.

Jinhwa Hwong-Ambrose: Yeah, that’s the ask.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation and your time today for us.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Sam Wiese, from the Federation of Retired Union Members of B.C., joining us.

Thank you so much for your time. You have five minutes for a presentation, five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

B.C. Federation of
Retired Union Members

Sam Wiese: Thank you. I’m on a little tablet, in Toronto for a convention out here, so I’m hoping I’m coming through okay and that you can hear me when I’m speaking.

It’s Sam Wiese, and as indicated, I’m with the B.C. Federation of Retired Union Members. As most of you probably are aware, especially if there have been presenters from seniors organizations already, we have a wide, wide range of senior individuals who live below the poverty level.

In British Columbia, especially in the Lower Mainland, it affects us even more because, of course, the cost of living throughout B.C. is quite a bit more than in other areas of Canada. As such, one of the things that we really would like to see, within the budget upcoming, is an increase to the seniors subsidy, the seniors supplement or benefit, whatever you want to call it.

[11:20 a.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Can you hear us? If not, we can just pause the time briefly.

Sam Wiese: Sorry, I just got…. What we from B.C. FORUM would like to see is transportation. Public transportation is often the only means by which seniors get around. And the cost of public transportation, while sometimes it’s lower than obviously during high time, you know, high commute times and stuff, it’s still not low enough for seniors to afford to get around. We would like to see public transportation free for seniors and for those who are 18 and under. It doesn’t have to be all the time. It can be non-peak times, but public transportation needs to be extended so that seniors can use it without fear of choosing whether or not they’re going to be able to get on the bus to go to the doctors or be able to buy food for the next day.

For us at B.C. FORUM, those are two very significant areas, which we would like to see addressed and improved in this upcoming budget. That’s what I’ve got to say at this point.

I’m sorry, for some reason, I’m not hearing you.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Sorry. She mentioned the asset B.C. FORUM, but she didn’t get a chance to clarify what that was.

[11:25 a.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, with the technical

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, with the technical difficulties, we are unable to communicate with her. We will follow up and make sure she gets our questions and she gets the ability to respond back to us.

So at this point, I will end the presentation, and the committee will take a recess for lunch. Thank you.

The committee recessed from 11:25 a.m. to 1:11 p.m.

The committee recessed from 11:25 a.m. to 1:11 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): I will call the committee back to order.

Our first presenter after the afternoon break is Dustin Snyder from the Spruce City Wildlife Association. Thanks for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you are ready. Thank you.

Spruce City Wildlife Association

Dustin Snyder: Good afternoon, hon. Members, and thank you for the opportunity to present today. My name is Dustin Snyder. I’m the president for the Spruce City Wildlife Association, located in Prince George. Spruce City is the Omineca region’s largest conservation organization, formed by volunteers in 1970.

I’d like to start off with some interesting facts about B.C.’s amazing biodiversity for you today. Canada, overall, holds 55,000 types of insects, 35,000 of which can be found in B.C. Of that, 35,168 are endemic to B.C., meaning they can’t be found anywhere else on the planet. Twenty of the 42 Canadian amphibians can be found in B.C., and 143 of the 196 Canadian mammals can be found in B.C. as well.

More than half of the world’s trumpeter swan population spends time in B.C.’s wetlands annually. Given the amount of steep, rocky habitat that B.C. holds, it’s no surprise that 60 percent of the world’s mountain goat population resides here as well. Other impressive facts include that B.C. holds 30 percent the world’s bald eagles and 25 percent of the world’s grizzlies.

From bears to bugs, B.C. has diversity when it comes to the outdoors. Having told you all of these facts about B.C., I regret to inform you that throughout its history and under various names, British Columbia’s fish and wildlife management agency continues to be the most understaffed and underfunded of any fish and wildlife agency in North America.

Having said that, hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation have become a family activity, where everybody of all ages, genders and backgrounds are seeking the thrill of experiencing B.C.’s natural splendor and the bounty it can provide.

I’m here today to make a few recommendations to the standing committee on finance. Recommendation (1) is to increase funding to fish and wildlife management or to put a larger share towards the fee of that management towards the Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation. For years, various wildlife and outdoor groups have advocated for 100 percent of licence fees to be dedicated back to the resource. Sadly, it seems this won’t be happening anytime soon, but we need progress and increased funding to manage these populations.

It’s important for the overall health of fish, wildlife and their habitat to ensure adequate funding is in place for wildlife inventories, harvest monitoring and support services. This government agency has been supplemented by HCTF for many years, and when you review the approved projects by HCTF, you’ll see a significant portion is actually government staff applying for funding in order just to do their jobs.

Recommendation (2) is to have all natural resource users contribute financially and to restoration. Natural resource use and extraction has an impact on B.C.’s shared natural capital. Government should be collecting rent on that and dedicating a portion of it back to fish and wildlife conservation. Activities such as ecotourism, wildlife viewing, mining, heli-skiing, oil and gas and logging should all contribute to natural resource conservation and restoration.

[1:15 p.m.]

While hunting and fishing often get blamed for population declines, the reality is that even a healthy and increasing population of any species will disappear entirely if you take away its home and food source.

Recommendation (3) is: with the increased funds from the previous two recommendations, it should become a high priority to restore habitats of fish and wildlife populations, ensuring biodiverse forests as opposed to monocultured pine stands. Through activities such as forest thinning and planting or restoring deactivated resource roads

Recommendation No. 3 is: with the increased funds from the previous 2 recommendations, it should become a high priority to restore habitat-sufficient wildlife populations, ensuring biodiverse forests as opposed to monoculture pine stands through activities such as forest thinning and planting or restoring deactivated resource roads. This would not only help protect the province from devastating wildfires, but it would greatly benefit our fish and wildlife populations.

In summary, British Columbia is fortunate to have a rich diversity of fish and wildlife resources, but slowly it is starting to disappear. We’re adding more people to British Columbia’s population every day and putting more stress on its natural resources. At the same time, this reduced funding and capacity to steward those natural resources is limiting or is putting an expiration date on these resources.

Spruce City firmly believes that it’s our collective responsibility to conserve these resources, and it’s critical that we recognize the challenges and opportunities we face in maintaining B.C.’s diversity of species over the long term, including investing in measures now that could prevent costly species and habitat recovery projects in the future. We strongly believe the benefits of building on fish and wildlife management and education programs as well as investing in new initiatives.

We invite the B.C. government to join us and maintain the province through strategy in conserving our diverse wildlife and fish resources and providing education and awareness in conservation and the outdoors. We look forward to continuing to work with province to move forward to not only implement reactive solutions but while beginning to implement proactive solutions as well.

Again, I’d like to thank you all for the opportunity to present and to offer recommendations today.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. We will move to questions by members.

Steve Morissette: Thanks for the presentation, Dustin.

Do you align with B.C. Wildlife Federation? Because they sound like similar requests.

Dustin Snyder: Yes, Spruce City is a member of the B.C. Wildlife Federation. We align on quite a few objectives.

Steve Morissette: Just a further question. Your second ask…. You’re asking that all users of the backcountry, basically — whether it’s natural resource extraction, tourism operations, whoever uses the back country — should contribute towards fish and wildlife management?

Dustin Snyder: Yes, we believe so. I think that anybody who’s benefitting from the resource — ecotourism as well, bear viewing, that sort of stuff — whether you’re kind of taking part in reusing the habitat or the resource or impacting it in another way, which is just being on the landscape, it’s important to have some sort of mandatory obligation to give back as opposed to having it be an optional thing.

Steve Morissette: And one last thing if I could. You mentioned forestry. So you’re talking like new logging practices, more selective, and deactivating the roads afterwards, correct?

Dustin Snyder: Yes, not only deactivating those roads but doing something with them afterwards. There are logging roads out there that haven’t been used in decades that are still rock-hard, compacted — going in and replanting those. And again, not just planting with monoculture pine, but something that’s deciduous adds some more biodiversity to the landscape.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much, Dustin. I am hoping we can go back to point No. 1. So I am not familiar with the Habitat Conservation Trust Fund. What kind of organization is that?

Dustin Snyder: So essentially that is a charity group, if you want to call them that, and a portion of every hunting license as well as every fishing license has a fee on it. So when I buy a $40 fishing license, like $3 will go to HCTF, and they accept applications for various kind of piles of projects throughout the year. This was intended to be funding volunteer groups to do work on the landscape, restore habitat, that sort of stuff, and work with fish and wildlife populations.

But it is opened up to government staff to apply it as well. So again, when you go through those approved projects you can see that there are quite a few government staff that are doing all kinds of things from restoration work to inventories off of these fees as well.

[1:20 p.m.]

Bryan Tepper: The license fees, fishing and hunting — they don’t cover most of what we do for wildlife, do they?

Dustin Snyder: No, the license fees, again, just as an example, if I buy a $40 fishing license, I believe it’s something like three dollars

license fees, fishing and hunting, they don’t cover most of what we do for wildlife, does it?

Dustin Snyder: No. The license fees…. Again, just as an example, if I buy a $40 fishing license, I believe it’s something like $3 goes to HCTF. For the fishing license, it goes to Freshwater Fisheries B.C., the rest of the license fee. For the hunting license, comparing the same sort of thing, if I buy a $40 tag, that few dollars goes to HCTF, and the rest goes into general revenue.

Bryan Tepper: I guess my point is that even if it’s going into general revenue, whether it should be assigned or not, we’re putting more money into conservation, conservation officers even, any of that, than we’re collecting in license fees, are we not? Do you have those numbers?

Dustin Snyder: I do not have those numbers, unfortunately, no.

What I do know is, again, too, that just North America as a whole, whether it’s the States or the rest of Canada, B.C.’s agency is the least funded and the least staffed throughout all of North America.

Bryan Tepper: Yeah, no, we definitely need more. I’m on board with that. I was just wondering about the allocation of funds and how much we’re putting in and if you knew that.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time and your presentation today.

Dustin Snyder: Thank you again for the opportunity.

Paul Choi (Chair): Moving on to our next presenter, we have Nikki Skuce from Northern Confluence Initiative joining us.

Thanks for coming today. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Northern Confluence Initiative

Nikki Skuce: Great, thanks.

Greetings, committee members and staff. Thanks for this opportunity. I’m the director of the Northern Confluence Initiative, which is based out of Smithers on Wet’suwet’en territory and focuses on improving land use decisions in northern British Columbia.

We’re interested in taking this opportunity to advocate for additional funding to support land use planning, conservation initiatives and mineral tenure reform. I recommend that the committee address the following issues in the budget.

One, increase funding for land use planning and implementation. Amidst the biodiversity and climate crises, it’s great to see the province commit to achieving 30 percent protection of B.C.’s land and waters by 2030, including through Indigenous-protected and conserved areas. Nature is part of our provincial identity, and increasing the number of parks and protected areas will benefit all British Columbians.

Recent initiatives such as the northwest land use planning launch in early June and the recent agreement with the Tŝilhqot’in National Government have the real potential to achieve results on the ground and start actualizing the commitment to nearly double our protected area system. Given that the B.C. government is interested in using land use plans to achieve its conservation targets as well as to provide more certainty for industry on the land base, there needs to be additional provincial capacity through targeted staff and resources and support for Indigenous nations to create, negotiate and ultimately implement these plans.

Given that the northwest is a big focus with the year timeline to try to get things done, these resources will be needed now and also as part of ensuring the successful implementation of these plans for years to come. This includes support for Indigenous guardians programs and ongoing co-management agreements. We encourage the committee to agree to tripling the land use planning budget as a pathway to increasing protected areas and fewer conflicts on the land.

Two, supporting land use plans and new protected areas also requires reform to B.C.’s mineral tenure and compensation laws. The province has been reluctant to support some new conservation areas, in part because of existing forest and mineral tenures.

The Mineral Tenure Act is currently the most inconsistent with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, although commitments have been made to reform the MTA and bring it in line with the DRIPA, both in the action plan and the mandate letters. Funding to support Indigenous engagement in the law reform process would be good. There’s a commitment to do so, to have new legislation tabled for the fall of 2026.

Despite reforms that will be made for future mineral claims, there remain a number of existing claims throughout the province. For the province to support Indigenous and new protected areas to achieve its biodiversity goals, it’ll need to expropriate some mineral tenures and retire areas from further exploration.

Right now B.C. uses a markets-based approach to compensation, which can be extremely costly. We’ve seen examples of this, including a $9.8 million settlement with Cline Mining for expropriating coal licenses in the Flathead just over a decade ago. More recently $24 million was paid to Imperial Metals for its mineral tenures within the donut hole of Manning Park.

[1:25 p.m.]

While prospectors pay $1.75 a hectare, payouts more commonly range from $600 to $800 a hectare for expropriations for public interest purposes. These types of payouts can occur even when little to no exploration has happened.

In addition, B.C. and the federal government subsidize the mining sector heavily through

a hectare, payouts more commonly range from $600 to $800 a hectare for expropriations for public interest purposes. These types of payouts can occur even when little to no exploration has happened.

In addition, B.C. and the federal government subsidize the mining sector heavily through generous tax breaks and incentives such as flow-through tax shares, mineral exploration tax credits, Canadian exploration and Canadian development expenses tax write-offs, etc.

Given these public funds already targeted to support mineral exploration companies, we hope that B.C. will follow some other jurisdictions, such as Quebec, and only pay mineral claim holders for costs incurred to date, not for just clicking claims with a mouse or cries over potential speculative profits.

Federal, provincial and philanthropic funds have been committed to conservation targets, and these funds should not be mostly spent paying out for this speculative mineral exploration industry.

We hope that B.C. reforms its mineral compensation regime to reduce the compensation barrier to conservation by updating its laws, more than allocating a lot of funding to pay out mineral claim holders.

Lastly, we recognize that we are in the midst of fallout from tariffs and economic uncertainties that are resulting in the government pushing to find efficiencies and imposing hiring freezes.

We would like to caution against deep cuts to the public service. As we know, there are major risks and costs to communities and watersheds when monitoring and enforcement becomes, as the Auditor General said in her report after the Mount Polley mine disaster, woefully inadequate.

While we understand likely budget constraints, this is no time to reduce boots on the ground and a public sector able to deliver on government promises while ensuring corporate accountability.

Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. Moving to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. For point one, you asked for a three times increase in the land use planning budget. Do you know what the planning budget is now?

Nikki Skuce: I do. I just don’t have it on hand at the moment. I can send that in. I apologize.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I apologize for asking the one question you were probably really hoping we wouldn’t ask.

Nikki Skuce: No, not at all. I wish I…. I’m sorry. I just didn’t.

Jennifer Blatherwick: No worries.

You mentioned some specific programs like the Indigenous Guardians program. Could you talk more about that?

Nikki Skuce: Yeah, I think in part with First Nations living in the territories and with the land use planning going ahead for them, identifying some conservation areas but also approving some development, like in mines and that sort of thing. Supporting Indigenous Guardians allows them to monitor also on the landscape and see and ensure there’s compliance and just sort of monitor the land base. It is a way that’s probably more cost effective, also, than having provincial folks.

I live in Smithers, and the Skeena staff here are fabulous. But it’s a massive area here in the northwest. Budgets to go out to these territories are not very robust, and it’s hard. Distances are big. Sometimes even when they finally book a helicopter for monitoring enforcement of mines or other things, the weather socks in. Then there goes most of the annual budget

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your time and your presentation today.

Nikki Skuce: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): Moving on to the next presenter. We have Monika Bittel from Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C.

Thank you for joining us. Five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C.

Monika Bittel: Good afternoon. I’m a director with the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C., which has over 50 member organizations with over 6,000 members that hike, backpack, climb, ski tour, snowshoe and build trails and huts for public use, among other activities. We are dedicated to protecting and maintaining access to quality, non-motorized background recreation in B.C. and reducing barriers.

[1:30 p.m.]

Our three recommendations to enhance outdoor recreation in B.C. are: first, to increase funding for B.C. parks and recreation sites and trails; second, to fund the repair and maintenance of critical access roads for recreation; and third, to support volume.

in B.C. and reducing barriers.

Our three recommendations to enhance outdoor recreation in B.C. are: first, to increase funding for B.C. Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails; second, to fund the repair and maintenance of critical access roads for recreation; and third, to support volunteers who build and maintain B.C.’s recreational infrastructure.

Turning to our first recommendation: increasing the funding and resources for B.C. Parks and for Recreation Sites and Trails. For almost 20 years, our parks, recreation sites and trails were underfunded. During that time, B.C.’s population grew by 1.3 million, and visitors steadily increased, putting pressure on our green spaces, including unmanaged Crown land where there are no outhouses, garbage facilities or campgrounds. The ecological impact has been huge.

The budget boosts to B.C. Parks and to Recreation Sites and Trails in 2021 and 2023 began to address some of those impacts. These funding boosts extend into 2025-26, but without further uplifts, the gains made will be at risk, and the plans to expand recreation capacity will stall. We are recommending uplifts of up to $20 million for B.C. Parks and $10 million for Recreation Sites and Trails annually, to address the current and future needs.

Some examples of these future needs: in 2023, B.C. Parks initiated recreation facility planning for Mount Seymour, Golden Ears and Cultus Lake to address, in a nutshell, their high use, the inadequate and inaccessible facilities, and the poor state of trails, signage and outhouses. Now, these draft plans are to be released soon, which will prioritize new and upgraded facilities and services in these three parks over the next five to ten years, but funding will be the constraint. Other parks would benefit from similar focused planning.

Another example is the damage from climate events which close or partially close recreation destinations. Climate change repairs and upgrades are complex, require specialized planning and design, and Indigenous consultations — all of which take time.

Finally, limited staff capacity hampers volunteers who are keen to expand or maintain recreational assets for the benefit of the public. It’s for these reasons that we’re proposing the uplifts — to ensure the gains that have been made and that the plans are implemented to further advance quality outdoor recreation opportunities.

In terms of our second recommendation, funding the repair and maintenance of access roads for recreation, currently there is no agency that has a mandate or funding to maintain access roads for recreation. The lack of maintenance means access to parks and recreation destinations is restricted or lost, putting pressures on those that remain accessible. We recommend allocating resources to identify and prioritize the maintenance of high-use roads to recreation destinations.

Finally, our third recommendation: support for outdoor recreation volunteers. Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails rely heavily on volunteers. Recreation Sites, for example, has 388 partners that maintain about 1,000 sites and trails, which represents almost 35 percent of their inventory of trails and sites. The volunteer hours equate to 180 full-time equivalencies.

In 2023, B.C. Parks did invest $10 million in the outdoor recreation fund, which helps groups get the products off the ground. But to date, only about 15 percent of several hundred eligible applications receive funding, of up to $10,000. It takes time to grow the funds. We’re recommending a further annual investment of up to $5 million, over three years, to expand the outdoor recreation fund to support the significant unmet needs.

Thank you. Those are my submissions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ll move to questions by members.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation. Do you have mountain clubs, like trail clubs and so on, throughout the province? Where are you primarily based?

[1:35 p.m.]

Monika Bittel: No, we have clubs that are throughout the province. We have large clubs, with over 1,000 members, and small clubs, with up to ten members. They basically coordinate volunteers in the area to do trail-building, but our clubs are located all over the province — Vancouver Island and every region in the province.

large clubs with over 1000 members and small clubs with up to ten members that basically coordinate volunteers in the area to do trail-building, but our clubs are located all over the province — Vancouver Island and every region in the province.

Steve Morissette: If I could just follow that with, so you have trails clubs and so on. Are you primarily trails-based or any kind of outdoor recreation?

Monika Bittel: Any type of outdoor recreation. We are self-propelled. We obviously use vehicles to access trailheads or park destinations or recreation sites, destinations. And then we’re on foot.

We do have members that do mountain biking, but we are, like, ski-touring, hiking, climbing — you name it — what we call it in the self-propelled outdoor recreation community…. Including paddling, you know, kayaks, canoes, anything that gets us out into our wilderness areas.

Steve Morissette: Okay. Thank you.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. Back to your first point, you mentioned that there was a budget boost at the end of 2025, and then there was an uplift in the…. Is it that you’re looking for an uplift in the funding?

Monika Bittel: Yes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: And what is the current funding?

Monika Bittel: The uplifts that were implemented in 2021 and 2023 amounted roughly between $20 million to $30 million for B.C. Parks and Recreation Sites and Trails. So that gets parsed over three years, starting in 2021. And that amount basically ends in 2025 to 2026.

What we’re trying to do is ensure that the progress that has been made continues into the future. Our request basically reflects the uplifts that were received in 2021 to 2023 — about $20 million to B.C. Parks and about $10 million to Recreation Sites and Trails.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Any other questions?

Steve Morissette: You mentioned upkeeping access roads for recreation. That’s a significant problem because it’s very expensive, and typically those roads are old logging roads. Logging companies aren’t going to maintain them, and parks aren’t going to maintain them. What do you propose? You just want money towards that?

Monika Bittel: No. Eventually we have to get to the point where some of these roads are maintained because as we lose them, people then recreate in the smaller and smaller places that actually become accessible and, of course, this creates the overcrowding problems.

So the important part is to initially review the roads that are critical roads for the purpose of recreation. If you take all of the roads in B.C., you’re probably talking about 600,000 kilometres of roads. That is not what we’re proposing. What we’d like to see is some resources going into trying to focus down on which roads are critical for the purpose of recreation.

And I can give one example. Up in Kakwa Provincial Park, the road from B.C. to access the park pretty well has been closed. The only way people can get into this provincial park, which is a pretty significant part in northeastern B.C., is to actually access it from Alberta. You can’t access it anymore, safely, from B.C.

So that’s an example of a road where we can actually identify how critical it is, to then determine how we can actually maintain access to that park in the future for British Columbians and for tourists.

Steve Morissette: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. Seeing no other questions, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Monika Bittel: Thank you for the opportunity to give the presentation. We appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Moving on to our next presenter. We have Heidi Worthington from YMCAs of B.C. joining us.

If you could turn your camera on, that would be great.

I can see she is still connecting.

[1:40 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. Perfect. I hope you can hear us. We can see you. Thanks for joining. Good to see that you can hear me as well.

We have Heidi Worthington from YMCA of B.C. Thanks for joining. You have five minutes for a presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

YMCAs of B.C.

Heidi Worthington: Wonderful. Thank you very much. As mentioned, my name is Heidi Worthington. I’m the president and CEO of YMCA B.C. I’d like to start by acknowledging that I’m situated today on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations. I’m representing three Y’s in British Columbia, which is YMCA-YWCA Vancouver Island, YMCA Southern Interior and YMCA B.C. So collectively, we reach all regions of British Columbia, including urban, rural and remote communities.

YMCA is a charity dedicated to helping people of all ages, stages, backgrounds and abilities to reach their fullest potential. We are more, though, than gym and swim. Our programming advances the overall health and well-being of the communities that we serve, including programming that support the social determinants of health — so programs like newcomer programming, employment supports, mental health programming, chronic disease management, youth leadership development, child care and more. With that range of programming, we aim to champion health equity.

We acknowledge that Budget 2026 is being drafted in a time of economic uncertainty, and spending must be focused to deliver the greatest return both economically and socially. We have three recommendations for you here today that are focused on two themes in the budget consultation paper, which are strengthening health care and services that people rely on and a strong and diversified economy. The recommendations are: investing in child care, workforce and staffing levels; secondly, supporting community infrastructure; and third, strengthening community-based youth mental health and employment programming.

So first, focusing greater investment towards child care, workforce and staffing levels. Investing in high-quality child care and early learning supports B.C.’s economy and paves the way for children’s future school readiness and their health outcomes as well. YMCA is proud to be the largest child care provider in the province of B.C., and we welcome the $10-a-day initiative. We’ve been closely working with the Ministry of Education and Child Care, and we value this positive collaborative relationship.

It has become clear to us that the sustainability and success of the program will be determined in large part by how it provides for staffing levels, recruitment and retention of early childhood educators or ECEs. We are quite concerned, particularly with the latest funding model, that not enough emphasis is being placed on adequate funding for ECEs. This includes not only compensation and training but also funding for staff ratios to ensure high quality of care and to prevent staff burnout.

In short, the search for cost efficiencies in the funding model does not risk the quality of care and the ability to staff new spaces. Research commissioned by YMCA Canada found that for every dollar spent on increasing ECE wages generates approximately $2 worth of economic benefit.

Second recommendation is bolstering dedicated funding for community infrastructure. A recent Angus Reid study found that a staggering 60 percent of Canadians feel disconnected from their community. The survey highlights the importance of third spaces, community spaces where people can connect with others outside home or work.

[1:45 p.m.]

This is what YMCAs are. We ensure that everyone has access, because as a charity, no one is turned away if they are unable to pay. That’s where we provide financial assistance. Social infrastructure is often owned and operated by non-profits. While these facilities benefit community, upkeep is very, very expensive, and there are few government funding streams available

we ensure that everyone has access, because as a charity, no one is turned away if they are unable to pay. That’s where we provide financial assistance.

Social infrastructure is often owned and operated by non-profits, and while these facilities benefit community, upkeep is very, very expensive, and there are few government funding streams available for non-profits. B.C.’s capital projects grant stream for non-profit organizations has a budget of only $5 million in 2025-26. This falls behind other provinces such as Alberta, which has a fund of $50 million — ten times the size of B.C.’s. We are recommending a significant funding boost for social infrastructure in a fund directed specifically for non-profit organizations.

And lastly, youth. A report from UNICEF has found that Canada ranks 19 out of 36 countries in well-being for children and youth — well behind other wealthy nations. The study finds that youth are struggling in areas such as social skills, life satisfaction and mental health.

These are issues that travel well into adulthood. Early intervention in youth mental health can prevent lifelong mental illness and reduce the need for future health interventions. YMCA’s Y Mind program is a youth-informed early intervention initiative that’s led by trained mental health professionals designed to help teens and young adults manage stress and anxiety.

We’d like to partner with the government of B.C. to expand the reach of this program. The ask is $3.6 million over three years, where YMCA B.C. could support the mental health of over 2,200 young British Columbians.

Lastly, employment. Stable and meaningful employment fosters independence and financial sustainability and improves health outcomes for young people. The federal cuts to the labour market transfer agreements have resulted in a $74 million loss of funding for employment programs and youth services in B.C. Because of these cuts, YMCAs have lost funding for very well subscribed and effective youth employment programs.

We ask that B.C. continue to lobby the federal government to reinstate that funding, and we recommend the investment of provincial dollars to restore some of that programming so that it is not lost.

With that, I will stop there. I see that I’m just over time. I look forward to any questions you might have.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. Moving to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, Heidi. It’s so nice to see you, and thank you for your advocacy on all of these topics.

I was hoping we could talk a little bit more. You’ve asked for funding for the Y Mind program, $3.6 million over three years. I know also that the Y did provide some employment programming for youth previously. Yeah? What is the funding shortfall, specifically, for the Y there?

Heidi Worthington: Sure. Let’s start with Y Mind. The funding runs out in 2026, and we’ve had great success with the programs, both Y Mind and also the program for Indigenous youth called Mind Medicine. We’d like to continue the work, essentially. So that’s what that $3.6 million is for, for three years, to continue that work, to reach over 2,000 youth.

When it comes to the employment programming, it depends on the different programs that we look at. It’s almost a $2 million loss across all three of our organizations. Programs like YouthWorks in Prince George have had cuts. YBEAT programming in Greater Vancouver. The community service worker training program, which is supported by the Ministry of Post-Secondary and Future Skills. Also, that was not extended for youth.

Those are some areas where we see gaps forming and where we are going to see the impact on youth employment, which then, of course, has ability on them as young adults.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

We will move on to our next presenter. We have Marcia Doherty joining us, and I also believe we have Liss Cairns, who will be there just as an accessibility support if need be. Thanks for joining us, both of you. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Marcia Doherty

Marcia Doherty: My name is Marcia Doherty. I’ve been living with long, viral Epstein-Barr instigating into myalgic encephalomyelitis — a.k.a. ME — for 45 years, and I am an atypical survivor currently facing typical ME death.

[1:50 p.m.]

ME deaths are usually due to lack of supports and usually attributed to a comorbidity due to lack of doctor education — although, unlike my case, tend to happen within the first ten to 20 years. They usually entail a patient unable to move, speak or eat, trapped in bed in brutal

are currently facing typical ME death. Or ME deaths are usually due to lack of supports and usually attributed to a comorbidity due to lack of doctor education, although, unlike my case, tend to happen within the first ten to 20 years, usually entail a patient unable to move, speak or eat, trapped in bed in brutal pain, isolated from community and connection.

Part of what has kept me alive is purpose. So I’ve also been a communication bridge builder for approximately 30 years between abled and disabled populations. This includes non-profits, but also the ministries of Social Development and Poverty Reduction, a.k.a. SDPR; Health; Finance; the Ombudsman investigator; ME; MLA; and various physicians.

What is ME? The World Health Organization calls it a neurological disorder. The CDC compares it to MS, AIDS and COPD in impact. It’s twice as prevalent as MS. The mitochondrial system malfunction means approximately three quarters of people with ME cannot work. ME is underdiagnosed due to lack of physician education. And since Stats Canada and the Quebec Ministry of Health cite a 37 percent rate of long COVID at the third COVID infection, and most of these patients have ME or soon will develop it, the stakes are sky high.

I’m proposing three cost-saving, easy-to-enact solutions as patient deterioration always costs dramatically more than disease or disability maintenance. This ensures my survival and protects hundreds of thousands of British Columbians from similar avoidable disability, deterioration and death.

Problem 1: No health care MSP category of coverage for ME or symptom code for its defining attribute, PESE, a.k.a. post-exertion symptom exacerbation, sometimes referred to as PEM. This means no stats, which means wildly inadequate federal research money, no tests and treatments, no or incorrect physician education, which means incorrectly advised politicians and bureaucrats, which causes the cycle to remain in a loop, especially as current federal research money is approximately 4 percent of what comparable diseases receive.

Solution: Create an MSP category of coverage for ME and PESE. Include doctor education for proper diagnosis. Share stats with the federal ministry of health as they are collected.

Problem 2: Current PWD assistance, money and supports are by the nature of their deficits instigating deterioration, suffering and early death, exponentially worse for orphan diseases like ME who will disproportionately end up on PWD assistance due to disease abdication.

Solution: Supports administered by SDPR be fully covered at what they cost, be easier to access and within the context of ME include coverage for supports unequivocally recommended by the CCDP at Women’s Hospital, such as housekeeping laundry and pre-made meals, with the understanding that current PWD assistance money is less than 50 percent of an able person’s minimum wage at a 40-hour work week per month and disability costs of living are two to three times higher than able costs which means the coverage gap is unbridgeable.

Problem 3: Siloing by provincial ministries from each other, specialists from each other, federal and provincial government, all of which cause unnecessary costly patient deterioration which is amplified for an orphan disease like ME.

Solution: Creation of liaison bodies. For example, PWD-on-assistance client identified as falling through the cracks by SDPR, Ministry of Health or doctor due to lack of systemic supports. Case sent to liaison body that includes one of each — an experienced ministry of SDPR, Health, Finance, Ombudsman investigator and disability advocate. Liaison body under Ombudsman’s auspice but have expanded powers including able to interact with more than one ministry at once, able to interact with medical providers as needed, able to interact with government officials as needed, legislation that means no ministry can stonewall from this body, liaison bodies stay small because legislators are informed of solutions and make systemic corrections. Other liaison bodies work similarly with tailored structures according to their purpose.

We cannot afford to lose the talent, tax-base nor accrue what is currently an unrecognized tsunami of expense that is already here and worsening because of lack of supports for ME. Current cause-and-effect expenses of poorly understood deficits in one area causing massive expense in another, as outlined in these three points, mean we are not adhering to fiscal human rights or medical logic.

Thank you for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation.

We will now move to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: That was a powerful presentation. Thank you for sharing your story and for your advocacy.

I am looking back at your first point, so I just want to make sure that I understand. There is no specific MSP code that is tagged to ME or post-exertion syndrome. Is that what you’re saying?

Marcia Doherty: Correct, correct.

[1:55 p.m.]

Jennifer Blatherwick: Which is the foundation of the problem that you were talking about it being very difficult to track the expenses or the physician time that’s allocated to this condition if there’s no coding that’s directly linked to it. Okay.

So from your experience, I mean obviously this is a field and a

The foundation of the problem that you were talking about: it being very difficult to track, the expenses or the physician time that’s allocated to this condition if there’s no coding that’s directly linked to it.

Marcia Doherty: Correct.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay. And so from your experience…. Obviously this is a field and a subject in which you’ve put a lot of effort in learning about. The symptoms and the doctors visits — do they get coded to whatever the closest symptom is? Or do you know…? Where do they fall under?

Marcia Doherty: Well, I don’t know exactly how that part works. I do know that the cause and effect of the physicians having lack of education means that there’s just nothing in the system for you, or you get psychosomatized problems like graded exercise therapy, which deteriorates and kills patients.

So I can’t tell you how they’re specifically accounting for us, but there is no MSP category of coverage. And they were told…. I sent the ombudsman to speak to the Ministry of Health, who said: “Oh, we have symptom codes.” But those symptom codes, for, I’m guessing, fatigue, have nothing to do with ME and do not have anything in it for us. So that doesn’t actually make sense.

So that’s kind of what I…. I mean, again, I’m kind of hanging off a cliff like a cartoon animal trying to be a magical TED Talk, so unfortunately I don’t know all of the mechanics. I know a lot more about….

Jennifer Blatherwick: No, you’re doing great. You’re doing great. This was a very data-rich presentation, so I’m trying to like make sure that I understood everything. They do take down everything in Hansard, so in case there was something that we missed, there’s a transcript available later.

And for your third point, liaising bodies — can we dig into that a little bit more? You’re hoping…. At first I thought you were talking about like a medical liaison, but it sounded to me when you expanded your point that you were talking more about like a like a technical liaison, someone who would help navigate between the different bodies, between the government systems and the medical system and the patient.

Marcia Doherty: Well, I can tell you from my own experience, when I finally had an advocate that hooked me higher up the food chain at SDPR and they reached out to Ministry of Health, we had a couple of meetings where we had senior SDPR, Ministry of Health, the pharmacy division, the head of genetics at UBC.

We almost got somewhere, except SDPR and Ministry of Health don’t know how physicians work, so they sent me over to the adult metabolic clinic, which is like sending a foot cancer patient to a breast cancer clinic. And when I tried to go back to the Ministry of Health, they have then, and continue to, stonewall.

But we could have problem-solved this, and in so doing, help both ministries understand where the deficits exist. And that would have helped them understand how that slams in from the SDPR lack of supports into the Ministry of Health, which is why I’m asking for a Finance Ministry representative to be part of that liaison body — so there can be an accounting of the cause and effect that is not currently in place.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Marcia Doherty: Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, we’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Michelle Courtney from B.C./Yukon Command of the Royal Canadian Legion joining us.

Thank you for coming. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Michelle Courtney: Thank you. Good afternoon, members of the committee and fellow British Columbians. My name is Michelle Courtney, and I’m the executive director of the B.C./Yukon command of the Royal Canadian Legion. Together with a volunteer elected council and paid support staff, our role is to oversee the Royal Canadian Legion in the province of British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. B.C./Yukon Command is proud to have 146 branches and over 50,000 members, and membership is open to anyone.

Ninety-nine years ago, the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League was incorporated through a special act of parliament. The organization was founded by uniting veterans and veteran-serving groups from across the nation under one banner. In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II gave her consent to use the prefix “royal,” and the organization became known as the Royal Canadian Legion.

Through the hard work of World War I veterans who fought to have their needs recognized, the Legion continues to be a cornerstone in many communities and has supported and continues to support our Canadian veterans who fought in conflicts and peacekeeping missions since. The Legion also supports members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and all they do to keep us safe right here at home.

[2:00 p.m.]

On July 17th, 2026, the Royal Canadian Legion will celebrate its 100th birthday. While our branches may look different today than they did 99 years ago,

peacekeeping missions since. The legion also supports members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and all they do to keep us safe right here at home.

On July 17, 2026, the Royal Canadian Legion will celebrate its 100th birthday. While our branches may look different today than they did 99 years ago, many buildings have been redeveloped or retrofitted to create a more welcoming space, and membership is now open to anyone, our belief in our mission has never wavered: to serve veterans, promote remembrance and serve our communities.

Earlier this month, over 250 members from across British Columbia and the Yukon joined together in Kamloops for our biennial convention. Here, delegates elected their new board for the upcoming term and discussed and voted on matters which will affect the command as a whole. It was heartwarming to see legion members from every corner of the province come together to share in all this great organization has to offer. Out of this meeting, a special standing committee for the centenary is being appointed to support branches across British Columbia in their plans to recognize the legion centenary. In 2026 and 2027, 60 branches across the command will celebrate their 100th anniversaries.

The Royal Canadian Legion centenary is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to recognize the tremendous impact the legion has had on the fabric of society and of our communities in particular, to celebrate the achievements of the organization in caring for our veterans and their dependents, to honour and remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedoms we enjoy today and to renew our commitment to our communities. This truly is a time to celebrate and to educate, and I’m here today to ask that the province of British Columbia lend their support in helping us achieve this mission.

The legion exists to serve veterans and communities. Monies raised during the annual poppy campaign are restricted for direct assistance to veterans and their families, and monies raised during social events such as meat draws are required to be donated back into the community. With the command funded primarily through membership dues, this leaves little room for B.C.-Yukon Command and its branches to fund large-scale celebrations. However, we are hoping that the generosity of British Columbians, along with the support of the provincial government, will go a long way in helping us celebrate our history and educate our fellow citizens on how they can get involved and show their support.

The legion is proud to be a cornerstone in so many communities across British Columbia and will continue to serve our veterans for as long as we have veterans to serve. Please join us in celebrating July 17, 2026. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. We will now move to question by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation, Michelle. I’m a member of Legion 263 and meat draws.

Michelle Courtney: Wonderful.

Jennifer Blatherwick: This is actually a little bit sideways to your presentation. I talk with my legion a lot about not just…. They are very excited about the centenary coming up, but they’re also having a tough time with overhead. I know that many of your members are probably also having a hard time with overhead. And I am wondering, one of the things that they ask me is…. They’re looking for support for administrative costs throughout the year as well. Is that something that’s, with your experience across B.C. and Yukon, common for your members as well?

Michelle Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, a lot of the money that we raise just goes directly back into the community. So when we’re talking about…. For example, gaming is a good one, because legions are classed as community service organizations. The gaming regulations kind of restrict how they can use that funding. So, that’s certainly one thing. I know your branch has been a big proponent of that, asking to see if maybe legions could consider, you know, being reclassified so they could keep more of their gaming funds.

Right now they can only keep 15 percent of whatever they bring in. So, being able to access more of that to help with some of their overhead during the year so that they can keep their doors open so that veterans can access the legion at any time. You know, to us that’s really important that we have that presence in the community so that we’re always there to be in support. So, absolutely.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, thank you so much for that great explanation of the problem. I’m going to stop asking questions, not because there’s not more to talk about when it comes to legions, but your request is very simple and very clear so thank you. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Michelle Courtney: Thank you so much for having me. If you’d like to chat offline later I’d be happy to do so. We could talk a little bit more about the Coquitlam branch and how we can help out.

Jennifer Blatherwick: And meat draws.

Michelle Courtney: And meat draws, absolutely. Everyone’s favourite.

[2:05 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. We will move on to our next presenter.

We have Jonathan Fowlie from Vancity Community Foundation. Thank you for joining us today.

favourite.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will move on to our next presenter. We have Jonathan Fowlie from Vancity Community Foundation. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

Vancity Community Foundation

Jonathan Fowlie: Yeah. Thank you so very much. Just as a clarification, I’m here representing Vancity Credit Union, and I just caught the last of that. I don’t have a meat draw. I’m sorry. I know, I’m done. I’ll see you all later.

Good afternoon, hon. Members, and thank you for the opportunity to present today on behalf of Vancity. I’d like to start by acknowledging that I am speaking to you from the traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ First Nations.

As one of Canada’s largest community-based credit unions, Vancity is here on behalf of our 570,000 members across the province to advocate for a budget that makes life cleaner, more affordable and fairer for British Columbians. At Vancity, we believe in the potential of a transformed economy that protects the earth and guarantees equity for all. I’m here today to provide recommendations that we believe will help turn that vision into reality.

Like you, Vancity is committed to the goal of achieving a net-zero, climate resilient economy, one that is affordable, equitable and built on thriving communities. We’re taking steps to support that transition through lending, incentives and advisory services. However, achieving the scale and pace of change necessary for our shared goals depends on strong public leadership.

Over 200,000 households in B.C. experience energy poverty and struggle to pay their utility bills while meeting basic energy needs. Aging homes and buildings represent a major opportunity to address this challenge by making heating and cooling more affordable, while also ensuring that spaces are safe, healthy and resilient to the impacts of climate change. Deep energy retrofits, which deliver comprehensive upgrades to dramatically cut energy use, can significantly reduce costs, improve health outcomes and protect against climate impacts like extreme heat.

To scale these efforts and ensure a net-zero transition that leaves nobody behind, the province should provide increased and sustained investment in existing programs such as the energy savings program and the multi-unit residential building retrofit program, while also looking for opportunities to specifically incentivize deep energy retrofits. For example, introducing building envelope performance thresholds would encourage more comprehensive integrated upgrades rather than one-off equipment replacements.

These deeper retrofits not only deliver greater emissions reductions but also lead to long-term energy savings that can help stabilize costs and protect British Columbians from rising utility bills. Expanding and simplifying access to these programs, particularly for low-income households, will help more people benefit from lower energy costs, while driving down emissions across the province.

As you know, preparing our workforce for a climate-ready economy is essential for British Columbia’s long-term economic resilience. By scaling up trades programs and removing barriers to participation, we can grow the pool of skilled workers needed to deliver climate solutions, while creating good local jobs that support families and communities across the province. Expanding these opportunities not only addresses labour shortages, but also builds a local green economy that is ready to adapt to future challenges.

To make this possible, Vancity recommends increasing funding for trades training programs and the introduction of forgivable loans for students from low-income or equity-deserving groups to ensure inclusive economic growth.

Finally, as you are aware, affordability is top of mind for British Columbians. At Vancity, we’ve been a living-wage employer since 2011. We believe everyone should earn enough to meet their basic needs, support their families and participate in their communities. Paying a living wage is not only the right thing to do; it also helps build stronger local economies. We proudly support the living-wage campaign and would love to see the province set an example by requiring all provincial employees and contractors to be paid a living wage, and exploring incentives like tax credits, grants or preferred contract status for living-wage employers.

Together, these actions can build a more inclusive, resilient and sustainable British Columbia. Vancity is ready to partner in this work, and we hope to see the province make bold choices that will deliver for both people and planet.

Thanks, and I now look forward to any questions that you might have.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation.

We will now move to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. That was much less specific than some of the presentations we got, but I see your general direction. So thank you for your support of the CleanBC targets and the retrofits.

[2:10 p.m.]

One of the things we talked about earlier today with another group was the challenge. Now that the program, say for heat pumps or retrofits, has focused on low-income households, there’s some concern that people will struggle to get through the application process.

One of the things we talked about earlier today with another group was the challenge now that the program, say for heat pumps or retrofits, has focused on low-income households, that there’s some concern that people will struggle to get through the application process.

I’m wondering when you’re talking about focusing on low-income households, what kind of budget investment are you thinking of? Like, give me your dollar figure.

Jonathan Fowlie: Dollar figure, that I don’t have. But in terms of approach, maybe I’ll do this. So we have a program where we have granted $80-some-odd thousand for non-profit affordable housing providers to plan retrofits and another $90,000 to execute it. What that’s done is unlock the ability for them to plan, for them to figure out the energy savings, for them to unlock other grants.

It isn’t actually always just about money. I think there are a few different aspects. So where it comes to the budget piece is, on the east coast, in low-income situations, they’ve actually had the government go door to door, knock on the door and say: “We want to install a heat pump.” That is the far extreme.

I think that what we’re certainly finding on the income-testing side is as summers get hotter, we absolutely need to make sure that those who are going to struggle with the application process have not just a way to afford it but also a clear pathway to understand how to qualify for it.

I would actually say, to answer your question, probably the best investment that could be made would be information-sharing, reaching those communities, working with partners to let folks know what is available, because there are programs available. There are private organizations that are willing to help.

But I think you’ve absolutely put your finger on one of the right barriers, which is that folks don’t even know that this is an option.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, and sorry, you were talking…. The program you were discussing through your organization, was that for multi-unit?

Jonathan Fowlie: That’s on the multi-unit side, yeah.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Do you have a program for individual residential units or…?

Jonathan Fowlie: We have preferential loan rates. We will also, if you’re a Vancity member, pay to send an expert to your home or do it via Zoom. Where they start is: “What’s your budget? And what are you trying to accomplish?”

If your budget is low, sometimes putting tinting on the window and a ceiling fan is actually going to make your home a lot more comfortable in the summertime.

If you have a larger budget and are looking to electrify, I used it myself. And they gave me information that I could take to a contractor and information on what grant programs were available for me.

From that perspective, we’re paying for that, and we’ve got preferential loan rates for folks. But that’s where our ability ends. And so we’ve been focusing on multi-unit because we think that our dollars that we’re investing in community can go farther there.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Absolutely. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none.

Thank you so much for your presentation today.

Jonathan Fowlie: Thank you for your time and for your interest. Good luck with the rest of the process.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

The committee will take a recess at this point.

The committee recessed from 2:13 p.m. to 2:36 p.m.

The committee recessed from 2:13 p.m. to 2:36 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. We will call the committee back to order and start with our next presenter. We have Lisa Stewart from Canadian Association of Physician Assistants joining us today. Thank you very much.

You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go. You are currently muted, just for your information. Thank you.

Lisa Stewart: Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair and hon. Members, for the opportunity to speak today about our recommendations on the integration of physician assistants, or PAs, in B.C. My name is Lisa Stewart, and I’m the B.C. director for the Canadian Association of Physician Assistants, or CAPA, which is the professional voice of more than 1,200 PAs practicing coast-to-coast in Canada.

PAs are physician extenders who practice medicine under the supervision of a licensed physician, with negotiated autonomy, to provide focused, comprehensive patient care. We are educated in the medical model, which means our training is similar to Canadian physicians.

PA programs are delivered in partnership with the faculties of medicine at Canadian universities. This lays the foundation for a collaborative working relationship with physicians.

There are currently five PA programs in Canada: two in Ontario; Manitoba; Nova Scotia; Alberta; and the sixth is welcoming its first class this fall in Saskatchewan. An additional two are in development in Ontario and Quebec. So there’s a lot of growth of our profession across Canada.

PAs are important members of health care teams, helping make it easier for patients to receive care. PAs deliver primary, acute and specialty care in all types of clinical settings.

I’ll use myself as an example. Although I live in Comox, B.C., as there are no PA opportunities in my region, I commute to work to Diavik diamond mine here in the Northwest Territories, 200 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, which is where I’m joining you from today. Myself and a nurse oversee the health of 500 to 700 employees that travel from around Canada to come up here to work. There are emergency doctors that are available to talk to 24-7, who are located thousands of kilometres away. Most of our group is in B.C. or in Ontario.

PAs work in emergency rooms. We help doctors treat patients with less-complex issues faster, limiting the number of people leaving without being seen and helping patients be seen faster.

In primary care, people help reduce wait times. Adding one PA to a site has the potential to increase a family doctor’s roster by at least 500 patients.

In surgical settings, PAs can increase access to surgeries by reducing wait times and can manage pre- and post-op care, thereby increasing continuity of care for patients.

We are helping increase patient access to care in all areas of medicine. The efficiencies we offer also help to decrease physician burnout and save the health care system money.

[2:40 p.m.]

In fact, the Conference Board of Canada has reported that if PAs could relieve more than 30 percent of a physician’s time in all practice areas, this could represent $620 million in cost savings for the health care system.

In the fall of 2023, the B.C. government announced that PAs would be able to practise in emergency departments. Following this, the

of a physician’s time in all practice areas. This could represent $620 million in cost savings for the health care system.

In the fall of 2023, the B.C. government announced that PAs would be able to practice in emergency departments. Following this, the CPSBC developed bylaws to allow PAs to practice, and the first PAs began practicing at Saanich Peninsula Hospital in January of 2025.

Although PAs can now practice in emergency departments for health authorities here in B.C., there are barriers to introducing PAs that are impacting the expansion of our profession.

The first one is the lack of a PA education program. By investing in a PA program at UBC, a stable and sustainable pipeline of highly trained physician assistants will be ready to meet the evolving needs of B.C.’s health care system.

Two, our limited regulatory framework. Expanding current regulations to allow PAs to work in all areas of medicine and not just emergency departments — this will support patient care wherever the health care system needs it.

Three, B.C. has been struggling with PA recruitment for the handful of jobs we have available. I think we have four right now. We need to actually provide competitive and equitable compensation so we can recruit and retain top talent within the PA profession and will recognize the vital role that PAs are playing in delivering high-quality health care.

Most importantly, dedicated funding for PAs — there’s currently no funding commitment for health authorities to create PA jobs in their emergency departments. We’ve taken the first step to allow PAs to practice. Now we need to take the second.

In closing, PAs reduce overall costs for health care systems. We decrease physician burnout, and we can provide high levels of care to patients, increasing access to care.

That’s my spiel for you guys today. Are there any questions?

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for the presentation. Yes, we will go to questions by members.

Steve Morissette: Thank you. That’s the first I’ve heard of PAs. Where do you fit amongst physicians, RNs, nurse practitioners? I don’t quite understand your role.

Lisa Stewart: Yeah, so to best sort of conceptualize where we fit in is we work…. Our roles are aligned most closely, say, with a nurse practitioner. We receive a little bit different training than RNs to allow us to work at a higher level of medicine where we can diagnose, treat, prescribe medications and work autonomously, like I do up in the North. The roles are different, but oftentimes in other provinces, you’ll see that they can be a slightly interchangeable. So put us at the level of, say, nurse practitioners.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation. As I understand correctly, currently in B.C. there’s no training program for PAs?

Lisa Stewart: No, there is not. There was some early…. You know what, I’m not sure where we’re at with it. There was some early interest about a year ago, and I know the Ministry of Health was chatting with the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education. There was interest and some initial sort of investigation with UBC in exploring bringing a PA program. I’m not sure where we’re at with that right now. It seems to have kind of potentially fallen to a little bit of the wayside.

Hopefully we can encourage more development because all the other provinces have plans to have their own PA program in the next couple years, and B.C. seems to be falling behind.

Sunita Dhir: I have a follow-up. Is it true that foreign-educated physicians are allowed to work as PAs while they’re waiting to get their licensure? No?

Lisa Stewart: No. There’s a role called associate physicians or APs, and that’s where you have an international medical school graduate that gets certain regulatory approval to work as an associate physician, which can be somewhat similar, where you work under the delegated authority of a physician.

PAs train to be PAs. Our whole program is to produce a capable provider in two years that can provide high-quality medical services. We also have a certification. We have a national certification body.

[2:45 p.m.]

We get certified and regulated as a physician assistant, and we will always be a physician assistant, whereas international medical school graduates, obviously, they are physicians, and some of them can go on to become physicians again within Canada. They’re two different roles for sure.

You know, having said that, when I did my training as a

be a physician assistant, whereas international medical school graduates, obviously, are physicians, and some of them can go on to become physicians again within Canada. But they’re two different roles, for sure.

You know, having said that, when I did my training as a PA, there were some international medical school graduates that decided to go through PA training because they liked the structure and it gave them more opportunities for work in other provinces.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. Any other questions?

Bryan Tepper: So, just following up on the training, you do a degree and then PA?

Lisa Stewart: That’s right.

Bryan Tepper: And how long is that, generally?

Lisa Stewart: All our programs are master’s programs, so you’re required to have an undergraduate. For most people, that’s a science undergraduate, because you are required to have science prerequisites. Our PA training program is two years long, so 24 months long. The first year is didactic learning, 12 months of didactic learning. The second year, the second 12 months, is rotations. So what you get at the end of a two-year program, as I said, is a highly skilled provider that can work in multiple areas of medicine.

Having said that, for a new PA graduate, when they go into primary care or surgical care, there is still a lot of learning to occur on the ground. But it becomes more like focused learning within a team of individuals.

Bryan Tepper: Excellent.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I’m trying to understand. I think my question is related to MLA Morissette’s question. So nurse practitioners can practice independently without the supervision of a physician. In the model in British Columbia, as of yet, we can only integrate PAs into emergency room situations. But now, when you are practicing up north, you are still considered to be under the physician’s supervision, is that correct?

Lisa Stewart: Absolutely. PAs can work, we call it, autonomously. Although we always have a supervisory physician, they don’t need to be in the same location as us. They just need to be available to contact should we need some medical advice. Say there’s a question that we have that we want to go over. Maybe we want to chat about antibiotics.

On Monday, I had a patient with an acute abdomen that was very sick that I had to call for a medevac on. And I called my supervisory physician. We went through everything with the patient, made sure I wasn’t missing anything. So they’re kind of always there as a touchstone should you require them. I see many patients that I do not call my primary supervisory physician about.

In B.C., the model that they’ve developed is they…. You know, PAs are just an emergency department, and their supervisory physicians work alongside them. But in pretty much everywhere else in Canada, that’s not a requirement. The supervisory physician may be in the same town, may be in the same location or, like me, may be thousands of kilometres away.

So we don’t work independently; we do work autonomously. It is a subtlety that’s hard to…. That can be a bit confusing to understand.

Jennifer Blatherwick: You’ve done a great job of explaining, thank you.

So your proposal is that PAs would fit into the medical service model, taking some of the burden of some of the, say, pre- or post-operative care off of physicians. That would require like a really integrated, patient-centred model of care, right? You would have to be right in there all the time. I am wondering about continuity of care there, right? When you’re passing a patient off from one medical professional who is the central figure in a decision or procedure and then to another professional, are there guidelines around how to do that handover? Are there guidelines around how to make sure that you’re getting a really good continuity of care for the patient?

Lisa Stewart: It works more seamlessly than what you suggest. I’m trying to think of an example. So if you work in surgery…. I worked in plastic surgery in a prior life in Calgary at Foothills Medical Centre. We did a lot of trauma stuff. And I worked in a hospital.

[2:50 p.m.]

In a hospital setting, for example, you know, the plastic surgery team of multiple surgeons, they’re used to working in a team. They have a team. They’ve got residents. They work with nurses. They work with physiotherapists. There’s already that sort of team-based model established. And you’ll see that in community health care clinics as well. What I would do was work, you know, not so dissimilarly to a resident, except I would just be a little bit more attached to the physician

They work with nurses. They work with physiotherapists. There’s already that sort of team-based model established. And you’ll see that also in community health care clinics as well.

And so what I would do was work not so dissimilarly to a resident, except I would just be a little bit more attached to the physicians. So when a new patient came into emergency, my supervising physician, who is a plastic surgeon, needs to be in the OR doing surgeries. So what I would do is I’d go to the emergency department. I would assess a patient. Sometimes I would even take a picture.

And then I would go, if it was an urgent case, to the operating room, and I’d say: “Hey Duncan, I’ve got this patient. This person’s sick, we need to put him on the slate today.” And he might look at a picture. He might ask me a few more questions about the patient and say: “Okay, let’s do it.” But he could still be doing surgery.

I would run back to the emergency department, get this patient teed up to go into the OR or whatnot. But this patient is Duncan’s patient. It’s not my patient. I’m just facilitating care on this patient. And the person goes into the OR. Postoperatively, they come out. I add all the medications. I get them settled on the ward.

The next morning, I round on the patient. I do prerounds on the patient, so that when the surgeon is coming through, it just goes quicker. And then when the patient gets discharged, I do the discharge note.

But all of this is very much in collaboration with the physician and under the direction of the physician. The patient remains that supervisory physician’s. So it’s very seamless, like we’re…..

And that’s in a hospital setting. In a primary care setting, where you’re working with family doctors, where you’re working with nurses, sometimes I might be…. All the patients are the family doctor’s patients. I don’t own a patient. I will see that family doctor’s patient.

So a lot of times I might see one of the…. A patient comes in. They’ve got an ear infection. They need to be seen right away. The family doctor doesn’t have any slots available. The PA can see the patient. I’ll assess the patient, come up with some recommendations.

I might like pop my head in and say: “Hey, Dr. Mariano, I’ve got this person with an ear infection. I’m going to give them this antibiotic. Do you have any concerns?” He might be like: “No, go ahead.” Prescribe. That patient goes out the door. Maybe the doctor just wants to poke their head in and say: “Hey, Joe, how you doing? Let me just take a quick look.”

It just provides more seamless care. And it means that Dr. Mariano can have 500 more patients under his roto. And it means that care can be delivered a little bit more seamlessly. But unlike a nurse practitioner, who owns their own slate of patients in a primary care practice, the physician owns those patients.

Does that make a little bit more sense?

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, thank you. That was a good clarification.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation today.

Lisa Stewart: Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate it. Have a good afternoon, you guys.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you. We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Kimberly Lockhart from Butterfly Run B.C. joining us.

Thank you for coming. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready to go.

Butterfly Run B.C.

Kimberly Lockhart: Hello there. Thank you so much for the opportunity. My name is Kimberly Lockhart, and my pronouns are she/her. I’m located on the traditional territories of the Qualicum First Nations. And today I am joining you to share about Butterfly support network.

I’m the founder and executive director of this not-for-profit organization, and I’m also a bereaved parent. We are a community-based not-for-profit organization who supports families across B.C. who’ve experienced pregnancy loss, infant loss and infertility.

To share a little bit of the statistics, in British Columbia each year, there are approximately 15,000 miscarriages, 500 stillbirths after 20 weeks’ gestation. One in six families will experience infertility, and there are also between 150 to 200 infant losses each year. As you can imagine, there’s a profound impact that this has on these families.

And so our organization provides programs such as counselling, support groups, peer mentorship. We also provide emergency room care kits and bereavement supports, as well as education for hospitals across all health authorities. And our programs are designed to support bereaved parents and those that are experiencing these kinds of reproductive trauma. We are supporting 1,000 or more each year.

[2:55 p.m.]

We currently do not get any provincial funding, and I’m here to ask the committee to prioritize three funding areas in the 2026 coming budget. The first area is to fund mental health programs for families experiencing termination, pregnancy loss and infant loss. So as I mentioned, the emotional and psychological toll of perinatal loss is profound.

funding, and I’m here to ask the committee to prioritize three funding areas in the coming 2026 budget.

The first area is to fund mental health programs for families experiencing termination, pregnancy loss and infant loss. So as I mentioned, the emotional and psychological toll of perinatal loss is profound. In B.C., there are no or very few publicly funded supports, and it’s a bit of a broken care pathway for families in our health care systems. Our organization is entirely donor-funded, the demand is growing, and we are providing these trauma-informed grief counselling and support groups at no cost to families across British Columbia.

We’re asking the Ministry of Health to allocate funding specifically for community organizations to deliver these critical supports. This would allow our organization, or organizations like ours, to expand access and to reduce the burden on emergency rooms and our mental health care systems.

The second recommendation is to fund and formalize a provincial bereavement response protocol. We are in support of the new perinatal mental health bill, and we would love to be consulted both as subject matter experts and also as individuals with lived experience. But under this bill, we would request the province allocate funding for ongoing research on perinatal loss and bereavement, education and training for our clinicians and care providers, and policy changes that standardize bereavement care across all health authorities.

Currently, the care after pregnancy loss or infant loss is fragmented, it’s inconsistent, there’s not continuity of care, and a provincial bereavement protocol would ensure that no family is discharged from care without that compassionate follow-up and clear support pathways.

Recommendation 3 would be to fund mental health supports for families navigating reproductive fertility treatments. With the new public IVF program launching in July of 2025, it’s essential to recognize the emotional and mental health supports that are needed for families that are navigating reproductive fertility treatments. Failed transfers, embryo loss and the emotional toll of IVF treatments deeply impact families, and there are no mental health support programs that are built into the new IVF program rollout.

We’re asking the province to allocate funding towards counselling, grief support, peer support specifically for those that are navigating IVF and reproductive fertility treatments. By embedding this emotional care into the IVF program, we can improve the mental health outcomes and ensure holistic support for families across B.C. Research supports the need for mental health supports and counselling for families to reintegrate into life after having navigated some of these difficult things. And so that is our request.

We know that these types of situations will affect thousands of families across British Columbia every year, and the community-based supports that are available through us are working, but it’s challenging just on donations alone. And we would love for there to be funding for grief and fertility supports for mental health programs considered within the 2026 budget, to ensure that no family across B.C. that’s navigating pregnancy loss, infant loss or infertility will be going through this journey alone.

Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ll go to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, Kim. Lovely to see you again. And thank you for your advocacy on this. I think your organization does so much good for so many families.

One of the things I really appreciate about this request is you’re asking for equity across regions. So there are definitely regions that provide support, but there are regions that don’t. And I think your idea of having centralized, like, a consistent physician and health care professional training model…. I noticed that there is no dollar amounts attached to any of these suggestions. But can I ask, when the neonatal care bill was under review, did you give input at that time?

Kimberly Lockhart: Not in response to that specifically. We previously made a request for $150,000 a year of funding for us to be able to continue counselling for perinatal loss.

And with the new IVF program, we’ve made requests for like up to $100,000. Or $150,000 would be significant in being able to provide counselling sessions and peer support and professionally led support groups.

We currently offer support groups in person and virtually in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Kelowna, Comox. And all of these support groups that are currently available and individual counselling are funded through donations from other bereaved parents.

[3:00 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions by members?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

support groups that are currently available and individual counselling. It’s funded through donations from other bereaved parents.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Any other questions by members? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Chelsey Chichak from Speech and Hearing B.C. Thanks for joining us today. You have five minutes for a presentation and five minutes for questions after that, and you can begin when you’re ready to go.

Speech and Hearing B.C.

Chelsey Chichak: Thank you so much. Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for having me today. My name is Chelsey Chichak, and I am a practicing speech-language pathologist and the president of Speech and Hearing British Columbia.

Speech and Hearing B.C., also known as SHBC, is a not-for-profit association comprising of more than 1,300 members, including speech-language pathologists, also known as SLPs, and audiologists in British Columbia. We believe in helping people who have speech, language and hearing disabilities understand what others say, be heard and hear more clearly. Our members provide assessment and treatment to individuals of all ages who may experience problems with their speech, language, hearing, voice, swallowing, fluency or social communication.

Today I am here to advocate on behalf of Speech and Hearing B.C., our members and the individuals we serve. I urge this committee to collaborate with our association and the Ministry of Finance to allocate resources in Budget 2026 that will support equitable access to audiology and speech-language pathology services for seniors, whether at home or in long-term care, as well as prioritize early intervention and inclusive service delivery and expand seats in advanced education and assistant training programs to address staffing shortages and improve timely access to care.

Our population is aging rapidly. A recent study conducted by our association reveals that health authorities in British Columbia are significantly underfunding the employment of speech-language pathologists as full-time employees. Currently, Fraser Health Authority is the only health authority funding full-time speech-language pathologists at long-term-care homes, with a rate of nearly nine for the whole region.

At the same time, the other health authorities do not invest in hiring even one full-time speech-language pathologist throughout the province. Our seniors in care are not receiving the speech-language support they need while also experiencing rapid rates of hearing loss. With three in four British Columbian seniors experiencing hearing loss in both ears, we must strengthen access to speech-language pathology and audiology services through targeted investments. These seniors have been longtime members of our communities. Let’s invest in them.

In addition to our seniors, it is well known that our schools and our children need more attention from speech-language pathologists and audiologists. Wait times for early intervention services currently stand between one and three years long. Attracting international professionals is one of the most efficient ways of addressing the gap between speech-language pathologists, audiologists and the pressing demand for their services.

We believe in the importance of accessible, high-quality speech-language and audiology care, primarily through the provision of hearing aids and other critical speech-language and hearing services. Let’s support the health and well-being of our next generation by including speech-language pathologists and audiologists in British Columbia’s grant mandate for recruiting health professionals to our province. The mandate consists of other health professions but not us.

To address staffing shortages and improved access, British Columbia’s next budget must include investment in seats in advanced education and assistant training programs. There are currently upwards of 150 to 200 applicants to the speech-language pathology program at the University of British Columbia, and we currently only have 44 seats available.

[3:05 p.m.]

Additionally, there are no programs available in the Interior and northern parts of our province, where rural services are lacking.

At a time when Canada must come together, this issue underscores the importance of emphasizing the need to attract and retain trained professionals by increasing the number of available seats in British Columbia’s educational institutions.

parts of our province where rural services are lacking.

At a time when Canada must come together, this issue underscores the importance of emphasizing the need to attract and retain trained professionals by increasing the number of available seats in British Columbia’s educational institutions.

As the not-for-profit association for speech-language pathologists and audiologists, we believe in helping people who have speech, language and hearing disorders to express themselves better, understand what others say, be heard and hear more clearly.

We appreciate being invited to present to this committee. I am happy to spend the rest of our allocated time answering questions from committee members.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ll go to members for their questions.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. When you started, I wasn’t expecting your leading edge to be care for seniors as they’re experiencing hearing loss, but I really appreciate your advocacy. Seniors who experience hearing loss often have a lot of knock-on social effects that follow — loneliness, isolation, decreased mental acuity, so much.

I am from Fraser Health, and so I’m very familiar with what a good, well-funded program can do for seniors. And I’m wondering here if other health authorities are not yet having this program in place, this is a significant investment in staffing. Now, you said…. I think you were very specific when you say full-time employees. Do other health authorities have part-time or contract?

Chelsey Chichak: Correct. Most of them would be between the 0.2 and 0.8 FTEs, just depending on the region and that, but it’s…. [inaudible recording] numbers, but it would be laborious to go through all of them from our research. There’s a clear disparity, especially on home health and long-term care across the province.

We have about 76 percent of all SLP FTEs going for home health are in the Lower Mainland and 100 percent for long-term care are in the Lower Mainland. So of all SLP FTEs, 100 percent of long-term care are in the Lower Mainland.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah. So I really understand now why you’ve companioned your first request with your one about recruiting international professionals and expanding training seats.

I think I heard in there that you mentioned as well as SLP and audiologists…. Did you also mention assistants? Did you say that? You were cutting in and out a couple of times.

Chelsey Chichak: Apologies for that. I did also say assistants because we recognize that the ability to be able to staff all of the open positions and the positions that might become available is going to take time. It’s not something that we’re going to be able to do with registered SLPs [inaudible recording] province. Being able to also support assistants in training programs in British Columbia will help to support the public because the public’s interest and being able to receive access to services is our primary concern. So while also expanding programs and recruiting and retaining, we also want to ensure that the public are receiving the services that they need, and that can be done with the support of assistants.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for your time and presenting to us today.

Chelsey Chichak: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will go to our next presenter. We have Melissa Carr from B.C. Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Practitioners. Thanks for coming and presenting to us today.

You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after that, and you can begin when you are ready to go. Thank you.

[3:10 p.m.]

B.C. Association of Traditional
Chinese Medicine
and Acupuncture Practitioners

Melissa Carr: Thank you for allowing me to present on behalf of the ATCMA, the British Columbia Association of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture Practitioners. My name is Dr. Melissa Carr and I’m the executive director for the ATCMA. I’m going to offer two opportunities to better serve our B.C. communities and ultimately to help the government save money and reduce pressures on our public health care system.

The first is regarding MSP supplementary benefits. Currently the B.C. government covers just $23 per session for up to ten sessions per patient per calendar year for a combination of all services from acupuncture

opportunities to better serve our B.C. communities and ultimately to help the government save money and reduce pressures on our public health care system.

The first is regarding MSP supplementary benefits. Currently the B.C. government covers just $23 per session for up to ten sessions per patient per calendar year, for a combination of all services from acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, naturopathic, non-surgical podiatry and physical therapy. This is only applied for those who are on premium assistance with an adjusted household income of under $42,000 per year. These numbers haven’t changed in 22 years.

For comparison, the actual cost for acupuncture services is an average of around $135 for the initial visit and $113 for the follow-up visit. As a result of this huge differential in coverage versus cost, we have a very low uptake of practitioners willing to see MSP-billing patients, but the demand is there. We get calls from low-income patients seeking treatments, but they are unable to cover the cost of these visits.

The good news is that we also have community acupuncture providers that offer group acupuncture services at a much lower cost. Still, the $23 per patient doesn’t even allow them to cover their rent and other expenses, never mind getting paid themselves. And because the ten sessions are combined-service visits, patients cap out too quickly.

So why are MSP supplementary benefits so important? Because according to the Provincial Health Services Authority, those with the lowest levels of income experience the poorest health. Further, women, Indigenous People, gender-diverse people, people of colour, seniors, single-parent families and people with disabilities are more likely to be in the low-income category. So these are the people who are more likely to suffer from poor health, chronic illness, pain and depression and other mental health issues, which also contribute to addiction.

You all know the critical issues that our public health care system is facing, so I won’t go into that in my short time here.

We believe the government has a responsibility to support the public’s access to health care they need in the way that they need it now. We’re asking for the 2026 budget to increase the coverage to $50 to $60 per session and increase the number of sessions to 15 to 20 per year combined. Then over the next three years, we would like to see this phase up reimbursement to $80 to $95 per visit. We also recommend increasing the income eligibility threshold to $52,000.

The second point is modernizing our TCM — traditional Chinese medicine — regulations and updating our scope of practice because our traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture regulations document that defines what we can do as a profession has been the same for 25 years. ATCMA and our previous regulatory college, the CTCMA, have requested updates from the ministry to our scope since 2012.

In particular, we would like the Ministry of Health to update our scope to include point injection therapy, PIT. Here’s where including PIT in our scope of practice sooner than later will save the government money. In 2018, numbers show that trigger point injections are offered by about 15 percent of B.C.’s family doctors. This is a service that is growing rapidly in demand. This cost MSP around $10 million to $11 million per year. But the demand has gone up by about 26 percent since 2019, and the wait-list for pain clinics is nine to 24 months.

About one in five people are living with chronic pain in B.C. As a result, about a third of GP patients are chronic pain patients, with an average of 467 chronic pain patients per family physician, many needing multiple visits. That’s a huge load on our health care system, particularly when we don’t have enough GPs to start with.

Since about 2.2 million British Columbians already have extended health benefits that pay for peri-medical services like acupuncture, including PIT into our scope will mean that some of those patients with chronic pain can have their treatments done more quickly by a regulated and qualified health professional who doesn’t bill our public health system.

We already have about 400 to 500 TCM and acupuncture professionals trained in these injection therapies. And according to a recent survey we did, about 55 percent of our 3,000 practitioners are willing to pursue training and start practicing this. If PIT becomes part of our scope of practice, our projected numbers could save the government $5 million to $10 million per year because of fewer GP, hospital emergency, specialist and surgical visits; less medication; and fewer opioid prescriptions and all the things that come along with that.

Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thanks so much for your presentation. We will now go to questions by members.

[3:15 p.m.]

No. Okay. Seeing no questions by members, thank you so much for your presentation today. We will take that into consideration.

Melissa Carr: Great. Thank you so much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you.

We will go to our next presenter.

presentation today, and we will take that in consideration. Thank you.

We will go to our next presenter. We have Talia Cordero from ME/FM Society of B.C.

Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready to go.

ME/FM Society of B.C.

Talia Cordero: Good afternoon, committee members.

My name is Talia, and I’m here today representing the ME/FM Society of B.C. and our 341,000 British Columbians living with ME, FM and ME post-COVID. That’s more people than currently have diabetes in our province.

For context, ME is a serious neurological disease that affects multiple body systems. It’s characterized by profound exhaustion that worsens with activity, cognitive dysfunction and often severe pain. Patients get significantly worse after physical or mental activity, sometimes permanently. And unlike other conditions where exercise helps, with ME, it can actually cause lasting harm.

For severe cases, about 25 percent of patients, ME is very devastating. People are bedridden, unable to tolerate light, sound and require help with just basic needs. Some can’t even speak. These aren’t people who are just tired; they’re people whose bodies fundamentally cannot produce or manage energy properly. Yet despite recommendations from this committee in 2022, 2023 and 2024, these patients received zero funding in the 2025 budget.

The problem is that currently, 80 percent of clinicians lack basic ME knowledge. Patients are waiting five to seven years for diagnosis, and the only funded program currently has a 2.5- to three-year wait list and serves just 300 patients annually. So 25 percent of these patients are homebound or bedridden, and these patients face six times the suicide risk of the general population.

To put this into perspective, ME and FM patients currently have access to, again, just this one program. It’s the complex chronic disease program, with that 2.5 to three-year wait list again only serving the 300.

Unlike other chronic conditions that have specific billing codes and dedicated funding streams with trained clinicians, ME patients face a triple barrier: no codes to track them, no funding to serve them and clinicians who lack basic knowledge to treat them. Most patients end up in the emergency room, or they go without care entirely. This isn’t just inadequate. The economic burden is estimated between $28.5 billion and $49 billion annually to this province.

Where I see an alignment with what the province has said are its priorities is within the CARGA agreement and the new Community Health Centres. These create a perfect opportunity to transform ME care while supporting the government’s priorities.

Our recommendations. The first is: designate ME as a priority condition in two to three pilot Community Health Centres. There’s a Ridge Meadows family health team that is already showing how collaborative care works for complex and chronic conditions. CHCs could provide exactly what ME patients need: team-based care, virtual options and wraparound support.

We’re not asking for new infrastructure. We’re asking to be included in what we know is already being built. This pilot approach reduces risk while demonstrating how CHCs can serve complex patients.

Our second recommendation addresses a critical gap: establish specialized care pathways for severe ME patients. So 25 percent of ME patients, over 20,000 British Columbians, are homebound and bedridden. They cannot get to a clinic. They need home-based medical services and telehealth supports.

Currently, these patients have no access to care. Family members are quitting jobs to become caregivers, and emergency rooms become the only option, costing the system millions. This isn’t just about compassion; it’s cost-effective care delivery.

Our third recommendation: develop ME-specific medical education and clinical guidelines. The training resources already exist; they just need B.C. adaptation. When clinicians are properly trained, patients get diagnosed in months and not years. They get appropriate care, not harmful advice to exercise more, which can permanently worsen their condition.

[3:20 p.m.]

This investment benefits the entire health system. Every trained clinician can help multiple patients avoid years of suffering and misdiagnosis.

So committee members, you’ve recognized this has been a need for three years going. The select standing committee keeps recommending action because the need is real, and it’s only growing.

their condition. This investment benefits the entire health system. Every trained clinician can help multiple patients avoid years of suffering and misdiagnosis.

So committee members, you’ve recognized this has been a need for three years going. The select standing committee keeps recommending action because the need is real, and it’s only growing. With ME-related long COVID adding 88,000 new cases, we can’t wait another year.

These are our three recommendations and our position on ME care within your existing priorities: supporting the CHCs, addressing the health care worker crisis and improving primary care.

Thank you very much for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ll now go to questions by members. Any questions? Seeing none. Well, thank you so much.

Okay, we have a comment by the Deputy Chair.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): You almost forgot my name there for a second.

It’s not so much a question. I just wanted to say thanks. I actually wasn’t really aware of this disease before and so really grateful that you brought these issues forward.

I’ll probably go back and review Hansard to actually, again, look at some of the challenges that you’re facing. I know we’ll do deliberations here as well.

I just wanted to thank you very much for your presentation today.

Talia Cordero: Thank you very much, MLA Sturko.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation.

We will move on to our next presenter. We have next up Becca Yu Lewis presenting to us. Thanks for coming. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for question after. You may begin when you’re ready.

Becca Yu Lewis

Becca Yu Lewis: Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I live, work and play on the traditional ancestral unceded territories of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation. I thank them for the care of this land.

My name is Becca Yu Lewis. I’m a resident of Port Coquitlam and a health care professional with over 15 years of experience. I’m also the past president of Speech and Hearing B.C.

I’m here to speak about the critical health care needs of my community and how the province can directly support improvements in access, infrastructure and staffing.

When I moved to Port Coquitlam six years ago, I was surprised that the city had no publicly funded health care services of its own. With a population of over 64,000, there was no hospital, no urgent care centre or public health unit. Meanwhile, our neighbouring city of Port Moody, with half the population, had all three, as of right now.

As a result, we rely heavily on overburdened emergency rooms in other cities, face delays in accessing preventative and primary care. I’m asking the provincial government to prioritize investment in local services in Port Coquitlam, matching the city’s size and growth and health needs.

As a concerned resident, I spoke directly with the city of Port Coquitlam about the growing gaps in local health care access. I was informed of an immediate opportunity, a purpose-built space for a community health centre located at the Alex, a 100 percent non-market housing development built in partnership between the city, B.C. Housing and Metro Vancouver that was ideally located near schools, transit routes and a highway. The centre was designed to accommodate eight physicians and four nurse practitioners.

But despite partnership discussions, Fraser Health withdrew support after construction was completed, and today the space remains vacant.

The space was a ready-made solution to address urgent service needs in a growing community. With leadership and investment from the province, it could be operationalized to deliver meaningful impact across several priority areas.

I see this as a strong opportunity for inter-ministerial collaboration, including with the Ministry of Health to operationalize and staff the centre, Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs, considering its partially B.C. Housing-owned building, and to support the local government efforts in health and infrastructure.

The site is also a ten-minute walk from École des Pionniers, one of the largest francophone schools in B.C. with over 700 students. In partnership with another local resident, I connected with the RésoSanté, which supports the operation of the province’s first francophone health centre, Santé Ouest. They confirm that Port Coquitlam location was ideal for B.C.’s second francophone health centre.

[3:25 p.m.]

This would not only increase access for all residents in the area but also advance equity and services delivered in B.C.’s growing francophone population in alignment with the promises 2024 to 2028 French language policy implementation plan, particularly its priority in health and

health centre. This would not only increase access for all residents in the area, but also advance equity and services delivered in B.C.’s growing francophone population, in alignment with the province’s 2024 to 2028 French-language policy implementation plan, particularly its priority in health and social development. So that would also involve the ministry of francophone affairs.

With the infrastructure in place and strong local support, what need now is provincial partnership and funding to bring this vision to life. Even with infrastructure in place, service delivery depends on available staff. Like many B.C. communities, Port Coquitlam faces a shortage of health professionals. Discussion with RésoSanté revealed that some of the francophone providers that supported the opening of Santé Ouest had declined to work there due to its Vancouver location. Many preferred a French-language centre in the Fraser Valley near their homes and communities.

I urge the province to fund FTEs for health care professionals who are already interested in working at a new centre and providing funding to the local government to develop local solutions to recruit and retain professionals. Recruiting and retaining skilled health care professionals is key to reducing wait times, easing ER demand and delivering proactive people-centred community care.

As a resident, I believe that Port Coquitlam is ready to be a partner in the health care system transformation. I’m asking the province to support this by investing and utilizing interministerial resources to provide equitable access to health care by funding a local community health centre in Port Coquitlam to match the city’s size, growth and health needs and, also, strengthening recruitment and retention through funded positions, incentives in collaboration with the local government.

This represents a pivotal opportunity to transform existing infrastructure into a meaningful outcome and to fulfill the province’s commitment to delivering a stronger, more equitable and inclusive health care system across B.C.

Well, thank you for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation.

We will go to questions by members now, starting with MLA Blatherwick.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, Becca. Thank you so much for this presentation. I see you’ve done a ton of groundwork here to come up with this plan.

Now, this isn’t directly a budget ask. This is more of like a collaborative ministry ask. But I see you’ve already reached out to RésoSanté and the French-speaking providers. Was there any indication that there would be…. There’s been some conversation in the past about federal funding for establishing?

Becca Lewis: They did allude to potentially some federal funding, since there is funding allotted to, you know, the French-speaking community and things like that. So that’s why I said “in terms of funding,” because everything always comes down to an ask of money, ask of funding in order to support the delivery of services for new services.

What I’m asking there is that if we work together interministerially — between multiple ministries in the province and potentially, in this case, federally — we’re looking at several different pots of money to be able to make this come to life.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions? Seeing none, we will end here.

Thank you so much for your presentation.

Becca Lewis: Thank you, everyone.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We will take a quick recess at this point.

The committee recessed from 3:29 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

The committee recessed from 3:29 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. Welcome back. We will call the committee back to order.

We will start with our next presenter, scheduled for 3:45. We have Dr. Vanessa Lindsay from B.C. Naturopathic Doctors. Thank you for joining us. If you can….

Great. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin whenever you’re ready to go. Thank you.

B.C. Naturopathic Doctors

Vanessa Lindsay: Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for having me speak to you today on the important issue of MSP reimbursements. As was mentioned, I’m Dr. Vanessa Lindsay. I’m a naturopathic doctor in Vancouver and the current president of the board of B.C. Naturopathic Doctors Association.

It has been more than 20 years since MSP reimbursement rates and income thresholds were last updated. Today individuals earning under $42,000 may qualify for premium assistance, but that threshold hasn’t changed since 2002. Adjusted for inflation, it should be closer to $60,000. Eligible patients may access up to 10 visits per year shared across six professions, including naturopathic medicine. For many families, that does mean rationing care across multiple needs, and it is simply not enough. Only $23 is reimbursed per visit, while naturopathic care typically costs between $115 and $200 per visit, which does depend on the visit length and complexity.

Many naturopathic doctors already subsidize care for low-income patients, but the current MSP model does not come close to bridging the gap. To be clear, it is not about lining the pocketbooks of these providers. It is about sustaining access and ensuring patients get the care they need when they need it. A higher reimbursement rate helps naturopathic doctors continue seeing patients who rely on subsidized care, and it increases the capacity, continuity and equity for those without extended coverage.

This program was meant to support those with the least access to care, but outdated limits have left too many people behind. For many patients, NDs or naturopathic doctors are often their only consistent access point to a primary care provider. NDs are primary care providers and licensed prescribers who diagnose and manage a variety of conditions with a range of treatments and assessments.

Here are some of the examples of cases that we would manage: acute illnesses such as UTIs and respiratory infections. We manage chronic illness, chronic pain and comorbid or overlapping conditions. We care for children with eczema, digestive issues and immune concerns. We support older adults with mobility concerns and medication management. We provide preventative care and wellness support across all ages. We build trusted relationships that support long-term health.

When subsidized visits run out, patients delay care, disengage or wait until a crisis forces them into the system. This is what it means in real terms. According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, 15 percent of ER visits could be managed in a primary care space. People with multiple chronic conditions are 3.5 times more likely to overuse the system and its resources. Those without consistent care often face longer, more costly hospital stays. Primary care reduces cost and systems strain, and delaying it does quite the opposite.

I wish to provide you a few real-world examples. So take Maria, a 44-year-old woman from Clearwater, British Columbia, who stabilized her health through monthly naturopathic visits after years of fatigue and digestive issues. After 10 subsidized sessions, she could no longer afford to continue, and a winter flare-up of her symptoms led to an ER visit and lost income.

Take Kevin, a 36-year-old self-employed carpenter in Burnaby who struggled with migraines and chronic back pain for years. He had been splitting his care, those 10 visits, between physio and ND, or naturopathic doctors, and when his coverage ended, symptoms returned, he postponed follow-ups and had to access acute care on multiple occasions to manage his painful symptoms.

[3:50 p.m.]

Take Willow, a seven-year-old girl who made progress under NDs for eczema, which was not controlled with standard steroid treatments. With her family having to share those 10 visits, they were forced to access walk-in clinics with multiple providers and the symptoms became unmanageable.

And finally, take George, a 73-year-old retired postal worker in Vancouver who found support through naturopathic care for his diabetes and vascular disease. On a fixed pension, his care became unaffordable. He stopped going, and he worsened over the winter and was hospitalized.

They were forced to access walk-in clinics with multiple providers, and the symptoms became unmanageable.

And finally, take George, a 73-year-old retired postal worker in Vancouver who found support through naturopathic care for his diabetes and vascular disease. On a fixed pension, his care became unaffordable, he stopped going, he worsened over the winter, and was hospitalized later that time.

Three top-level key recommendations could alter these stories dramatically. No. 1: we wish to propose raising reimbursements to $60 per visit and increasing the visit cap to 12 visits per year.

Second, by 2029, raise reimbursements to between $90 and $95 per visit and adjusting income eligibility to $60,000. Expanding eligibility to children under 18, adults over 65 and those on disability, EI or parental leave without extended benefits.

Our top-level recommendation 3: structural modernization. Index reimbursements and income thresholds should align with B.C.’s consumer price index, and we wish to propose a mandate to mandate formal reviews every three years to ensure we do not go another 20 years before these are reviewed again.

Let us bring this program up to date so British Columbians can get the care they need from providers they trust without financial hardship. Thank you very much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Now moving to questions by members. No questions by members.

Thank you so much for your time and your presentation. We will consider it in our deliberation.

Vanessa Lindsay: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you very much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Moving on to our next presenter. We have Larry Goldenberg from Vancouver Prostate Cancer.

Thank you for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Vancouver Prostate Centre

Larry Goldenberg: Great, thanks for this opportunity. I’m talking about the Vancouver Prostate Centre, which was found in 1993 here at Vancouver General Hospital in Vancouver. As many of you probably know, prostate cancer is the most common cancer amongst men, with 3,600 new cases diagnosed in British Columbia every year and about 40,000 men currently living with the diagnosis in B.C. So it’s the largest group of male cancer survivors in British Columbia.

And thanks to government support that dates back to 2003 — actually, our first funds from the government — we’ve been able to grow from a handful of scientists to employing more than 250 researchers and staff, leading cutting-edge life sciences research, delivering programs, saving lives, improving quality of life. So a moderate sized non-profit life sciences business that we run here in British Columbia, employing a lot of people.

Our work really stretches from the bench to the bedside and to clinical trials and eventually commercialization. Our discoveries aren’t just prostate cancer. Because of the nature of the work, we do a lot of the discoveries at the very basic molecular level that can apply to ovary, breast cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancers and others.

We have an integrated team. We have a lot of infrastructure we’ve gathered over the years, which allows our team to work in a truly team-based integrated approach to tackle a wide range of challenges.

Let me just give you a few examples of some of the great successes we’ve had in the most recent years. One was the world’s first advancement, in our liquid biopsy system. From a simple blood test, we can analyze cancerous cells or the DNA from cancer that’s present in the blood. This allows us to not just detect cancer, but we can monitor the treatment of cancers and whether or not they’re being effective in eradicating cancers, allowing us to adjust the treatment in a really personalized way. This is now being taken up around the world, and our scientists are known for having been the first.

We also have allowed us to evaluate patients from across the province by a simple blood test in their local lab. The blood is sent down to our lab, and we can do the analysis there and feed back to the treating physicians. It also now allows us to reduce the need for biopsying for MRI, for CAT scans. So there is a huge economic benefit as well, potentially, there.

Another area I’d like to talk about is our AI-based drug research that’s led by Dr. Art Cherkasov. This drug discovery…. He’s developed what’s called a deep docking platform using very advanced AI technology.

[3:55 p.m.]

He’s a brilliant computer scientist, and he can screen literally billions of molecules at incredible speed, making the process of drug discovery about 10,000 times more efficient. And he’s won global worldwide computational drug discovery prizes, sort of like the Olympic Games in the field of

literally billions of molecules at incredible speed, making the process of drug discovery about 10,000 times more efficient. He’s won global, worldwide computational drug discovery prizes, sort of like the Olympic games in the field of computer-aided drug design. And he has discovered molecules already with potential to treat viruses such as coronavirus, Parkinson’s and so on.

Another area that I’d like to talk about, and probably what’s really one of the more important areas, is our prostate cancer supportive care program. Started in 2013, it helps men and their families deal with the diagnosis of prostate cancer.

Supportive care — or it used to be called survivorship — is important. We know that the highest suicide rate for men of any type of cancer is prostate cancer. And perhaps the partner suffers psychological distress more than the patients do because of the impact of our treatments on bladder control, sexual function, in particular, and emotional health. So our program helps men and their families to adapt to a life after the cancer diagnosis. We’ve already treated more than 4,400 patients in our program, maximizing their quality of life through a comprehensive physical, emotional, mental programming.

So I’d like to just make some recommendations to the committee. One is to provide $1½ million a year to allow the prostate cancer supportive care program to sustain and grow. We plan to apply it to other cancers in both men and women. For example, bladder cancer, ovarian cancers, gynecological cancers. There was just an article that you’ll see in your social media that came out of our centre that talks about sexual health issues in women, particularly younger women who have had colon cancer. We can incorporate this as we grow, but we need the funding.

The second is to work with us on our drug discovery program for better health outcomes. And we’ve already been talking to government, and we encourage government to work with us to explore what we can do to really put us at the global forefront in computer-aided drug design.

Thank you. That’s my five minutes, and I’m open for questions.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation.

We will go to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. I’m very appreciative of your organization and the incredible work that you do to support people in this province who are diagnosed with prostate cancer and then helping them through their recovery journey.

Your liquid biopsy technique was an incredible breakthrough for reducing cost and the efficiency of determining cancer presence and cancer treatment. Now, I was hoping you could talk us through approximately how many of those analyses you do every year. And what is the average positive detection rate? What’s the error rate?

Larry Goldenberg: Well, I can’t tell you that; I don’t have those numbers. So straight up, I don’t have those numbers. I would have to ask Dr. White, who runs the program, for the numbers. I don’t know what they are.

It’s unlimited, quite frankly. As many as…. I mean, it’s not a big deal. They do them in batches, so probably got hundreds and hundreds of them by now. I don’t know the number.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. And then you’re asking for $1.5 million for supportive care. Right now, you’re saying that it would focus on patients who are diagnosed and recovering from treatment from prostate cancer. What is the budget for that program right now?

Larry Goldenberg: Right now it’s about $1.3 million a year. We’re hoping to grow. Right now, we’ve got funds…. I’ve raised a lot of money from philanthropy as well as government, and we also have from granting agencies. So we have the funds in place right now to last us for the year and to grow into the bladder cancer world.

Bladder cancer patients, both men and women, have basically not been very well supported post-treatment over the years, historically. Sort of like prostate cancer patients ten or 12 years ago. When I started the program of supportive care, it became very apparent that we would see patients, diagnose them, treat them, and off they go back to their homes, their family doctors, primary care people, whatever, without much direction.

So we started the program, and now these men…. As I say, we’re into the thousands — we’ll be at 5,000 patients by the end of this year — of men and their partners. It’s a dyadic program. It’s not just the man; it’s their partner as well.

[4:00 p.m.]

And then it reflects on their communities, their families. And it gets them back to work. It allows them to, you know, minimize their psychological distress, keeps…. It’s been an amazing program, quite frankly. And it’s only been based on intermittent government grants

It’s not just the man; it’s their partner as well. And then it reflects on their communities, their families. It gets them back to work. It allows them to minimize their psychological distress. It’s been an amazing program, quite frankly. And it’s only been based on intermittent government grants and philanthropy. It’s not a budget line in the health authority.

And it’s a provincial program. We got money from your government a few years ago to expand to the province. That was before COVID. And then COVID hit, and so we went from a single site to six sites across the province and then to virtual. So we went to six sites just before COVID, and then virtual, and now it’s a mix of onsite and virtual. The six sites, you know, besides Vancouver: Kelowna, Surrey, Prince George, Victoria, and…. I’m missing one.

The reason I brought that up is, historically, that’s where we started. And so for the bladder cancer and soon, hopefully, to follow with colon cancer, we need some more funding than what our current budget is. So that’s why we’re going from $1.3 million to $1.5 million, as projecting our balance for next year, or our budget needs for coming years. So it’s for sustainability and growth.

Without that money, well, patients won’t get the treatment, because it’s not available in the cancer centres. They do not provide it because we do. I’ve been asked by government:” But why doesn’t B.C. Cancer do it?” Well, they don’t. We do.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much. Seeing no other questions…. Thank you so much for your presentation today.

Larry Goldenberg: Okay. Well, hope you look upon it as a very important program.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will now move on to our next presenter. We should have Kelly Gorman from Arthritis Society Canada.

Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for a questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Kelly Gorman: Great, thank you.

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. My name is Kelly Gorman. I’m a senior director, public policy and government affairs with Arthritis Society Canada.

Arthritis Society Canada is a national charity founded by Mary Pack in B.C. We represent the six million people in Canada living with arthritis today, including close to 800,000 British Columbians and the millions more impacted or at risk.

There is no cure, and the fire of arthritis can cause excruciating pain, limited mobility and diminished quality of life. As the most common chronic disease in Canada, it places a tremendous burden on the health care system and society at large. It is the leading cause of disability and workplace limitation. Arthritis affects people of all ages across the country, and half are under the age of 65. More people in Canada have arthritis than diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke and dementia combined.

In 2023, we released a report card on the state of arthritis in Canada. Scoring was based on three categories: access to care, wellness, research and innovation. No province or territory did well, and B.C. received a grade of C. Factors that impacted the score for B.C. are that the number of arthritis medications under review is higher than many other provinces; arthritis research is underfunded; arthritis pain has a significant impact on activities; and challenges with data, which is an issue across all jurisdictions.

In British Columbia, for 42 percent of British Columbians with arthritis, pain limits their activities. British Columbians with arthritis are nearly twice as likely to say that their mental health is not good compared to those without arthritis. Working age British Columbians are more than twice as likely to report that they are not participating in the workplace compared to their peers without arthritis.

Without a broader spotlight on this serious issue, the number of people with arthritis will rise to nine million by 2045. We urge the government to take action to tackle this growing health crisis.

Recommendation one is reduce wait times for joint replacement surgeries. Arthritis is the leading cause of joint replacement, with 99 percent of knee and over 70 percent of hip replacements due to arthritis. The benchmark wait time is six months.

According to the most recent data from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, it shows that in B.C. only 63 percent of people waiting for hip and 55 people waiting for knee replacements have had their surgery within the recommended time. Surgical delays are devastating for individuals and can lead to significant additional costs for the health care system.

[4:05 p.m.]

We commend B.C.’s surgical renewal ongoing efforts and encourage you to consider the recommendations in Arthritis Society’s report, The Wait: Addressing Canada’s Critical Backlog of Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery, which includes adopting innovative models of care, implementing digital technology, increasing access to community-based joint management programs and standardizing how patient data is collected and reported.

Recommendation two is invest in arthritis-specific primary and community

of hip and knee replacement surgery, which includes adopting innovative models of care, implementing digital technology, increasing access to community-based joint management programs and standardizing how patient data is collected and reported.

Recommendation two is invest in arthritis-specific primary and community care. People living with arthritis required timely access to a team of health care providers, including family doctors, specialists, therapists and social workers.

This especially is an urgent issue in rural and remote communities. Many of these areas have limited or no health care providers that can diagnose arthritis and provide treatment and disease management. We strongly encourage the government to invest in and support team-based models of care, including adding extended-scope practitioners in arthritis care, such as specially trained physio and occupational therapists and funding community-based arthritis programs.

Recommendation three: ensure access to a range of arthritis treatments. There is no cure for arthritis; therefore, access to medications is essential to help people manage their condition. For people living with inflammatory arthritis, it is crucial that they have access to a broad range of treatment options, as finding the right treatment is often a matter of trial and error, and what works for one may not for another.

In addition, many patients become resistant to their treatments. This means that without access to new treatment options, many battling this condition could face worsening symptoms and diminished quality of life.

People living in B.C. do not have access to the same arthritis medications covered in other provinces, leading to inequality. In Arthritis Consumer Experts’ latest medication report card, which compares provinces and territories in terms of providing reimbursement for approved arthritis medication, British Columbia ranked 11th.

We encourage the government to collaborate with health care professionals and the arthritis community to ensure people living with arthritis have access to their prescribed treatment.

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation.

We will now go to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation.

I am hoping to go back to point No. 1. You talked about how to reduce wait times for hip and knee replacements and how important that is for maintaining quality of life for people who are living with arthritis. And you mentioned adopting innovative models of care. That’s a very broad thing. And I know you only have five minutes, so I was hoping to ask you about that so that you would have more time to talk about it.

Kelly Gorman: Sure. So there are some examples across Canada, and one of the things that we are starting to see is de-surgeries, too, which enables more people to get surgeries, but it means adjusting how you work as a team. There are some really good examples where the pre-op would happen….

And also they’re really important, these community-based joint management programs…. If people can do programs prior to surgery, sometimes it can delay the need to have surgery but also has them in better shape to recover from these surgeries.

It requires hospitals to think a little bit different and work with the different — even administration working, you know, to how they admit people…. Making sure all the admittance and the pre-tests are done so that when a patient comes in, in the morning that day — if they’re trying to do day surgery — they have everything lined up.

It’s not just the actual surgery. That’s a key component of it, but they need to be able to see the physio after the surgery that day in order to enable them to go home. So that’s one of them.

And then just the different types of procedures and using some of the new technologies now that can really help speed up the surgery.

Jennifer Blatherwick: So when you’re talking about programs that are available prior to surgery, you mean programs that would increase the patient’s strength or health so that they would have a better chance of recovery and success during the surgery?

Kelly Gorman: Lifestyle, like healthy eating, can be a component of it. But there are a lot of things. This is something that, you know, from an awareness, trying to people understand that there are things you can do to help manage your condition, like exercise, how important exercise is.

There are certain types of exercise that can really help to strengthen your joints. There’s a program called GLA:D. There’s also the Mary Pack program in B.C. that people can access that can enable them and show them and teach them how to protect your joints and also strengthen them.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions by members? Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today.

[4:10 p.m.]

Kelly Gorman: Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

We will go to our next presenter. We have Shaneza Bacchus from Contract Worker Justice at SFU joining us.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. We’ll go to our next presenter.

We have Shaneza Bacchus from Contract Worker Justice at SFU joining us.

Thank you for coming. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after. You may begin when you’re ready to go.

Contract Worker Justice, SFU

Shaneza Bacchus: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Shaneza Bacchus. I am the current president of CUPE 3338 at Simon Fraser University, and I’m speaking today on behalf of Contract Worker Justice.

We’re very grateful for the opportunity today to tell you about the campaign and to bring the contracted workers in-house. Formed in 2021, Contract Worker Justice at SFU is a coalition of contract workers, their unions — which are UNITE HERE and CUPE — students, faculty, SFU staff and community members demanding the university end outsourcing and bring cleaning and food workers in-house as direct employees of the university.

CWJ, the acronym for Contract Worker Justice, is to bring the contracted workers who are disproportionately racialized, women and immigrants in-house. Bringing workers in-house means that workers would be directly employed by SFU so that they can receive dignified wages, rights and benefits, as others already do within the SFU community.

Approximately 400 workers feed the community and keep our campuses clean. But the university has contracted out their labour to private third-party companies for decades, with food service workers employed by Compass Chartwell and cleaning services by Best Services Pro.

Employing these people directly is a matter of basic social justice, equity and inclusion for workers who provide valuable service to the university community. SFU could not function without these workers who perform the most physically demanding labour of any university worker while receiving the lowest pay, benefits, job security and treatment.

Poor working conditions are directly linked to the status of being employees of third-party contractors. Outsourcing these services degrades their dignity, denies them inclusion into the SFU community and brings into question SFU’s reputation as a progressive public post-secondary institution.

These workers are even excluded from SFU service meant to measure progress on equity, diversity and inclusion, a statement that is integral to SFU at this moment. They literally have no voice in a community they proudly serve. Despite SFU being a multi-billion dollar institution, contract workers at SFU are subjected to deplorable working conditions with insufficient renumeration and benefits.

In July 2022, SFU announced it would bring contract food service and cleaning service workers up to Metro Vancouver’s living wage. And this is a result of CWJ’s campaigning. The university also appears to be taking steps towards opening daycare access, library access and offering tuition waivers to these workers, their spouses and children. These promises are a major victory, but the way SFU has delivered on its commitments has been difficult.

The university has left CUPE 3338, who represents best custodial staff, and UNITE HERE Local 40, who represents food service workers, to fight out for these rights and on the promised increases at the bargaining table. What this means is that all these benefits will be deducted from their already low wages. So when it comes down to bargaining, we have to choose between wages and these benefits. Ultimately, members will choose wages.

The implementation for Compass, which is food service workers, has been very messy. The new wage was not implemented until the unions demonstrated on campus. They’ve also refused to institute a living wage for its catering workers, and these staff are routinely laid off three times a year between semesters. When confronted with these inequities, SFU’s response has been the same as it has been for decades: “We’re not the employer. Speak to the company.”

We applaud SFU’s language on equity, diversity and inclusion, but action must match words in order for it to be meaningful and real. When a university denies resources and social infrastructure to its precarious workers, it loses an opportunity to uplift mostly female, racialized and immigrant low-wage workers on campus. We can do much better than this for our “essential workers,” a phrase we all happily echoed when it served our purposes during COVID. It’s time to put words into action.

From its founding, CWJ has maintained that the simplest and most ethical fix is to bring this work in-house, and that is the recommendation. Once these workers are part of a public sector workforce, they will be eligible for regular funded wage increases through bargaining under the PSEC mandate.

[4:15 p.m.]

It is notable that the provincial government has directed SFU to adhere to the PSEC compensation cap when negotiating with university employees. However, when it comes to contract workers, the government has adopted a hands-off approach, refusing to intervene on behalf of contract workers. This approach is inconsistent and fails to address the legitimate interests of the lowest-paid workers on campus.

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to answer any questions at this point.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your

comes to contract workers, the government has adopted a hands-off approach, refusing to intervene on behalf of contract workers. This approach is inconsistent and fails to address the legitimate interests of the lowest-paid workers on campus.

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to answer any questions at this point.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your presentation. Moving to questions by members. Any questions?

Seeing no questions, thank you so much for your presentation. It was very clear, so that our members don’t have any follow-up questions. Thank you very much.

We’ll move to our next presenter. We have Heather Ritchie joining us. Thank you so much for coming. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Heather Ritchie

Heather Ritchie: Amazing. Thank you so much for having me. I really, really appreciate you taking the time today.

Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for everything. My name is Heather Ritchie, and I am a practising audiologist and the vice-president of Speech and Hearing British Columbia, which is a non-profit representing over 1,300 speech-language pathologists and audiologists in British Columbia. I also work at a non-profit hearing clinic here in Burnaby, where I support patients of all ages with hearing loss.

Today I’m here on behalf of our members and the people that we serve in order to advocate for equitable access to hearing health care in B.C., especially for our children and our seniors, who are currently falling through the cracks. We urge this committee to work with us and the Ministry of Finance to allocate resources in Budget 2026 towards a provincial hearing health strategy.

Hearing loss is one of the most common and overlooked chronic conditions in B.C., with over three-quarters of seniors and nearly a third of working-age adults living with hearing loss, yet our province offers no universal funding for hearing aids for seniors. And once children age out of early intervention programs, there’s no provincial coverage for them either. It’s not just a health issue; it’s a financial issue for individuals and for our health care system.

Untreated hearing loss is linked to cognitive decline, increased fall risk, social isolation, depression, higher hospital readmission rates. It’s estimated that hearing loss increases medical costs by nearly 50 percent over a period of ten years, and yet only one in four people who benefit from hearing aids actually are able to wear them, mostly because they can’t afford them.

In B.C., a pair of hearing aids costs about $4,500 every five years, and most people receive no support for this. Funding hearing care helps people to stay connected, independent and out of higher-cost care. It’s a cost-effective investment that reduces the need for hospitalization, long-term care and emergency services. A single hospitalization due to a fall or an early move into long-term care costs exponentially more than providing hearing aids and audiology services.

As an audiologist working directly with patients, I see the consequences of inaction every day. Seniors come to me after years of isolation, some misdiagnosed with cognitive decline because they just can’t hear. Some of them are wearing outdated or broken hearing aids just because they can’t afford to replace them, and very often no hearing aids at all.

A patient I recently saw was an older woman who came into the office with her adult son, and we had to shout for her to hear us. She was fully dependent on her children to book appointments and manage her life. I remember her saying that her hearing loss had become a big source of anxiety, because she couldn’t follow along, in medical appointments, what the doctor was saying.

Her family pooled together money to get her hearing aids, and since then, she’s taken on babysitting duties for her grandchildren. She even called to book her own follow-up appointment, which is something she hasn’t done in years, and she’s going to appointments on her own now, which is wonderful. It was incredible to see her complete transformation with hearing aids, her independence again and how she’s actively engaging with her family. So nice to see.

And this story is not rare. I’ve seen patients reconnecting with their communities, participating in their own medical care, re-engaging in addiction recovery all because they can finally hear. In many cases, hearing aids were that key that allows them to unlock access to other services and fully participate in life.

For children, the funding gap is just as urgent. Once children age out of the B.C. early hearing program, around age five, families are completely on their own. A colleague in northern B.C. was telling me that some of her families actually had to choose between which child gets hearing aids because they have multiple children who need them. They can’t help them all.

[4:20 p.m.]

Untreated hearing loss in childhood can delay education. It can delay language, it can hinder education, and it can create long-term social challenges. Hearing is a foundational skill for learning, and early support pays dividends across a child’s lifetime.

who need them. They can’t help them all. Untreated hearing loss in childhood can delay language, it can hinder education, and it can create long-term social challenges. Hearing is a foundational skill for learning, and early support pays dividends across a child’s lifetime.

We’re asking this committee to include funding for hearing care for seniors and for school-aged children in budget 2026. Other provinces have recognized the value of this investment, and B.C. is lagging behind. We need to act now because B.C.’s population is aging, and by 2030, nearly one in four British Columbians will be over the age of 65.

The cost of inaction is clear: lost independence, avoidable medical complications and higher demand for home and long-term care. But the solution is manageable and effective. Investing in hearing health care, we can help seniors to stay independent and out of higher-cost care, support children’s education and development, reduce caregiver burden and lost family income and address widening health equity gaps across socioeconomic lines and regions in B.C.

In closing, hearing is not a luxury. It’s a fundamental part of communication, health and independence. Let’s invest in a strategy that ensures B.C.’s most vulnerable, our seniors and our children, have access to the hearing health care that they need.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I am happy to spend the rest of the time answering any questions from the committee members.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for that.

Going to questions by members.

Claire Rattée: I do have a question. When it comes to hearing devices, who currently would be covered under MSP? Is there any coverage under MSP for hearing devices? I don’t actually know the parameters of it.

Heather Ritchie: There is some coverage for people who qualify for an income…. I think it’s an income supplement. There’s PWD status, person with disability status, which would qualify someone for $2,000 for each ear, which is great coverage for people who need hearing aids. I believe the ministry funding for people who are lower income are able to get $2,000 per ear as well.

Claire Rattée: If I could have a follow-up.

Heather Ritchie: I don’t remember the exact threshold, but I know that it’s for people who are very, very low income, not necessarily people who are seniors.

Claire Rattée: Essentially the issue that you’re seeing is actually more so people that would traditionally be considered that more, I guess, middle income. Still, I mean, $4,000 is a lot of money to, I would say, probably 90 percent of people. To have a cost like that is really prohibitive.

Essentially anybody that qualifies for income assistance or persons with disability assistance — they’re at that very lowest threshold — they’re getting coverage. But all the people that are kind of in that middle gap, which would include most seniors and things like that, that have a bit of income but it’s not enough to be able to cover a cost like this, they’re the ones that are falling through the cracks?

Heather Ritchie: Precisely, yeah. They’re on a seniors pension, kind of very, very tight budget month to month. They’re the situations where I’m saying we can extend the payments over a year, we can reduce the cost as much as we can up front, but they’re still not even able to pay even a few hundred dollars a month in some situations just because that would mean that they’re not eating. They’re having to forego something else.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, thank you very much.

Any other questions by members?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time to present to us today.

Heather Ritchie: Thank you so much. If any other questions come up, please feel free to contact me or Speech and Hearing B.C. We are very happy to help with anything and provide further information, if that’s helpful.

Paul Choi (Chair): At this time, committee will take a recess.

The committee recessed from 4:24 p.m. to 4:40 p.m.

The committee recessed from 4:24 p.m. to 4:40 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): We are back. We’ll call the committee back to order.

The committee resumed at 4:40 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): We’re back, and we’ll call the committee back to order. First of all, thank you to everyone who presented. That concludes the public hearing portion of our meeting today.

Deliberations

Paul Choi (Chair): I will now seek a motion to meet in camera for deliberations.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 4:40 p.m. to 4:59 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you everyone again who presented to us today. We will be returning tomorrow for more virtual public hearings. I would like to thank, on record, all the staff and all the Clerks and everyone that’s involved in supporting our committee to ensure we can do this important work.

With that, I will seek a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 5:00 p.m.