The committee met at 8:32 a.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. Good morning, everyone. We will call the committee back to order.

My name is Paul Choi. I am the MLA for Burnaby South–Metrotown and the 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 will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting with the Deputy Chair.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Good morning, everybody. Elenore Sturko. I’m the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and the critic for Public Safety and Solicitor General, and I’m looking forward to hearing some more submissions from community members today.

Claire Rattée: Claire Rattée, MLA for Skeena and critic for Mental Health and Addictions.

Steve Morissette: Good morning. Steve Morissette, 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 and Parliamentary Secretary for International Credentials.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. Just to let folks know, we will also have MLAs Jennifer Blatherwick and Bryan Tepper joining us shortly as well.

I would also like to thank the committee staff and Hansard Services and everyone that is involved in making sure our committee is going to be running smoothly. Thank you for all your service.

We’re going to now 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 five minutes for questions from committee members.

The first presenter we have is Nicole Kief from Prisoners Legal Services.

[8:35 a.m.]

Thank you so much for joining us today. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions. You can begin when you’re ready to go.

Budget Consultation Presentations

Prisoners Legal Services

Nicole Kief: Good morning. Thank you very much for having me here this morning.

I am the executive director of Prisoners Legal Services. We assist people in prisons across B.C. with the kinds of liberty deprivations and human rights abuses that they face in custody. We help approximately 1,000 people a year. So we have a unique window into the experiences of people in custody in B.C.

The first recommendation I’ll speak to is to address the mass incarceration of Indigenous people by fully implementing the B.C. First Nations justice strategy, including strategy 14, “Expanding Culturally Based Programs in B.C. Corrections,” and strategy 15, “Growing Community Justice Programs.”

As you may know, the B.C. First Nations justice strategy, signed in 2020 by the B.C. government, commits to transforming Indigenous Peoples’ relationship with the legal system. However, the province has failed to invest in key strategies that would address the mass incarceration of Indigenous People.

When the strategy was signed, Indigenous People made up 36 percent of the population in B.C. Corrections custody but only 5.9 percent of the B.C. population as a whole. But as of 2024, Indigenous People make up 37 percent of the B.C. prison population, meaning that the disproportionality has actually increased since the strategy was signed five years ago. The number of people in custody, overall, and the average length of stay in custody have also risen since 2020.

None of this creates safer communities but instead disconnects people from their families, their communities, their relationships and actually perpetuates violence and trauma. Indigenous People have already laid out what needs to be done to keep people in the community and not in prison. B.C. must advance reconciliation and decolonization by meaningfully investing in these strategies at the direction of the First Nations Justice Council.

Strategy 14 focuses on creating a network of First Nations corrections alternatives, yet there has been no investment by the province in this strategy at all, to date. Instead of renovating or building new government-run jails, B.C. should resource Indigenous governments, organizations and communities to create alternatives consistent with UNDRIP.

Strategy 14 also includes expanding culturally based interventions for people in custody. Our incarcerated clients report a shortage of Elders, restrictions on possessing cultural items, limitations on who can access Indigenous-focused units. Again, resources should be redirected from B.C. Corrections to Indigenous governments and organizations to provide these supports to people in custody.

Similarly, strategy 15, which calls for community justice programs to support the presumption of diversion — which is strategy 1 — must also receive the resources required for implementation.

The second and final recommendation I’ll speak to is the need to eliminate solitary confinement in B.C. Corrections jails by investing in community infrastructure and community-led supports for people in custody. It’s widely recognized that solitary confinement causes serious psychological harm and that subjecting people to it, especially those with pre-existing mental health issues, which constitute about 75 percent of the population in B.C. Corrections, exacerbates mental illness and increases the risk of self-harm and suicide.

Despite a major segregation reform project, including expensive infrastructural changes, government data actually shows that isolation in B.C. Corrections is increasing. In 2021, 35 percent of people in custody spent at least one day in separate confinement. And in 2024, that percentage was 50 percent, which is a really alarming increase.

As I said before, people in custody — a very large percentage have mental health or substance use issues. In fact, people with mental illness are routinely held in isolation.

[8:40 a.m.]

We also understand that people subject to involuntary treatment at Surrey Pretrial are also held in segregation, which is all extremely concerning.

So we urge the province to keep people from entering prison in the first place and eliminate solitary confinement for those who remain in custody.

Thank you very much. Happy to speak to any questions.

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

Going to questions, starting with the Deputy Chair.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Thank you for your presentation this morning. Just wondering if you had some suggestions on alternative methods of housing people.

Let’s say someone was extremely violent, threatening to stab, found with weapon inside cells, assaulting other inmates. What should corrections do with those individuals who are violent and pose a risk to both staff and other inmates?

Nicole Kief: Thank you for that question. I have a two-part answer.

The first is that separating somebody momentarily or for a very short period doesn’t have to equate to solitary confinement. Solitary is 22 hours or more alone without any meaningful human contact. Somebody could be separated from other people but still not in conditions of solitary or close to solitary. I think that the psychological impact doesn’t automatically go away.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): So if it’s under 22 hours, you’re okay with it?

Nicole Kief: No. What I was going to say is that the psychological impact at, you know…. There isn’t a bright line, right? If you’re spending 21½ hours a day isolated every day, the psychological impact is going to be comparable. But there would be a variety of ways to keep people from being in any sort of prolonged isolation or in conditions of solitary.

The other part of my answer is to invest in organizations, especially community and peer-led organizations and Indigenous organizations, to provide meaningful ways for people in custody to occupy their time and build connections — things like cultural and educational opportunities, purposeful work, visits with family, health and mental health supports, all of which would increase the safety of institutions and obviate the need for solitary and also support community reintegration.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): But in the moment, you do recognize that there’s a need, at times, for individuals under conditions of violence to be kept separate from other people who they may pose a risk to. Is that right?

Nicole Kief: Yeah, I don’t think eliminating solitary confinement means that you could never move someone to a space away from other people, right? That doesn’t mean…. I think there is no indication that keeping people isolated all day, for several days, those kinds of things, has any benefit to safety. I think we should just separate the idea of needing to move somebody away from other people temporarily for a short cool-off period.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Do you agree then that as long as a physical risk would exist, that would be the duration of time that the person could be kept separate from other people?

Nicole Kief: Well, I think that the use of isolation exacerbates the risk, right? Some of the symptoms of solitary, in addition to suicide, self-harm and exacerbated mental illness, include paranoia, rage, difficulty controlling emotions, all of those things. All of those things are factors that would increase violence.

So if the main goal is to keep people safe, keep institutions safe and keep both the people who live there and the staff safe, solitary is not the way to get there.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Can you explain…? Sorry. We have only limited time left. Can you tell me your understanding…? You said that the new forensic beds that are in Surrey Pretrial are isolation. Can you explain your knowledge of that?

Nicole Kief: Yes, my understanding is that they are simply cells in the segregation unit at Surrey Pretrial that are….

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Sorry. I had seen on television that it’s like a medical ward. Under the Mental Health Act, there are certain criteria that have to be met in order for them to be designated as facilities outside of corrections and inside the forensic health care system.

[8:45 a.m.]

Nicole Kief: Yeah, they’re not a medical ward. I understand that sometime far in the future there may be a unit within Surrey Pretrial that is built for this.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): So have you toured it? Did you tour it yet?

Nicole Kief: No, but I have direct information. I urge you to look into that, because I think you’ll find that people are housed in segregation.

Elenore Sturko (Deputy Chair): Okay, thanks for your time.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for your time to present to us today.

We’ll move on to our next presenter. Next up, we have Ron Usher presenting to us.

Thanks for taking the time to come and join us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for the questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go.

Ron Usher

Ron Usher: Thank you so much. I very much appreciate this opportunity. I’m coming to you from outside Steamers Coffee in Sorrento, B.C., right on the highway. Hopefully it’s not too noisy in the background.

It’s just a fairly simple point I want to make here — really, two things. Having just come yesterday from the money-laundering conference in Vancouver, just a couple of reminders.

What prompted this, frankly, is that I was assisting some folks in a small town in B.C. dealing with a notorious freeman on the land, a sovereign citizen. In the course of that, I discovered that no land owner transparency registry filing has been made in regard to the corporately owned property. It turns out, on inquiry, that tens of thousands of properties remain non-compliant, even though they all should have been compliant since November of 2022.

Just some background: 45 years a lawyer with the Law Society, with the Society of Notaries; did much training on Land Owner Transparency Act issues.

Here’s my concern. I’m sure you do this as a general principle. You don’t want the public to be cynical about government programming. If you’re going to have a program, if you’re going to have a law, the budget needs to be there to properly enforce the law.

Over $11 million is collected in LOTA filing fees, more than enough to pay for an adequate enforcement team. The act provides for many penalties, but as far as I know, zero have been paid. The whole point of the ownership registry was to ensure registry and disclosure of beneficial interests. Yet there are the scofflaws. The bad guys know that there’s absolutely no consequence for failure to comply.

Now, it’s fair enough for the Legislature to say: “Well, it’s not our priority.” Well then, you should repeal the law instead of collecting $11 million in fees from honest folks, because the crooks feel, apparently, no need to comply, and there apparently is no penalty for failure to comply.

I would just urge you, as a general principle, as you’re thinking about funding…. Is funding adequate to carry out the intent of the Legislature and the intent of the acts? Is there adequate staffing? None of this I mean in any way as a criticism of civil servants involved in dealing with these things. But it’s really the Legislature’s job to say that either the law is no good or not needed anymore and it should be put away, or it should be properly funded through the budget. I just recommend that as a general principle, and you probably take that into account.

The other general principle I’d urge you to take into account is the inevitability of demography on requirements for work. Of course, you’re very well aware of this when it comes to health care. But again, just as a general principle, are we properly funding programs required by law so they can actually be done? Secondly, are we fully taking into account the very predictable demographic changes in British Columbia?

That’s all I have to say. Of course, while I’m at it, I would certainly urge…. I’ll just give you some numbers from the Cullen commission recommendations. You can write four numbers down. Recommendation 1, 34, 49 and 91. There may be many others, but I would just urge you to take a clear look again at the Cullen commission. I was counsel at the Cullen commission on behalf of the Society of Notaries Public. We need to have that implemented, or the public is entitled to a clear statement from the Legislature as to why not.

That’s all I have to say.

[8:50 a.m.]

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

We’ll now go to questions by members.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation.

You made a few points, but how is it tied to your budgetary ask?

Ron Usher: Well, it’s apparent, I think, that proper enforcement, for example, of the Land Owner Transparency Act and the registry requires significant staffing. The bill itself provides…. It has already collected over $11 million in fees.

There’s provision for fines. If you need money, it’s the easiest program in the world to properly fine. It needs more staff. If the government is not going to do the job, then end the law.

I urge you not to do that. I urge you to properly fund it, give adequate support and numbers of staffing for civil servants so the law can be enforced and its purpose held to the benefit of the public of B.C.

Does that make enough of a connection to the budget process?

Sunita Dhir: Yes. You can also consider writing to the Ministry of Housing about these recommendations if it’s not tied to…. It is tied to budget, as you explained, but for any policy changes or policy recommendations….

Ron Usher: Oh, absolutely. I totally get that. But these things are often about funding. So let’s just be honest with the public about the budget. Let’s be honest with the public about what it costs to actually run government and let the civil servants be adequately funded to do their job.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you for your questions.

Seeing no other questions, I have a question. I understand that the federal government also has FINTRAC reporting requirements. Do you think that is funded adequately from the federal government level as well?

Ron Usher: That’s a good question. The Cullen commission looked carefully at FINTRAC, though the federal government lawyers were quick to always tell Commissioner Cullen it was none of his business.

But the reality is FINTRAC doesn’t work very well. It, again, imposes very costly and elaborate reporting requirements and very little to see for it. So the Cullen commission nicely talks about the need for cooperation with the provinces about adequate disclosure. The province and the feds would need to work together to allow for proper information sharing.

But, no. It’s fair to say that FINTRAC, like LOTA, requires innocent people to make tens of thousands of filings, all nicely ignored by crooks, criminals and money launderers.

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

Ron Usher: Well, I appreciate very much the opportunity. What you’re doing is extremely important work on the part of the province of British Columbia.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much.

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Chris Lam from B.C. Lung Foundation.

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

B.C. Lung Foundation

Chris Lam: Thank you for this. Thank you, Chair. I’m really grateful for this opportunity.

My name, of course, is Chris Lam. I am the president and CEO at the B.C. Lung Foundation.

You may know the B.C. Lung Foundation. We’ve been focused on lung health and reducing the burden of respiratory disease in our province for quite some time, stemming back to the TB days in our province.

I also want to thank this committee for previous work and recommendations that have been done that have really helped patients living with lung disease in our province, namely with our cessation programs, ways we get people to quit smoking tobacco. That will be one of the things I will talk about today.

The number one thing I do want to talk about is…. I recognize that this is a difficult time to be talking about where you can dedicate money in tough economic times. I want to point out that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we’re being faced with, especially those of us who work in the lung health space, with tobacco settlement dollars about to enter our economy. What we’re hoping for is that you’ll spend just a piece of that on prevention and cessation, as we move forward.

[8:55 a.m.]

One of those ways that we can look upstream and really invest in prevention in our province is to adopt something we’ve spoken about before. That’s a smoke-free-generation policy. It’s an exciting new thing that has happened in jurisdictions all around the world.

For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, the basic concept is that you would raise the minimum age that anybody can legally purchase vapour or tobacco product in our province every single year until an entire generation of our kids will never have the legal opportunity to purchase such harmful products.

Now, this has happened in other jurisdictions. Our jurisdiction here in British Columbia is ripe to do that. This really drives home the point that there is no safe age to start vaping or smoking. This becomes something that we really have to look forward to in terms of where we are looking in terms of downstream health care costs. Annually in British Columbia, we have 6,000 deaths directly attributed to tobacco or vaping. That also means that we’re spending roughly $3 billion in health care spending on this.

As you can imagine, if we put a little bit of resource into building what would become a smoke-free generation in our province, we would have tremendous upstream wins, especially when it comes to our finances in our province, let alone, of course, the health care savings and the health of British Columbians all around.

The other part that I want to talk about is that if you are going to do something like that, you will have to help those who are currently addicted, whether that’s part of their mental health, part of their lung health or their cardiovascular health.

You have already done, as I mentioned earlier, a tremendous job supporting cessation programs in our province. We have reduced that prevalence quite dramatically in our province. So we are continuing to advocate that you invest in that, at a much higher level so you can help those people who want to quit tobacco or vaping in our province.

Part of that, too, is that we run QuitNow, which is what the province currently invests in. A greater investment in that would be extremely helpful, but also extremely helpful would be a clinical-based cessation program in each of the hospital settings right around the province, particularly in remote and rural areas. That investment in the hospital setting directly hits those patients at the moment that they enter the system. Helping them to quit smoking is an excellent way for us to reduce our bottom line when it comes to our finances.

The last thing that I really want to talk about with a minute left is radon. Radon is a problem that really does hit remote and rural areas of our province. If you’re not familiar with the concept of radon, it is a gas that is radioactive that is the byproduct of decaying uranium in the rock that’s in the ground. It is natural. You can’t see it.

What happens is if it gets trapped in our homes or in people’s basements with poor ventilation, it can lead to some significant health outcomes. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer, after tobacco use in our province.

What we’re hoping for is that, collectively, we could find dollars to help people mitigate their homes. Whether that’s in the form of grants or otherwise, that would really help British Columbians feel like they can test their home safely and that there is a fallback plan to fixing their homes, to what would be a significant problem and, again, help our upstream costs around cancer care here in British Columbia.

That is the end of my five minutes, and I’m happy to take some questions.

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

Moving to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, and thank you so much. Nice to see you again, Chris.

I am hoping you can talk a little bit more. You mentioned that you have a cessation program that’s not clinical, that’s run through your organization, and you’re hoping to also ask for budget for a clinical program.

Do you have any current clinical programs now, or are there any clinical programs within the British Columbia health system?

Chris Lam: That’s a fantastic question.

The first part is, yes, we run the program with the province’s support. It’s called QuitNow. It is a community-based program, and it runs several service lines that have proven to be quite effective. In fact, with the province’s support, we were able to do an evaluation, and we’re going to be able to make that more effective. Its quit rate is about 34 percent, which is higher than any other jurisdiction in the world, which is really quite impressive. So thank you, guys, for that.

In terms of the clinical piece, the clinical piece is actually one of the most important pieces we could have in our province. We currently do not have one in our province that is provincially funded entirely. There is a program that currently runs out of Vancouver Coastal at St. Paul’s Hospital, and it is a very effective program, because it is at the point of intervention with the health care professionals.

[9:00 a.m.]

It would be such a fantastic thing to empower our health authorities or the hospitals themselves to have that type of funding accessible to them, to run those things, because it would reach so many more people who are trying to quit, especially as they come into the hospital with various illnesses.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Can you talk a little bit about the differences? You have the QuitNow program, but why is the clinical program so necessary?

Chris Lam: It really does hit two different populations. The way I can really simply break it down is that QuitNow is a great community-based program. It’s for people who aren’t in the hospital system who are looking to quit. They have discovered, for various reasons in their day-to-day life, for them or their friends or their family, that it’s something they can refer them to.

The beauty of QuitNow is that there are so many different service lines. It can be quite tailored to each of the people, whether you want a text line to quit, whether you want to talk to a quit coach, whether you need an outreach worker to come talk to you. The QuitNow program provides all of those things outside of the hospital setting.

To offer a clinical-based setting, it would be the intervention piece. If someone were to come in with…. Say they get diagnosed with COPD. They can automatically be referred to, within the hospital setting, as part of their treatment plan, a quit process where they have access to NRTs, where they have access to the health care professionals that will help them in that journey. Once they leave the hospital setting, it then becomes viable for them to enter the QuitNow system as well.

But to have both of those pieces available to people who want to quit smoking, it becomes incredibly powerful and incredibly effective. And our province really does lead the way in this area already, so this would really be one of those hammers that British Columbia could hold.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your presentation today and all the good work you do trying to keep our society healthy.

We will move on to our next presenter. We have Matt Dirks from Communitas Supportive Care Society.

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

Communitas Supportive Care Society

Matt Dirks: Thank you. Good morning, members of the select standing committee, and thank you for the opportunity to be before you and present this morning. As mentioned, my name is Matt Dirks, and I’m the CEO of Communitas Supportive Care Society. We’re a charitable, faith-based organization serving people with developmental disabilities, mental health challenges and acquired brain injuries.

We have a staff team of 450 that supported more than 900 individuals last year in 23 communities across British Columbia. We offer services including 24-7 group living, supported employment, respite care and mental health outreach.

Today I’ll speak to two key issues affecting the quality and sustainability of services: firstly, the importance of ensuring social care is characterized by person-centred, community-based support; and secondly, the need to reduce administrative complexity in order to improve flexibility for us as service providers as well as for the service outcomes for the people that we’re supporting.

Firstly, across government, whether through MCFD, CLBC or within Health, we’re seeing a shift toward centralized systems and standardized service delivery contracts. While meant to improve consistency, this shift often ends up reducing responsiveness. It limits opportunities for collaboration and can overlook local expertise such as what we offer.

A recent example is our experience with MCFD’s new specialized homes and support services — SHSS — model. Its initial planning and rollout has been quite top-down, with limited input from service providers, from our perspective. Under this model, agencies like ours, who specialize in supporting young children with complex needs, typically medical or related to their disability, are expected to accept any referral for ages zero to 18, even for youth with needs well beyond our scope, such as active substance use.

The recently updated contract language for this model also includes terms like “no refusal of referrals” and “no termination” clauses. This leaves us legally obligated to placements that may pose significant risk to other children in the home who’ve already been placed or for staff who may lack expertise with certain subpopulations being referred.

MCFD has given us verbal reassurances through this process that it will be collaborative intake processes, but these don’t override the contractual risk we are taking on now within the contracted language.

[9:05 a.m.]

This isn’t just about children’s services. Similar issues exist in adult mental health and dual diagnosis programs. The system seems to be increasingly shaped by more administrative design rather than person-centred outcomes, and that concerns us.

Also of concern is that we’re increasingly seeing contracts being awarded to private or unskilled operators. This undermines the long-term, trusted, community-based organizations that have built capacity over decades and are rooted in mission, not profit. Community-based expertise must be recognized and prioritized.

Secondly, the challenges that we’re raising aren’t unique to one specific social service funder. We see the same issues in our work with MCFD, CLBC and Fraser Health. Across funders, contracts often are overly prescriptive, locking funding into fixed budget categories like rent, food and staffing, which limits our ability to respond to real-world needs.

They tend to be bureaucratically complex, requiring frequent amendments, even for small changes. They’re administratively fragmented as well, with procurement, program and finance teams often operating in silos, causing confusion and delays for us.

In terms of recommendations, we have three. We believe these challenges can be addressed, and not necessarily by spending more money, which you might be glad to hear, but by modernizing processes and restoring trust-based relationships.

We offer three recommendations. Firstly, foster trust-based, collaborative relationships between funders and providers. Respect provider expertise. Prioritize contracts with accredited, community-based organizations that have demonstrated capacity and commitment, as well as expertise. Contracts should support professional discretion and focus on outcomes, not rigid compliance.

Secondly, protect specialization and local innovation. Support agencies in serving the populations they’re equipped to serve. One-size-fits-all mandates and service delivery models reduce safety and effectiveness for all parties.

Thirdly, reduce red tape and modernize contract administration, allow for flexible budgeting, streamline amendment processes and align funder departments. This will reduce delays, stress and inefficiencies without increasing cost.

In conclusion, this is not a call for more dollars; it’s a call for more autonomy and less bureaucracy so that service providers can be nimble, innovative and effective. We believe that by empowering trusted community-based providers and reducing red tape, B.C. can be more sustainable, responsive and person-centred in systems of care, one that values stability over profit, collaboration over control and outcomes over paperwork.

Thank you again for your time and your commitment to improving our public systems. I’m happy to take any questions you might have at this point.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will move to questions by members.

Seeing no questions, thank you so much for your presentation.

We’ll move on to the next presenter. We have Michael Volker from 411 Seniors Centre Society. Thank you for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

411 Seniors Centre Society

Michael Volker: Great. Good morning. Thank you to the committee for this opportunity. My name is Michael Volker. As mentioned, I am the executive director of 411 Seniors Centre Society. We’re based in East Vancouver. We’ve been around for 50 years, helping mostly low-income seniors. I also sit on the board of directors of two other non-profits, and I am on the national steering committee for non-profit funding reform, also known as Fair Funding.

Today I want to highlight why it is crucial to invest in independent seniors centres, how adequate funding can enable these centres to survive and how certain programs can not only sustain themselves but provide substantial benefits to the province.

But first I just want to talk about what a seniors centre is, because I think a lot of people may feel it’s like a recreation centre that may be run by the municipality. Seniors centres, especially in the case of 411, are seniors service organizations. We provide more than just recreational activities like line dancing and ukulele. We provide a lot of very crucial services for seniors.

Here’s a quick list of what we provide. Free tax clinics — very important for seniors to receive their benefits. They need to get their taxes filed.

We have digital literacy programs, as there seems to be a widening gap in technology acceptance with seniors.

[9:10 a.m.]

Emergency preparedness services — helping seniors make sure they’re ready for things like a heat dome or air pollution.

Health supports. We provide space for health clinics. We also have food programs where we provide subsidized meals and often free food to seniors in need.

We also provide legal supports, pro bono legal clinics.

We have housing assistance supports, helping seniors navigate B.C. housing and deal with landlords.

Moreover, senior service organizations are uniquely positioned to stay ahead of current trends. For example, 411 runs multiple research projects with SFU, UBC and Providence Health, focusing on health, financial well-being and housing needs of seniors. These organizations provide essential data and insights to help shape government policies affecting seniors, something community centres can’t do.

However, funding for independent seniors organizations remains problematic. Much of our current funding is annual project-based and doesn’t support our core operations. Without stable core funding, we can’t promise job security to our staff or ensure the sustainability of our programs or even our centres.

I would like to just take one of our key programs…. It’s called navigation and peer support. This program works with low-income seniors to make sure they are getting all of the benefits and entitlements that they are due from the federal government. This program helps seniors that may be on old age security and not meeting their bills go on to guaranteed income supplement. It helps seniors apply for the new dental care plan. It helps seniors with Pharmacare.

There is a long list of services that seniors don’t know about, but through our navigation and peer support program, we’re able to work with seniors on a one-on-one basis.

This program has some significant benefits for seniors. It obviously can increase their financial security. It can also, uniquely, return money to B.C. These are entitlements that seniors have paid for through their hard work throughout their career. Having them receive the benefits they’re entitled to brings money back into the province. It also, of course, when it comes back into the province, makes the senior’s life better, but it also supports local communities.

The other benefit, of course, is all the cost avoidances that increased financial stability for seniors provides, such as being less likely to end up in a hospital, to remain at home, to be able to purchase more nutritious food, be able to buy prescriptions. There is a long list of benefits that a proper NPS program, a provincialwide program, could provide for seniors.

Anyways, my time is running out, so I have three recommendations: to fund a provincialwide NPS program; provide core funding for senior centres; and, at the very least, provide research into the cost benefits of senior centres.

Thank you.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. We got a little rushed there at the end. I got funding NPS programs provincially. And I got your third one, which was research into the cost benefit of senior societies. But I just couldn’t write fast enough to get number two in there.

Michael Volker: No problem. Yeah, I apologize for speaking quickly.

Provide core funding for senior centres. The current model is really based on us having program funding. Program funding is where we apply to an organization like the United Way and we get one year of funding. From that funding, we have to pay for the staff to run the program. Very little is left over to pay for the actual core costs, the operating costs of running a senior centre. So we are always scrambling.

[9:15 a.m.]

One of the benefits of being independent is we can sometimes get funding from donors. But in the case with us, our members are low-income seniors, and we have about 1,500 members. They’re not going to be donating much to us. We have to keep our costs….We’re a low-barrier senior service organization. We charge $2 for line dancing. And that’s what our community can afford. So core funding is very important.

Some municipally run centres have municipal funding. What we receive, in our case, from the city of Vancouver is $70,000 a year for core funding, which barely pays for one staff member. From that, we have to pay for the facility costs, the costs of a volunteer coordinator, executive director, accounting costs. Because we’re a society, we have to pay for an audit.

All of those are hard costs, fixed costs, that we incur every year, and it’s getting harder to pay for those costs.

Steve Morissette: You’re based in Vancouver?

Michael Volker: Fraser Street, East Vancouver.

Steve Morissette: To your knowledge, are there senior centres around the province?

Michael Volker: Yes. One of the programs that we do have, this navigation and peer support program…. We run the backbone for this program. It’s a United Way–funded program across the province that’s being implemented into the Better at Home program. Unfortunately, the Better at Home program only serves 16,000 seniors. There are one million seniors in B.C. So the NPS program has a very limited market the way it’s currently implemented.

In Vancouver, 411 is part of the independent seniors alliance. We have four other senior centres just within Vancouver that are independent and struggle like we do. But we know that there are at least a hundred other organizations across the province that could benefit from core funding and could also benefit from just an expanded navigation and peer support program.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, for sure. I’m from a rural riding in the Kootenays. Rurally, and I’m sure urban as well, it’s challenging for seniors for a number of things — health care and so on. Everything is going online, and seniors that don’t have access, don’t have a computer, don’t know how to use it…. It’s tough to fill in forms, to gain information on different programs or just something as simple as a health portal or whatever.

So it’s really critical work that you do.

Michael Volker: Right, and a lot of these programs…. If the seniors know about them and we can help them apply for the programs, they make a huge difference in their lives. Even if we were able to get 1 percent of the seniors in B.C. an extra $100 a month through an NPS program, that’s $12 million into the province. That can go to support senior centres. At least a fraction of it can support the senior centres.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much for your presentation. I have visited the senior centre on Fraser Street several times.

I do have a question about your funding model though. Do you get any municipal government support?

Michael Volker: No. All we receive is the $70,000 from the city of Vancouver. Unlike other municipal-funded senior centres, which can get as much as $400,000 or $500,000 a year, we only get $70,000.

Sunita Dhir: Does the city own the building that you’re in?

Michael Volker: The city owns the building. We do pay about $2,000 a month in sort of maintenance costs. We sunk all of our reserve funds into building this building, so we’re a partner in the ownership of this building. But the city owns the land that the building is on.

Sunita Dhir: That was my understanding. Thank you so much for your clarification.

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Sarah Catliff from Ronald McDonald House B.C. and Yukon. Thanks for joining us. You have five minutes for your presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

[9:20 a.m.]

Ronald McDonald House,
B.C. and Yukon

Sarah Catliff: Great. Thank you very much for this opportunity. Our request for the provincial government to consider is that we’re seeking an investment of $39.5 million towards a $117 million, shovel-ready project to build the second Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver.

Sadly, today we find ourselves full and turning away as many families as we actually can serve in a year. We also know that many of our families stay with us for very long periods of time, and the current facility is not built with that in mind.

Our hope is to build this new home, which will better serve long-stay families by providing them with more space and still staying close to their sick child.

Equitable access to health care is vitally important. No matter where you live in this province, sick kids — there’s no boundaries. We last year served 170 different rural, Indigenous and remote communities.

The next theme is by way of providing not only a place to stay, but also essential services, such as food and snacks, and also a very warm, caring community of support that can appreciate what everyone is going through. By keeping families together, we know we are strengthening health care outcomes and allowing families to heal better as a family unit together.

No family should be anxious about where they’re staying when they need access to this top-level pediatric care. Our services at the same time ease financial and emotional burdens. We know that our families can save…. If we double our impact by building Willow House, we will be saving B.C. families up to $20 million a year in out-of-pocket expenses, such as accommodation and food and travel.

Finally, Willow House itself, the building, will be an innovative, mass timber, low-carbon building. It will be using B.C.-based wood materials, creating local jobs while being at the forefront of design innovation. We’ll be at the forefront of tall wood construction, as it will be a 12-storey wood building. So this building has created a fair bit of buzz through our applications and grants.

To date, we have raised $35 million, and that includes an $18 million grant from the federal government from the green and inclusive community buildings program. We’ve also received a $500,000 grant through the Ministry of Forests, the B.C. government, for the mass timber program. We’ve also received full, unanimous approval from the city of Vancouver, waving certain fees.

This is a shovel-ready project that has everybody, collaboratively, ready. We’ve received private sector support towards our goal as well. And so we find ourselves at a position that everything is ready. We just need the support and investment of the B.C. government to bring this project to life.

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

Steve Morissette: Thank you. Your ask was $39 million?

Sarah Catliff: It is $39.5 million. That is a third of the project cost.

Steve Morissette: Okay. Thank you.

You know, that’s a great project. I’m from rural B.C., and people come from all over B.C. to Children’s Hospital. It’s a challenge when you have to stay for weeks or months at a time. Great project, and I’m so happy that you’re using mass timber too.

Sunita Dhir: Thank you so much. It’s a great project. So this building is in addition to the current building?

Sarah Catliff: Yes. This will be the second Ronald McDonald House.

Our current house is a 73-room house, which is on the site, on the campus of Children’s Hospital. We opened those doors 11 years ago and never would have anticipated that 11 years later, we would be full and turning away as many families as we do.

[9:25 a.m.]

We went through a full feasibility study with our partners at Children’s and Women’s Hospital to understand that the need is closer to 150 rooms. And so this house, Willow House, is being built on private land adjacent to Children’s Hospital, so very close proximity, and will have 75 rooms.

As I said, this will be slightly different and geared to long stay and larger families by providing them with a little bit more space, one- and two-bedroom, fully contained suites. Because what we do know is these treatments are getting longer and longer, and at Children’s Hospital, they want families to be close to the hospital but not admitted to the hospital. This allows them to be back and forth to the hospital on a daily, hourly basis, as needed, without staying within the hospital.

I’d say about 30 percent of our children are in-patient. In other words, they are actually in the hospital. But up to about 70 percent of the patients are out-patients, and that’s when they are living at Ronald McDonald House but have full access to Children’s Hospital.

Sunita Dhir: I have one follow-up. So $39.5 million is the total budget, or that’s what you need to top it up from what you have now?

Sarah Catliff: That is our request to the B.C. government. We have raised $35 million towards our $117 million goal. We used $17 million of our own money, from our reserves, to purchase the land, which is across the street. So that is our investment in the project.

The $35 million that we’ve raised to date represents an $18 million grant from the federal government, along with several other grants, a donation from B.C. Children’s Hospital Foundation and several major donor donations too.

With this amount of investment from the B.C. government, the project will move forward. During the building time, which is expected to be a two-year build…. The timeline means we are breaking ground in July 2026 with a two-year build. And in that duration, we will raise the remaining $20 million of the project.

Sunita Dhir: That was my next question, towards the timeline, and you already answered it.

Sarah Catliff: So everything is ready. The city has given it full, unanimous approval. All permits are in. We’ve moved to design phase. So with an investment of the government, we will know that the project will break ground in July 2026. And it’s a two-year build. So we’ll be serving families by July 2028.

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

Sarah Catliff: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity. Have a great day.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, we’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Samantha Loppie from the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre.

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

Victoria Sexual Assault Centre

Samantha Loppie: Fantastic. Hello, folks. Good morning. My name is Samantha Loppie. Please feel free to call me Sam. I am the executive director of the Victoria Sexual Assault Centre, and I’m very pleased to be speaking with you today on the unceded territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən people known today as the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations and the W̱SÁNEĆ people.

The Victoria Sexual Assault Centre has been supporting survivors of sexualized violence and providing prevention education for over 42 years. I’m really honoured today to be speaking not only for the voice of my awesome staff, but also up to 1,000 survivors that come through our doors every year and the hundreds of youth and adults that receive our educational workshops.

Our organization’s mission looks to end sexualized violence through healing, education and prevention. Today I’m bringing to you three recommendations for budget consideration based on those core values.

My first recommendation focuses on healing and asks for multi-year funding for sexual assault programs. One of the many things that we’ve learned over the last 42 years is that quick and consistent access to sexualized assault services has a really profound impact not only on survivors and their families, but also our communities, and, I would say, the province overall.

[9:30 a.m.]

Multi-year funding specifically allows sexual assault centres like my own to offer consistency in our programming, which helps survivors as well as maintaining our relationships with community partners who refer to us often. Some of those community partners are health authorities, local police and RCMP, school districts, as well as community-based organizations that support youth, women and girls, immigrants and newcomers, Indigenous folks, people with disabilities and many more.

I ask the committee to maintain and enhance the commitment made in 2022 to provide stable funding in the budget to support organizations that offer victim-centred, trauma-informed coordinated cross-sectoral support for survivors of sexual assault.

My second recommendation highlights the importance of education and asks for recognition that sexual assault is a public health crisis and that funding for community collaboration is a solution.

Given the current socio-political climate, sexual assault centres and, I believe, health institutions are seeing increased complexity and intersectionality in the needs of survivors. And it is through partnership with community-based programs and health systems to develop best practices for survivor care and then share that education across sectors that is an active way to address this public health crisis.

My organization has seen this firsthand. For ten years now, we’ve been working with our local health authority in a great way. So I believe that funding for community collaboration for organizations already established in the community is a really practical way to best support and root those best practices in the unique needs of the communities that we all serve.

Finally, my third recommendation looks to the future and the role of prevention in ending sexualized violence. For current and future generations, I ask for funding to support prevention education programs with a specific focus on racialized communities.

As an organization on our own journey in understanding anti-racism and decolonial work in our sector, we have seen very positive impacts of prevention education, specifically in our work with our Indigenous response network and racialized youth groups, which for us are Black and Indigenous youth.

Prevention programs look to identify the systems that contribute to sexualized violence and disrupt those social patterns with a variety of innovative, uplifting and impactful initiatives. Funding for prevention programs is a way to actively engage in breaking down those systems that uphold sexualized violence in our communities and honours the intersectional and complex experiences of violence, specifically for racialized communities.

Folks, I’ve got about ten seconds left. I want to thank you very much for the time here today and open the floor for any questions.

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

We’ll go to questions by members. Seeing no questions…. Oh, one. I’ll go to MLA Dhir.

Sunita Dhir: Thanks for all the work that you do and your presentation.

You had a few funding requests. Do you have an approximate figure in mind of how much is needed towards those services?

Samantha Loppie: Oh, that’s a great question. I didn’t know that I got to give the breakdown, folks. This is my first time doing a budgetary consultation.

I know for the multi-year funding, for example, the commitment in 2022 made by, I believe, this committee for the 2023-24 fiscal budget was $10 million. So if I’m looking for maintenance and enhancement, I’m saying at least that and then above, understanding that with the increased complexity and needs of mental health and addiction, housing, lack of medical….

We’re seeing a lot of complexity. People are coming to us more than they have in the past. And I think that really helps out the hospitals, really helps out the police. We do a lot of coordination, administration. So I would say if that $10 million could be increased to something like $12 million, then that would be my recommendation.

[9:35 a.m.]

I know a little bit about budgets, but I trust you folks to know even more so than I do.

Thank you for your question.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Thank you so much for your presentation and for your work.

The funding that you put towards fighting, ending gender-based violence is already much greater than $10 million, so you must have a very specific, focused sector ask that you’re thinking of. You’re thinking specifically for sexual assault centres? Is that what you’re thinking?

Samantha Loppie: Yeah. What I’ll mention is that in the last few years…. My organization, for the last ten years, has had the first in the province of an integrated sexual assault clinic in our centre, where we offer alternative medical support to do forensic examinations, as well as the police interviews, on site.

A couple of years ago, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General opened a bid, where there are now four additional sexual assault centres, a.k.a. clinics, opening up across the province. So I believe that is more where I’m thinking specifically.

We have a five-year kind of opportunity there, and I believe that’s coming to a close in the next year or so. So I’m thinking, specifically, that those five, us being one of the included, being able to be maintained in a stable way would be really important for the communities where they’ve been established.

But yes, of course, more than the $10 million, overarchingly, in lots of different ways. But yeah, thank you for your question. I am thinking a little bit more specifically for some of those centres that are doing that alternative space for forensic exams and police interviews.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah. Thank you for clarifying.

I think integrated service and support of community partners available during really traumatic times makes a huge difference for survivors when they’re starting to walk through that journey. So appreciate that. Thank you.

Samantha Loppie: Yeah, a very different experience than an emergency room. They get snacks. They can charge a phone, all that kind of stuff.

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

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time to present to us today.

Samantha Loppie: Excellent. Thank you so much, folks. I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Val MacDonald from Century House, Time for Change, joining us.

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

Century House Association
Time for Change Committee

Val MacDonald: Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to present to the finance and governance committee today during your 2026 budget consultation process. I’m here today to address the matter of housing and support needs for seniors within the framework of aging in place. It is my pleasure to be representing the Time for Change committee in New Westminster.

Although we are situated in the Lower Mainland, we realize that seniors organizations and care providers across this province are concerned about the lack of affordable, appropriate housing and home health care support services. Seniors want to live independently in the housing of their choice for as long as possible according to their need and ability to pay. Health care professionals, planners and policy advocates advocating at the local, provincial, federal level should now be focused on aging in place as a concept whose time is long overdue.

Academics and planners have been aware of the concept for at least the 30 years I have been involved in seniors issues, yet access to appropriate housing and services is sadly inadequate. How many stories have you heard about a friend’s mother who just cannot access the home supports or housing options available to allow for aging in place?

[9:40 a.m.]

This leaves many, seniors themselves, to care for aging parents, and caregiving takes its toll. Adaptable, affordable housing is almost impossible to find, and private settings are out of reach for most seniors, at $5,000 to $10,000 per month.

Publicly funded services are also costly for seniors, who are paying around $9,000 a year for a once-a-week visit, and out of range for seniors in B.C. who are living in, at or below the poverty line. Some 28 percent of low-income seniors in B.C. earn at or below $28,000 per year. Without major changes in the delivery of housing and home support in this province, people will continue to suffer.

Aging in place can make a difference, and it makes sense economically. It refers to the ability to live in the housing of your choice for as long as possible. And although it is often considered a housing option for the frail and elderly, in fact, it applies to everyone, regardless of age or ability. It is a generic concept and requires two things: universally designed housing and in-home supports.

Data shows that 77 percent of adults 50 and older want to remain in their homes for the long term. But one-third of adults 50 years and over say they need to modify their current home for themselves or a loved one to do so.

The good news: there’s no one way to age in place. It may be only a few small changes in a person’s home or some in-home support. Service Canada has a wealth of information for adapting the home. Reports show that once modifications are made to your home, the monthly costs are affordable to most, and subsidies should be available for those who cannot afford it.

With the adaptations, aging in place will reduce the need for costly hospitalization admission or residential care prematurely. Dollars saved can then be spent on increasing access to home health care and other necessary services to age in place.

Although all levels of government should be engaged, it is the office of the B.C. seniors advocate who is doing the research and promoting the concept. It is journalists like André Picard, health reporter for the Toronto Globe and Mail, who wrote the book Neglected No More, describing the current state of housing in our country and aging in place. However, there seems to be minimal change.

I’ve worked with seniors and their families in search of housing and support services since 1987, whose stories range from sad to shameful. It’s time for change.

I have three recommendations. One, that the provincial government allocates funding to implement legislation which outlines policy that increases people’s ability to age in place.

Two, that in-depth research be undertaken by the seniors advocate to guide the implementation of aging in place. These requirements include universal design and restructuring the delivery of home health care and support services.

Thirdly, that funding be allocated so that no British Columbian is denied the opportunity to live in appropriate housing according to their need and ability to pay.

Thank you for this opportunity.

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

We will go to question by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation and advocating for seniors and their health and safety.

I don’t actually have a specific question because the budget asks…. You didn’t have a specific figure. Did you have like a specific dollar amount in mind or…?

Val MacDonald: Well, you know, we discussed that. We are a group of seniors trying to advocate, and budgeting at that level, I think, was out of our realm. So we just wanted to make sure you understood that there are figures that show the need and there are also economical outcomes by transferring from the current supporting services to aging in place. I’m sorry about that. We just didn’t know where to go.

Jennifer Blatherwick: No worries. I think it’s not necessary to have a specific dollar figure. Some people do have one in mind though, and then they just don’t say it during their presentation, so it’s nice for us to be able to ask.

And thank you for talking about both the costs but also all the benefits of having seniors age in place and how much that is good for the economy but also good for them. So thank you so much.

[9:45 a.m.]

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Amy Mullis from the Federation of Community Social Services of B.C.

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

Federation of Community
Social Services of B.C.

Amy Mullis: Excellent. Thank you so much.

Hello. My name is Amy Mullis, and I am the executive director of the Federation of Community Social Services.

The Federation of Community Social Services of B.C. represents 160 community social service agencies serving over 250 communities across B.C., including unrecognized First Nations territories. Our members provide critical services in child protection, family support, mental health, services for children and youth with disabilities, newcomer support, food security and so much more.

This sector employs over 53,000 workers and is a backbone of care for hundreds of thousands of British Columbians. The community social service sector serves individuals and families who are often marginalized: low-income households, people with disabilities, children in care, seniors and those facing mental health and addiction challenges. These individuals are too often blamed for their circumstances when, in reality, they are navigating the compounded effects of chronic underfunding and systemic inequalities.

We need to address this injustice, strengthen our social care systems and invest in the foundational building blocks of a healthy society. This will not be possible without a commitment to meaningful collaboration between and across government to co-develop policy, improve service delivery and achieve better outcomes for children, youth, families and communities.

At a recent federation meeting with over 50 member organizations, three urgent priorities emerged, each deeply connected to recruitment, retention and staff well-being. Administrative funding formulas are outdated, not reflecting the true cost of doing business in 2025. They also exclude critical costs such as cybersecurity, technology and rising insurance premiums.

Wage benchmarks have not kept pace with inflation or comparable sectors, creating a growing compensation gap that undermines workforce recruitment, retention and stability. And mental health supports for staff are almost entirely unfunded, despite widespread burnout and trauma exposure, especially in high stress, front-line roles.

These gaps compound one another. Workers are underpaid, asked to provide services in increasingly complex environments without adequate staffing, supervision or infrastructure. At the same time, many organizations must fundraise just to cover operational necessities like technology, insurance and administrative support. And staff are left without access to mental health resources required to sustain them in challenging roles. These are just some of the challenges contributing to the sector’s destabilization.

Our budget recommendations are tied directly to these priorities. We’re asking the government to update administrative funding formulas and contracts to reflect current realities of supporting children and families in 2025 in their own communities. This includes cybersecurity, insurance, IT technology and inflation.

We’re asking the government to increase wage benchmarks and index contracts to consumer price index to address competitive gaps, wage inequity among union and non-union workers and wage inequity across Indigenous service programs.

We are asking the government to fund mental health supports and universal practice-based supervision to protect staff and reduce burnout.

This is a workforce in crisis. Sector-wide turnover in 2023 was 25 percent. That’s one in four employees leaving this sector. Turnover in northern B.C. and Indigenous services ranged from 30 to 44 percent. Nearly 50 percent of organizations struggle to retain staff. Almost 60 percent face difficulty attracting qualified candidates. And more than 50 percent of frontline workers earn so little, they qualify for subsidized housing in cities like Kelowna, Kamloops and Victoria.

The workforce is predominantly made up of women, 75 percent; immigrants, 31 percent; and Indigenous or racialized individuals at 40 percent. When these workers are unsupported and undervalued, the system suffers, but more importantly, so do the people that rely on it.

The Representative for Children and Youth further confirms these impacts. The conditions contribute directly to poor youth outcomes and institutional instability. Underfunding creates harm, not just shortages. The province’s commitment to child and youth well-being strategy, as outlined in the Don’t Look Away report produced by the Office of the Representative of Children and Youth, signals a critical moment for government to act across ministries. However, realizing this vision will be impossible in the current climate of systemic underfunding.

Effective cross-government collaboration, prevention and culturally safe care cannot be achieved without adequate investment in the community organizations that are delivering these services. Investing in workforce wellness is not optional; it is critical to delivering safe and effective services.

[9:50 a.m.]

B.C.’s community social service sector is facing rising demand, rising cost and stagnant funding. Without sustainable investment, our prevention infrastructure will fail, and that failure will result in the dramatically higher downstream costs of policing, emergency care and institutional systems.

When looking through that lens, prevention is not a cost. It’s an investment. Studies show that every $1 spent on upstream supports can save anywhere from $2 to $10 in future public spending. The time to invest is now.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. I just want to highlight a little piece in there that you focused on, which we don’t often hear about when we’re talking about the infrastructure, that’s very specific to social service organizations or those that support people.

It is the cost of clinical supervision, especially as our workforce in social service gets younger and there are less and less workplace mentors who can take that place within the staffing that’s available within the organization. So many young people are taking these jobs because they are lower-paid jobs in the social service sector, and it is a challenge to make sure that they’re adequately mentored and supported to give a better quality client experience at the end and to better protect the mental health of the people doing the work.

So I just wanted to point out that you are the very first presentation to mention clinical supervision as a cost. Thank you for doing that. It was a really important piece of us understanding the work.

Amy Mullis: Oh, you’re most welcome. It is one of those pieces that I think is quite unique to the sector. So in some ways, I’m not surprised. But it is one of those pieces, as you said, particularly as the sector is facing these challenges. But also we’re seeing many of our senior and established leaders retire, so that knowledge needs to be passed down.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

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

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Carla Pellegrini from Food Stash Foundation.

Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready to go, making sure you are unmuted. Thank you very much.

Food Stash Foundation

Carla Pellegrini: Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for having me.

My name is Carla Pellegrini. I’m the executive director of Food Stash Foundation. We are a registered charity that was established in 2016. We redirect over 1.6 million pounds of perishable, surplus food in Vancouver every year. We distribute that food to our community in dignified and choice-based ways.

We are currently delivering to 45 organizations around the city. Last year we saved them over $1 million by working with them and providing this delivery service. We also directly serve community members through home deliveries for 125 low-income, disabled households and 160 members per quarter for our weekly market that is open to the public.

We know that food isn’t the solution to food insecurity, but in the meantime, while we’re tackling the underlying poverty, our work is so important in the interim.

One of our home delivery members recently sent us this kind message of thanks. She said: “Thank you so much for creating this program. It has literally changed my life. Not only am I eating far better and more nutritiously, but my stress levels have become more manageable, and the weekly arrival of a variety of foods has really helped me to enjoy the experience of cooking and eating again. I’m no longer stressed about balancing my finances, and it has calmed my anxiety and depression.”

We get these notes on a daily basis, and we’re not alone in creating this impact. We’re part of the Vancouver food recovery network, together with Vancouver Food Runners and CityReach Care Society, both of whom you heard from yesterday, as well as Quest non-profit markets. Together, the four of us organizations are moving over five million pounds of food per year and serving 60,000 people per week just in Vancouver.

[9:55 a.m.]

Our innovative, nimble and distributed model allows us to reach more people for a fraction of the cost per pound of food compared to more traditional food distribution models.

The challenge is that provincial dollars are concentrated in just a few hands. In 2023 alone, there were seven million provincial dollars provided to Loaves and Fishes on the Island, $50 million provided to United Way B.C. and Food Banks B.C. and, in 2014, $14 million through the critical food infrastructure fund to the United Way of B.C.

Despite the enormous reach and impact of our collective work of this network of four organizations, we, as a network, have received less than 0.5 percent of that $71 million distributed by the province in the last two years.

The need for multi-year core operating funds to sustain this work is critical. There are hundreds of local businesses relying on us every day to divert their wasted food and tens of thousands of community members relying on us for critical food access.

My recommendations are as follows: more equitable funding and an approach that includes multi-year core operating funds for the Vancouver food recovery network and other organizations outside the traditional food bank model.

As well, establish a provincial body to coordinate food security efforts. Food cuts across multiple departments, and therefore there’s no ultimate accountability to make sure that it’s being addressed. We need to align funding, monitor impact and address policy gaps in one place. I recommend that you appoint a parliamentary secretary for food security to ensure the strategic oversight and leadership.

Finally, a revenue mechanism like the extended producer responsibility system we have in place for recycling would work wonders for the food waste system to generate revenue to fund that important work and make sure that those turning food into waste are paying into the system that redirects it so it can be eaten and those costs are not borne exclusively by the charitable sector, which is what’s currently happening.

Thank you very much for standing with us to make sure that good food isn’t wasted and that thousands of British Columbians in need have access to dignified food every day. I’m happy to answer any questions.

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

Moving on to question by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. This is really great work, and I appreciate you drawing the connections between you and the previous organizations and how you work together to make sure people get fed.

You mentioned the extended producer system. I’m hoping what you can do is explain that a little bit further and talk about how you think that a system like that would motivate organizations to ensure that they’re responsibly handling their food waste.

Carla Pellegrini: Absolutely. I learned about the extended producer responsibility model a few years ago. It applies in B.C. and across the country primarily to recycling products. The concept is that typically a producer or manufacturer of a good is responsible for the full life cycle of that product, both in production and distribution. Also, once that product is no longer in use, they pay into the process in the system that makes sure it’s either upcycled or recycled or disposed of responsibly.

Recycle B.C. and circular product care…. There are a few different organizations that manage this system for things like paint and paper and different types of plastics and recycling. My understanding is that food waste was on the table when those systems were put in place, and then it got cut at the last minute.

I believe that if we had a similar model for food waste, those actors that are turning perfectly good food into waste by either overordering or not managing their inventory properly would have to pay a cost to see through the proper diversion or redistribution or upcycling of that now wasted food.

That would help pay for the diversion or the recovery or the redistribution of that food so it could still be eaten, or it could still be used for animal feed. Worst case scenario, it’s being composted or landfilled. But the actors that are playing a big role in creating that food waste are helping to pay for the systems that then have to redistribute it or dispose of it.

[10:00 a.m.]

Currently, they’re passing the costs fully of that work of recovering and redistributing food to charities and non-profits.

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

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

At this point, the committee will take a recess.

The committee recessed from 10 a.m. to 10:26 a.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. We are back, and I will call the committee back to order.

We will start with our next presenter. We have Kaeli Rose Sort from Former Youth in Care Community of Practice joining us.

Thank you for coming. You have five minutes for a presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Former Youth in Care
Community of Practice

Kaeli Rose Sort: Thank you for this opportunity. I’m calling in from the unceded territories of the Coast Salish, q̓ic̓əy̓, qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓, SEMYOME, Tsawwassen, qiqéyt, səlilwətaɬ and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm First Nations.

My name is Kaeli Rose Sort. I was in foster care. I moved out on my own at 15 and graduated high school at 19. I’ve benefited from equitable policies such as youth agreements, agreements with young adults and the provincial tuition waiver, which covered the final year of my undergrad.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in child and youth care and two master’s degrees in leadership and business. I serve as the plaintiff representative in a major class action, representing individuals who experienced harm as victims of crime while in foster care between 1972 and 2019. I’ve worked in child welfare social work, provincial government policy and participatory action research.

Sixteen months ago, I founded the Former Youth in Care Community of Practice. Our mission is to foster collaboration, amplify the lived experiences of those impacted by the foster system and champion systemic and social change.

What began as a personal and professional journey revealed broader systemic patterns. Youth with disabilities make up at least 41 percent of those in care. Indigenous children are 17 times more likely to come into care and make up 53 percent of all children in care across Canada, yet Indigenous people only represent about 8 percent of the Canadian population. In B.C., nearly 68 percent of kids in care are Indigenous.

For former youth in care, the government was their parent. Yet unlike their peers, they often age out without the intergenerational support systems most rely on, leaving them disproportionately exposed to risk. Despite making up less than 0.3 percent of people in Canada, former youth in care account for 65 percent of Indigenous people in federal prisons, 65 percent of unhoused Canadians and 50 percent of sexually exploited youth.

We are five times more likely to die before we are 30. Some experts contend that foster care itself contributes to poor outcomes, while others argue that foster kids already face heightened vulnerabilities compared to our peers.

These issues reflect intergenerational and institutional harms that persist beyond care. Our collective responsibility is to disrupt these cycles and build systems that uphold dignity, equity, care and opportunity for all.

Public narratives suggest progress, yet young people are telling a different story. While the province has announced expanded support for youth in care up to age 27 in SAJE legislation, IndigiNews reports that no rent supplements have been distributed since February 2024, and the next intake period has not been scheduled. This demonstrates a gap between legislative intent and on-the-ground delivery.

The estimated cost of unaddressed trauma in Canada is $29 billion. There is a persistent pattern of chronic underfunding for proven solutions. We can’t keep passing the buck and then wonder why people want to buck the system. We need investment to create real change. Therefore, we offer three recommendations.

First, fund existing commitments fully. Progressive policies cannot drive change without the financial resources to bring them to life. Ensure programs like SAJE are resourced to match public promises, including rental supplements, mental health support, education and employment pathways.

[10:30 a.m.]

Without implementing funding, we miss a key opportunity to strengthen GDP through improved education, employment and health outcomes.

Second, embed equity in budget allocations. Introduce a targeted equity lens in all budget decisions affecting people with care experience. Allocate dedicated funding streams for support services and research designed with Indigenous communities, people with disabilities and lived experts. This ensures that those most impacted by systemic failure are not left behind.

Lastly, shift from crisis spending to upstream investment. Early investment reduces downstream costs. Research shows that every dollar invested in youth mentoring generates a $23 return on investment. We must reframe budget priorities to emphasize health promotion, stability and long-term outcomes. The UN convention on the rights of the child affirms every child’s right to protection, participation and provision, yet children in foster care often face systemic gaps that violate these rights.

Failure to allocate adequate funding is an at-risk investment that leads to escalating costs. Ignoring known solutions comes with a high opportunity cost. We forgo long-term outcomes in education, employment and community well-being, instead reacting to preventable costly crises. Strategic funding is essential for cost avoidance and to prevent deferred liabilities from policy failures like ones that I have experienced and that will string future budgets.

To close, I emphasize this: we are worth the investment of dollars and good sense. Investing in people in and from care builds stronger communities, which leads to better economic productivity and reduces long-term burdens on GDP-related expenditures like health care and criminal justice. It’s inappropriate to say we can’t afford to do this, because we know very well that we cannot afford not to. Thank you.

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

Claire Rattée: Thank you for your presentation. I just want to make sure if I heard you correctly. Did you say that none of the rent supplements under the SAJE program have been distributed since 2024?

Kaeli Rose Sort: That was the information that was provided to us by IndigiNews.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Sorry. To clarify, no new rental supplements have been sent out since 2024. The people who previously applied and were approved were receiving rental supplements, but no new rental supplements were released. Is that what you’re…?

Kaeli Rose Sort: That’s my understanding. The government website says that there are two intakes per year. However, according to IndigiNews, they have not released any new supplements from February 2024 and did not open up any further intake.

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

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

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have a Signy Madden from United Way British Columbia joining us.

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

United Way B.C.

Signy Madden: Thank you. My name is Signy Madden, and I am the director of government relations at United Way B.C. United Way B.C. is a province-wide charity that addresses critical social issues by delivering resources and support to people who need it most. Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee this morning about urgent needs around food insecurity, BC211 and emergency response.

British Columbia is facing an escalating food insecurity crisis. Visits to B.C. food banks and United Way community food hubs and agencies have almost doubled in recent years. Last year, United Way B.C. food programs provided 4.6 million meals and hampers to over 314,000 individuals and families.

However, donations to charities such as United Way B.C. continue to drop as cost of living and economic insecurity hit B.C. citizens. B.C.’s hunger relief organizations are buckling under the weight of this mounting crisis. This government is committed to protecting the services people rely on. Food insecurity programs should be seen from this lens.

[10:35 a.m.]

To address the crisis, the sector, including Food Banks B.C., is requesting the province to renew and provide long-term, stable funding to the agency relief fund, the school food infrastructure grants and the 30 existing and planned and additional United Way community food hubs.

Around BC211, United Way B.C.’s 211 is an essential social infrastructure that helps people in B.C. navigate slow-burning social crises such as health, housing and safety.

However, chronic underfunding is putting these services at risk just as more British Columbians are turning to 211 for help. 211 is a national United Way service. Here in B.C., it’s delivered by United Way B.C.

So 211 complements 911 and 811, not by duplicating but by intervening earlier, cheaper and more effectively. Last year, 211 answered 51,000 calls and made 131,000 referrals. Almost 300,000 new users accessed the website to do their own searches.

And 211 provides human-first support, not automated referrals, helping people navigate complex systems and access local services. 211 is available in 240 languages and dialects, and it’s scalable. We are already piloting closed-loop referrals, the gold standard for public navigation systems.

So 211 is the backbone supporting provincial helpline services such as VictimLink and the new racist incident helpline. It’s essential during floods, fires, cold weather and heat dome events.

Provincial funding for 211 has not increased in five years and doesn’t come close to the amount other provinces invest in their 211 services. United Way’s donors can’t continue plugging funding gaps for 211 alone. Provincial funding for 211 is now just under $900,000. We recommend that the government increase its investment in 211 with $1.2 million.

The last recommendation is around emergency response. Over five-plus years, United Way B.C. has supported communities before, during and after climate disasters in B.C. and, most recently, through Lapu-Lapu Day. Our donors have stepped up and given over $7 million for immediate assistance and for long-term recovery in communities. Last year we helped 31 communities, including 19 First Nations, working alongside provincial, municipal and other relief agencies to coordinate emergency response and recovery.

Post-disaster, United Way B.C. works with our extensive networks of agencies, donors and volunteers to help the communities recover. This can take up to five years.

Our emergency response work is not duplicating what other agencies provide. We identify gaps, real-time, as soon as a disaster hits, and we activate the local non-profit sector response and work with First Nations in alliance with provincial emergency response protocols.

United Way B.C.’s request is $600,000 to support this work over two years, to support the community-based team and to provide a reserve fund that we would draw down before the United Way donation campaign is launched.

I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you to the committee. I appreciate your time, and I’m happy to take questions.

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

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation, and thank you for the work that United Way does.

I’m assuming that the shortage in funding is behind the recent reduction in rural offices. I believe it’s Prince Rupert, Powell River and Trail. I assume that it’s because of the lack of funding. We had some great things going on, food security and so on. Now our closest office is four hours away, and it’s because of funding.

Signy Madden: Yes, that’s definitely the issue. We’ve seen, across the sector, funding donations drop. United Way has a strong brand. We have dedicated corporate sponsors, donors, but we’re seeing the donations dropping, and that’s an unfortunate part of the work.

Steve Morissette: If I could just follow up. So you’re pulling in and servicing more urban areas?

[10:40 a.m.]

Signy Madden: No, we amalgamated nine United Ways into one so that we could be more efficient and effective in our back-of-house and administrative costs.

That’s been effective and certainly has given us the data and the understanding from one community to the other.

Our challenge, again, on the donation side is…. It’s our provincial programs and our strong partnership with the government that allow us to serve rural and remote areas, just because of the population and the donor issues.

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Angela Marie MacDougall from Battered Women’s Support Services.

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

Battered Women’s Support Services

Angela Marie MacDougall: Wonderful. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. As mentioned, my name is Angela Marie MacDougall, and I’m the executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services in Metro Vancouver.

For 40 years, Battered Women’s Support Services has been on the front lines of supporting women, girls and gender-diverse people who are experiencing violence. I’m here today to talk about public safety, prevention and how the provincial budget must meet this moment.

We are living, of course, as we all know, through the convergence of crises. That includes economic instability, militarism, resource extraction and climate disruption. But these are not abstract or distant. They are directly shaping the conditions that drive gender-based violence right here in British Columbia right now.

The cost of living, of course we know, has become a public safety issue. When victims and survivors cannot afford rent or legal help or child care, they’re forced to stay in or return to unsafe situations. Job loss, inflation and housing scarcity are escalating all of the stress that individuals are feeling and fuelling violence in homes. Victims and survivors are paying that price.

We are seeing the effects of the impacts of militarization and online radicalization. The manosphere is a web of misogynist influencers, forums and content that is training boys and men to control with a sense of entitlement and intimate partner sexualized violence. It’s being delivered directly into their pockets every single day.

As grim as this is, I have to tell you that strangulation, a key predictor of femicide, has become normalized every day in our casework, where we’re supporting over 100 survivors daily in person, and we serve 30 to 50 crisis calls daily. We provide legal advocacy, second-stage housing, employment support and trauma- and violence-informed counselling. But the demand far exceeds the capacity, because these are not isolated cases. They are, rather, systemic failures.

Resource extraction projects continue to bring gendered harm to communities all across the province, with temporary work camps and boom town economies, which all correlate with increased rates of violence, sexual violence, trafficking and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. With climate disasters, too, that are driving displacement and intensifying the caregiving burdens, especially for Indigenous and rural women, who are left without shelter, without safety, without recourse….

We cannot treat gender-based violence as separate from these crises, and there’s no economic recovery or climate resilience and no real public safety if we leave victims and survivors behind.

This is why we are proposing a bold, practical solution and calling on this committee, with respect and appreciation for your work, and recommending an annual investment of $165 million — expanding funding to $165 million — to fund comprehensive and provincewide gender-based violence prevention. This would fully implement and accelerate B.C.’s Safe and Supported Action Plan and centre survivors in budget decisions that we need to see right now.

My recommendation is $15 million for increased public education to shift harmful attitudes, to address and redress online radicalization and to promote healthy masculinities and gender equity from schools to work sites.

[10:45 a.m.]

We would like to see a $30 million increase to fund legal aid and a trauma- and violence-informed system navigation within the legal system.

We’d like to see $75 million, please, that would be towards safe and supported housing— in particular, second-stage and longer-term housing for women and girls and gender-diverse people — combined with economic and equity employment that would see $20 million to expand the transitional income and job programs through WorkBC that would help, specifically, women and victims and survivors to build stability and reduce economic entrapment.

Finally, we are very much hoping to see the full funding of $10-a-day child care, which is vitally important, because, as we know, gender-based violence costs the Canadian economy over $7.4 billion annually. We’re going to have some updated numbers very soon from the feds. So every dollar invested in prevention returns multiple and saved costs across policing, emergency health care, legal aid and child protection as well as homelessness.

Committee, with all due respect, this isn’t about dollars. It is about lives. We have to break the public-private divide that says violence in homes is not a public safety issue. Survivors are being harmed by partners, by courts, by the lack of housing and by systems that don’t believe or protect them. This is front-line public safety. This budget request would go a long way to redressing harm and building a future free of violence.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello, Angela. Nice to see you again. Thank you for coming to present and for advocating.

I am looking through…. You have two requests — did I get that correct?

Angela Marie MacDougall: There are five.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Oh, there are five. Well, maybe I lumped them into like broad…. So then maybe I didn’t understand fully. You asked for $165 million to fully implement Safe and Supported. Then, underneath that, I understood that you were breaking down the request into like $50 million, $35 million. But those were separate, additional…?

Angela Marie MacDougall: No, they are the breakdown of the $165 million. But it’s to expand Safe and Supported, because we know that Safe and Supported…. The funding is not sufficient. It’s a minor intervention that’s happening, with all due respect, and it needs to be expanded considerably.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, so then I just got $165 million to fund Safe and Supported and then also $10-a-day daycare full implementation. What did I…? We went fast.

Angela Marie MacDougall: Right, so the $165 million is to fund a comprehensive, provincewide, gender-based violence prevention plan. So that could be part of Safe and Supported, but it’s actually…. Safe and Supported prevention is not quite there. So this is an expansion of Safe and Supported, but in prevention.

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

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time to present to us today.

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Kevin McCort from Vancouver Foundation.

Thank you so much for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You may begin whenever you’re ready, just making sure you are unmuted.

Vancouver Foundation

Kevin McCort: Good morning, and thanks for taking time to listen to my submission. As mentioned, I’m the president and CEO of Vancouver Foundation, and I’m joining you today from the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ peoples.

You may know, but in case you are unaware, Vancouver Foundation is B.C.’s largest non-government funder of charities. With over $1.5 billion in permanently invested funds contributed by British Columbians since 1943, we support thousands of local organizations working at the front lines of our province’s biggest social challenges. That included $160 million in funding in 2024, and we’re expecting at least $100 million in 2025 to be delivered to charities across the province.

Today I want to deliver a simple message: the charitable and non-profit sector is essential, especially in times of economic uncertainty, and it must not be taken for granted.

[10:50 a.m.]

The sector is facing a trilemma — three things really impacting the ability of the sector. We see one in four Canadians now facing food insecurity, and 20 percent are relying on non-profits for essential needs — many for the first time. Yet the organizations serving them are facing three significant demands.

The first is that the overwhelming demand is outpacing their capacity. The second is unstable funding that is short-term and shrinking. The third is workforce strain with burnout, recruitment challenges and competition from other sectors, creating an unsustainable environment.

If we need to ensure services reach those most in need, we need to support the organizations delivering these services. So my first recommendation is that we strengthen and stabilize the sector through multi-year funding agreements that embed inflationary increases and that there’s an increase in the 10 percent cap on administrative costs in these contracts.

Stable, predictable funding lets organizations plan and retain staff, respond to growing needs, and allows them to invest in necessary investments such as IT, training, compliance and ensuring culturally safe delivery services. Right now too many non-profits are locked in short cycles of underfunded work. They’re chasing grants instead of serving their communities. These changes would provide the necessary stability they need to succeed.

My second recommendation is that the province renew the $25 million community prosperity fund, which we delivered in partnership with the province in 2023. This was a $25 million fund delivered through more than 50 local community foundations across the province, and the decentralized model was key to its success. Over 450 non-profits received support, from the Bulkley Valley to Vancouver Island to throughout the province.

The community prosperity fund showed that community-led decision-making delivers equitable, impactful and community-centred grants. So we would love to see, in Budget ‘26, a renewal of this program with a further $25 million. It is a proven, efficient way to reach vulnerable communities, boost local economies and build resilience.

My third recommendation lies in modernizing the Unclaimed Property Act, which is provincial legislation. It is aimed at unlocking dormant financial assets that benefit both individuals and communities.

The legislation was created in 2003. The B.C. Unclaimed Property Society, administered through Vancouver Foundation, has since that time reunited $27 million with its rightful owners and directed $70 million, soon to be $80 million, to community investments. But B.C.’s model, this Unclaimed Property Act legislation, is based primarily on voluntary participation, unlike in other jurisdictions across North America, where it is not voluntary to participate.

We’re calling for a modernization of the act that would introduce mandatory reporting of unclaimed property by all holders, establish penalties for non-compliance, shorten dormancy periods to improve owner recovery, expand the scope of what qualifies as unclaimed property and update cybersecurity standards, recognizing the outdated nature of existing paper-era regulations. This can make B.C. Unclaimed the one-stop shop for dormant assets, and government can enhance consumer protection, support struggling citizens and generate more community benefit, all at no cost to taxpayers.

In conclusion, I would like to highlight the fact that our sector employs over 87,000 British Columbians, serves one in five residents directly and provides essential support during economic crisis. And yet too often many of us feel we’re treated as an afterthought.

In Budget ‘26, you can show that this government values the non-profit sector as a full partner, not just in social policy but in building a resilient and equitable economy. So we would love to see support that is based on stable, flexible funding, renewed community investments and smart legislation that unlocks resources. We will continue to show up for British Columbians, and these changes will enable us to be even more effective.

Thank you, and I welcome your questions.

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

We will now move to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation and for the work that the Vancouver Foundation does in fighting all kinds of social challenges throughout the province.

I will say you are the first person who has brought up the Unclaimed Property Act. This is not a mechanism that I’m familiar with. I understand the Unclaimed Property Act. I understand that unclaimed property is processed through a non-profit.

So what you’re advocating for is that…. When you said that participation is voluntary, what you meant is that participation is voluntary on behalf of organizations that could possibly hold unclaimed property.

[10:55 a.m.]

Kevin McCort: Yes, correct. The legislation divides unclaimed property holders into two categories: those who are obligated by law, mandatory remitters — they must remit to the Unclaimed Property Society — and those that are voluntary, that are encouraged to do so but not obligated by law to do so. They have other obligations where they must make efforts to find the owner, but they can do that on their own.

So as an example, the courts are mandatory remitters, and they are significant contributors to the Unclaimed Property Society, whereas ICBC or Fortis are not mandatory remitters, so they maintain services on their own. So you can go to their website and look for unclaimed property. But it means that British Columbians have to go to two, three, four, five different places, whereas if they were all mandatory to B.C. Unclaimed, there’s a single one-stop shop.

And there are many other mandatory remitters that actually don’t submit, and there are many voluntary ones who don’t as well.

The legislation has generated significant resources. So I’ll add a little specific piece here. The society’s obligation is to find the owner of the property, and then it must retain a reserve against future claims. But like any insurance fund, there’s an amount that has been deemed unclaimed by the owner. A portion of that is given to Vancouver Foundation, which we then use in our charitable programs. So the money either goes to the owner of the funds, sits in a reserve fund against future claims or is donated to charities across the province.

We feel if that legislation was strengthened, the returns to owners would increase, as well as the portion that is used for charitable purposes.

Jennifer Blatherwick: If the property is not claimed, if it’s just sitting there, either it benefits the organization because they accumulate interest upon it, or it just sits and does nothing?

Kevin McCort: Correct. So brokerage accounts, insurance policies that may not be claimed…. The fees would continue to be recovered by the organization holding it. They would earn fees on that money, but it’s not being…. The efforts are….

The B.C. Unclaimed, as a legislatively created entity, has permissions to access other databases, such as the addresses contained by ICBC. So they can find owners, whereas many property owners don’t have access to the same amount of information to find the owners as B.C. Unclaimed, because it is a legislated entity. So it has a much higher success rate than others who don’t have access to that information.

Jennifer Blatherwick: There you go. Thank you for that clarification.

Steve Morissette: Just on that $25 million community fund. It was last given in 2023? Could you just explain, please?

Kevin McCort: Yes. Post-COVID, the province made several grants to Vancouver Foundation so that we could then use those funds to support communities in their post-COVID recovery. And $25 million of that was identified as the community prosperity fund, and it was designed to be delivered by community foundations across the province.

So rather than Vancouver Foundation run a provincial program, the money was allocated to community foundations across the province, and they ran grant programs in their own communities.

One of the features of community foundations is that when they invite members of their community to submit applications, it’s also members of those communities that do the adjudication and vetting and recommendation of funding.

So it is a decentralized way to support community priorities. We were the central node, the one connection to the province, but the actual granting decisions and distributions were handled across British Columbia.

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Neil McEachern from Association of Fundraising Professionals, greater Vancouver chapter.

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

Association of
Fundraising Professionals,
Greater Vancouver Chapter

Neil McEachern: Good morning, members of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

My name is Neil McEachern, and today I’m representing the Association of Fundraising Professionals, AFP, greater Vancouver chapter, in my voluntary capacity as its vice-president of government relations. AFP is a membership organization that aims to empower members in the non-profit sector to practise ethical fundraising through professional education, networking, research and advocacy.

[11:00 a.m.]

In my day job, I serve as the director of fundraising and donor relations at the Vancouver Police Foundation, where we aim to make Vancouver safer for all. We accomplish this by supporting public safety initiatives brought forward by VPD officers and civilian staff that fall outside the organization’s annual budget.

Today I’m coming to you with a recommendation not only on behalf of the 300 members of AFP of greater Vancouver but for the 370,000 fellow British Columbians who work in 31,000 organizations across British Columbia’s non-profit sector that annually contribute $30.7 billion to our province’s GDP.

Whether we work to provide nutritious food for families’ dinner tables or timely autism assessments for children in remote communities or a warm welcome to newcomers, we are ultimately all British Columbians committed to making our communities and, therefore, our province stronger.

However, we can’t do this work alone, and we still rely on support from individuals, foundations, corporations and, perhaps most importantly, government. As you can imagine, our sector, like many, is facing incredible challenges, but perhaps unlike others, we’re also seeing increased demand for our services while facing a sharp downturn in giving.

While British Columbians often take pride in ranking among the top provinces across Canada, our record on charitable giving tells a different story. According to the latest Statistics Canada data, we have experienced nearly a 12 percent decline, placing us second only to Newfoundland for the steepest drop in generosity.

One area where support has remained consistent is government funding, and it’s why our recommendation today is a $30 million contribution to the community prosperity fund. This is an existing funding mechanism established by the province as we exited the COVID-19 pandemic to provide our sector with the unrestricted funding that we so desperately need.

As a refresher, it provides non-profits supporting their local communities with an equitable opportunity to access multi-year unrestricted funding through community foundations located across the province. Unrestricted funding provides non-profits on the ground with the ability to best decide how to benefit their communities. Last year’s budget marked the first time in three years that our sector saw no new funding.

As a reminder, our sector plays a vital role in addressing pressing issues ranging from supporting vulnerable people to advancing public health, skills training and housing. If these issues seem familiar, it’s because they mirror the priorities raised earlier this year at the opening of the 43rd parliament of our province.

Our sector is already seeing the impacts of economic uncertainty with reduced services and programming. Without renewed support, we may see many non-profits close and British Columbians lose access to vital community services. It’s why we strongly recommend that the province invest in our sector, which is dedicated to making solutions right here in British Columbia for our fellow British Columbians.

I’m ready for questions if there are any.

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

We will go to questions by members. We do have a question.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I appreciate your advocacy on this, and we certainly heard from a lot of non-profits that they’re struggling with the increased unavoidable costs. But could you expand a little bit more about what your budget ask is?

Neil McEachern: The budget ask is a $30 million contribution to the B.C. community prosperity fund. This was a fund that was created by government in 2023, I believe, or 2024 — no, 2023 — and it represents a 20 percent increase from the $25 million initial contribution that government provided to this fund.

It’s really very disappointing for our sector that there was no funding last year. I mean, it was an interesting year, as you’re all aware, with the trade dispute with the United States and kind of an urgent need for a budget, so there was no consultation at the time.

This is an opportunity, like I said, to really invest in British Columbians that are coming to the aid of their communities. Without it, we’re going to continue to see charities reduce services, close shop and really see British Columbians suffer.

It’s a $30 million contribution to a fund that I believe is primarily administered by the Vancouver Foundation and other regional community foundations in the province, so the framework already exists.

[11:05 a.m.]

Steve Morissette: Yeah, I think that’s a good fund that can be distributed by people that know the needs in the areas.

Where can we get the information on what that fund was used for when it was available?

Neil McEachern: The Vancouver Foundation, I know for a fact, does have a report of the successful applicants, and I believe the other community foundations would have also done a report back that would have been most likely on their websites.

I believe Prince George Community Foundation also administered the funding in the northern or middle part of British Columbia, and there may have also been one in the Kamloops kind of Interior area administrating funds on behalf of the province as well.

Steve Morissette: So just to follow up, to your knowledge, there were just those other two organizations in the Interior, or are there multiple?

Neil McEachern: I believe there would be multiple. I’m not exactly familiar with the overarching administration. Again, I represent the greater Vancouver chapter, so I would be more familiar with the Vancouver Foundation and the work that they did in the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, I understand. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

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

Moving on to our next presenter. We have Rob Newman from Sport B.C.

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.

Sport B.C.

Rob Newman: Thank you.

I respectfully acknowledge that while the work of Sport B.C. and our members takes place throughout the entire province, the office of Sport B.C. is on the unceded traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and səlilwətaɬ Nations.

My name is Rob Newman. I’m the president and CEO of Sport B.C., and I’m a proud Indigenous sport leader. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan where I learned the value and importance of sport and volunteering.

Thank you for this opportunity to present about the needs of the B.C. amateur sports sector. I’m here representing the membership of Sport B.C., which effectively is the amateur sports sector of British Columbia.

Some background and information about Sport B.C. For 58 years, Sport B.C. has been a non-profit federation representing 78 organizations, comprising 59 provincial sport organizations and 19 multisport and disability sport organizations. These member organizations support local clubs and close to 815,000 British Columbians who participate in community sport regularly.

A key priority of our organization is advocating on behalf of our members to improve and sustain the landscape for organized amateur sport in British Columbia. As a sport federation in British Columbia that knows and values the power of sport for all, we are communicating the real challenges facing our sector.

We are here with the same requests as in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The amateur sports sector has a collective ask of an increase for additional base or core investment from the province of B.C. of $15 million over three years, or $5 million a year.

Core funding for our sector has not increased since 2010. The sector faces and has endured significant increases in operational costs along with additional responsibilities, resulting in capacity challenges and stress on our organizations. Without this increase, it is not possible for the sector to deliver important initiatives that improve the affordability of sport; inclusion, diversity and accessibility; reconciliation; volunteer and staff capacity; and sport safety.

This is a time when B.C.’s population continues to grow steadily, particularly for population groups that often need additional support, including Indigenous Peoples, new Canadians and school-aged children.

[11:10 a.m.]

This means it’s a challenge for sport funding to serve the growing sport population. With the current economic challenges we are all facing, the sector is struggling to keep up with increasing costs for events, facilities, transportation and staffing.

A recent Sport B.C.–commissioned survey underscores the challenges sport leaders face attracting, retaining and developing talent while navigating financial constraints and increasing demands for diversity, inclusion and safe sport practices. To share just a few….

Safe sport capacity. While 93 percent of organizations prioritize safe sport, nearly half, 46.9 percent, lack the staff or funding to implement policies effectively.

Turnover challenges. About 80 percent of organizations are experiencing employee turnover, with 25 percent facing turnover in the top leadership roles, creating disruption and additional costs.

Diversity and inclusion. Although 56.5 percent of organizations have an EDIA strategy, only 17 percent have conducted audits, and representation of equity-deserving groups remains limited due to limited funds.

Members are under-resourced: 80 percent of organizations reported lack of sufficient funds to carry out their mandates, citing challenges with increasing costs, excess facilities, staff turnover and reduced volunteers.

And of course, budget constraints — 36 percent of organizations responsible for governing and implementing sport in B.C. operate with annual budgets below $500,000, despite servicing more participants and programs than ever, with additional responsibilities.

Investment in sport yields significant social and economic benefits, including improved physical and mental health. With respect, this collective ask of an increase in core funding of $15 million over three years is critical to the ability of our sector to deliver sport.

Thank you to the steering committee for taking the time to hear our case for renewed investment. We certainly appreciate that the past three years’ recommendations, unanimous, were received and trust you will understand the importance of this request to ensure British Columbians in all communities can thrive through sport. We hope to receive your recommendation again this year and to have the recommendation make it to the 2026 budget.

We know that sport builds communities, friendships, leaders and healthy and resilient citizens. It provides an opportunity for real connection and can help participants support their physical and mental health.

Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Moving to questions by members. Any questions?

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

Rob Newman: Okay. Thank you very much, and we’re very hopeful that we’ll get a positive recommendation again this year.

Paul Choi (Chair): We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Angela Crowther from KidSport B.C.

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

KidSport B.C.

Angela Crowther: Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. My name is Angela Crowther. I’m the director of the KidSport program here in B.C.

I’m here today in support of the amateur sports sector’s ask for increased core funding that you’ve just learned about from Sport B.C.’s president and CEO, Rob Newman. On June 5, you also heard from my colleague Katelynn Ramage, who shared the why behind the KidSport program, the statistics about the financial challenges many families are facing and the impact of those growing inequities. She also shared her personal experience with being a KidSport grant recipient and the positive impact that has had on her life.

Today I’d like to add to her presentation by sharing the how behind the KidSport program and the challenges that have resulted from the significant growth we’ve seen over the past two years.

You may recall from Katelynn’s presentation that we supported 10,695 kids from 230 B.C. communities and distributed more than $3.6 million to help cover the cost of sport registration fees in 2024. This was an incredible $1 million increase over the total in 2023 and more than double the total from 2022.

[11:15 a.m.]

This exceptional rate of growth has put a significant strain on our financial resources, especially when you consider that much of this work — the applications review, funds distribution and fundraising — is being driven largely by volunteers at local KidSport chapters across the province. While we’re grateful for their contributions and acknowledge that these volunteers are a big reason why the KidSport program has been so successful, we recognize a need for change.

Many of the chapters were first established in the early 2000s. At the time, it was a cost-effective way to extend the program into local communities and a way for local businesses and individuals to support local kids.

Now, 25 years later, the non-profit sector is very different. Businesses are much savvier about their philanthropic efforts and more concerned about their return on investment. Donors expect greater transparency and accountability from the causes they choose to support, demands which many of our volunteers don’t necessarily have the knowledge or skills to meet.

At the same time, the rising cost of living and the need to balance work, family and other responsibilities has led to a decrease in the number of volunteers that are able to dedicate the hours required under the KidSport model.

For those that have stuck with us, the needs are quickly growing beyond what is reasonable for volunteers to keep up with. For example, the KidSport chapter in Surrey–White Rock has seen their total grants increase from 516 grants in 2022 to more than 1,200 grants totalling nearly $475,000 in 2024. Half a million dollars is a lot to expect volunteers to raise.

We’ve taken steps to begin centralizing grant administration to the provincial office to better support volunteers who are feeling burned out by the increased demands being placed on them.

But now we’re also having to solve for a funding crisis that has been brought on by the accelerated increase in need from families who are struggling with affordability. We’ve taken steps to try to make funds stretch further. Reluctantly, we have reduced the grant amount available per child per year in many communities and are more strictly adhering to our eligibility criteria.

But the reality is that we need more funding. We can’t afford to be leaving kids on the sidelines because we don’t have the funds to support them or because our grant amount isn’t enough to bridge the gap for them. It’s not just about a kid missing out on a season of soccer or volleyball. It’s about perpetuating the inequities that exist as a result of the income disparity, limiting the potential of these children, who are already facing significant obstacles.

We’re grateful that since 2012, KidSport B.C. has received $400,000 in annual funding from the province and last year received an additional $100,000 in recognition of the significant need and impact of our program. That annual contribution in 2012 represented 37 percent of our total distribution. Last year, even when we account for the additional investment, it represented just 13 percent of total grants.

Today I am respectfully asking for an increase of $600,000 in the province’s annual contribution, for a total of $1 million annually for KidSport. This not only is more proportionate to the impact we’re having on priorities this government has set related to affordability, but it also brings us more in line with support that is being provided by other provinces for KidSport programs across Canada.

Our neighbours in Alberta have received $3 million each year for the past two years through the province’s Every Kid Can Play program. Nova Scotia, a province with one-fifth of the population of B.C., receives $405,000 annually from their government, in addition to a one-time $4.5 million investment in 2023.

An investment in KidSport is an investment in the amateur sports sector. It’s a way to make amateur sport accessible for more British Columbians. We know participation in sport is good for our physical and mental health, and we see how it strengthens our communities and brings people together. I hope you agree that sport is worth the investment today and for our collective future. Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): We will go to questions by members. Any questions?

Seeing no questions, thank you so much for your presentation today.

We will move on to our next presenter. We have Scott Braley from Curl B.C.

Thank you for joining us. You have five minutes for a presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you are ready.

Curl B.C.

Scott Braley: Thank you to the select standing committee for inviting me to speak to you today about the urgent need to increase funding to the amateur sports system in B.C.

I’m pleased to be speaking to you from the ancestral and unceded territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓- and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-speaking peoples.

[11:20 a.m.]

As you’ve probably heard from the previous presenters, the core grant funding for amateur sport has been flatlined provincially since 2010 and federally since 2005.

This lack of additional investment over so many years has resulted in an unnecessary strain on a system that facilitates 20 percent of the volunteer workforce in B.C. The effect of continually increasing membership fees to compensate for this flat funding has reached a tipping point in which participation in sport is becoming unaffordable for more and more British Columbians. The astronomical health and social cost to government caused by inactivity among individuals no longer participating in sport could be mitigated against by the benefits of having these people involved in a healthy and sustainable sport system.

Curl B.C. strongly supports Sport B.C.’s recommendation to increase base funding to B.C.’s amateur sports system by $15 million over the next three years. This additional investment will more than pay for itself through cost savings to multiple ministries.

In addition, we recommend that the provincial government, in collaboration with the federal government, re-establish an ongoing recreational infrastructure program to rebuild community sport facilities that are already well beyond their life expectancy.

At these moments, I like to bring out a quote I keep on my desk from Nelson Mandela. He wisely said: “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”

Let’s make sure that every British Columbian continues to take advantage of the many health and social benefits of having the opportunity to play sport in a system that is safe, fair and equitable. Increased funding for sport would be a game changer. Thanks very much.

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

Any questions by members? I don’t see any questions.

Thank you so much for your presentation today.

The committee will take a recess at this point.

The committee recessed from 11:23 a.m. to 11:27 a.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. We will call the committee back to order and have our next presenter join us. We have Kyle Empiringham from Starfish Canada joining us.

Thank you for coming early to present to us as well. You have five minutes for a presentation and five minutes for questions after that. You can begin when you’re ready.

Starfish Canada

Kyle Empiringham: Lovely. Thank you, everyone, for your time and energy to listen to folks across British Columbia on the budget. My name is Kyle Empiringham. I’m a representative of the Starfish Canada. We are a national youth climate charity that’s based in Victoria, British Columbia. We help young people attain the education, resources and tools to contribute meaningfully to a climate resilient future, again, both here in British Columbia and across the country.

There’s a lot of research, including some from Re.Climate, that suggests that the supermajority of Canadians truly want action on climate change — that planning and targets are important, but we do need to see meaningful action in this space.

I definitely want to applaud the B.C. government for making strides in this regard. I do want to also note that through the review and analysis of the mandate letters that were presented to this most recent government, there’s a lot of removal of climate language compared to the 2021 letters.

But what we do know, more importantly, is that youth need space to convene, to connect and to engage with each other on these climate matters. We are the Starfish Canada, and we host 75 national youth climate leaders at the Cheakamus Centre in Squamish, B.C., every year. Through that, youth honestly tell us that they feel alone, they feel isolated, and they feel disconnected — that is, until they come to our summit and they see how there is a community-centric approach to climate action that is truly possible.

I think we sometimes see climate action as simply reducing greenhouse gas emissions. While that’s certainly one part of the puzzle, to build a just and equitable solution, community certainly needs to be involved. Youth need to be involved.

[11:30 a.m.]

The British Columbia government has a crucial role to play in ensuring that young people’s voices are heard and accounted for in how decisions are made. When you involve community-oriented actions as a part of your climate strategy, you truly feel alive.

Building community is a commonly known way to build mental health among youth. When young people feel engaged with their peers and they feel like they’re working towards a common cause, incredible things can happen.

When you think about youth in climate engagement as a meaningful way to understand priorities of a certain population, please do not forget that building an approach rooted in community engagement can genuinely meet public health priorities. What we found through our work is that it genuinely changes lives.

Today, while I could present to you three total recommendations, I want to focus on just one. My one recommendation is to continue to prioritize youth engagement as a component of your budgets, especially within the climate space.

The climate action secretariat is well on its way to doing so, and allocating increased funds to this important work means that you will be able to maintain an important component of climate action and community resilience. For us, it’s an imperative obligation that we continue to do this work in a way that roots us within the youth climate movement.

Thank you so much for the time. I’m open to questions.

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

We’ll move to questions by members. Any questions by members?

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

The committee will take a recess. Thank you very much.

The committee recessed from 11:31 a.m. to 1:02 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Welcome back. We will call the committee back to order and move on with our next presenter.

We have Kristen Walters from Raincoast Conservation Foundation joining us. Thank you for coming. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Raincoast Conservation Foundation

Kristen Walters: Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak today.

I’m Kristen Walters. I’m a biologist with Raincoast Conservation Foundation. Raincoast is an independent science organization based on the coast, and we use peer-reviewed literature to advance species recovery of endangered and at-risk species, as well as their habitat.

Today, for this meeting, I really wanted to start with a conservation win that is directly a result of the province’s investment into the watershed security fund in 2023, which was $100 million that provided funds for watershed-based projects. Then I’ll move on for my two asks.

First, this conservation win was in partnership with Scw’exmx Tribal Council, which is a tribal council representing five different Indian bands in Merritt, based in and around Merritt, B.C., in the Interior. We secured funds from the watershed security fund to do monitoring projects on the Coldwater River, to determine the flow that was available for salmon as well as areas of thermal refugia habitat — cold water that upwells from the ground and provides salmon really important thermal refugia habitat during the summer.

I think most importantly, out of this work that came from the watershed security fund, is we were able to hire four Indigenous youth, who were just finishing high school, and pay them to be field technicians and really introduce them into the world of Western science.

This is a multi-year project. It’s been supported by the province. We really just wanted to kind of celebrate that win before we move into this next idea. It’s really thinking about: how can we continue to support work like this?

[1:05 p.m.]

We know that the budget, the provincial budget…. There’s a deficit. Funds are limited. Our colleagues…. We’ve really thought about how we can support in revenue generation. We would like to put forward a revenue-generating solution, which is updating the water rental rates. We suggest dedicating 10 percent of these water rental rates, or around $50 million a year, back into the watershed security fund to grow the watershed workforce.

I know this is an ask and a suggestion being put forward by the Watershed Security Coalition — and member organizations — of which Raincoast is a member. We wanted to echo that solution to revenue challenges as a win-win solution to be able to reinvest more money into the watershed security fund.

With increased revenue from water rental rates, again, reinvesting $50 million a year back into the watershed security fund would allow not only more job creation for Indigenous youth who we work with but really supporting the watershed workforce, which…. Healthy watersheds already support 47,000 jobs and contribute $5 billion to B.C.’s GDP. So it’s a really important workforce.

Secondly, with that increased revenue that comes from water rental fees, investing another $5 million to $10 million to support local watershed boards. We hear in our work on the ground with communities and Indigenous nations that people really want to have governance. Where there are challenges, they want to have government decision-making and governance happen at the local level.

We know the province can be thread-thin. So really providing more funds to empower local communities to manage water, especially under increasing drought and at-risk conditions for wildfire, we think, would also be a great solution. It would take some of the burden off of the province and limited capacity. And we’ve seen in areas like the Cowichan watershed and the Nicola watershed that local water governance really helps reduce conflict.

So those are our couple of asks. We know that revenue can come from updated water rental fees, and our asks are to reinvest that money into the watershed security fund and provide some funds for local watershed boards.

So with that, I can wrap up and just thank you for your time.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for coming to share with us about what you do and keeping watersheds safe, keeping water safe. I am just wanting to confirm that when you’re discussing having $50 million go back from the water rental rates, you’re talking about a $50 million that would result as of raised water rates.

Kristen Walters: Correct. Yes. If the water rental rates were raised, of the additional revenue that would be generated, $50 million could be reinvested.

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

Steve Morissette: Does your group have suggestions for water rates, for what to look at?

Kristen Walters: I would have to refer to the Watershed Security Coalition, which is really leading this work. I know they have put specific figures on what a water rental rate could look like.

I know B.C. has the lowest water rental rates across the country, around $2.25 for 100 million liters. I think importantly, B.C. has an opportunity to look to Quebec. They are in a similar situation, where they had low water rental rates. They increased that, and they were able to reinvest some of those funds into their Blue Fund, which is very similar to our watershed security fund.

So there’s a model in place in Canada where rental rates have been increased, but I could refer back to my colleagues at the Watershed Security Coalition for what a specific rental rate increase could look like.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much.

Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time in presenting to us today.

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Martin Littlejohn from Western Canada Mountain Bike Tourism Association joining us.

[1:10 p.m.]

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

Western Canada Mountain Bike
Tourism Association

Martin Littlejohn: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Martin Littlejohn. I’m the executive director with the Western Canada Mountain Bike Tourism Association. I’ve been with the organization for 20 years.

British Columbia is world-renowned for mountain biking. Riders from across the globe dream of coming here, not because of some carefully executed plan, but because a small group of passionate residents carved trails through our forest and built something magical.

What started as grassroots trail building in the ’90s has grown into a global phenomenon. B.C. is the birthplace of freeride mountain biking, an innovation that changed the sport forever and continues to attract visitors and admiration from around the globe. Today mountain biking is more than just a sport. It’s a cultural force. It’s a tourism driver and a catalyst for community development.

We recognize four core mountain bike tourism products that B.C. uniquely offers: community trail networks, including adaptive trails, are the backbone of our riding culture; lift-access bike parks, with 11 resorts operating this year, possibly the largest concentration found anywhere; independent adventure operators, offering everything from guided alpine rides to Indigenous-led mountain bike tours; events and festivals, which celebrate B.C.’s riding culture and community all over the province.

Together these offerings draw hundreds of thousands of visitors and fuel local economies supporting bike shops, restaurants, breweries, hotels and more, but here’s the real story: mountain biking is woven into the DNA of dozens of B.C. communities, many of which are small towns in rural B.C. These trails don’t just serve mountain bikers and attract visitors. They’re shared by hikers, dog walkers, trail runners and families. In places like Cumberland, Rossland, Burns Lake and Williams Lake, trails have helped shift local economies from purely resource extraction to sustainable outdoor recreation.

It’s working. In Squamish, for example, mountain biking visitor spending increased by 260 percent between 2016 and 2023, to over $26 million annually. That’s a staggering number for a small community, but here’s the paradox: the local trail association, SORCA, is still struggling to maintain the very trails that drive that spending. This disconnect between economic impact and financial support is a problem echoed across B.C.

We’ve known for decades that trails generate significant economic returns, but despite the billions in spending generated by the outdoor recreation sector in the province, most of the organizations that build and maintain trails are still scraping by. Why? Because trails, as vital as they are, don’t generate direct revenue in the way that ski hills or golf courses do. They rely almost entirely on volunteers, donations and uncertain funding from grants.

This is the crux of the issue: we are underfunding the very infrastructure that supports B.C.’s identity as “Super, natural British Columbia,” and we’re risking the long-term sustainability of one of our most valuable tourism and community development assets. What we need is a new, more effective funding model, one that recognizes the true value of our trails to tourism, to health and well-being, to climate resilience and to strengthen our communities — a model that ensures consistent, sustainable support, not one-off grants but foundational core funding that is desperately needed.

Trails are not a great business model on their own, but they are essential to the broader economy and support communities in ways that go far beyond the trails themselves.

We have two recommendations for the committee. First, we recommend that the province establish a provincial working group for sustainable trail funding by engaging key ministries, such as Tourism, Forests, Environment, Indigenous Relations and Municipal Affairs, tasked with developing a sustainable long-term funding model to support non-profit trail stewardship organizations in B.C.

Secondly, we strongly recommend that the province support the Outdoor Recreation Council of B.C.’s call for increased investment in outdoor recreation infrastructure and access across the province.

Thank you for your time and for considering this critical investment in B.C.’s future.

[1:15 p.m.]

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello and thank you for your presentation. I get to ask questions, which is really lovely.

We’ve had a few presentations related to outdoor recreation and sport and the value they bring to British Columbia. I think every presentation has emphasized the need to invest in both the infrastructure and the workforce for outdoor recreation. You didn’t really get to talk about your third point, which was the increased investment in outdoor recreation infrastructure. So I’m hoping to just give you a little bit more time to do that now.

Martin Littlejohn: Well, for us, really, the trails are the centre of that. That infrastructure is what’s most important to us. There is, occasionally, funding to help build trails but one of the things that’s an ongoing effort is the maintenance of trails. There’s really nothing in the province that supports that currently, again, other than volunteers.

As far as infrastructure investment, broadly speaking, for outdoor recreation, that’s something we certainly endorse. That was the second point: the recommendations that the Outdoor Recreation Council is making. I believe it’s a $30 million investment in infrastructure as well as improved access, through resource roads, to some of the recreation areas in the province that are currently not well maintained.

Thirdly, they also have the outdoor rec fund, a $10 million investment from the province a couple of years ago — which is, unfortunately, just really inadequate for the need that’s out there. Only about 15 percent of those who apply actually get anything from it, and they’re small grants that really only kind of scratch the surface of what’s required right now. That’s kind of my view on this, from the mountain biking sector’s perspective.

Steve Morissette: I’m from the West Kootenays, and each of our towns has mountain biking trails. In my experience, it’s been no problem to get grant money to build the trails, but it’s the ongoing operations that are the challenge. You’re asking for some sort of a committee to look at that, how we could restructure funding and that sort of thing. Correct?

Martin Littlejohn: That’s right. I mean, again, these trails attract visitors. They’re travel generators. They’re the things that really inject a lot of money into the tourism industry and to local businesses. That spending — we’ve studied it, we’ve looked at it, and we’ve got those numbers. We know what it represents, at least for mountain biking trails, which is great. We’re happy to see that happen, but some of that needs to come back into the trail systems to maintain them because we just don’t have the volunteer resources to keep up with the demand now.

At one time it worked fine, but we’re way beyond that now. Just in the complexity of dealing with the requirements of land use and so on, the capacity that these volunteers have is stretched way beyond what they’re capable of delivering.

Steve Morissette: Yeah, for sure. Just to follow that up. In one of my communities, Rossland, there are probably hundreds of kilometres of mountain bike trails that just can’t be maintained by volunteers. These have made Rossland, in particular, and Nelson into 12-month destination resorts rather than just winter skiing resorts.

There definitely is a need and probably a need to have a committee that also includes those that benefit from it, like restaurants, hotels, etc.

Martin Littlejohn: I agree. I think it would be a combination of government and industry, as well as those organizations that represent the users themselves.

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

[1:20 p.m.]

We’ll move on to our next presenter. We have Chris Hebb from the B.C. Hockey League. Thanks for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You can begin when you’re ready. Thank you.

B.C. Hockey League

Chris Hebb: Thank you. I don’t have a written presentation, but I did like the idea of being able to present to the standing committee who the British Columbia Hockey League is.

We are a junior-aged hockey league that has 15 teams in British Columbia, everywhere from Prince George to Powell River to Victoria to Cranbrook. We’re in the Okanagan.

The league is 63 years old. We haven’t been sophisticated enough to really seek government support for what amounts to an amateur hockey league that is run by owners in each of these communities.

The owners are in a position of costs having risen heavily over the last five to ten years. They are the principal tenants of many of the arenas that we have in our small communities.

They convey to all of these communities a social and cultural value based on the fact that the 16- to 20-year-old athletes are playing hockey in their communities, and half of the players in our league get college commitments to division I schools in the United States. We also have kids that end up in Canadian universities as well.

But at the end of the day, the premise for our league is to give an opportunity to a young man to pursue an education through his hockey talents.

Now, in the past, we have never had the sophistication to be able to access dollars. But that seeing that there was a select standing committee, I thought maybe we’d go right to the source and make a case. We do know that there are community grants and things like that that we can access. But really, for our league, what makes the most sense is for there to be some sort of access to direct government funding because of the economic, social and cultural impact we have on these communities.

During COVID, our league obviously had to shut down. Over a period of time, we worked very closely with provincial health authorities. That was really the first time we had any interaction with the province. I think it’s probably time that we did a better job of making sure everybody knew the impact that we have on the province of British Columbia.

I know that what the group is looking for are some recommendations. You probably have thousands of them. I know that the process is to give you three recommendations. I’ll get to those in a second, but one of the things that the committee should be aware of is that the BCHL, unlike other leagues that you may see around minor hockey associations, is not under any governing body, federal or provincial. It operates completely on its own, with owners that are what amounts to philanthropists in each of these communities, who keep the teams afloat and create the opportunity for these athletes.

I wanted to give you my recommendations. I will read them to you. I don’t know if I can submit them.

But the first recommendation is that organizations like the BCHL that do not have a governing body, federally or provincially, be given the opportunity to present their case for direct government funding or, in an alternative way, through mechanisms like the B.C. Lottery Corp., which, really, the monies from that are to go to communities.

Secondly, funding should be administered directly and not through organizations like viaSport, which does not support applications from us because we are not operating under a federal or provincial sports body. We operate on our own, and we continue to do that.

[1:25 p.m.]

Thirdly, given the cultural, social and economic impact of the BCHL on communities throughout our province, funding should be directed to the league office, not to the teams or to those owners, but to the league office, which operates as a non-profit society. We also would not like to see dollars taken away from the gaming grants, which are very useful for levels of sport below us.

Those are the recommendations we’d like to make. I’m free to take questions.

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

Steve Morissette: Thank you for the presentation. I agree on the impact that BCHL has on small communities. Huge…. In many small communities, it’s the biggest event that regularly happens in them. It’s an economic driver for small towns, and it’s where people gather and have a fun evening out. Yeah, it’s really critical to small communities.

Now, how for government to support that is another struggle, being that they’re essentially private businesses, so there’d have to be a way to sort out how to support them. But you’re looking for direct government funding and funding directly to the league versus to teams.

Chris Hebb: Yeah, the way we see it is…. My understanding is that in the Alberta Junior Hockey League, there is a portion of the funds that are allocated by their lottery corporation that go directly to the AJHL’s head office. I don’t know the number, but we have heard about $250,000 a year goes directly to the league to help support it, supporting the teams that are making an impact in these communities. The communities, obviously, as you say, come out to support them.

But it’s a very affordable level of sport that we’re offering. The tickets are in the neighbourhood of $10 as opposed to what you would pay for a Canucks game or something or even a Western Hockey League game. So the revenue opportunity there is a lot more limited than in other instances.

So yes, direct funding to us as a non-profit society, which is what the league office is, and then what that does is defray the costs of running the league office so that the owners don’t have to spend more money to keep the organization afloat.

Steve Morissette: Just a follow-up. Yeah, one of my sons is an alumnus, and I can attest to the benefit to the athletes themselves, but that’s just a tiny piece compared to the benefit to the community.

I have to think about how this could work, but thank you for bringing it forward.

Chris Hebb: Can I just tell one story? We speak a lot about the benefits for the athletes, and one of the benefits that has arisen over the last couple of years is we have endeavoured to take two of our teams into other B.C. communities that don’t have BCHL teams.

We play every Family Day in February in a small little rink, with two of our teams playing on a Saturday and a Sunday, and we have connected with Indigenous nations. We’ve connected with the Haisla group in Kitimat and the Lhtako Dene in Quesnel and the Burns Lake Lake Babine Nation.

One of the things that has happened there, I think the committee should be aware of. We were going in there to give our kids an experience outside of their normal community. But what it’s done, especially for the kids on the reserves, where we send our players to play floor hockey with them….

They read to them. They invite them to the games. There’s been an amazing connection made to the point now where we always have a banquet of traditional native food on the Friday night when we take our teams there. Some of our players from far-flung communities have been eating moose nose and soapberry ice cream and these types of things. So there is a legitimate cultural aspect of this.

[1:30 p.m.]

The chief, Murphy Abraham of Lake Babine Nation, told a story about…. He’s heard a lot about reconciliation, but this is the first time he’s seen it. We didn’t do it because it was a government program or it was driven by some sort of set of circumstances that were politically motivated. We’re just there because we think it’s a really good thing for our kids and we really think it’s a good thing for communities.

That’s the type of thing this league does, and I think it deserves support.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for that additional information as well. Seeing no other questions, thank you so much.

We will move on to our next presenter. Next presenter, we have Kirstin Pulles from Okanagan Transit Alliance.

Thank you so much for presenting to us today. You have five minutes for the presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready.

Okanagan Transit Alliance

Kirstin Pulles: Thanks for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Kirstin Pulles, and I’m here on behalf of the Okanagan Transit Alliance to urge you to invest in a connected, reliable and locally managed public transit system across B.C. — one that strengthens our economy, supports both urban and rural communities and gives young people a real alternative to car dependence.

This budget cycle, we’re asking for three things. First, fund provincewide intercity transit. B.C. needs a provincewide public intercity bus agency. When Greyhound left, a lot of communities were cut off. B.C. Transit’s existing patchwork of small systems is not enough to connect the province.

Imagine what rapid intercity transit could mean in the Okanagan. Highway 97 could become a rapid transit spine from Vernon all the way to Penticton, with stops at major schools, including UBC Okanagan and Okanagan College, both connecting young people to opportunity and shrinking emissions.

In this election cycle, the NDP promised to connect the province with an expanded express bus service, building on the successful B.C. Bus North service, including a new fleet of express buses between key transportation hubs. We would like to see that promise implemented.

Our second ask is to expand service frequency on existing B.C. Transit routes, starting with high-growth areas. The province needs to fund more frequent service on existing routes, especially in fast-growing communities.

Consider route 8 in Kelowna, serving Okanagan College. The route sees a lot of overcrowding, with buses skipping stops because they’re too full. We’ve heard from several students that they started out in college relying on public transit, and then they ended up having to buy vehicles because they couldn’t count on finding a spot on the bus in the morning on the way to school.

Route 90, between Vernon and Kelowna, is a crucial intercity connector with limited hours and inconsistent service. This route is also the only route from the airport into Kelowna, which actually ends at the nearby university, making it mostly unusable for tourism.

We need these kinds of routes to run consistently and seven days a week if we’re serious about any kind of mode shift. Better frequency doesn’t just mean better transit; it means more local jobs. Every added bus shift is work for a driver, a mechanic, a scheduler. It’s local employment with an added public benefit.

Our final ask, our third ask, is to support local public management of transit systems and end the wasteful privatized contracts that send public money abroad. Transit should be publicly run, it should be locally accountable, and it should be built to serve communities and not faraway shareholders.

Public transit is a public service that communities need to function well, similar to roads and health care and public libraries.

There’s also very limited competition for a lot of these contracts, and the companies are frequently bought out, further reducing the number of options that communities have when selecting a private contractor. In these cases, privatization of the service does not lead to the economic benefits that you might see in other sectors.

In a time of increasing global instability, we need to reclaim local control. Transit jobs should be public sector, good-paying and unionized jobs, and the province should stop outsourcing to private operators that cost more and deliver less.

In closing, we’re asking for three things: fund provincewide intercity transit, increase frequency on key routes, starting in fast-growing regions, and support local public control of transit service.

Transit is a climate solution, an equity solution and, importantly, a made-in-Canada economic strategy. Let’s invest in it properly.

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

We will now move to questions by members.

[1:35 p.m.]

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much for your presentation. We’ve had a few presentations about transit, so it’s not that we’re not interested; it’s that we’ve already questioned out the previous ones.

I just wanted to thank you for advocating for transit and for one of the most commonly used methods of transportation for young people today. All the best.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for your presentation.

Coming from a rural area as well, you’ve hit the nail on the head with those three items. Those are critical items in rural B.C. In my riding, we have transit, and all three of those things impact our transit. Intercity transportation is lacking in rural B.C., with the advent of Greyhound closing shop. Thank you for your advocacy.

Kirstin Pulles: Totally, yeah. It’s made a big difference in our communities. I appreciate you sharing that.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much. Seeing no other questions, thank you for presenting to us today.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Morgane Oger. Thanks for visiting and presenting to us today. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Morgane Oger

Morgane Oger: Good afternoon, committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Morgane Oger, and I’m a licensed commercial mariner, a founding director of the Morgane Oger Foundation and a member of the B.C. Nautical Residents Association. I’m also the owner of the Sena II, a commercial fishing vessel that’s active in B.C. waters. I am also a manager of data platforms and data operations for one of Canada’s larger multi-channel retailers.

I’m here today to ask the province to consider including in its next budget a $100,000 one-year study and a $1 million pilot program to help address the affordability crisis by supporting infrastructure that helps British Columbians live full-time on their vessels as an alternative to the traditional housing supply.

The per-unit cost of new housing supported through this small investment would be a fraction of the cost of building new housing from scratch in the traditional housing pool. In addition, it would help increase the resilience for residents who are already living on vessels by legitimizing their housing choices and including them in provincial planning and support structures.

This small investment would make living on a vessel more attractive and relieve pressure on land-based housing by getting people to live in marinas or at anchor, even, in B.C.’s beautiful waters. It would also bring fairness to an overlooked population of British Columbians and help stimulate remote coastal community economies by bringing vessels and their owners into the local economy, where they’ll do their shopping.

British Columbia’s affordability crisis touches almost everyone. I’m sure everyone in this room is fully aware of that. But it doesn’t impact us all to the same extent. I’m going to briefly look at four real households to show just how unequal the experience of affordability can be in British Columbia today and why modest support for non-traditional housing such as live-aboards can make a meaningful difference for many people.

Household 1 is resilient retirees, a retired household in their 80s. They own their home outright in Vancouver and live on a stable indexed income thanks to their pension and savings. They’ve carefully tracked food costs for 15 years. I’ve got this data. According to the data that was provided to me, a kilo of sirloin in 2011 cost $16. Today it’s $60, significantly higher than the increase of the CPI. Their grocery basket has essentially quadrupled in cost. For them, though, inflation is frustrating. It’s not catastrophic because they’re mostly protected.

In comparison, a professionally employed live-aboard like myself. I live on a commercial fishing vessel. I work remotely. I manage my costs. Really, food cost is the main issue. However, I’m mostly prevented from accessing infrastructure because of the nature of my living arrangements.

[1:40 p.m.]

Many boaters are not professionals with high incomes however. They turn to the waters to escape unaffordable rents, inaccessible housing or unsafe shelters, for the people who rely on social services. In many municipalities, we face bylaws designed to displace us. The province has no count of us, yet we exist in the thousands. Some data suggest there are up to 5,000 people living on vessels in B.C.

I’m going to keep on going and get to the ask to speed this up. What I’m proposing that you look at is to spend $100,000 on a provincial study to map the live-aboard community in British Columbia to look at who they are, what their needs are and what opportunities there are to provide services that actually would reduce cost to the province.

Further, I’d love to see — and I propose this as a very good financial approach — $1 million set aside in matching funds for municipalities and First Nations to improve infrastructures — things like dinghy docks, breakwater improvements, utilities, pump-out services, sewage treatment incentives to encourage the adoption of certified marine sanitation devices to address pollution.

Tie this into the lease-based requirements for the access by marinas to provincial water lots to require that they support live-aboard boats in order to be able to run commercial operations.

The cost of this could be offset by a licensing program or simply a participation program. When you consider that it costs well under $25,000 to retrofit a single marina berth for a live-aboard, it’s so much less expensive than the cost of one unit of housing.

I’m going to be posting this information in complete on the blog from my website, morganeoger.ca, in case you’d like to review it at a future date.

Any questions?

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. This is the only presentation we’ve had about this, so I’m glad that you came to talk about it.

I’m wondering. Can you talk about, when you are living aboard a vessel, what kind of services are very challenging for someone who lives aboard a vessel? What is it hardest for them to access within community?

Morgane Oger: Okay, the number one…. I live on a large vessel, so I have slightly different needs, and I’m able to manage my needs. But looking at the needs of the everyday boater that lives on a vessel, the number one most difficult situation is for their daily life. Most providers, municipal or provincial or even federal, of dock access for their dinghies limit dock access to three hours per day.

To give an idea, in much of Victoria and in all of Vancouver, it’s not possible to go to shore for more than three hours at a time, which means that you cannot participate in doctor’s appointments. You cannot go to anything that takes longer than three hours. This is a huge impediment.

The second biggest thing that matters today, I would say, is safe harbour during the storm season in the wintertime. Municipalities have tended to build themselves up around safe harbours — Vancouver built around Coal Harbour and False Creek. Victoria built around Victoria Harbor, to give you two examples. Nanaimo built around the Nanaimo Harbour. Because of overdemand and undersupply, municipalities have been tempted to put in a stifling regulation to put in too much constraint on the ability of a boat to come for shelter for a few days, just because it’s necessary.

Finally, I would say the third worst thing is that provincial infrastructure in the form of docks, which are provincially regulated on provincial marine leases, have a surplus of unused vessels there. The people who are on live-aboards and are at anchor mostly, are mostly at anchor because they’re prohibited from being on the docks. And they’re prohibited from being on the docks because the insurance supplier puts in a prohibition from live-aboards and their riders for the insurance.

This is in some cases, but in most cases, there are bylaws written by the municipalities to prohibit live-aboards. And finally, the docks are saturated by derelict vessels that are grandfathered, and they’re just sitting there.

An effort to clean that up and to address those three issues would bring the most powerful impact on boaters who live on their vessels.

[1:45 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much.

Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for presenting to us today.

We will, as a committee, take a recess.

The committee recessed from 1:45 p.m. to 1:57 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. We are back, and I will call the committee back to order and move on with our next presenter. We have Matthieu Roy from Trans Canada Trail. Thanks for joining us. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions, and you can begin when you’re ready.

Trans Canada Trail

Matthieu Roy: Mr. Chair and committee members, good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Matthieu Roy. I am the CEO of Trans Canada Trail, the organization that advocates for and champions Canada’s nationwide trail system. At more than 29,000 kilometres, it is the longest recreational trail in the world. In British Columbia alone, the trail stretches over 3,000 kilometres.

Since 2019, our organization has invested almost $3.5 million to support local trails with infrastructure grant resources across the province. Our support has catalyzed a total investment of over $19 million in trail development in B.C. over that period.

Again this year in B.C., we will support trail projects in an investment of over $650,000. We are estimating that the total investment that this $600,000 will catalyze is $2.9 million in trails. These dollar amounts do not consider the value that Trans Canada Trail adds in terms of technical expertise, data collection and sharing and the weight of our advocacy as a leader in the sector.

The Trans Canada Trail is a multigenerational, pan-Canadian effort built by and for communities in every province and territory, unifying us all. But the trails are at risk, and the natural environments we cherish are in trouble. I won’t need to convince anyone on this call that British Columbia is experiencing the impacts of climate change. Flooding, wildfires and extreme weather events impact life’s ecosystems and infrastructure.

[2:00 p.m.]

As the province rebuilds and plans ahead, trail infrastructure should be recognized and funded as a vital component of climate adaptation. Trails serve multiple roles in this context. They provide access for emergency responses, act as fire breaks, protect green spaces and offer people meaningful connections to nature, fostering a culture of stewardship.

With that in mind, we offer three recommendations that can help the province of British Columbia reinforce its commitment to trails as a vital public infrastructure in the face of climate change.

First, we recommend that funding levels are maintained or increased for Recreation Sites and Trails B.C. under the Ministry of Environment and Parks. This will support rebuilding and repairing the trails following severe climate events. Rec Sites and Trails B.C. is overseeing many trails in the province, including the Kettle Valley Railway Trail, which is currently experiencing significant closures. A decision to maintain or increase existing funding will demonstrate a recognition that trail connectivity and safety suffers from climate events, resulting in closed sections and a long list of downstream effects on tourism, economic development and physical and mental well-being.

Second, we recommend supporting and investing in the operation of the volunteer-led trail organizations. These organizations are on the ground, implementing best practices in trail construction, maintenance and preservation. This will help to ensure that the trails we love withstand future climate events.

Finally, we recommend long-term planning and investment in trail connectivity, including a section of the Trans Canada Trail. Ongoing plan improvement to a trail network will better connect people to nature, to community and to each other. We know that to protect nature, people need to care about nature. Trails are the tool to support that connection.

In closing, I want to thank the province for its continued leadership in protecting nature and investing in the trails that connect us to the land and to one another. Trans Canada Trail is ready to work with you to bring this vision to life. Thank you for your time.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Merci, Monsieur Roy. I just wanted to say thank you so much for your advocacy on this. Getting people outside is a huge public benefit and health benefit. I noticed that your second recommendation was around supporting those volunteer-led groups that support, maintain and preserve the trails. Did you have like a funding amount that you had dedicated to that initiative?

Matthieu Roy: We don’t have a funding amount. We know that there were other representations made by trail organizations and outdoor recreation groups from B.C. in this hearing. We want the B.C. government to follow these recommendations.

Steve Morissette: Thank you for your presentation. That’s an important trail for us in B.C., in particularly rural B.C., I would say. It comes through my area.

Some of that…. You mentioned the Kettle Valley Trail, which connects to the Columbia and Western trail in my area. Being an old rail trail, it’s challenging because of, like you say, climate events and so on. Several portions of it have slid away without maintenance, and there are tunnels and trestles that need maintenance that are not cheap. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain. The impact is huge, because we get people coming through there. I see people from all over the world and all over the province coming through. Without that trail, we lose all that.

How much money did you say you’re spending in B.C. currently?

Matthieu Roy: This year we’re going to invest $650,000 in the province.

Steve Morissette: That’s probably a drop in what we actually need, too. Yeah.

[2:05 p.m.]

Matthieu Roy: It’s a drop in the bucket, but it’s part of the ongoing maintenance. I know the government of B.C. provided funding to B.C. Rec and Sites, I think, in 2023, to support the maintenance of the Kettle Valley Trail and the rail trail in general. There’s a big need there because those infrastructure are aging, and they are a very important economic driver for the province.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much.

Any other questions by members?

Seeing none, thank you so much for your time today to present to us.

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Dan Huang-Taylor from Food Banks B.C.

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

Food Banks B.C.

Dan Huang-Taylor: Thank you very much. As you just mentioned, my name is Dan Huang-Taylor, and I’m the executive director at Food Banks B.C. I’m currently out of province, travelling for work, and I’m joining you today from the traditional, unceded lands of the Kanyen'kehà:ka Nation.

Food Banks B.C. is the member association for B.C.’s charitable hunger relief sector, comprised of over 140 member and non-member organizations reaching over 250,000 people in need every month. Our mission is to alleviate hunger today and to prevent hunger tomorrow for all British Columbians. I thank the committee for allowing me this opportunity to speak to the urgent need to prioritize food access and food security.

British Columbia is facing an escalating food insecurity crisis. Since 2019, the number of visits to B.C. food banks has almost doubled, all while donations continue to drop. B.C.’s hunger relief organizations are buckling under the weight of this crisis.

We acknowledge and commend the commitment to address food resiliency through strengthening local supply chains, supporting B.C.-made products and taking steps towards greater access to local food. But food affordability and general living costs will continue to increase demand on food banks.

The outlook for personal and household food insecurity remains deeply concerning. In 2025, household grocery bills are projected to rise by over $800 per year. With over a quarter of B.C. households living paycheque to paycheque, an increase in the cost of life’s essentials will push more people to food banks.

Our first recommendation is to maintain and reinvest in existing programs. Eliminating hunger in B.C. is a long-term objective, but immediate action is essential. In the short- and medium-term, the work of non-profit, community-based organizations is critical to addressing the growing need. These organizations serve as the front-line response, providing not only food access but serving as a gateway to other critical supports, including employment readiness, settlement services and health services.

In 2023, Food Banks B.C. was deeply grateful to be the recipient of $6 million from the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction to support food banks over a three-year period. We’re in the final year of that funding, and in that time, the number of clients and visits has increased by over 20 percent. To continue this essential work, hunger relief charities must be supported with stable, sustained funding and resources.

Failing to invest in the sustainability of these programs comes at a high cost. Without adequate support, we risk seeing increased rates of homelessness, greater strain on mental health and health care systems and rising costs to government services. Most significantly, individuals, particularly children and vulnerable populations, may face long-term consequences that impact their health, development and ability to thrive.

With the priority of this government stated as protecting the services that people rely on, food insecurity programs should be seen through this lens.

Recommendation 2 is to establish regional distribution centres that will support large-scale food collection, processing and distribution in the long term. Centralizing food collection will allow for food to be received, processed, stored and distributed on a regional scale. Working in collaboration, the province, municipalities, non-profits and the agrifood sector have the opportunity to develop a system that will support farmers and producers while moving large volumes of B.C. food into communities.

The Mustard Seed Food Bank in Nanaimo will open such a facility in the next 12 months, leading to enhanced access for over 100 charities across Vancouver Island. The rest of the province needs to be able to benefit from the same regional infrastructure.

In addition to meeting everyday demand, these resources and a strengthened network will be critically important during crises and emergency weather events, improving resilience and response capacity across B.C.

Recommendation 3 is to streamline and build efficiencies through a whole-of-government approach. As government looks to streamline services and build greater efficiencies in future investments, there is a significant opportunity to strengthen efforts to address food insecurity through a coordinated, whole-of-government approach. We strongly believe that more effective outcomes can be achieved when ministries and agencies align under a shared vision for food security in B.C.

This approach will promote reciprocal capacity-building, foster learning and innovation and enhance coordination across departments and levels of government. It would also ensure that investments are complementary rather than duplicative and respond to the realities of communities on the front lines of this work.

[2:10 p.m.]

To advance this vision, we recommend the creation of a cross-ministerial task force on food insecurity. Its mandate would include identifying and advising on structural changes to improve integration, accelerate innovation and better align government supports with community-based efforts.

By initiating this process through a task force model, government can take a meaningful step toward long-term systems change while also building the foundations for more responsive, equitable and resilient food systems in B.C.

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

We will now move on to questions by members. Any questions by members?

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

We will take a recess at this point.

The committee recessed from 2:11 p.m. to 2:34 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Welcome back. I’ll call the committee back to order and continue with our next presenter. We have Rose Gardner from HUB Cycling.

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.

[2:35 p.m.]

HUB Cycling

Rose Gardner: Good afternoon. I’m Rose Gardner, as you said, the executive director of HUB Cycling. We’re a British Columbia not-for-profit driven by a simple mission: to get more people cycling more often. We do this by empowering communities, educating youth and adults, advocating for safe routes and collaborating with business and governments to make cycling a viable, everyday transportation choice.

Our first recommendation is to increase the B.C. active transportation infrastructure grants program to at least $100 million annually. This is up from $20 million in 2025-26 and will unlock vital local infrastructure.

The province’s current cost share for active transportation is always oversubscribed. Local governments are already stretched, dealing with urgent priorities like housing, public safety and the toxic drug crisis. Without more provincial support, crucial active transportation projects such as sidewalks and bike lanes that improve mobility, affordability and health are being delayed or cancelled.

Last year, our data showed that 39 percent of British Columbian adults cycled weekly. Communities across B.C. want walking and cycling networks, but they can’t build them alone. The current $20 million program, shared amongst 161 municipalities and 202 First Nations, is underfunded and oversubscribed. This ongoing underfunding means delays, cancellations and missed opportunities.

By boosting the provincial contribution to $100 million yearly, it will help those local governments deliver the infrastructure that supports transportation, affordability, safety and economic recovery.

This isn’t a new program. It’s an existing one that’s effective and just needs to scale up to meet public demand. We believe the $100 million annual contribution will help our B.C. communities build a healthier, more affordable and more acceptable future.

HUB Cycling’s second recommendation is to allocate $8 million annually for comprehensive cycling and walking education programs. These programs should target all ages, improving equitable access, safety, confidence and uptake. Many British Columbians, especially those in equity-deserving communities such as Indigenous peoples, racialized groups, youth, newcomers, low-income families, seniors and people with disabilities, face real barriers to safe and affordable transportation.

To ensure equitable access to mobility and health, we need specialized, culturally relevant and age-appropriate programs. Without this education, people just lack the skills and confidence to walk or ride safely, perpetuating these disparities.

Active transportation education is key to accelerating the mode shift and ensuring equitable access. It speeds up adoption. It increases the use of new and existing infrastructure like sidewalks and bike lanes. It supports access to transit and improves safety through education on etiquette and injury prevention.

An increased investment like this will provide cycling and walking education that meets those cultural, linguistic and accessibility needs of marginalized communities and can be delivered through various partnerships.

It will fund school-based programs like Everyone Rides for all B.C. children. It will fully fund affordable, accessible, culturally relevant adult education programs, including online and in-person options. It can expand behaviour change campaigns such as GoByBike Week or Bike to School Week, with targeted outreach in equity-deserving communities, and develop safe, accessible, multilingual resources and inclusive marketing that reflects the needs of marginalized groups.

Our third recommendation is to provide regular, annual and expanded means-tested rebates and financing options for electric assist and adaptive cycles. This will make low-emission, affordable transportation accessible for everyone.

The high upfront cost of e-bikes, adaptive bikes and cargo cycles limits access for lower-income and disabled British Columbians, again hindering their participation in active transportation and climate action. The data from here in B.C. shows that e-bike adoption increases cycling rates, reduces motor vehicle kilometres and lowers greenhouse gas emissions three times more cost-effectively than e-car rebates. The provincially offered means-tested rebates from a few years ago were highly successful, being oversubscribed within 24 hours.

[2:40 p.m.]

To have lasting impact, these financial incentives must be annual and ongoing and not just one-time programs. Equity-deserving communities need that predictable, stable support to adopt clean, inclusive transportation.

Lastly, to fund these initiatives, we recommend not renewing the $410 million spent on ICBC rebates this year. Next year, that funding could be used to fund all of these programs that benefit everyone, not just drivers. Thank you.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: I was wondering, can we please talk more about the means-tested rebates? What was the budget, the last time they were in? What year did they end, and what’s your proposed budget reimplementation?

Rose Gardner: Absolutely. My understanding is when they were launched in 2023 of June, the budget was around $6 million, of which bout 90 percent of that went directly to rebates, with some administration costs. They were oversubscribed within 24 hours, and they have since been working through that wait-list.

My understanding is there was some additional funding to the program this year, but I’m not aware of the exact amount. I’m also not aware of what the current status of the wait-list is and how many people are on it. There is some flexibility there about what that kind of ongoing funding could look like, but I think there’s an opportunity right now, with the CleanBC review, to see if that program could be annualized and institutionalized at a certain appropriate level.

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

Moving to our next presenter. We have Bryan Buggey from Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate.

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

Vancouver Maritime
Centre for Climate

Bryan Buggey: My name is, as you said, Bryan Buggey of the Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate, otherwise known as VMCC. We are a grassroots industry-led initiative dedicated to accelerating the transition to a zero-emissions maritime industry in B.C. that was created as a not-for-profit in early 2020.

We consist of over 60 maritime stakeholders, including ports, terminals, ship operators, shipyards, engineering and design firms, supply chain vendors and maritime professionals. Past and ongoing initiatives include operation flagship, our pilot demonstration program, the green shipping strategy and GreenShip, which is our annual conference. After five years of operating, we’ve refreshed our corporate strategy and now seek to act as an aggregator, accelerator and amplifier of the maritime decarbonization ecosystem.

Specifically as an aggregator, we are the central entity in B.C. that brings together the maritime industry on this topic with a platform for knowledge-sharing through physical and virtual mediums, such as webinars and conferences, creating opportunities for members to network and develop a sense of community amongst the maritime decarbonization ecosystem.

As an accelerator, we’re the connector, facilitator and matchmaker of collaborative projects, initiatives and information, especially between clean tech innovators and early industry adopters. With our green shipping strategy, operation flagship program and a plan to launch a data and information hub, we hope to accelerate the transition to a cleaner and more competitive maritime economy.

Finally, as an amplifier, we’re the neutral and objective voice of the sector to government regulators and the public. We are technology-agnostic and fuel-agnostic. We build consensus between these stakeholders, then help form public policy and identify gaps that government can support. In other words, we seek to drive more prosperity with less pollution.

We believe we’re strategically aligned with several provincial goals. B.C. ports and related transportation and logistics infrastructure are quite important to the B.C. economy but even more important to the country. As you already know, the B.C. maritime sector is the largest in Canada, generating about $4 billion in output and sustaining more than 34,000 jobs.

[2:45 p.m.]

The VMCC is strategically aligned with your core provincial plans, including the B.C. maritime industries strategy, especially pathway No. 4, in supporting clean fuels, technology and innovation, but also pathway No. 2 in growing low- and zero-carbon types of infrastructure in CleanBC, especially regarding marine renewable energy, low-carbon shipping, electrification of ferries and other ocean-related, low-emission sectors.

In the journey to help the maritime sector reduce its emissions, VMCC indirectly helps B.C. create a more competitive economy, stimulates and supports innovation in the blue economy and accelerates the energy transition. With this in mind, we have the following recommendations for the B.C. Finance Committee.

One, to support the competitiveness and economic resilience of B.C.’s trade and investment infrastructure by funding maritime decarbonization initiatives that are foundational for a prosperous future.

Two, support the attractiveness of B.C.’s economy by supporting investment attraction that directly develops and scales zero-emission fuels and technologies for the maritime industry.

Finally, support the Vancouver Maritime Centre for Climate with multi-year funding, which is your industry partner that can help deliver on No. 1 and No. 2. We are ready to increase the level of collaboration with industry to aggregate, accelerate and amplify leadership on decarbonization across B.C.’s maritime sector so that your $2.2 million, over three years, ensures stable operations here at VMCC for us to deliver on that.

Thank you for your time, and I’m available for your questions.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. This is really an important area for advocacy because it is a huge driver of carbon GHG emissions, and it’s really great to engage on this topic about how it can thoughtfully change while maintaining B.C.’s prosperity.

This is an area in which I am not an expert. It would be really helpful to me…. You gave us a list of participants, stakeholders, which are inclusive in your organization. Who is not a participant in the organization? What areas of the sector are not engaging at this time?

Bryan Buggey: Well, it’s a pretty broad representation in terms of ports, terminals, all kinds of vendors in the supply chain, of course, including ship owners, ship operators. You’ll recognize names like Seaspan, Teekay. They’re certainly at the table.

There are some of the terminals that have not yet participated; we’re looking forward to engaging them. We do plan to outreach and meet with them in person. There are some different advantages that container terminals have over the bulk terminals, for example. Terminals like Neptune or Pacific Coast Terminals are pretty focused on commodities, whereas Dubai Ports World, a big global company, often has the resources to fund more initiatives in terms of reducing their impact.

We’re always trying to increase our stakeholder engagement, and so far, so good. It’s just a matter of making sure that we have the capacity to take that on.

Jennifer Blatherwick: You mentioned there’s a lot of participation from companies involved in shipping, owners of the vessels. Of course, a big chunk of the traffic that goes in and out of our ports is from lines that are not owned locally. How does engagement with those stakeholders work?

Bryan Buggey: Many of those companies have offices here in Vancouver. For example, the Swire Group, which owns the China Navigation Co., has 30 or 40 people in downtown Vancouver. We’ve engaged with them in the past. They’ve connected us to their sustainability teams in Singapore, for example. That’s just one example of many.

[2:50 p.m.]

We do try to include all of the international companies that have a presence here in Vancouver as well — which is incredibly important, because some of the great resources that we can bring to bear are located in Copenhagen or Rotterdam or Singapore, and it’s great to be connected for best practices.

Jennifer Blatherwick: I really appreciate that.

You mentioned in your last point, your last request, the Vancouver centre for climate. Did I get that right?

Bryan Buggey: The Maritime Centre for Climate.

Jennifer Blatherwick: The Maritime Centre. There we go. Can you talk a little bit about what that is and how that will interact with your strategy?

Bryan Buggey: It’s a not-for-profit founded under the B.C. Societies Act. We’re roughly five years old. We currently have a board of directors. We have a leadership team. We have some working groups. There are about ten volunteers or so that come together on a regular basis.

We’re actively looking to implement our new corporate strategy, which would allow us to fund some full-time staff. So that’s a big part of what we’re trying to do, to get key funding in place so that we’re not just a volunteer-led organization, which has limited impact.

But we have heard enough from our stakeholders that this is something that’s gaining a lot of traction. We would really like to find ways to fund the future impacts that we think we can bring to bear.

Did I answer your question?

Jennifer Blatherwick: You did, yes. I appreciate this. Again, you’re the only group that’s come to talk to us about this, so it’s always interesting to receive a presentation, and this one was very well done.

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

We will move on to our next presenter. We have Denis Agar from Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders.

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

Movement: Metro Vancouver
Transit Riders

Denis Agar: Thanks for having me here. I’m the executive director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. We’re a pretty new group that represents Metro Vancouver’s one million transit riders.

Advocacy groups like ours have built huge coalitions to pass transit referendums in places like Los Angeles and even Nashville. They show that even in deep red states, people are willing to vote to increase their own taxes to help pay for transit that doesn’t suck.

Multiple polls have confirmed that over 80 percent of the general public in Canada and in Vancouver support increased investment in transit, and it’s even 80 percent among people who drive. Even the B.C. Trucking Association supports transit investment.

I’m not here today to ask you for TransLink operating funding. We’ll talk about that some other time.

Our group is actually working on a Dragons’ Den-style event which will pit different revenue tools against each other to try and help you chart a politically feasible path towards sustainable transit funding. By the way, if you ever want to talk about that or anything else, please feel free to contact me. You can find my details on the website. I promise I don’t bite.

But on to my first budget request. This could be the government that finally delivers the major infrastructure projects that have been promised for decades, specifically SkyTrain to UBC and the gondola to SFU.

As you probably know, Surrey is now one of the only affordable parts of the region left for students, and transit ridership has been growing so fast in our region’s second-biggest city. We talked to plenty of people who endure two-hour commutes just to access the education that will hopefully give students a shot at a better life than their parents had.

Rapid transit to B.C.’s two biggest campuses will broaden access to university, so that students aren’t forced to choose between a painful commute or a painful rent bill.

My second budget ask is that you follow through on the platform promise to launch a provincewide express intercity bus agency. This is a crucial missing piece, and we’ve gone too long without it. Places like Washington state, Prince Edward Island and Virginia have provincial or state bus agencies. It’s an absolute game changer for affordable mobility.

[2:55 p.m.]

Have you ever tried to take a bus from Nanaimo to Victoria? Those cities are pretty close together. It should be relatively cheap and easy, but it costs $40, and the bus only comes four times a day.

A B.C. express bus service could boost frequencies and lower prices to give British Columbians an affordable alternative to driving. And to those British Columbians who can’t afford a vehicle at all, buses would allow them to visit family and access opportunities that haven’t been doable without a car in decades.

There’s actually a U.K. reality show that forced contestants to navigate B.C. without a car, and it went really poorly. So you can expect that a provincial bus service will also appeal hugely to those international visitors who are used to transit in their home countries. The ticket sales from those visitors will cover a huge chunk of the cost of the service that all British Columbians can enjoy.

On to my third and final ask. I understand that the key themes of this government so far are improving affordability and keeping the deficit in check. I think this last request ticks both of those boxes.

There are tens of thousands of bus riders that get stuck in traffic every day on provincial highways. Widening those highways is, of course, a multi-billion-dollar project, but bus-priority measures can be added for a tiny fraction of those costs.

Indeed, there are already great examples of these measures on the Lions Gate and on Highway 99 in Richmond. There are bus-on-shoulder lanes, which are common practice across the continent, that allow buses to sneak past traffic and cost almost nothing to build.

If you took action to speed up buses on Highway 91, for example, you could potentially cut in half the travel time between Richmond and Surrey on transit. Actually, in rush hour, that transit trip would end up being faster than driving. So the potential appeal is immense, especially considering that buses are full in a lot of those parts of the region.

To sum up, my third ask is to ask the province to allocate budget to a programmatic approach to getting buses out of traffic on provincial highways.

With that, I’ll finish. Thank you so much for having me today.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: We’ve had a few presentations about this already, though this is the first time somebody’s asked us about shoulder-lane priority for buses — which sounds terrifying, I’m going to be honest, but is obviously working in other jurisdictions and would require some infrastructure.

Now, I didn’t see any specific budget amounts attached to these and for very good reason. I think your first ask is gigantic infrastructure projects, and the second and third ones really depend upon the communities in which they are implemented. So I see that.

I just wanted to thank you for advocating for a sustainable form of transit and for students who get trapped on the transit to SFU and UBC. I appreciate it.

Denis Agar: No problem. Lots of mega-commutes from Coquitlam too.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you so much for that presentation. We will go to another question.

Sunita Dhir: It’s more of a comment.

Thanks, Denis, for your advocacy. I always enjoy listening to you, although UBC rapid transit is underway — and, hopefully we will have it up and running soon — and SFU as well. It’s in the talks.

About intercity bus agency. Remember we used to have Greyhound and BoltBus? I sometimes wonder what led to the closure of some of the routes. Was it like low ridership? But you’re suggesting provincially funded?

Denis Agar: Yeah, that’s right. The platform actually includes that as a proposal.

A hundred years ago, in the early days of Vancouver, even transit was a private project. Public transit was provided by private companies, totally profitable. But over time, the economics of running it changed, and it no longer became profitable. That happened to the Greyhounds of the world just a few decades later.

You know, transit became unprofitable to run in the ’50s, and then intercity transit, that happened in the ’90s and the aughts.

We see lots of places around the world, like the states and provinces that I mentioned, where the province or the federal government or both kick in a certain amount of money to fund those transit services.

[3:00 p.m.]

We’re not making the cost of getting from Kelowna to Vancouver down to $2.60. It’s not going to be a TransLink fare. So riders are still paying a big chunk of that. But what you do when you lower the price is you really get a lot more people in the potential market, which means you can boost frequencies. You can get to the point where you have a bus going every hour or every few hours up to Kelowna, up to Whistler, out to Nanaimo.

It’s potentially a really exciting thing, and you can look to other provinces to see what they’ve been able to achieve.

Sunita Dhir: There has to be some data collection before that project can be started.

Denis Agar: No doubt.

Sunita Dhir: The ridership and all. Yeah, but those are really good suggestions, and buses on shoulder lanes are also very interesting. Thank you so much.

Denis Agar: If you want to check out our bus-on-shoulder lane today, on Highway 99, exiting onto Bridgeport Road, you can see the one that’s in use today in B.C. I think it’s one of the only ones.

Sunita Dhir: Okay. I would certainly look into this. Thanks.

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

Moving on to our next presenter, we have Jason Saunderson from Concrete B.C.

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

Concrete B.C.

Jason Saunderson: Hello. My name is Jason Saunderson, and I’m the executive director of Concrete B.C., the 62-year-old association of a vital industry that contributes an estimated $11 billion to B.C.’s GDP and supports some 23,000 well-paying jobs. We represent 155 members, including 61 concrete producers operating at 114 locations across the province, who have a combined fleet of more than 1,185 concrete trucks. The industry uses local labour, locally sourced materials and supports local economies.

Concrete is made in B.C. It is a resilient building material comprised of gravel, sand, water and cement. Most cement used in B.C. is produced in Richmond and Delta from limestone mined on Texada Island. The Canadian Construction Association classified ready-mix concrete as the least tariff-impacted building material.

Concrete B.C. commends the B.C. government for its bold infrastructure investment. The concrete industry is an essential partner in delivering on the government’s $37 billion infrastructure plan, which includes major investments in transportation, health care, education and housing. Concrete literally forms the foundation of these projects and is critical to economic recovery, sustainability and community resilience.

To maximize the impact of these investments, the concrete industry should be engaged as a strategic partner, similar to the wood sector’s collaboration with government, to advance our shared goals in sustainability, workforce development and regulatory reform.

Concrete B.C. proposes a concrete action plan, developed collaboratively with government, to address three priority areas: workforce training to mitigate driver shortages, permitting reform to create more aggregate quarries and adopting performance-based specifications to promote sustainability.

The concrete industry faces a shortage of ready-mix concrete truck drivers. A 2025 survey of members found that approximately 150 concrete truck drivers left their jobs in the last year, and 50 percent of those retired. The average age of drivers is 47 years old, and two-thirds are over 45.

So 95 percent of producers plan to hire an average of more than three drivers this year. However, retention remains an issue. For every four newly hired drivers, only one stays in the industry long term. Training for a class 3 commercial driver’s licence requires a significant investment of over $5,000 per person and one month of full-time learning, making it cost-prohibitive for prospective employees and financially risky for employers, who must also bear onboarding costs.

Concrete B.C.’s ask: create an employment training initiative with dedicated funding in the community workforce response grant to support the recruitment, training and retention of 100 new concrete truck drivers.

Gaining access to local aggregates for the production of concrete is hindered by lengthy permitting processes, particularly for new gravel pits. Environmental assessments and permitting delays are measured in years, not months, and supply lags behind demand and poses an unnecessary barrier, which ultimately leads to increased costs.

[3:05 p.m.]

Concrete B.C.’s ask: streamline permitting and environmental assessments for local gravel and sand quarries, prioritizing local supply chains.

Procurement for concrete projects often relies on prescriptive specifications that restrict innovative low-carbon solutions. Concrete B.C. is committed to net-zero concrete by 2050, and the industry has already achieved notable emissions reductions through the use of Portland-limestone cement and substitution with supplementary cementitious materials such as fly ash.

Government can lead change in sustainability. For example, a 2022 MOTI change to performance-based specifications for crash protection barriers reduced greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 138,000 kilograms. MOTT specifications trickle down to municipal procurement for things like bike lane dividers and other specs. Restrictive minimum cement content rules and maximum substitution rates persist, which prevent broader adoption of sustainable solutions.

Concrete B.C.’s ask: mandate performance-based specifications that allow for innovation and sustainability while maintaining quality and durability.

We hope the B.C. government will recognize Concrete B.C. as a key partner in delivering on your housing, transportation and sustainability goals. Through structured collaboration, the province and industry can reduce costs, accelerate delivery timelines and advance sustainability, all while ensuring the success of B.C.’s record infrastructure investment.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: I want to go back to your first recommendation about workforce training. I appreciate the challenge of getting people to do a job where it requires that initial investment. That’s pretty significant for training. It sounds like, though, there’s also a challenge with retention. I am hoping you can talk…. Are there any workplace initiatives now? Are there any retention programs in place now?

Jason Saunderson: Our members definitely focus on finding and retaining the best drivers. It’s a hard job, where the barrier that we’re talking about, the class 3 driver’s licensing, is only the entry point to the type of work that needs to be done.

Some of the challenges revolve around seasonality of the business and consistent income throughout the year — some of the reasons why there are retention issues. Again, that’s a function of the construction business. But the challenge still remains that, on average, you hire four people before you have one that stays long term. These are great paying jobs that can provide for families all across the province.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you. When you’re talking about…. I think that my technical knowledge of the sector is very low, so I think it would really be helpful to me to understand better.

When you were talking about your third point about mandating performance-based standards, what I was hearing is that concrete is excluded from certain uses because of regulation or requirement, and you’re asking for those regulations to be changed to reflect performance-based standards?

Jason Saunderson: By performance-based standards, effectively, what we’re saying is that instead of telling us what the recipe for the concrete mix should be, tell us the performance specifications, the strength and what you want the product to do, and allow the companies to innovate.

The change that I highlighted was one that was taken for the lowly highway divider, more formally known as a crash protection barrier. They had minimum cement standards that had been in place for a long time. They finally allowed the change that allowed the companies to innovate, reduce the cement contents while still making the strength specifications. That had a significant impact, reducing something like 28 kilograms per highway divider. I use that as an example because we can visualize what those things are and the impact that it could have when you scale it up.

Effectively, performance-based specifications are the pathway to net-zero concrete. It is allowing the companies to innovate and produce the material in a way that’s the most environmentally friendly, not according to an old specification that might have been in place for many years.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions?

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

[3:10 p.m.]

We will move on to our next presenter.

We have Gemma Martini from Martini Film Studios. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for the presentation and five minutes for questions after. You can begin when you are ready.

Martini Film Studio

Gemma Martini: Good afternoon, everyone. I am Gemma Martini, CEO of Martini Film Studios in Langley and board chair of B.C.’s Motion Picture Industry Association, referred to as Screen B.C.

I’d like to begin by recognizing that I’m presenting to you here on the ancestral lands of the q̓ic̓əy̓, qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓, Matsqui and SEMYOME First Nations.

It is my privilege to be in front of you today on behalf of B.C.’s film and television industry.

I believe that there’s a general awareness in B.C. that our industry has suffered very challenging years. The economic impacts of these challenges have been widely felt and expressed not just directly within our industry workforce and supply chain but across the economic landscape that this industry touches.

Today, thanks to the understanding and support from across government of the need to restore the B.C. industry’s competitive position, we are in a much stronger place to compete in the global mix and to grow B.C.’s interests. We are extremely grateful for this collaboration, as it is central to our history of sustained success, and we are proud of what we have accomplished together.

When we’re thriving, we are a $3 billion to $4 billion production industry at the heart of our province’s creative economy. We generate 60,000-plus quality, well-paying talent- and knowledge-based jobs across the spectrum of production and hundreds of ancillary businesses. We support a workforce that is respected internationally for its talent, skill and experience in physical production, post-production, animation and visual effects.

We feature multi-billion-dollar infrastructure investment in more than 2.5 million square feet of studio space, matched by a top-tier supply chain. We’re home to one of the world’s most sophisticated digital entertainment clusters, with companies like Sony Imageworks entertainment and Disney’s Industrial Light and Magic anchored here amid an established and growing network of B.C. companies and freelance artists at the heart of the sector.

Likewise, B.C.-owned and -operated production companies like Brightlight Pictures, Lark Productions and Omnifilm are evolving and capitalizing on the current opportunities in Canada and internationally, both for production services and for their own development projects.

Then there are the layered economic benefits and spinoffs, with evolving industry hubs in B.C. regions like Victoria and the Okanagan, and a symbiotic relationship with B.C.’s tourism sector, where we are very intentionally building a long-term collaboration right now with our exciting new Cineventure film tourism platform.

We look forward to building our progress with the shared vision for B.C.’s film and television industry as an important economic driver and job creator, building bandwidth and international clout across business, social and cultural spheres.

To this end, we would like to recommend the following: sustained, confident investment in the industry tax policy; and funding that is foundational, essential leverage for B.C. to compete and maintain a strong position in the global mix.

This includes our recently enhanced industry tax incentive program, domestic motion picture funds and programs; removal of barriers to interprovincial opportunities; robust funding for Creative B.C., particularly our B.C. Film Commission, which is the primary gateway and brand ambassador for British Columbia’s industry; and your willingness to engage with our industry as regularly as you are able, to learn and stay abreast of this unique business, its intricacies and the opportunities in front of us.

We are all investors in the B.C. film and television production industry, and with this investment, we attract millions of dollars of new money into our economy, which is why production has become so attractive to economies around the world. We expect to report, inform and collaborate to ensure we are generating returns on our collective investments and paving the way for even greater success for future generations.

Where we are today. It’s taken some time for us to get traction this year. We are seeing results, and the second half of 2025 looks promising. According to May data compiled by the B.C. Film Commission, 34 projects are currently in production. Many of them are currently in prep, so their employment impacts are not yet fully realized.

Large global productions like The Last of Us, SHŌGUN and God of War are confirmed to shoot in B.C. These shows will employ thousands of British Columbia’s talented creator workforce. Canadian productions Murder in a Small Town, Allegiance, Wild Cards and Family Law have all been renewed, continuing the uptick in B.C.-driven content creation.

[3:15 p.m.]

Industrial Light and Magic cut the ribbon on their impressive new facility in Coal Harbour, where nearly 1,000 talented artists supply their unique expertise. Sony Imageworks unveiled its new LED volume, featuring specialized technology, in its new location in Langley this month.

Just weeks ago, our B.C. Film Commission was recognized for excellence amongst its global peers in the Cannes Film Festival.

Every industry condition that has emerged over the past three years, including an overall contraction in content creation, the growth of movement south of the border to keep global production in the U.S., is a stark reminder that the new normal for film and television worldwide is intense competition, shifting industry conditions, combined with new renewed focus on a domestic interest and their convergence with sustained growth in the global industry.

Then I have a paragraph which I have to leave behind, but essentially it says that we are resilient, and thank you.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. We did have a little bit of other presentations covering this, so this is why we have no questions, but I was hoping to give you a couple of minutes to talk about the amazingness that is the Cineventure tourism partnership.

Gemma Martini: Yes, it’s absolutely incredible. On the first day of launch of the website, there were over 34 million media hits — whatever they refer to it as. It was very incredible. It’s an excellent collaboration of tourism and film coming together to encourage and enhance the opportunities for those coming to British Columbia to really expand on the film tourism that they come for. So really strong….

We have a lot of visitors that come to B.C. because of the film industry. They want to come and see where Virgin River was filmed, and they want to come and see where Deadpool was filmed. Now we’re able to capture that and to enhance on that by expanding their experience to other areas of the province, other areas of the city, and encourage them to visit some of our other locations that they may want to see along the way. It’s very exciting.

Jennifer Blatherwick: It is. My kids are desperately waiting for when Supernatural is a fully developed part of that.

Gemma Martini: It will be a big part, with 13 seasons or even more than that. They have so much for us to be able to enhance the platform.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your advocacy. This is a huge and important industry in our province and brings so much value, not just through economy, but also creativity and joy. So thank you.

Gemma Martini: Thank you very much. We’re very proud of it.

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

We’ll go to our next presenter. We have Dave Baspaly from B.C. Common Ground Alliance.

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

B.C. Common Ground Alliance

Dave Baspaly: Thank you. I’m ready, and I apologize first to the committee for earlier. I was trying to get through a portal, and I’m obviously not that good at technology. So my apologies to everybody there.

I know it’s been a long day, so here we go. You’ve already got the background of who we are. We’re a non-profit organization that’s dedicated to safety, protecting underground infrastructure, workers that are connected with underground infrastructure, the general public and the environment.

Why that’s important is it’s a grassroots effort designed to make sure things are safe in British Columbia. We support our 1 Call centre, BC1C, and other entities out there to make sure that the right thing’s there. And we work very extensively with government too. We’ve worked on various initiatives, and we come every year to the Legislature to meet with the ministers and so on about this.

Our challenge is we have…. We’re a non-profit. As you can imagine, we get our resources from membership, and we have about a $200,000 budget to meet the needs of a whole province and champion safety. We know the provincial government is really struggling right now with resources, and it’s important that our construction sector and other sectors stand up and make B.C. strong again so that we can support all of our citizens.

But as a non-profit organization, we’re not looking necessarily for money as much as access to some of the ministries to do some work together. We’re wondering if that can be done with the existing Ministry of Municipal Affairs, it could be Adrian Dix’s or the ministry of climate change or one of the other ministries where we can work together to find solutions.

We also apply for a gaming grant every year, and it’s been our second or third year applying for it. We’re hoping we get it this year. The big thrust on that would be even $50,000 could make a difference in small communities across this province, particularly rural or remote, that need to be engaged in the conversation. There are also the Indigenous groups that we’re trying to connect with that are increasingly taking a larger share of the workforce along pipeline rights-of-way, utility corridors and those kinds of things.

[3:20 p.m.]

So our hope is that the committee can pass that along to Gaming, that we’d be a worthy cause, and help us with the ministries to connect so that we can advance the interest and protect the pipeline, the environment, and workers and general public that we serve.

How was that? With 2:41 left, you can have it back.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. The committee doesn’t make recommendations to the gaming grant awards decision-making process, but your main ask seems to be not just funding but better, more improved communication and coordination with the various ministries that might interact with your purpose.

I just want to make sure I’m correct here. You asked about the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Ministry of Environment? Was that right?

Dave Baspaly: Yeah. The problem with our association is that it’s distributed through about five ministries, so we don’t have a clear champion that we can really appeal to. Some support or help getting involvement with some of the ministries that would be affecting safety….

We do have some relationships with the BCER and WorkSafeBC and some of the other Crowns, but it would be good to get more involvement with the provincial government.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Could you give me some examples of places where that communication or coordination could make things more effective?

Dave Baspaly: Sure. For example, a lot of local communities through the municipalities have a vested interest in their infrastructure, whether it be water, sewer, etc., and they get hit every year. It costs taxpayers in British Columbia an inordinate amount of money, puts people at risk, knocks down communications and can knock out services.

If they were involved in the conversation, some of our best practices, some of our information through our damage information reporting tool, or DIRT, it could all be helpful for them to actually avoid…. I know it’s kind of a play on words. We could work as partners to support them to be safer and to reduce those costs and service outages.

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

Dave Baspaly: Thank you, guys. I appreciate everything you do, and I know it’s a long day. Have a great day.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. We’ll go to our next presenter.

We have Murray Mollard from North Shore Community Resources. Thank you for joining us today. You have five minutes for a presentation and five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready to go.

North Shore Community Resources

Murray Mollard: Good afternoon, Chair and committee members. Thank you for providing some time for me to have a chat with you about some funding issues that are a priority for us and for our community on the north shore and, I will suggest, throughout British Columbia.

There are sort of three or four areas I want to speak to. North Shore Community Resources is a multiservice social service agency that serves the north shore — all ages, all abilities, people from all walks of life on the north shore. Our mission is to design and deliver programs that enhance well-being through enhancing social connections, individual empowerment and then community participation. We have a wide variety of different programs, ranging from seniors to children and families.

Just let me speak to seniors. We know that that population is growing considerably and needs the supports that we and other organizations provide. For example, we’re the Better at Home provider on the north shore, which provides a suite of services to seniors and their families to help individuals and support individuals to remain in their own homes. We know their well-being is better when they’re able to live within the communities in which they have relationships.

We do get support from the provincial government through the United Way, and we urge you to continue that kind of funding. That’s critical.

We have a caregiver support program. We provide support to those that are providing support to others, caring for others. It’s a big burden. There are thousands of people who do this work. It is very taxing and stressful. Unfortunately, our caregiver support program is not well funded, and we urge you to consider more funding for those kinds of programs.

[3:25 p.m.]

We do a lot of housing advocacy work — housing and below-market rentals. It’s very hard to get funding to do that kind of advocacy work. We work with all stakeholders, municipalities, all levels of government, often municipal governments, and with developers who have projects that seek to bring in below-market housing. Yet it’s hard to get funding for that. So we would really urge you to consider that level of funding as well.

I’m going to talk a bit about democratic participation for a moment. I know there’s a separate committee that’s looking at that, but really, there’s a funding question for that kind of work. We run a democracy café program that does a lot of things, including encouraging individuals to participate in democratic life. That might be voting. It might be other things.

For example, we just ran a project called First Vote with David Matijasevich up at Capilano University with his political science students, where they went into a high school or high schools on the North Shore to work with grade 12 students who have either turned 18 or are about to turn 18 and thus eligible for the first opportunity to vote. The research suggests that if you can get and encourage people who are first eligible to vote to get out and vote, they’re more likely to be lifelong voters.

But there really is no funding for that kind of work, so we urge you to consider again. We’ve worked with the SFU Centre for Dialogue on this. They have a paper called Strengthening Democratic Participation in British Columbia. Finding ways to provide non-partisan support for organizations that do this kind of work is really important. We need younger people. We need newcomers who are first eligible to vote. We really need them to be fully engaged in the democratic process so that they can exercise their democratic rights and responsibilities.

The last thing I’ll speak to is just we do a lot of work with Children and Families. We know the current government has made considerable efforts to fund child care, which is…. I think finally our society understands that that’s not only good in principle but a very good investment, an extremely important social investment that pays dividends in the long term.

We run the child care resource and referral program, where we help families find and connect to child care and then also assist early childhood educators with professional development and child care facilities to run good, strong programs for our youngest people in our communities. We continue to need funding for that. There is funding through the province, and we urge you to continue that funding.

I’m going to take a breath here, a long breath that’s four seconds long, and finish.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Thank you so much. I’m not familiar with your student democracy program. I know that the Student Vote program through CIVIX and Elections B.C. is very extensive. Is that a parallel program?

Murray Mollard: Well, it’s different and a great program. Kudos, and we want to continue to see that program. That often focuses on even younger students. It may encompass at times grade 12 students. But our project…. Really we just ran it as a pilot this year. And I’ve been wanting to run this pilot for a while. But really teaming up with, as I say, David Matijasevich at Capilano University political science department, we were able to get his students who had connections with classes and teachers at the grade 12 level.

So really we’re trying to focus on those students who are about to graduate this June, for example, because they’re the ones that are either 18 or turning 18, who will be more likely to be eligible to vote in typically a fall election, whether it be federal, provincial or municipal election. Usually, you are scheduled in the fall. We had a bit of an unusual spring federal election. But the next municipal election will be in the fall of 2026, right?

So we’ll want to target those grade 12 students who are going to be graduating in June of 2026 to be able to…. The whole idea is me coming out and talking to a grade 12 student, saying: “Hey, get out and vote. It’s a really good thing.” They don’t listen to me, but they may listen to their peers and younger university students who say: “Yeah, this is something that is important as you become eligible to vote.”

[3:30 p.m.]

So it’s an idea that we’re experimenting with. We think it was a successful pilot, and we’d love to do more of it, but there’s a challenge for funding here. There really isn’t a lot of funding for this.

We’d love to see a recommendation from the committee to fund this kind of work.

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

Murray Mollard: Okay. Thanks so much, and best wishes for your important work.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much. We will move on to our next presenter. Okay, we have Justine Nelson from Rivershed Society of British Columbia.

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

Rivershed Society of B.C.

Justine Nelson: Thank you so much. Good afternoon.

I’m joining you today from the traditional territory of the Matsqui First Nation in what is today known as Glen Valley, Abbotsford.

My name is Justine Nelson, and I’m the executive director of the Rivershed Society of B.C. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about the importance of watershed security and the future of the Fraser. I live and work in the Fraser watershed where the health of the river is deeply tied to the well-being of local communities, shaping the water we drink, the food we grow and the strength of our local economies.

At Rivershed, our mission is to connect, protect and restore the Fraser watershed. Through initiatives like foodlands, which supports collaborative restoration, and watershed workforce, which helps youth explore local career paths, we’re working to build a healthier, more resilient watershed. We are also on the steering committee of the B.C. Watershed Security Coalition.

Droughts, floods and wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe, clear signs of a growing crisis. Yet Budget 2025 cut watershed security funding by 80 percent, stalling restoration projects, costing jobs and slowing momentum across the province. Without prevention, recovery costs skyrocket and communities pay the price. British Columbia has spent nearly $11 billion responding to climate-related disasters in recent years. This cycle isn’t sustainable.

Degraded, vulnerable watersheds are part of the problem. Each summer, the message is the same: “Conserve water; be ready to run.” But warnings aren’t a plan. It’s time to invest in prevention and build resilience, because resilient watersheds fuel B.C.’s economy. They support every major sector from agriculture and tourism to forestry and energy. They create the kinds of jobs this province needs — resilient, rooted and regenerative.

We’ve seen what’s possible when public investment supports local leadership. Funding from the healthy watersheds initiative has allowed Rivershed to advance projects that restore critical ecosystems, strengthen community connections, build long-term resilience and create local jobs.

In Langley, we’re restoring the sc̓e:ɬxʷəy̓əm, or Salmon River corridor, in collaboration with Səýeḿ qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ and community partners. With the qʼʷa:n̓ƛʼən̓ land guardians and the Langley Environmental Partners Society, we’re maintaining restored sites and monitoring their impact on salmon and wildlife. In the Nechako, we’ve begun collaborating on a new foodlands corridor with the Saik'uz land guardians to restore riparian areas and support watershed health.

Foodlands is a proven solution, ready to scale, but it needs sustainable funding. The watershed security fund was supposed to close the funding gap, but it only generates $7 million to $10 million a year, far short of what’s needed to meet demand across B.C. And that demand is growing.

In the Fraser headwaters, multiple landholders have asked for help with riparian restoration. Bank erosion is accelerating, threatening the long-term health of the Fraser. Without a coordinated approach, we risk seeing short-term fixes, like riprap, that simply shift the problem downstream. In a region where wildfires have already devastated the tourism economy, restoration projects could protect the watershed and create meaningful local jobs.

[3:35 p.m.]

Rivershed has three recommendations for Budget 2026.

First, dedicate at least 10 percent of existing water rental revenues, about $50 million a year, to the watershed security fund. B.C. collects nearly $500 million a year in water rental fees, but none of it goes back into watershed health. This isn’t new spending. It’s about using existing revenues to protect varied watersheds that generate that value.

Second, review B.C.’s outdated industrial water rental rates. At less than $2.25 per million litres, they’re among the lowest in Canada. A review is long overdue to ensure rates are fair and reflect the true value of water.

Third, invest $5 to $10 million a year to support local watershed boards, like the one in the Cowichan. These efficient, trusted and locally-led boards help communities plan ahead and prevent water crises.

Investing in watershed security means putting clean water, thriving communities and long-term resilience at the centre of B.C.’s future. This is one of the smartest investments the province can make. Thank you.

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

Jennifer Blatherwick: Hello. Thank you so much for your presentation.

I’m looking at your first point. We had a previous presentation on this, and our conversation centred around the calculation of the $50 million from the water rentals.

What I understood from that previous presentation was in order for $50 million to be gained, we would have to have the new rates in place already. Like, the proposal of the new rates would have to be implemented before you would be able to gain the $50 million?

Justine Nelson: My understanding is that it’s within the existing rate as it currently is. So there’s $500 million that is currently collected through water rental fees. Then 10 percent of that would be the $50 million.

But then there’s still opportunity to be able to increase the water rental rates, because B.C. does have some of the lowest in Canada, at $2.25 per million litres. For example, Saskatchewan is at minimum $17 per million litres. Quebec is $35 per million litres. Ontario and Quebec on the high end are up to $500 per million litres. So just over $2 is quite low.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay, thank you so much.

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 Stephanie Aldridge from Hope Air. Thank you for joining us. You have five minutes for presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready. Thank you.

Hope Air

Stephanie Aldridge: Thank you. Good afternoon.

I am Stephanie Aldridge, and I’m here representing Hope Air, a charity that provides free medical travel support to patients in financial need. I appreciate your time today so that I can speak to you about access to health care for people living in rural and remote communities.

I first want to start and share a story about the experience of Siersha and her family. Siersha is a three-year-old girl from Sicamous with spina bifida. In her first year, Siersha and her mom, Ashleigh, met with several different specialists in Vancouver, all in-person visits.

Getting to Vancouver would normally be a six- to eight-hour drive, but given Siersha’s condition, this turned into a two-day journey. So one hospital visit would turn into a round trip of five to six days. It was unmanageable.

With one parent staying home to work and care for their other daughter, Siersha’s parents were faced with a choice: split up their family to move closer to Children’s Hospital to receive the necessary care or stay home, spend less on travel and be closer to family, limiting ongoing care for Siersha.

Fortunately, the family eventually learned about our organization, Hope Air, and Siersha is now able to live at home with her family intact and still attend medical appointments.

Her mom shared with us: “When I travel with Hope Air, I don’t have to worry about the other cars on the road. I don’t have to worry about the weather. I don’t have to worry about the condition of my vehicle. I don’t have to worry about how we’ll pay for it all. There are so many things I don’t have to worry about now, which means when I get to Children’s Hospital, I can focus on Siersha and what she needs.”

This story of Siersha is by no means unique. It personifies many of the goals of Hope Air. We have been operating in B.C. for over 30 years with a mission to ensure equitable access to health care for patients in financial need who must travel long distances for specialty medical care.

[3:40 p.m.]

Our free travel programs include round-trip air travel for the patient and their caregiver, accommodation and meal support when they’re required to stay overnight outside their community and ground transportation from the arrival airport to the hospital.

We are the only charity delivering a provincewide integrated medical travel support program focused exclusively on low-income residents, regardless of their health issue. The people we serve are those that are the most vulnerable: children, seniors, single-parent families, differently abled individuals and, sometimes, new immigrants.

In 2024, we supported nearly 4,000 patients from 230 communities in B.C. The average out-of-pocket cost of medical travel for rural patients exceeds $2,000 per appointment. A serious medical condition can require three or four trips, and for some with chronic conditions, it is a regular requirement to get care that is life-changing.

Without Hope Air’s support, patients tell us they take more time off work to get to appointments, and they deplete their savings or borrow money, pushing them further into debt and poverty. Worse still, over one-third of our patients report that without our support, they would postpone or cancel necessary medical care simply due to the financial costs of travel.

Health conditions left untreated have ripple effects, ultimately costing our public health system more. Patients enter the system later through overburdened emergency rooms, requiring more care resources and emergency ambulance transport and resulting in longer hospital stays. Our travel programs positively impact health outcomes, alleviate financial burdens for the individual and provide broader economic and social benefits through eliminating the barrier of the cost of travel and supplying timely access to care.

Hope Air has been recognized by the B.C. seniors advocate, the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the B.C. Rural Health Network. They are a unique and essential service. Furthermore, in 2024, Hope Air contributed over $1.3 million of private funding in B.C., leveraging a private-public model to bring greater value to the province.

However, for the first time in our history, the demand for our support exceeds our resources, and we’ve had to decline support for patients who’ve requested our help. For patients who rely on our services, there is no practical alternative.

I want to conclude by acknowledging that B.C. has been a leader in Canada in medical travel support. Since 2023, Hope Air has been able to successfully deliver a cancer travel program, a fully funded program in partnership with the Canadian Cancer Society. However, medical travel support should not depend upon your health condition.

In Budget 2026, B.C. is investing over $4.2 billion over three years to increase health capacity and improve health outcomes. We request you invest in people in rural communities. Hope respectfully requests $30 million dollars over the next three years so that we can ensure that no matter where they live or what their diagnosis is, no patient is left behind. Thank you.

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

We’ll now move to questions by members.

Jennifer Blatherwick: We were just recently travelling around the province, and we ran into one of your members in Trail. So thank you for….

Stephanie Aldridge: Impressive.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Yeah, it was. I recognized the logo.

You’re asking for $30 million for three years. Is that $30 million over three years, so $10 million per year, or $30 million per year?

Stephanie Aldridge: Correct.

Jennifer Blatherwick: Okay. So $30 million, $10 million per year.

What is your current budget now?

Stephanie Aldridge: In 2023, we received a $10 million, three-year grant from the B.C. government to support cancer travel. That expires at the end of this fiscal year. Currently, there is no renewal plan for funding.

Separately to that, we have a 12-year contract with the Provincial Health Services Authority as part of the B.C. family residence program to provide transportation support, which now excludes all other…. This excludes cancer. So there’s the cancer pot, and there’s everything else, and everything else comprises about 65 percent of our overall budget and overall requests for travel.

In ’25-26, we were provided with $1.2 million.

[3:45 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much for presenting to us today.

Okay. Is there any other business from the committee members?

Seeing none, thank you, everyone who presented. This concludes the public hearing portion of our consultation. As a reminder for anyone listening online, you have until tomorrow to submit a written proposal online through our consultation portal.

I absolutely want to take this opportunity to thank every single committee member who has spent their absolutely lovely summer sunny days indoors, travelling around the province and going into some remote locations. We know that it’s very important work that we’re doing. Thank you so much for doing this work.

I also want to thank all the staff who are here that are doing all this work behind the scenes, beside us. We want to thank you so much for all the work you guys do. The public thanks you as well.

With that, I will seek a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

Paul Choi (Chair): This meeting is now adjourned. Thank you very much.

The committee adjourned at 3:46 p.m.