The committee met at 4:00 p.m.

[Paul Choi in the chair.]

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

I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today in Castlegar, which is the traditional territory of the sn̓ʕaýckstx, Syilx and Ktunaxa Nations.

I would like to also welcome everyone who is listening to and participating in today’s meeting. I would also like to particularly recognize that we have a local MLA here — the MLA for Kootenay-Monashee, Steve Morissette — joining us. Thanks for taking the time and joining us.

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 la-bc.ca/consultations.

I will now ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): My name is Donegal Wilson. I am the MLA for Boundary-Similkameen. This is the closest the committee will be coming to my riding, so it feels a little bit like home. I look forward to hearing from rural B.C. today and the perspectives that they bring.

Rohini Arora: Hello, everyone. My name is Rohini Arora…. I’m the MLA for Burnaby East. I’m really looking forward to hearing about what matters to you today.

Bryan Tepper: I’m Brian Tepper, MLA for Surrey-Panorama. I’m excited to be in Castlegar, a beautiful city on the river here. Have a good day.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Hello, everyone. My name is Debra Toporowski. My traditional name is Qwulti’stunaat, and I’m the MLA for the Cowichan Valley.

Welcome, and looking forward to hearing from the people from this area.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Assisting the committee today are Darryl Hol and Kayla Wilson, in the back, from the Parliamentary Committees Office, and Amanda Heffelfinger and Dwight Schmidt from Hansard Services. Thank you very much for helping us making this happen today.

We will be going to hear from a number of organizations and individuals about their priorities for the next provincial budget. I would like to invite our first presenter, Solita Work, from West Kootenay Cycling Coalition, to come forward, please.

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

West Kootenay Cycling Coalition

Solita Work: My name is Solita Work, and I’m speaking here today on behalf of the West Kootenay Cycling Coalition. We are a non-profit group that advocates for active transportation awareness, safety and infrastructure in the West Kootenay region. Although focused on cycling, we see the desperate need for a multimodal transport system in rural areas, making walking, cycling and transit accessible for all.

Compared to a car, cycling is affordable. Almost anyone can do it, even children. It can be a safe and healthy way to get around for a lot more rural residents. Indeed, the human body coupled with a bicycle is the most energy-efficient transportation mode on earth.

In comparison, driving is by far the most inefficient. It’s expensive and dangerous. It’s a leading cause of premature death around the world, a leading cause of childhood asthma in Canada, a major source of air, water and noise pollution and a drain on our health care system. It fragments neighbourhoods and wildlife habitat. It’s a terrible use of land, leading to both urban and rural sprawl, which contribute to inflated housing costs at a time when we need affordability.

Our auto-centric transport system is built and maintained for the purpose of moving commercial goods around. I would argue that private automobiles are only permitted in order to justify the allocation of public funding for this infrastructure. The cost of moving goods is downloaded on us, the taxpayers. Our auto-centric system is an incredible way to funnel money out of our communities, creating unaffordable financial dependency on transport that really only serves the privileged.

Everybody pays for the infrastructure and maintenance of roads, regardless of if they drive or not, yet about 30 percent of the population doesn’t drive, which makes prioritizing driving a wasteful financial public investment. We deserve more transportation options that are safe, accessible, affordable and benefit everybody.

[4:05 p.m.]

In 2021, the B.C. government introduced the CleanBC plan to increase trips taken by walking, cycling and public transit by 30 percent by 2030, and we support this plan.

For context, the Ministry of Transportation and Transit maintains an average annual budget of approximately $9 billion, yet only a tiny fraction is allocated for active transportation. In 2023, $85 million over two years was committed to active transportation projects around the province. In 2024, an additional $50 million over three years was committed.

This is a shamefully tiny sum of money in comparison to the Ministry of Transport budget. So $85 million, for example, is less than 0.009 percent — a hundredth of a percent. It’s impossible for the B.C. government to reach these proposed targets unless a significant portion of the ministry’s budget is reprioritized into public and active transportation.

We suggest a 25 percent increase, with 15 percent going to public transit — so a $1.35 billion investment — and the other 10 percent, we suggest, going towards active transportation, or $900 million. Please note that funding for rural transit currently sits at 0.045 percent — that’s less than half a percent.

Interestingly, B.C. Cycling Coalition recently indicated that there are about $1 billion worth of shovel-ready projects provincewide. By reprioritizing the budget to include all modes of transport, we could make active transportation safe and convenient for rural residents all over B.C. in under a year. If our government is really serious about being fiscally responsible and making it easier to get around without a car, it’s going to have to invest in those other options.

So we’re asking the province of B.C. today to put all forms of transportation into the Ministry of Transportation and Transit’s portfolio. Walking, cycling and public transit deserve to be 100 percent funded by the province, just like auto transport.

Along with the regional district of Central Kootenay, we’re calling on the B.C. government to support all modes of transportation by changing the way the province funds transport infrastructure, specifically in rural areas. The current provincial funding policy makes active transportation the responsibility of local governments, effectively creating a two-tier system where only urban residents come out on top.

In rural areas throughout B.C., provincially maintained secondary and tertiary highways are the sole transportation corridors available to residents. They serve as roadways, as well as walking paths, cycling, school routes, emergency access, and there are no other routes to utilize. These routes are already dangerous for drivers — more so for vulnerable users. The funding framework may be functional for urban environments with larger tax bases, but it’s fundamentally misaligned in our rural area.

The estimated cost to implement our proposed bicycle pathway project that’s connecting Nelson to Castlegar is $60 million, or 0.006 percent of the annual transportation budget. It would be just one-half percent of the active transportation budget if we received 10 percent of the annual budget, as I suggested earlier. The infrastructure would directly serve 20,000 residents; indirectly, thousands more, including tourists. Under the current funding model, our region can’t afford this, and even if it were built, we couldn’t pay for the ongoing maintenance. The Ministry of Transportation and Transit can.

We ask that the government be courageous and visionary with the budget by allocating proper funding to build and maintain the alternate transportation options we desperately need. This is your chance to leave a lasting legacy.

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much, Solita, for your presentation. I just wanted to say that we’ve heard quite a few presentations over the last three weeks, and I really appreciate your approach. I think that many of the folks that have come forward, whether it’s cycling, rec, really getting around their cities or thinking about expanding transit…. You’re really thinking about it more broadly and moving us towards a more livable and walkable region, and we totally hear you.

You said $900 million, but then later on you said it would be 1-point-something billion. I was trying to keep up with your numbers. So 15 percent would go to transit, and then active transportation would be $900 million. But then later on you said maybe $600 million, and so I’m trying to understand the difference between those numbers.

Solita Work: Well, what I’m asking for is that if the average transportation budget is $9 billion, 10 percent go towards active transportation, which would be approximately $900 million. Then I just wanted to point out how small a sum our actual proposed route would be, which is $60 million compared to the $900 million.

Rohini Arora: Oh, okay. Got it, got it.

[4:10 p.m.]

Solita Work: Also, the B.C. Cycling Coalition, the provincial arm, says that there are about $1 billion in shovel-ready projects right now that they can’t move forward with because there’s no funding, which means we could actually accomplish most of those projects in the first year if we were able to get that funding and make sure that 10 percent went towards active transportation in the budget.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I’m going to lean in because we did have a conversation before. I just wanted to capture the conversation we had, specifically around the idea of trails becoming MOT, into the Ministry of Transport, not necessarily over in Recreation Sites and Trails. You were saying that all trails should come in under Transport. I would look to elaborate on that a little.

Solita Work: I think the majority of people using these trails, although there is recreation…. I mean, most people just want more options for transportation. You know, like the Slocan Valley, for example. They have the Slocan Rail Trail. I ride that for recreation, but I can tell you that while riding it for recreation, I see tons of people commuting on it.

So we know people are using it if we build it. We just need more of it everywhere.

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

I’d like to invite our next presenter to come forward, Kevin Cormack from city of Nelson.

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

City of Nelson

Kevin Cormack: All right. Thank you, Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to appear for the city of Nelson. My name is Kevin Cormack. I’m the city manager.

Nelson is about 11,000 residents. We are a bit unique. We own our own hydroelectric utility. But like all small municipalities, we are responsible for delivering essential services and maintaining critical infrastructure within a very limited tax base.

Across Canada, municipalities maintain about 60 percent of public infrastructure, yet only get about 8 percent of total tax revenue. I think everyone’s aware of the infrastructure deficit estimated to be about $150 billion across Canada.

The other topic I’m going to speak on is housing affordability. I think everyone’s aware of the pressures on housing costs. These are not isolated pressures. They reflect a structural gap between expectations placed on municipalities and the tools available to meet them.

I’m going to focus on three practical recommendations. First is infrastructure and regulatory costs. Small municipalities cannot meet growing infrastructure and regulatory expectations without stable support. Nelson is managing eight aging facilities, water, sewer, electric utility and transportation infrastructure while planning for long-term replacement. I think everyone’s aware of the aging infrastructure that all our communities are facing. Nelson’s about 120 years old, and we have some infrastructure that’s 100-plus years old.

Coupled with this are provincial requirements such as dam safety, water treatment and seismic upgrades that introduce significant additional costs. The challenge is the combination of increasing regulatory burden — which isn’t necessarily risk-based; it seems to be more of a one-size-fits-all approach — aging infrastructure and a lack of funding for these costs; i.e. there’s a lack of alignment between expectations and funding.

Our recommendation is to establish a stable formula-based infrastructure funding, including dedicated compliance funding scaled to community capacity.

The second area is core funding and municipal capacity. Again, municipal responsibilities are expanding faster than our capacity to deliver. Local governments are expected to lead on climate action, emergency preparedness, housing coordination and many reporting requirements. Yet municipalities continue to operate with a small share of the total tax revenue while delivering major services.

[4:15 p.m.]

An example is as we grow, the small community grant actually decreases instead of increases. It goes down. So this creates a structural capacity challenge, particularly for our small communities. Our recommendation is to expand predictable, unconditional core funding and reduce administrative burden across all programs.

Third is housing, homelessness and front-line pressures. Municipalities are on the front line of the housing and homelessness crisis. I’ll just give you some local data. In the January to May 2024 period, we had 308 first-responder calls, and 129 of those were overdoses. In 2025 in the same period, we had 301 calls and 86 overdoses. This year, January to May, we’ve had 440 calls, including 239 overdoses. That would be almost 600 overdoses in 2026 if this continues.

These are real and increasing pressures on emergency services, public safety and community well-being. Municipalities are bearing the cost but do not have the jurisdiction or funding tools to address root causes. We are very thankful for the housing projects that have been in Nelson and region, including ones like the supportive housing that is due to open in Nelson soon. These are critical, addressing homeless and addressing the community disruption that homelessness and the toxic drug crisis cause.

Our regional communities are finally in the position to add supportive housing, and these need to be provided regionally. Nelson can’t be the only community in our region with supportive housing. Our recommendation: expand housing investments and provide direct, sustainable funding for municipal homelessness and emergency response.

In closing, our recommendations are stable infrastructure and compliance funding; predictable core funding and reduced administrative burden; expanded housing investment and direct support for homelessness costs.

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

Rohini Arora: Thanks so much for your presentation. I was curious when you were talking about sustained funding in your third ask. I’m not sure if I heard a number there.

Kevin Cormack: I didn’t identify any specific number of what that looks like. Certainly, we know what costs we’re facing. You know, it’s policing, it’s bylaw, it’s our fire first responders, it’s cleanup costs. We’re dealing with one of our neighbourhoods that has a shelter in it. There are all these, and that doesn’t.… I’ve been the city manager for 20 years now, and certainly, this was not on my plate even ten years ago, to be addressing this. It has taken resources across our organization.

Rohini Arora: Just a follow-up. Is there an approximate number that you can use? It’s helpful.

Kevin Cormack: For example, in fire, we’re having to add, in effect, five firefighters because of burnout. Again, we’re a professional department. We had a composite department. We were provided that service very cost-effectively, but they were not spending 65 percent of their time on calls relating to homelessness and the vulnerable population.

The overtime that we’re incurring, and just the burnout.… We had two people on staff, and people are constantly being called back into the hall to cover staff to go out and respond to people. Police, we’re seeing the same thing. The number of police officers we’ve had to have is expanding.

We recognize this is…. We’re not looking for the province to fund all of this. However, local taxation is funding all of it now, not part of it.

[4:20 p.m.]

I’d say for five firefighters, probably $700,000 a year in salaries alone is the pressure that we’re facing. We’re incurring probably $50,000 a year just in cleanup costs to clean up encampments. We’ve had to hire another bylaw officer.

At the local level, for a community of 11,000 people, it’s probably costing us $1 million plus a year.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you for articulating that. Yeah, it’s a sad story happening across British Columbia. In Boundary-Similkameen, we have similar reports coming from Oliver, as well as, I know, Grand Forks.

You’d mentioned in your second one that you need to expand core funding as stable core funding. I’m just wondering what you’re getting now and what you think the expansion should be.

Kevin Cormack: I think our small community grant’s somewhere around $300,000 a year — as a minimum, not seeing that continuing decline year after year as we regrow. Again, we recognize that the province is in challenging financial times. We’re not looking to have our hands out for everything, but things like at least not reducing when we have these costs, not freezing things.

For example, I know library funding has been frozen for a long, long time, and it’s hard to operate in those circumstances. Like I said, as a minimum, looking for at least not freezing things.

The LGCAP funding is announced to be eliminated. We have a climate team in our community, for Nelson, that’s doing great work, but five people are sustained by grants, and that’s a key one. When we start to lose those types of grants, then our programs and then things like….

On the whole emergency management side of it, yes, there are grants available, but just the administration to write…. Like, we write — I don’t know — a dozen grants for that program year after year. We had to hire a full-time person to manage those grants, and that just sucks resources out of a municipality.

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

I’d like to invite our next presenter, if I can have Mayor Colleen Jones come forward from the city of Trail. Thank you so much for joining us. You have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready.

City of Trail

Colleen Jones: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Colleen Jones, and I am the mayor of the city of Trail. I’m here today to speak in support of a regional resolution calling on stronger provincial response to rehabilitation, homelessness, mental health and addictions, and public safety in rural communities. This resolution has been received at the UBCM, and it’s a regional resolution along with Trail, Castlegar and Nelson together.

First, I want to say that this isn’t just a Trail issue. This is a regional service gap in this region. Trail, Castlegar, Nelson and the surrounding rural communities are facing similar pressures. We’re seeing people in crisis, families looking for help, increasing pressure on emergency services, pressure on policing, pressure on hospitals, and growing concern from residents and businesses. Those pressures are different in rural B.C., and the challenges are more devastating.

The services that are needed to properly respond to these challenges are not currently available in our three-community region in the way they need to be. When people are ready for help, they need timely access to services close to home. That includes detox treatment, recovery supports, mental health, supportive housing and coordinated public safety resources. Right now those services are either not available locally or regionally, or they’re not available at the level required to meet the call when in need.

This creates delays, and it creates missed opportunities for intervention. It leaves local government, police, emergency responders, health care providers, non-profit organizations and families trying to manage the visible impacts of systems that are not fully in place.

[4:25 p.m.]

As municipalities, we’re doing what we can, but we can’t solve these problems alone. We do not control the health care system, we do not fund treatment and recovery services, and we do not fund mental health and addiction care. But we are often the level of government closest to the people experiencing the crisis and closest to the residents and the businesses who are impacted by it. As a local government, we understand and we feel their frustration. This is why this resolution is so important.

This resolution is not separate from the budget priorities; it directly supports them. It speaks to health care, mental health, addictions, housing, community safety and protecting the core services that people rely on.

The concern is making sure these priorities reach rural communities like ours. We should be valued and considered equally with other communities. Rural communities need access to the same coordinated systems of care, treatment, recovery and supportive housing. For our region, this is about making sure services are available close to home before the crisis becomes the only point of response. There’s also a financial responsibility to this.

I want to emphasize that this work is regional. Trail, Castlegar, Nelson and surrounding areas are connected throughout the region. Services are shared throughout the region, and impacts are felt throughout the region. That’s why a coordinated regional approach is needed. So today I’m asking the Finance Committee to recognise the gap that exists in our region and support the provincial investment in regional rehabilitation, mental health and addiction services.

In keeping with the committee’s process, I’m bringing forward three recommendations.

The first is to establish a coordinated regional strategy for rehab, homelessness, mental health and addictions in Trail, Castlegar and Nelson.

The second is to invest in accessible regional services close to home, including detox treatment supports, supportive housing and mental health care.

The third is to provide sustainable provincial funding and public safety resources for rural communities dealing with homelessness, mental health, addictions and repeat crisis response.

Local governments are carrying a visible impact of systems they do not control for funding. Provincial investments would help reduce the pressure on emergency rooms, policing shelters, bylaw services, outreach teams, community organizations and our communities.

Thank you for your time.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Looking at the regional, you talked about…. I know the city of Nelson was just before you talking about having supportive housing there and looking to expand out into other communities. Does — I don’t want to call them a cohort — your region have a plan for where the placement of these could be? Are there proposals in the works, and is there a dollar figure attached to it?

Colleen Jones: No, unfortunately we haven’t gotten that far in the conversation at this time. What’s important is that we did get this resolution to the UBCM. My understanding is it’s with the provincial government right now. Hoping to get a task force together or something to have that conversation. But it is something that is affecting all three of our communities.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Yeah, I think I would encourage the task force idea, and I just want you to know that you’re not working in isolation. There’s a task force forming in the South Okanagan. There’s a task force forming…. This is something that each regional pool is looking at, so perhaps there is some economy of figuring out how to not work in isolation. Hopefully UBCM is able to pull that together into a strategy that we can move forward. But yeah. Thank you.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Thank you for coming and presenting. My question was: how many detox beds are in the area? You said it’s a regional approach to support services.

Colleen Jones: We have nine detox beds in Castlegar. That’s it.

[4:30 p.m.]

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: I was just wondering. Mental health and addictions. I know that we were talking earlier to other presenters about getting services like HEARTH and HEART in the community. I don’t know if that’s accessible here, as well, or just….

Colleen Jones: I honestly have not heard about that.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Okay. I wanted to check, because we’re travelling other places and then

and other presenters about getting services like HEARTH and HEART in the community. I don’t know if that’s accessible here as well or just….

Colleen Jones: I honestly have not heard about that.

Debra Toporowski / Qwulti’stunaat: Okay. I wanted to check because we’re travelling to other places. If we don’t know what’s available or whatnot in other areas, then….

Bryan Tepper: I just want to know if your overdose numbers are as dismal as Nelson’s.

Colleen Jones: Yes, they are.

Bryan Tepper: The first responders are dealing with…. Is it about the same number of calls? I mean 50 percent of the calls being overdoses….

Colleen Jones: Yes. When my friend from Nelson was speaking about that, I recognized those numbers in our area. I can tell you that last year the city of Trail was No. 20 in the province for overdoses, and we moved up to No. 12. That’s not a number I am very proud of. It’s devastating.

Bryan Tepper: No, I wouldn’t think so. I mean, for our communities in the Interior, my goodness. Anyway.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I guess because I know the answer, I’m going to lean a little bit into what Debra said. What services are here as far as supportive housing, counselling, detox and resources available for families before crisis?

Colleen Jones: I can tell you that the only detox that we have are the nine beds in Castlegar, unless it’s done in the hospital. I don’t know of any…. I don’t believe there are services in Nelson for that. My understanding is it’s just in Castlegar. Trail doesn’t have any beds.

As for families in crisis, we do have some services that are provided by non-profits. We have a FAIR Society, and the community development committee also does that kind of family-in-crisis delivery of services. It’s very minimal. Compared to the need, it’s very minimal.

Rohini Arora: Great to see you, Colleen. Thanks for your presentation.

I wanted to ask you, in terms of the communities that are being impacted, how many of the folks that are struggling and getting supports from the not-for-profits…? Per person, how many hours would you say they’re able to access? I’m just curious. You might not know the answer, but if you do, or you could point me to something just to get a sense of what’s available….

Colleen Jones: Right. Are you asking about the individuals that are on the streets, that are unhoused?

Rohini Arora: Anyone who needs access to mental health supports. Like they may, you know…. There are not-for-profits. Whether it’s a family in crisis…. It can be someone who’s experiencing being unhoused, or it can be addictions. Sometimes it can be mental health, PTSD-related or sometimes as a result of FASD. It could be multiple reasons.

I think what I’m curious about is: how many hours are these organizations actually able to give? As you said, it doesn’t match the need.

Colleen Jones: No, absolutely not. I know that Interior Health has Kiro Manor in Trail, and they provide mental health support and counselling. I can’t tell you how many hours that includes.

We do have a couple of doctors in Trail that do go out onto the streets. They put a backpack on, and they go on the streets on separate days of the week.

We also have a mobile van that goes out and tries to reach the unhoused population and give them support with their wounds and letting them know where they can get help, asking them if they want to go into detox, trying to give them that kind of counselling.

We have a couple of community-based non-profit organizations that do go out and walk the streets. We have outreach nurses. I believe the outreach nurses are 70 hours a week. We’re just starting to increase those numbers for face-to-face interaction with these individuals.

It’s a process, for sure. We’re doing what we can do. We need more funding and more resources. More housing is what we really need and different kinds of housing. I mean, supportive housing is fine, but these individuals have been on the streets for so long without support that they need that complex care now.

[4:35 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much for coming and presenting to us today.

Colleen Jones: Thank you so much.

Paul Choi (Chair): I’d like to invite the next presenter up, Desneiges Profili, from Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy.

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

Columbia Basin
Alliance for Literacy

Desneiges Profili: Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is Desneiges Profili, and I am the executive director for the Columbia Basin Alliance for Literacy, or CBAL as we’re better known. We are a non-profit literacy and settlement organization operating in the Kootenay and Boundary region, representing 16 of the 98 literacy outreach networks across the province.

We’re sincerely grateful to the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs for supporting literacy outreach coordination, which provides $2.187 million each year for this critical work across the province. This funding is the foundation for planning, developing and maintaining literacy programs in the 77 communities which our organization serves.

We’re also thankful to the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills for its ongoing commitment to adult literacy through the community adult literacy program.

Together, this funding is the backbone of our literacy work, helping us to leverage additional community, provincial and federal funding to help support learners of all ages, including families, adults, youth, children, newcomers, Indigenous communities and seniors. While this funding may not seem significant to some, it is integral for our community organizations.

The literacy network is a funding multiplier. Provincially, the literacy network took that $2.187 million and raised over $11 million in 2024 and 2025. Without this base funding to support literacy coordination, other funding simply would not be possible.

These investments in community-based literacy programs lead to a stronger, more skilled workforce, where individuals can bridge into further training and be safer in their work because they understand their tasks, their rights, their responsibilities for themselves and their employers; healthier families, because people can access free cooking programs, where they can learn budgeting, nutritional and hands-on cooking skills, making that dollar stretch, crucial in these challenging economic times; more resilient communities and stronger economies, where people are empowered, build meaningful connections and have the communication and soft skills they need to advocate for themselves and others.

This work is unique to the literacy field. Our programs are a place where anybody can walk through the doors no matter what. There are no requirements, such as income, age, immigrant status, employment status.

I can share with you a few stories of how it works here in our region.

For nearly 15 years, Paulina has been a familiar and inspiring presence in the Nelson literacy community. What began as a one-to-one support with CBAL tutors became a remarkable journey of perseverance, growth and achievement. Paulina expanded her learning through literacy programs and went on to Selkirk College, always moving towards her dream of achieving her B.C. adult graduation diploma. This past month her dream became a reality, and she proudly accepted her diploma in Nelson.

Brian, another learner in Cranbrook, dropped out of school with a grade 2 reading level. At the age of 62, he comes to CBAL to meet with a tutor, a man of his similar age, where they work together on his firefighting and search and rescue courses. He’s applying for his high school diploma in the summer.

We have a single mother in Elk Valley, who will not be named, who was struggling with dyslexia and needed support to study for her learners driver’s permit. After working with the tutor for many weeks, she was extremely proud to share that she passed her exam. Now she’s reaching her road test, working on that, helping her to become more independent and self-sufficient.

At a recent professional development day in the local school district that takes part in CBAL’s fostering literacy program, teachers were asked what they had done to facilitate literacy improvement this year. Teachers across all participating classes reported that the program made a significant difference in the students’ learning. School-based data also showed strong results, with many of those students that participated in the program moving from developing readers into proficient readers.

These are the real stories, the impact that literacy coordination funds make in our communities.

The following are the three recommendations to the select standing committee in relation to outreach coordination: increased literacy outreach coordination funding to a minimum of $4.5 million, up from the $2.187 million, to sustain and expand essential literacy programs in more than 400 communities across B.C.; strengthen the adult literacy program by raising funding to $4.5 million from $3.4 million to better support vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations; and establish a B.C. literacy strategy that recognizes literacy as a foundation for economic growth, social inclusion and community resilience.

Coordinated action across various sectors will only create stronger outcomes for all British Columbians. The world is changing, and literacy can be a vehicle to help people grow and evolve. The skills you need to navigate the world are complex and shift as technology progresses and policy changes.

[4:40 p.m.]

B.C. has built a unique and proven literacy network, one that is recognized across Canada. Now is the time to protect and strengthen the success, to continue the investment in literacy and to help ensure that communities across B.C. remain connected, resilient and equipped to meet the challenges of the future.

On behalf of CBAL and our over 15,000 participants we had last year in programs, we thank you for this opportunity and for considering our request to grow that investment and support community literacy programs in B.C.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I’m looking for some clarification on a couple of the numbers. First of all, the $4½ million, I’m assuming, is for all programs in B.C., not just for the region.

Desneiges Profili: That’s correct. The $4½ million is on behalf of B.C. The $3.4 million is what CALP currently provides, and 4½ million would be the additional.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Clarification again for my notes. I didn’t figure out what the difference between 1 and 2 was.

Desneiges Profili: So 1 and 2 are literacy outreach coordination, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. They provide the outreach coordination to the literacy network. It’s stewarded through Decoda Literacy Solutions.

Currently it’s $2.187 million for literacy outreach coordination across B.C. What we’re proposing is we would like to see an increase to $4.5 million. It’s been almost 15 years since there’s been any increase in that funding. That work falls on the shoulders of organizations to find ways to be creative, to provide additional wages, to retain staff.

In our organization, for instance, we get about $260,000 of that pot of money. We have 16 communities. It’s about $16,000 per person. If you look at that from that perspective, maintaining people in that kind of a role is quite a significant endeavour.

For it not to be increased in the many years, that’s where we’re seeing revenue is, of course, flattening out. There are not many resources or places to access funding to support this kind of work.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Last clarifying, I promise. So 1 is for administration dollars. I’m kind of hearing outreach coordination, admin core funding. Then 2 is program dollars. Is that correct?

Desneiges Profili: Program coordination, yes. Coordination — they’re the people that write grants. They help build the programs. They build the partnerships. That’s number one, literacy outreach coordination.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So what does 2…?

Desneiges Profili: They’re the network. Two is your community adult literacy program. That’s CALP, through the Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills. Right now it’s $3.4 million. We would like to see an increase up to $4.5 million. Those are grants of about $32,000 that you can apply for, usually two-year funding packages for communities.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Any other questions?

Okay, seeing none, thank you so much for coming and presenting to us.

We would like to invite our next presenter, Alex Hawes from safe kids and youth coordinated response, Kootenay Boundary Community Services Co-operative.

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

Kootenay Boundary
Community Services Co-operative

Alex Hawes: Good afternoon. My name is Alex Hawes. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you on the traditional and unceded territories of the sn̓ʕaýckstx, the Ktunaxa and the Syilx Peoples, who have lived throughout the West Kootenays since time immemorial.

I am the regional manager for safe kids and youth coordinated response, a rural model child and youth advocacy centre that operates through Nelson, Kaslo, Nakusp, Castlegar, Trail, Salmo and all the small communities in between. We cover an area of 23,000 square kilometres, and requests for support outside of our jurisdiction are becoming a regular occurrence.

Last week our CYAC, our child and youth advocacy centre, responded to multiple disclosures of abuse. A child showing their teacher bruises on their neck and arms, a youth stating that her father had been climbing into bed with her at night, and a mom breaking down to our staff as she recounts the emotional abuse that her child was facing on a daily basis.

I want to remind you what is at stake. So 60 percent of children in British Columbia will experience some form of abuse by the time they’re 15, yet there is still no mandated, coordinated provincial response when a child discloses abuse.

Child and youth advocacy centres are the key in changing the long-term well-being and trajectory of abuse and neglect for children and youth across British Columbia. No single agency can effectively respond to abuse on its own. Child abuse cases are complex. They’re traumatic and often require the involvement of multiple systems.

[4:45 p.m.]

CYACs bring those systems together, creating a coordinated, child-centred response that reduces trauma, improves communication and ensures that children and families receive the support that they need. This is reflected in the multi-sector response safe kids and youth led following the disclosures of abuse I just shared with you.

RCMP, child protection, school counsellors, principals, teachers and victim services came together to share information, coordinate child forensic interviews, create safety plans, discuss medical supports and regular communications with family, ensuring that the children and youth did not fall through the cracks.

Rather than working in silos, our partner agencies worked as a unified team focused on the safety and well-being of the child or youth in question. The result was a timely, coordinated response that prioritized the child, reduced duplication of services, strengthened investigations and connected families with the support they needed when they needed it the most.

This coordinated response should be a standard in British Columbia, yet the reality is that for many children and families across our province, that level of collaboration simply doesn’t exist. While policies may speak to coordination, too often there is no structure, no dedicated process and no shared accountability to bring agencies together when a child discloses abuse. As a result, the quality of the response a child receives can depend on where they live.

Therefore, I have two recommendations for the committee’s consideration. These recommendations are shared by CYAC leaders across British Columbia and reflect what we know is needed to improve the outcome for children and youth who experience abuse.

First, the province of B.C. should develop and implement strong policy that mandates and supports collaboration among government services when responding to child abuse.

While collaboration is widely recognized as the best practice, it is not consistently occurring within the province. Government policy should establish clear expectations, accountability mechanisms and resources that ensure these agencies work together in a coordinated, child-centred manner.

Second, the province should provide ongoing, sustainable funding for CYACs throughout British Columbia. CYACs demonstrated that coordinated, trauma-informed response improves the outcomes for children, youth and families while increasing efficiency across systems.

At the centre of every policy discussion, every funding decision and every service gap is a child who has experienced abuse and is depending on us, the adults, to get the response right. We know what works. Child and youth advocacy centres provide a coordinated, trauma-informed response that improves the outcomes for children, families and communities. Yet access to that response remains inconsistent across British Columbia.

When a child or youth finds the courage to speak up, our system must be ready to respond. Thank you.

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

Rohini Arora: Thank you so much for your presentation.

Alex Hawes: You bet.

Rohini Arora: It’s very clear that this matters to you deeply. It matters to all of us, but just even hearing a really surface and high level of what might be going on is just absolutely gut-wrenching.

Your first recommendation — you talked about developing policy that supports collaboration. Do you see that as a request for legislation, or do you see it as a regulatory change?

Alex Hawes: I would see it like a regulatory change.

Rohini Arora: Okay. Follow-up: can you dig into that a little bit for me? You said develop policy that supports collaboration. Collaboration is best practice, but it’s not consistent?

Alex Hawes: Absolutely. Sectors like child protection…. The Ministry of Children and Family Development and the RCMP do not have within their legislation any policy to collaborate with anyone else. Often we, as CYACs across Canada, have dug into the legislation to actually highlight the areas that identify that they actually can collaborate.

The concept is you share what is crucial, or the critical pieces that need to be shared within an investigation. But what that often does is in those critical moments, you’re left navigating a really hard challenge, say, with a staff sergeant who has been instructed his entire career to follow legislation. Then you have, maybe, other detachments and other agencies following and collaborating with CYACs and then others not.

It has been in the works, but we really want to see that really clear and direct policy that ensures that these government sectors do collaborate together.

[4:50 p.m.]

No disrespect, but if we assume that that’s what’s happening…. I can tell you right now, it’s not. It doesn’t.

There’s what should happen. Then there’s the reality of what’s happening on the ground, and we as CYACs are navigating what’s happening on the ground. Hopefully, that…. Does that give a bit more context, what I was requesting?

Rohini Arora: One more follow-up, if no one else has a question.

I think it’s important, and just so you know, we are very open.

Alex Hawes: I know. I always just like…. I try to be like….

Rohini Arora: No, and don’t worry, because the point is to make things more efficient in a way that also protects people when they need it the most, especially when they’re trying to navigate. A child navigating a system like that…. It’s really important. CYACs play a very critical role.

You mentioned it’s been in the works. Do you mean policy development or a working group? Can you clarify?

Alex Hawes: Yeah. So CYACs at the provincial level…. You would have heard Brooke McLardy speak for the provincial network. They have been advocating to work alongside the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the RCMP to create an MOU standard for all of our collaboration. But that still doesn’t….

Interjection.

Alex Hawes: Exactly. It doesn’t. That’s here, and we need…. That one little extra above is what we’re after. The band-aid solutions are what I would call what we’re working on, but that MOU also ensures that we’re all speaking the same language as CYACs across the province. But we need that one step up.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation and your work.

You’d mentioned, in No. 2, the core funding for the centres themselves. I’m just wondering if you know the current level of funding and what the ask is to get it to.

Alex Hawes: Absolutely. So on average…. I mean, it does fluctuate. I think you heard from Leah Zille, from Treehouse in Vancouver. They have an operating budget of just over $1 million, I believe. I operate within 23,000 kilometres and have an operating budget of $240,000, which is nothing. For us, for all CYACs to operate at the national standards, our request is $850K per centre per year. So that’s about a $9 million to $10 million investment per year.

I will say that that number, in terms of rural response — so a rural model like ourselves — can be less. That is because our rural models are built on the existing services within communities. We just amplify those said services. So we can actually do it generally at a lower cost than some of our urban counterparts.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll take the $850,000. Trust me. It’ll do wonders for amplifying those services because really, as you heard from Mayor Jones, what non-profit agencies and rural communities get for services is still quite minimal — yeah, about $850K.

I will say that there is a social return on investment. A study has been done that for every dollar invested into CYACs, we will see an economic return of more than $5 over ten years. If I could also highlight the correlation you’ve heard from folks that I work alongside discussing our vulnerable populations, our homelessness, our mental health….

I worked in the Downtown Eastside for eight years. If you meet with many of those folks and you ask them, “What is one of the main root causes? Why?” it’s child abuse. So I always just ask folks to think of that in perspective, because I really believe we’re swimming upstream in terms of the work that we’re doing.

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

We will invite our next presenter, Laura Sacks from West Kootenay Climate Hub to come forward, please.

Thank you for joining us.

Laura Sacks: Earlier than scheduled, so great. It’s quite a topic shift. I just wanted to say that….

Paul Choi (Chair): That is absolutely okay. We are covering all gambits of any topic that is important to community members.

So as you’ve seen: five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you can begin when you’re ready.

West Kootenay Climate Hub

Laura Sacks: Hi. My name is Laura Sacks, as you were told, and I’m here representing the West Kootenay Climate Hub, an all-volunteer organization whose goal is to accelerate climate action in our region.

[4:55 p.m.]

As we approach another summer expected to be hot and dry, many of us are feeling anxious. In fact, about four out of five British Columbians are concerned about climate change, according to an Abacus poll that just came out last week, June 9. While things like affordability, the economy and health care are top-of-mind concerns, these issues are interrelated with climate change and not siloed. So I hope that as your committee takes in views across B.C., you consider how solutions can be developed that can help solve multiple problems.

There’s much to do, but we had to narrow this down to three recommendations.

The first one that we’re recommending is for funding for the local government climate action program, also known as LGCAP, to be reinstated. For more than 15 years, LGCAP and its predecessor have provided stable, predictable funding for local governments across B.C. to reduce emissions and enhance resilience to hazards like wildfires and flooding. LGCAP was committed to as a three-year program in 2023 but was not renewed in the Ministry of Energy and Climate Solutions 2026-27 service plan, with no explanation to date.

Some examples of things that LGCAP has funded include energy efficiency programs, active transportation projects, improving public transit, local food security, neighbourhood emergency preparedness and many more. The program also helps municipalities, regional districts and First Nations advance the province’s broader climate objectives, like CleanBC and the Emergency and Disaster Management Act.

The CleanBC review recommends extending LGCAP funding to maintain stable support for local climate action. Local governments, as you know, are on the front lines of climate impacts. Every dollar invested in local climate preparedness saves between $2 and $10 in future costs. The program funds also help to unlock complementary grants, nearly doubling the impact.

LGCAP makes our communities safer and healthier, creates jobs and helps with equity and affordability. Local governments need this crucial support, as they can’t do this work alone. Please reinstate the LGCAP funding in the next budget and make that funding predictable and stable.

Our second recommendation is a request for more support for distributed renewable energy projects, like rooftop and community solar energy storage and agrivoltaics for farms. Solar panels and battery storage prices have gone down dramatically, while efficiency has greatly improved. B.C. Hydro does provide rebates for solar and battery storage, but Fortis does not. If solar and battery rebates were included in CleanBC’s better homes program, everyone in the province could benefit.

Some benefits around distributed energy. It provides resilience to communities when extreme weather and wildfires disrupt regional electrical service. It also adds clean electricity to the grid locally for electrifying our heating and transportation systems, which are essential for addressing climate change. Solar is vastly cheaper, as well, and so much easier to install than building a new dam.

Local renewable energy projects also create good jobs here in our communities where they are needed. Please support distributed renewable energy in the next budget.

Our last recommendation is around transportation, the largest source of climate pollution in B.C. Most of the Ministry of Transportation and Transit budget goes to road transportation and highways, with considerably less going to transit and active transportation. Public transit and active transportation complement each other and provide affordable, safer and healthier alternatives to driving.

Owning a car is very expensive and not available to many, be it due to health, age, economics or choice. Last summer the B.C. government paused all funding for its active transportation infrastructure grants program, which helps fund community projects for safe walking and cycling.

We request shifting more resources in the ministry’s budget into active transportation and transit, which would include reinstating the active transportation grant and developing an intercity bus service so that locals and tourists alike could use it to travel between communities for health care, to visit family and to explore our beautiful province.

Thank you for your time.

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

[5:00 p.m.]

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. Looking at the LGCAP, we did just have government present on that.

Laura Sacks: Oh, okay. I missed that.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): That’s okay. My question was around the…. You say it was removed in the 2026 service plan. The previous presenter actually hadn’t mentioned that it had been removed.

Looking at the LGCAP, we did just have government present on that.

Laura Sacks: Oh, I missed that.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): That’s okay. My question was around the.… You say it was removed in the 2026 service plan. The previous presenter actually hadn’t mentioned that it had been removed. Thank you for clarifying that.

Do you know what level it needs to be? Like, what it was…. If we were to put it into the recommendation, how much…? I could look it up if I had to.

Laura Sacks: I don’t have that number in front of me. That would have been a good thing to bring up. You know, some people that I’ve heard.… We’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. I thought that it might have just been an oversight that it wasn’t actually in the ’26-27 service plan.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The second one. I just want to make sure I caught that right. I am aware that FortisBC does not have the same rebate program that B.C. Hydro does I’m also a Fortis customer, and the heat pump program was another one that we weren’t eligible for. I’m just wondering. You suggested it go through CleanBC, so that all residents.… Did I capture that right?

Laura Sacks: Yeah, the Better Homes program is what I was suggesting, because there are some of the rebates that go through there, rather than.… Yeah, I’m dealing with trying to get a heat pump as well and trying to navigate some of these various grants and rebate programs.

Paul Choi (Chair): Any other questions?

Seeing none, thank you so much for coming and presenting to us today.

I’d like to invite our next presenter, Ryan Painter, from B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming, to come forward.

Thank you for joining us. As you’ve seen, you have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready.

B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming

Ryan Painter: Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Ryan Painter. I appear before you as chair of the B.C. Association for Charitable Gaming, representing the tens of thousands of community organizations across this province that depend on the community gaming grant to deliver services government does not provide and, in many cases, could not replicate at anything close to the same cost.

I want to start by saying how grateful we are to the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, and to the gaming grant staff as well, for administration of this extremely important grant. British Columbia’s non-profit sector is the quiet engine of the provincial economy. It comprises over 30,000 organizations, employs more than 86,000 people and contributes $6.7 billion to B.C.’s economy each year. Within that sector, the community gaming grant is the single most important source of operating support for the small and medium-sized organizations that hold our communities together.

In Budget 2026, the community gaming grant was reduced, for the first time in almost a decade, by $1.415 million. The dollar figure is small, but the signal that it sends is not. It is the latest data point in a 17-year erosion that has unfolded under governments of every political stripe, and it is that pattern I’m asking the committee to address in its recommendations for Budget 2027. The math is the argument.

In 2010, the community gaming grant was funded at $135 million. In 2017, it was raised modestly to $140 million, and there it has remained, frozen in nominal terms, while everything else has increased. Cumulative inflation over that same period has been approximately 44 percent. The community gaming grant in real terms is now roughly 70 cents on the 2010 dollar.

The revenue side of the ledger has moved decisively in the other direction. Last fiscal year the British Columbia Lottery Corp. delivered $1.408 billion in net income to the province and two years earlier reached a record of $1.636 billion. Single-event sports betting was legalized federally in 2021, and the BCLC relaunched PROLINE in September 2024. The gaming pie has grown substantially. The community slice has not grown at all.

In 1999, the province and the charitable sector signed a memorandum of agreement that allocated roughly one-third of gaming revenue to community organizations in exchange for the sector’s support of gaming expansion into communities that had been skeptical of it. That share today sits closer to one-tenth. One-third to one-tenth.

The erosion happened across administrations, in increments small enough that no one had to own it, which is precisely how the most consequential policy failures typically occur. Communities accepted gaming in their neighbourhoods. In return, communities would share the proceeds. The organizations that delivered on their end are now quietly absorbing the costs of that agreement’s unravelling.

[5:05 p.m.]

The abstraction of 30,000-plus non-profits can be obscure, and it can obscure what’s at stake. We’re talking about 80 volunteer search and rescue teams, who answer the call when a hiker or a child fails to return.

The nearly 1,400 parent advisory councils operate in every constituency represented at this table. Special Olympics British Columbia, food banks now serving record numbers of British Columbians — these organizations do not retain lobbyists. They operate on volunteer boards and skeleton staff, and they have been told for 17 years that holding the line is enough. It’s not enough. Demand is rising. Costs are rising faster, and the envelope is shrinking against both.

I’ll leave the committee with three recommendations for Budget 2027.

First, that the community gaming grant be indexed to the consumer price index beginning in Budget 2027, with a restored minimum baseline of $140 million. Indexation is not an exotic instrument. The Ontario Trillium Foundation has operated under a CPI escalator for years. The community gaming grant has simply been left outside of that discipline.

Second, that the province implement multi-year funding through three-year grants. Now, the benefit of this is that this committee already recommended that in the 2020 budget consultation report, but the government did not act on it. I would invite you to reaffirm that as part of this committee’s work. It requires no new dollars. It changes only the cadence in which existing dollars are committed, and it offers the sector the planning horizon that it needs.

Finally, that the province initiate a full public review of the long-term relationship between BCLC net income and community gaming grant funding, with a view to establishing a minimum percentage allocation that honours the spirit of the 1999 memorandum of agreement.

The community gaming grant is not a subsidy, and the organizations it supports are not supplicants. It is the residue of a bargain made in good faith over a generation ago. Communities have kept their end of the bargain. The committee has the opportunity to begin restoring the other side of that ledger.

Thank you, and I welcome the committee’s questions.

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

Bryan Tepper: I’m trying to keep up there. There’s a lot of numbers. But did you have a percentage that revenue has grown by as a comparison to the amount of the grants?

Ryan Painter: Well, what I can say is that the revenue itself…. The B.C. Lottery Corporation returned, as I said, $1.48 billion last year, and two years ago it had a record at 1.6. We’re talking about $138 million versus $1.4 billion. I’m not a mathematician, but you can roughly calculate that and find that value. That’s where it’s remained.

Again, the increase from 135 to 140 happened in 2017. It has remained there until this year, when it was reduced by $1.415 million.

We’re talking about a fraction of the billions of dollars that the province is receiving to support a sector that provides services at a fraction of the cost of what government can provide.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for the presentation.

Just building off of that one a little bit, you said to bring the community gaming grant up to $140 million and then index it?

Ryan Painter: Mm-hmm.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): What is it at right now? I think I missed that in the….

Ryan Painter: Yeah, the grant right now is at — what is it? — 138 point-something million. It was dropped by $1.415 million last year — or this year, in this year’s budget.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): So just reestablishing it back to 140.

Ryan Painter: Yeah, that’s all that we’re asking for right now — to reestablish it at what it was prior to this year’s budget and then index it to inflation and CPI.

Bryan Tepper: We’re talking about the same numbers from 2010? I’ll ask that first, actually. That’s what we’re saying? Basically, that’s what we have.

Ryan Painter: Right now we’re at 70 cents of the 2010 dollar, yes.

Bryan Tepper: Okay. But the payout is still the same in…

Ryan Painter: Nominal terms.

Bryan Tepper: …nominal terms?

Ryan Painter: Yeah, in nominal terms, we’re looking at the same. If we had increased the grant to where it should be, we’re looking at $200 million. That’s what it should be at today, based on where the agreement stood initially and the increases that should have come per the CPI from 2017. So it should be…. It’s $198 million, but let’s round it up and say $200 million, because communities and non-profits benefit from that funding — communities benefit even more.

[5:10 p.m.]

Bryan Tepper: Okay. Then with online gambling, online betting, is the province bringing in more off of that? I guess that’s the question.

Ryan Painter: Substantially. Single-event sports betting…. Since it was legalized, and then BCLC relaunched PROLINE in 2024, the province has been bringing in many millions, if not billions, of dollars through the accumulation of online sports betting, single-event sports betting, as well as casino revenue.

Bryan Tepper: This might not be in your wheelhouse, but it may be too. The other presenters we’ve got as regulating our online market in B.C. How do you…? Can you comment on…? I’m just going to let you have free rein to comment on that if you can.

Ryan Painter: It’s not my area of expertise, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable. My apologies.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Building on what MLA Tepper just said, the online gaming is growing, obviously, and so is individual single sports betting, yet we’re still looking at an amount from 15 years or something since we’ve had an increase for the $140 million. So those are not a percentage of revenue? Do we just decide an arbitrary number that we’re doing through community gaming grants? It’s not where it’s so much of the profit or….

Ryan Painter: That’s right. I’ll refer back to the 1999 memorandum. It was supposed to be about one-third of the money that was brought in through the charitable gaming sector. It is now significantly less. There is really no calculation that happens. That $135 million from 2010 that came up to $140 million in 2017 was very arbitrary. Then it was brought down again to $138 million this year. These are arbitrary numbers.

There is, to my knowledge, no specific calculation that is put into determining that. All I can tell you is that it is significantly less than the 1999 memorandum, which was supposed to be one-third, and we’re now less than a tenth.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): The memorandum of understanding, did it have an expiry date, or is it technically still in play?

Ryan Painter: That’s a great question. I don’t have an answer to that. It would be probably good to look into.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I’ll put it on my research.

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

We will invite our next presenter, Laurie Carr, from Central Kootenay Invasive Species Society, to come forward, please.

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

Central Kootenay
Invasive Species Society

Laurie Carr: Thank you for the opportunity to speak, Chair and committee members. I am Laurie Carr. I’m the executive director of the Central Kootenay Invasive Species Society, otherwise known as CKISS.

CKISS is a non-profit organization that was founded in 2005 — so we’ve been around for about 20 years — with a mission to prevent the spread of invasive species in the Central Kootenay region, including Castlegar, as well as the regional district of Kootenay Boundary, areas A and B. That’s the Trail-Rossland area.

We operate three primary programs, which are community engagement — for which we do get a gaming grant; I echo the need for those grants — terrestrial plant control and the aquatic invasive species monitoring. We have about 32 funders, including holding the Ministry of Forests and Ministry of Transportation and Transit contracts for invasive plant control on provincial public lands.

Before I launch into a specific example in our region, I was just wondering if anybody had seen Project Hail Mary, the movie, or read the book. No? It’s so good. It’s amazing, anyway.

Sidebar, but in the movie, the protagonist, Grace, gets launched into space on this mission to find some kind of control for this micro-organism, which they call astrophage, because it’s eating the sun. So he basically becomes an invasive species scientist without knowing it. He’s out there trying to save the galaxy and finding this organism that eats this other organism that’s eating the sun, which he does, and he saves the world.

[5:15 p.m.]

That’s basically what we do; we save the world. But we are dealing with the same issues. The movie does talk about the threat that invasive species do hold to life on our planet. That is exactly what the problem is with invasive species. They have a huge impact on life.

I will give you one example that we are dealing with. It’s kind of a funky project that we have going on. We’ve never done something to this scale. There is this plant called poison hemlock. It is extremely poisonous. It’s one of the most toxic plants on earth. It’s growing in our region in an agricultural setting. It is toxic to humans; it’s toxic to livestock. It gets into hay. It’s dried; it’s still toxic. We have a big hay production in the Creston Valley.

This is a species of concern on all levels. It’s also a riparian plant. It gets into the space between land and water, which is a very sensitive habitat, so we are very concerned about it. Poison hemlock reproduces by seed. You let one plant go, which is what we’ve found, and then it produces a million seeds, and the next year it’s everywhere. That’s why it’s an invasive species, because it tends to take over. They spread to such an extent that they cause damage.

It’s not just that they’re not native. It’s that they cause damage. So when it comes down to managing poison hemlock, it’s in multiple jurisdictions. It started on the municipal land. It spread to riparian habitat, private habitat, Crown land, tribal lands, CP Rail lands, and that’s how they think it’s moving. It’s moving along the CP rail.

Poison hemlock is not listed on the Weed Control Act, which is extremely outdated. It really doesn’t serve our purposes. It’s not listed on the act, so CP Rail won’t do anything about it. They don’t have to anyway, because it’s not under the regulations, so they don’t have to follow it.

We do get some funding, which is limited, through the Ministry of Forests and MoTT that we can apply to, to deal with it. But we don’t have any funding from the municipal governments, which are really strapped. So we are sitting in this situation where we’re a non-profit, but we’re trying to find all these kinds of different funds from different pots to try and manage this species over multiple jurisdictions. This all rolls up into my three recommendations that we have for this committee.

The first one is: increase stable and, really importantly, core funding. For example, our funding from the Ministry of Forests is not core funding for them. So we don’t find out till the very last minute whether we’re getting the contract with them. Obviously, that creates havoc for us as an organization.

Also, you can imagine what would happen if we stopped managing these species for one year. We’re just launched right back to the beginning, because in one year, it can just explode right back to where you started. Core funding meets the Canadian commitments under the Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework because invasive species are listed under there. So it’s part of what Canada is aiming for.

The second recommendation is strong and enforced regulatory tools such as an updated invasive species act. That might be asking for too much, but the biodiversity and ecosystem health framework would be amazing. That is an amazing piece of legislation if it gets passed. I would love to see that happen. That would address many of the issues.

Lastly, a minimum $10 million invasive species trust fund, in addition to core ministry budget funding, to address emerging issues and high-priority species on all jurisdictions. If we don’t have leadership on the provincial level, no other jurisdiction is going to do their job. So it’s very important that we maintain that funding. Also, it needs to match the extent of the problem.

I also would just like to point out that I don’t see invasive species as an external threat. It’s an internal threat, as in we make the decision to either enact or not enact biosecurity. That’s a decision that we make.

If there is a lapse.… For example, if we get invasive mussels in our watersheds, we are looking at encrusted hydroelectric dams forever, until the next asteroid hits us, because the problem doesn’t go away. We don’t have the advantage of negotiating or restructuring to deal with this problem. We’re dealing with biological organisms. Once they are here, we have them forever. The damage is forever. The costs just increase, increase, increase.

That’s it. Thank you very much.

[5:20 p.m.]

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

Bryan Tepper: You said to update the invasive species act. Then I was writing that, and you said the next one is an amazing piece of legislation, which I didn’t get.

Laurie Carr: It’s not legislated. I’m not exactly sure what you call it. It hasn’t been put into legislation, but it’s the framework. It’s the biodiversity and ecosystem health framework.

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much for your presentation. I have spent a lot of time with the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship talking about invasive mussels. I had requested some “Clean, drain, dry” legislation, which we did happen to get through last year, which is amazing.

But my question is around the…. I agree that we need to do this up front, because once it’s here, we’re in big trouble, whether it’s mussels or any other invasive species or plant.

On the $10 million trust fund for the emergent and emergence, I’m just wondering. Is it your view that it would be kind of put in trust, and the interest would be what’s going out to programming, or do you just see it like “something’s happening” and we apply into the fund?

Laurie Carr: Yes. How it gets run — that’s the back end. But whatever needs to happen to make it stable…. I mean, that’s a great idea to have the interest, have it sitting there available. I think that’s one of the big things about having this, like, pot of money that we can apply to for an emerging species, because we just really don’t have time. Often it takes a couple of years before you actually get the funding, and then it’s too late.

Rohini Arora: First of all, I’ve been waiting to see Project Hail Mary, so I love that you brought that up. You’re awesome. I’m just putting that on the record.

Now, the fund for emerging situations. You also said “stable.” The stability of the funding is really important. If you’re applying, and it takes a year or two years, by the time you get the next round, it might be that you might not have what you need to be able to do what you need in the meantime.

Do you see that pot of $10 million being used over…? If you do get a grant, that that grant lasts over a certain period of years, so that it’s stable? Is that what you kind of meant? I just want….

Laurie Carr: No. I think what I meant was that we have our core contracts and that those are stable. That’s for the ministry as well as us, because we partner, obviously, very intimately with the ministries. So that’s the stable piece, and then the $10 million is just this pot of money that’s available that we can apply to on top of that for special projects, because we’re very restricted by what we can use that Ministry of Forests funding for.

We don’t get any funding from the waters, lands — is it resource and stewardships? — even though we have….

Rohini Arora: You can call it WLRS.

Laurie Carr: Okay, great. We’ll call it WLRS.

We have whirling disease that just came into our region, and there’s no control for that. We do a lot of education and outreach, and we get no money for that even though that’s a huge piece. Prevention is huge. But there’s no education funding that we receive or very little coordination funding.

That’s the pot that we would like to have for these emerging issues that are not covered under existing contracts, which are very restrictive, and they don’t actually cover the full extent of the problem. So that’s what that’s for.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay, thanks for coming and presenting to us today.

We’d like to invite our next presenter, Amber Lane from B.C. Power Sports Coalition, to come forward, please. Thank you so much for joining us. As you’ve seen, you have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready.

B.C. Power Sports Coalition

Amber Lane: Thank you so much for having me. My name is Amber Lane. I’m the executive director of the B.C. Snowmobile Federation. We represent 54 recreation clubs throughout British Columbia and have approximately 18,000 kilometres of trails.

I’m also here today representing the B.C. Power Sports Coalition. Together they represent more than 325,000 recreation users throughout the province and manage more than 28,000 kilometres of trails.

[5:25 p.m.]

They have over 120 volunteer clubs and associations and thousands of volunteers who maintain these recreation sites, trails, infrastructure, staging areas. Also, many of those are used by lots of other recreation groups.

That collective contribution directly supports the priorities identified in the Budget 2027 consultation, including economic growth, careful use of public dollars, rural development, public safety, health and well-being, tourism and strong communities. For the 2027 budget recommendation, we have three suggestions.

First, we’d like to see a dedicated recreation infrastructure fund created to support the implementation of the Outdoor Recreation Strategy that was recently released under the Ministry of Environment and Parks.

This shouldn’t sit solely within one ministry. This is something that supports tourism, rural development, public health, environmental stewardship, emergency access, community resilience and economic development. The funding model should reflect that, shared across many ministries, rather than leaving it for Environment and Parks.

A recreation infrastructure could support rec sites and trails capacity, but it could also support community partnerships and volunteer organizations that deliver recreation infrastructure on the ground.

When I say infrastructure, I don’t just mean trails and buildings and staging areas. I also mean systems, such as provincial organizations like the B.C. Snowmobile Federation. Together, these provincial organizations create insurance frameworks, risk management tools, safety standards, governance support, training data, policy, partnership agreements, stewardship programs and volunteer networks.

Provincial recreation organizations such as the BCSF and other members of the B.C. Power Sports Coalition are, in themselves, infrastructure. We work with government on land use issues and help turn local recreation access into sustainable community and tourism assets. Funding provincial organizations is not a luxury; it should be a mandate and a cost-control measure.

Second, develop a user-based funding model. We are allowed…. Many of our snowmobile clubs do collect fees as a user-pay system, but many of the other recreation groups do not have this in place. Through snowmobile trail passes, club memberships, volunteer labour, donated equipment, local fundraising and in-kind contributions, we leverage public dollars.

I think the province of British Columbia should explore a user-pay system for other forms of recreation throughout the province so that we can reinvest those into recreational assets, systems and organizations that those users and communities rely on.

Third, creating a dedicated funding stream for high-value recreation access roads and related infrastructure. Many of British Columbia’s most important recreation depends on resource roads, trailheads and staging areas that were originally built for industrial use. When industrial use ends, those roads are often deactivated or bridges are removed, even when the road continues to provide significant public recreation, tourism, emergency access and community value.

We’re asking for a practical funding mechanism for high-value recreation access roads where there is clear public benefit. This could include clarifying and modernizing the municipal and regional district tax policies so that outdoor recreation tourism assets are clearly and practically eligible where they support visitation, overnight stays and local economic activity.

In communities where trails, staging areas, shelters, bridges, trailheads and priority access infrastructure are part of why visitors come to communities, that should be able to be reinvested through MRDT. Together, they would bring funding and stability to government, provincial organizations, local clubs and communities, and they could also reduce the long-term costs of destroying some forms of industrial infrastructure.

Budget 2027 should fund the implementation of the outdoor recreation strategy by investing in the recreation infrastructure system that already exists, including provincial organizations, local clubs, volunteer stewardship and high-value recreation access. Thank you for allowing me to present.

[5:30 p.m.]

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

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I was trying to leave space for others. Obviously, this is something I know a little bit about.

On your recreation

We will now turn to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I was trying to leave space for others. Obviously, this is something I know a little bit about.

On your recreation infrastructure fund that you had mentioned, do you have an ask, a specific amount that you would like put in the report for an ask?

Amber Lane: At this time, we’re looking to build the structure that would support the infrastructure fund. We see it coming from federal funding opportunities, as well as cross-ministry funding opportunities.

Paul Choi (Chair): Follow-up?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): For clarity, then, you’re not actually looking to establish the fund yet. You’re looking for the framework of what the fund would look like?

Amber Lane: Correct.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Okay.

If anybody else has something, please pop up.

On the user-based funding model, you mentioned that you’re here on behalf of the B.C. Power Sports Coalition and that the snowmobile group has a user-pay system already. Do you know that the user-pay system is supported by the other power sport groups?

Amber Lane: It is, yes.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Seeing no other questions….

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I have one more. Thank you. I really am trying to provide space.

The high-value recreation road access. Do you see that being strictly a financial ask, or is there also a policy ask included with that?

Amber Lane: There is a policy ask that we’re currently exploring, to change resource roads, traditional resource and industry roads, into recreational access roads as well. Currently there is no policy in place, so it’s actively deactivating forest service roads that have high recreational value. We’re currently working across ministries to try to push that, but there should also be funding available to turn those resource roads into the recreational assets that they currently are.

Paul Choi (Chair): Follow-up?

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): One more follow-up. You mentioned MRDT as being the mechanism for that. Is that correct?

Amber Lane: Yes, one of them.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Not the only mechanism, though, for a community to access it? Would it only be through communities that have MRDT? I think there are only 60 communities in B.C. that have MRDT.

Amber Lane: Yeah. The reason we identified MRDT is because most of these recreational assets are in these kind of tourism resort municipalities, but we also see that generated under the user-pay system and the recreation infrastructure fund.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Last one, I promise. Can you provide an example of a high-value recreation area that has lost access or where this policy or pot of money would make a difference?

Amber Lane: Currently we are working with…. Just off the top of my head. Rady Creek out of Trout Lake has a high-value recreational area that is currently accessed by a forest service road, and they are looking for a geotech to help inform an opinion on turning that into a recreational asset, and that’s currently being funded by this recreational group.

Most of these are volunteers, and they don’t have a ton of funding to do this kind of work and kind of bring those scientific data or well-informed data to the table in order to change these into recreational assets. But that would be something that would be funded under the infrastructure fund.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you.

Paul Choi (Chair): Thank you very much.

Rohini Arora: I mean, we have heard a lot about it, too, so I was just sort of thinking. How long do you think it takes if there were…. Let’s say geotechs are funded, how long do you think it would take? Deactivated logging roads depends on how long and how grown over or whatever, steepness. There’s all kinds of stuff. So how long do you think it would take to get some of those roads up and running, recreationally speaking?

You said you’re working on Rady Creek right now. How long has it been?

Amber Lane: We’ve been working on that. I mean, first it was slated for deactivation in 2021. That was halted. Now it’s been the fall, and we’re working on it. It’s currently slated for August of 2026.

I think within six months, certainly during the summer months, we could form an opinion on how we can turn these FSRs into recreational assets while preserving those environmental concerns that have them slated for deactivation.

[5:35 p.m.]

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. Thank you so much for coming and presenting to us.

I do also just want to clarify. I know you’re involved in two organizations. For the purpose of the report, which organization would you like us to list?

Amber Lane: The B.C. Power Sports Coalition.

Paul Choi (Chair): Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much for coming presenting to us.

We would like to invite our next presenter — if I can ask Tracey MacGregor to come forward from Christina Gateway Community Development Association.

Thank you for joining us.

As you’ve seen, you have five minutes for your presentation, five minutes for questions after, and you may begin when you’re ready.

Christina Gateway Community
Development Association

Tracey MacGregor: Chair and committee members, thank you for this opportunity. My name is Tracey MacGregor. I am speaking today on behalf of Christina Lake, a tourism-based community in the Kootenay Boundary.

While our community benefits from forestry, manufacturing and other resource-based industries, tourism remains a critical part of our economy. Our primary tourism asset is Christina Lake itself, and it’s an extraordinary natural asset but one that requires really careful stewardship. Concerns like we heard earlier, about invasive species, increasing recreational pressure and water quality management, require ongoing attention.

Recognizing our need to diversify the tourism economy and reduce pressure on the lake, our community has invested heavily in a network of more than 216 kilometres of mixed-use trails that support recreation, tourism, transportation and community well-being. One of the most significant of these assets is the Columbia and Western rail trails, specifically a 67-kilometre section which also forms part of the Trans Canada Trail.

In 2020, this corridor was removed from rec sites and trails portfolio and transferred to the Ministry of Forests due to higher than typical industry use. At that time, government documents stated that a better road management framework would be established and that the trail would remain available for recreational purposes year-round. Despite this commitment, five-years later in 2025, stakeholders were advised that there was no funding, no maintenance plan and that the corridor would effectively return to wilderness status.

I appreciate that budgets require difficult decisions. However, this situation highlights a broader challenge in government budgeting, particularly in rural British Columbia.

My first recommendation is that the government better account for interconnected users when making funding decisions. Rural communities maximize public assets by serving multiple purposes with the same infrastructure. We do not have separate corridors for recreation, tourism, industrial access, active transportation and community connectivity. We rely on shared assets that serve multiple users, and in 2023, we formed the Christina Lake Trail Alliance to better articulate this common goal.

When a funding decision is made within a single ministry silo, such as the Ministry of Forests, the impacts on other users are often overlooked. A budget reduction may appear to save money on trail maintenance but creates significant consequences elsewhere. So my second recommendation is that the government ensures one ministry’s budget decisions do not inadvertently undermine the investments of another.

The province of British Columbia has invested millions of dollars each year through Destination B.C. on tourism infrastructure and economic diversification designed to attract visitors and strengthen rural economies, though the Invest in Iconics strategy, the Rainforest to Rockies corridor specifically identifies Highway 3 communities like Christina Lake as a priority destination experience. Economic development practitioners throughout the region are encouraged to leverage natural assets to enhance visitor experiences and support local economies.

Those investments depend on quality outdoor recreation infrastructure, like the Trans Canada Trail, one of the most recognized outdoor recreation assets in the country. According to the Trans Canada Trail impact study, B.C.’s portion of the Trans Canada Trail generates approximately $3.5 billion annually in economic, environmental and health benefits. And 85 percent of that trail is rural.

So while one branch of government is investing millions to promote and strengthen rural tourism, another is considering withdrawing support from one of the assets that helps deliver those outcomes. That’s not a tourism issue; it’s a coordination issue.

This coordination extends beyond tourism. The Columbia and Western supports industry access, community connectivity, emergency access, wildfire resilience and important historical assets. Those benefits touch multiple ministries, multiple mandates, multiple policy objectives, and yet they all depend on the same corridor.

When government evaluates assets through a single ministry lens, it becomes difficult to understand the full range of impacts a funding decision may create, and that leads directly to my third recommendation. My third recommendation is that the government adopt a more formal, whole-of-government approach when evaluating significant funding reductions in rural areas.

In the case of the Columbia and Western, the decision was evaluated through the lens of a single ministry budget, and yet the impacts extend to tourism, emergency management, economic development, transportation, public health, heritage preservation and industrial access.

Before major funding decisions are made, governments should evaluate not only the direct savings but also the indirect costs, lost opportunities and impacts to other ministries and policy objectives.

Modern analytical tools, including artificial intelligence, may help support that work. However, the recommendation is not about technology; it’s about ensuring decisions reflect the full cost and consequences of government action.

[5:40 p.m.]

To summarize. First, recognize the interconnected impacts of funding decisions. Second, ensure that one ministry’s budget decisions do not undermine the investments and objectives of another. Third, adopt a whole-of-government approach that evaluates the full costs and consequences of major funding decisions.

Rural communities understand how interconnected our assets are, and the challenge for government is ensuring its budgeting processes do as well.

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

We will now turn to questions by members.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): Thank you very much. I do believe that this section of Columbia and Western Rail Trail really does highlight the three things you brought forward, specifically how a key section of the Trans Canada Trail, our national asset, has reverted to a wilderness status that is not even registered as a recreation feature, let alone allows anyone to work on it.

I’m wondering if you could elaborate a little bit. You talked a lot about the economic and tourism, but I know from rural B.C., there are lots of reasons we live in rural B.C. and why those trails are important to us. I’m wondering if you could just elaborate a little more around what it means for community in rural B.C.

Tracey MacGregor: For sure. Yeah, absolutely. I did focus on kind of ones that give hard economic data, but I think one of the most important pieces and concerns about this is emergency management.

There’s a really good example of this. In 2024, we had a wildfire that was running parallel to the highway. Highway 3, if you’re familiar with Christina Lake, is the only way in and out of that community. Had that fire jumped across the highway, the access would have been reduced to zero without the Columbia and Western. The Columbia and Western Rail Trail is a means of access, both for evacuation and for fire attack.

If we didn’t have the Columbia and Western there, then the fire attack on the north flank would have had to have come from Trail, which is a 70-kilometre trip. So we would have had to wait for mutual aid. By that point, that wildfire would have taken off through the valley.

The corridor also provides land access for residents and property owners in remote communities such as Renata and Coykendahl, which are along that same trail. There are significant historical and cultural values that are attached to that.

Historically, of course, this was a rail trail. There still remain the remnants of the old rail towns as well as things like stone ovens that were used during the construction of the railway. It’s also the site in Farron of the assassination of Peter “Lordly” Verigin as well as, actually, an MLA from Grand Forks, John McKie. They, as in the Doukhobor community, continue to maintain a historical site and memorial there. There are regular pilgrimages, and it’s only accessible through that rail trail.

All of this tells the story of how the region was settled, connected, developed.

I think my broader point is that it’s relatively easy to calculate what cost it is to maintain an asset, but it is much harder to calculate the value of emergency preparedness, community resilience, historical preservation, cultural preservation, which are all particularly important in rural communities like Christina Lake.

Paul Choi (Chair): Follow-up.

Donegal Wilson (Deputy Chair): I am wondering if you could articulate how much Christina Lake itself — and I’m going to say Castlegar, as well, because it’s on this end — have invested in the marketing of the trail to get to this point. There have been years of marketing, years of trail development and one-off grants, all of this stuff to get to this point.

Tracey MacGregor: Absolutely. Right at the top level, the regional district supports funding for a number of stakeholders who provide stewardship oversight of that rail trail, and that is a range of mixed users from community, like walking trails, biking trails, etc.

It also supports business pretty significantly. I know WildWays is a business that’s local to us. They do rentals for bikes, and they often will take tours up in that space. So it has a particularly strong impact on them, and they dedicate resources to making sure that that experience is good for their patrons.

Beyond that, Christina Lake tourism society, which recently dissolved and is now part of Christina Gateway Association, consistently dedicates funds on an annual basis to promote the trails, whether that be through advertising, social media, having influencers coming on through so they can amplify the impact of that. As well, even down the Kettle Valley Rail Trail, there’s Kettle River Outfitters, which is a bikepacking experience outfitter that is looking to make those investments along the east as well.

So it’s wholly integrated into our community and has been for a long time.

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

That ends our presenters for Castlegar today.

I will ask the committee if there is any other business.

[5:45 p.m.]

Seeing none, thank you, everyone who presented today, and of course, thank you to MLA Steve Morissette for staying and being involved, and of course, thank you to the staff and Hansard for making the event happen as well.

That concludes our meeting today.

Our committee will be in Cranbrook tomorrow morning from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time for our next public hearing.

I will ask for a motion to adjourn.

Motion approved.

Paul Choi (Chair): The meeting is now adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 5:45 p.m.