2016 Legislative Session: Fifth Session, 40th Parliament
HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

official report of

Debates of the Legislative Assembly

(hansard)

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Afternoon Sitting

Volume 37, Number 5

ISSN 0709-1281 (Print)
ISSN 1499-2175 (Online)

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 2016

The House met at 1:32 p.m.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

Madame Speaker: Members, there is not quorum present in the chamber.

[The bells were rung.]

Orders of the Day

Hon. A. Wilkinson: I call committee on Bill 12, the Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Statutes Amendment Act, 2016; and in Committee A, we have the estimates for the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

Committee of the Whole House

BILL 12 — FORESTS, LANDS AND
NATURAL RESOURCE OPERATIONS
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

(continued)

The House in Committee of the Whole (Section B) on Bill 12; R. Chouhan in the chair.

The committee met at 1:35 p.m.

On section 20.

H. Bains: Maybe the minister could explain what the rationale behind this is. It seems to me it’s a pretty straightforward section, simply saying that there’s no compensation if the residual contract or agreement is cancelled. Perhaps the minister could say what the rationale behind that is.

The Chair: Minister.

Hon. S. Thomson: Thank you, Chair, and welcome to the chair.

I think we discussed this a little bit as we were going through it previously. This is really the section that sets up the fact that there is no compensation payable, because what happens here is that the primary harvester declares their intent to abandon the residual fibre before the secondary harvester can utilize it. That constitutes a transfer of the harvest rights for that residual fibre between the primary and the secondary harvester, with no infringement or uncontested loss of rights.

It really sets it up so that when that relinquishment of those rights takes place, there is no compensation or payment due to the primary harvester.

Section 20 approved.

On section 21.

H. Bains: This section says: “to make payments as described in section 22.4 (2) and to defray any other costs associated with making those payments.” Perhaps the minister could explain who is paying and what the purpose is. What are we talking about when we talk about “defray any other costs associated with making those payments”?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section sets up the ability within the BCTS special account to make the payments for the reduction in harvest under those disposition agreements when those arrangements are made, which was the focus of all of the other debate. What it means is that the payment comes from there. It gives a provision within the special account. So it’s not coming from general revenue; it’s coming out of the B.C. Timber Sales special account.

Whatever the business arrangement is in place to make that happen…. As we talked about previously, we contemplated that it might be a percentage of net revenue from the sale or the auction of the harvest that’s brought back into B.C. Timber Sales.

[1340]

There might be some ancillary costs. We’ve left ourselves the flexibility if there are some costs to negotiate the agreement or if there are some ancillary costs that might be involved with that.

It really is just: what is the business arrangement in order for it to take place and then the provision that whatever that arrangement is comes out of the B.C. Timber Sales special account.

H. Bains: That we are clear…. I mean, we have canvassed this earlier on different sections. The idea here that we are talking about is that if BCTS decides — or I guess it is the chief forester that decides — that in a new contract, a new agreement, when additional timber is given to, say, a community forest, with the provision that it can be brought back into BCTS, then there are payments set up as a result of that. Is that what we’re talking about here?

It would be, basically, as the minister said in the explanation of those provisions here, to compensate the benefits to the licensee, although BCTS is going to manage that portion. So BCTS also will be making some money. That money will go back to the licensee.

The two different things here. One is it is authorized to make payments, under section 22.4(2), and then it talks about to “defray any other costs associated with making these payments.” It’s a cost of making these payments. That’s what they are talking about here. What is that?

Hon. S. Thomson: To confirm, the payments, as described in section 22.4(2), is the business arrangement
[ Page 12236 ]
payment for transferring whatever percentage, whatever arrangement’s made, back to BCTS to do the auction and — whatever the regulation sets out — how that would take place. Whether it is a percentage of revenue, or….

B.C. Timber Sales will make revenue on that arrangement. That goes into the B.C. Timber Sales special account. But then there would also be a payment to the licensee, whether it’s the community forest or the First Nation woodland licence for their…. The benefit of making the arrangement — that’s the purpose of it, to do that and to make sure that when they enter into those disposition agreements, whether voluntarily or as part of a new licence going forward, that that benefit could be paid.

The other costs that can be paid there, examples — we have section 109(3) of the act, which talks about eligible expenditures from the B.C. Timber Sales account, such as to defray costs associated with the agreements, the preparation of operational plans, provisions of services. It’s really around ancillary costs that could be required in order to make the arrangements and do all of the work to get that in place.

What we didn’t want to do was to have the community forest or the First Nations woodland licence, when they’re making this commitment to be able to put these arrangements in place and to get the benefits…. There may be costs associated with getting all of that done and things, and we didn’t feel that that should be a responsibility of the licensee. Those costs needed to be paid out of the B.C. Timber Sales special account. It really just sets up the provision of other costs that may be part of that arrangement.

[1345]

H. Bains: So let’s put all of this together. Now, BCTS is in the centre of all of this. Then I understand that the minister said that the purpose is to help the communities and the First Nations and others, at the same time maintaining the integrity of BCTS — its auctioning volume.

At the end of the day: what is the net cost to BCTS? Is it going to be a net loss to BCTS, or is it going to be a net gain to BCTS, or is it going to be a break-even proposition after all of the changes that we are talking about under Bill 12? Has anyone done any analysis to determine whether there will be a net loss or a net gain or that it’s a break-even proposition for BCTS? What’s the end goal?

Hon. S. Thomson: Maybe I need to go back to the basic again, which we had quite a bit of discussion on, around the situation here. What could happen, if we were trying to land these new agreements, community forest or First Nations woodland licence, is we could simply take volume from B.C. Timber Sales and apportion it and provide it to those other licensees and have a negative impact on B.C. Timber Sales.

What we’re doing here is looking to say that when we’re looking for those new agreements, to have that arrangement where we would provide the volume to the new licensee, whether it’s a community forest or First Nations woodland licence or other, and then to be able to dispose or have an arrangement where a portion of that volume, by voluntary agreement or by part of the licence provisions on new licences going forward, would be back to B.C. Timber Sales to auction, sell, make revenue on and share part of that revenue with the licensee that has entered into that agreement.

I guess you could do two scenarios here. One is that you could say there’s a net loss to B.C. Timber Sales, because it will take volume from them to be able to have these new arrangements. We get some of the benefits out of the new licence, in terms of the arrangements, stumpage rates on community forests and things like that. Or we don’t provide the opportunity to community forests, leave it in B.C. Timber Sales, don’t have all of the potential benefits from the community forest that would flow to communities, to First Nations, I think. It’s a sharing.

I guess you theoretically could argue that overall B.C. Timber Sales revenue…. If you took volume away from them in order to be able to facilitate these other arrangements, they would have a loss. In this situation, they’re sharing. They will still have revenue. They will share some of that revenue with the licensee, the new licence you’re creating. The new licence has an expanded volume. As we talked about before, the provisions of the agreement could be for a set period of time, and then the new licence, the community forest or other, has all of the volume.

When we were first talking, that’s why we had this kind of win-win situation. I think I portrayed it as a win for the community forest, a win for the First Nations woodland licence and things. It’s a win, in a sense, for B.C. Timber Sales because we’re not taking the volume completely away from them; we’re providing the opportunity, we’re maintaining the integrity of the market pricing system.

It’s a sharing. If we didn’t, if we left everything in B.C. Timber Sales, you could say B.C. Timber Sales would have, potentially, more revenue. There will be a bit of an impact on the overall revenue in B.C. Timber Sales, but it’s being done to facilitate the benefits that flow through those other licences and those opportunities.

[1350]

Sections 21 to 23 inclusive approved.

On section 24.

H. Bains: Maybe the minister could explain. It seems to be pretty simple, straightforward. There are a few subsections of 24. Especially the last one, (m.6), talks about: “for the purposes of section 79.1 (2) (e), respecting requirements for sorting, stacking and piling residual fibre, including, without limitation, requirements for placement of stacks or piles of residual fibre on road sides or
[ Page 12237 ]
landings and practices the holder of an agreement must follow to prevent contamination of the residual fibre.”

Now, we canvassed this before — that once the order is issued, the licensee cannot damage the residual timber. What’s here? What’s section 24 trying to achieve that wasn’t achieved in the previous sections?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section is relatively straightforward, as the member opposite pointed out, in terms of the regulation-making authority that we need in order to be able to implement all of the provisions we’ve talked about previously.

With respect to (m.6), this provides us with the ability to set some regulations in place that we could put in place proactively on the licensee when we go through the pre-planning process and everything to facilitate these arrangements. It’s to make sure that the way that the harvest is undertaken leaves the residual in the best way for the secondary harvester to access it, because that’s all part of making the economics of it all work.

It’s not our intent to bring this in right away, but we wanted to have the tool. If the business-to-business approach works, then we won’t require it. But if we hear of the continued frustration of the process in the sense that we talked about before, this leaves us the ability to create the regulations that could go in, in advance of a do-not-destroy order, to make sure that the harvesting activity took place in a way that made that residual fibre available in the best way to a secondary user — to not continue to frustrate the process.

H. Bains: The minister says that they could implement these requirements on the licensee. My question is: they could, or they will? Is it a must? Why wouldn’t it be a must? I mean, this makes sense. If we are going to utilize the residual fibre, the only way to do that is if we have some requirements. Unless the minister, like everything else, is proposing self-regulating, and then if you’re forced into it, you will take some action.

Hon. S. Thomson: Again, as I point out, this provides us the ability to develop the regulations. It gives us the regulatory authority to do that. As I said, we wouldn’t do it in a case where there are the business-to-business arrangements and things are being worked on.

[1355]

Where we want to have the regulatory authority under these changes…. It’s the ability to do it if we hear the frustration. If the overall business-to-business approaches aren’t working coming out of the forestry fibre working group, then we have the ability to have the regulations that would allow us to do that.

It wouldn’t be used in every circumstance. It would be a strengthened ability for us to do that in those circumstances where it’s needed.

Section 24 approved.

On section 25.

H. Bains: It seems to me these two sections, section 25 and 26, are consequential to the Great Bear Rainforest Act. If the minister could explain if that’s true or if there’s something else in it.

Hon. S. Thomson: I appreciate the question, because it’s a little bit of a complicated process here.

These amendments ensure that the customized rules that are set out in the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act prevail over the Forest Act. As you will know, the reason for bringing in the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act is there are provisions in that legislation that set up special or unique circumstances, compared to what’s currently in the Forest Act. Because we’re making changes here, we wanted to make sure that what we do here, in terms of the amendments to the Forest Act, are consistent with what we’re doing in the Great Bear Rainforest Act.

It all deals with the chief forester’s authority under the Forest Act around AACs and partitioning within the Great Bear Rainforest area. It’s not consequential, in a sense. It’s required, not just simply a consequential amendment. It’s really what aligns these changes in legislation with what will be coming through with the Great Bear Rainforest Act, when we bring that to the floor of the Legislature.

The challenge we’ve got is bringing this…. You know, we can’t make the presumption, in bringing this legislation through and these changes, that the Great Bear Rainforest Act will pass. I expect it will, but we want to make sure that as we do that, then this lines up consistently with that.

These changes would be brought in by regulation. The amendments here would be brought in by regulation once we had the Great Bear Rainforest Act in place. It’s really just making sure that what we are doing here lines up with the intent of the legislation in the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act.

[1400]

H. Bains: So we’re passing an act here and assuming that the other bill will be passed. I just don’t understand how we can work this way.

You’re bringing in an act and changing the Forest Act here with the hope that another act, other legislation, will pass, so we want to include that already into the act today.

Interjection.

H. Bains: The Minister of Advanced Education has a law degree. You know, perhaps he could advise you if this is even legal.
[ Page 12238 ]

Hon. S. Thomson: We worked this all out with legislative counsel, so this is the recommended way to approach it. What will happen…. In the very unlikely scenario that the Great Bear Rainforest (Forest Management) Act doesn’t pass, these sections here would simply have no consequence because they wouldn’t be brought in by regulation. What it does is it allows us to bring these amendments in by regulation, because they would only come in force by regulation when that happens.

We didn’t want to have to do this process, bring in the legislation and then come back and present further amendments. We wanted to give ourselves the consistency in the lining up of the two pieces of legislation in advance. The process is that once that happens, then these would come in by regulation.

H. Bains: It just speaks to the government’s inability to manage these affairs properly. Would it not make sense to have the Great Bear Rainforest Act brought to the House first and pass it and then bring this one in? It would have made perfect sense. But I guess the way this government has operated in the last 15 years that I’ve watched, it makes perfect sense for them to do it backwards, to say it politely. So I think if that’s what it is, that’s what it is.

But I guess, in the meantime, we’ll see if this is the way it goes, and if the advice of the legal team is that this is the way to do it and it’s the perfect way to do it, then I’m taking the minister’s word for it. We’ll leave it at that.

Hon. S. Thomson: Despite the member opposite’s comments, I believe this is the appropriate way to do it. It provided us the option of either way.

It means we don’t have to bring a piece of legislation back for amendment after the others. It simply makes sure that what we’re doing here in terms of making these provisions around all of the changes here, to facilitate the benefits around community forest and First Nations woodland licences and the partitioning changes and the residual fibre changes and all of those, line up and are consistent, whether these amendments would have been there either way. I don’t see it as being at all an inefficient way to proceed.

Section 25 approved.

On section 26.

H. Bains: When we canvassed the question-and-answer, we were speaking about 25 and 26 together. Is it? Or is 26 different? I mean, is the intent here the same, to incorporate the Great Bear Rainforest Act, to address that issue in both of these sections?

Hon. S. Thomson: Yes, that’s correct.

Section 26 approved.

On section 27.

H. Bains: Now we’re talking about….

Hon. S. Thomson: I was wondering if we could have a few minutes to bring in the staff. We’ve moved on to….

The Chair: The committee will be in recess for five minutes.

Hon. S. Thomson: No, just a quick minute before we change. We don’t need a recess.

[1405]

H. Bains: It just speaks so much about the staff. Without staff, the minister can do nothing, can’t answer any questions. So thank you very much to the staff for being here.

So 27. I guess the minister maybe can give us an overview. There are a number of sections here. Well, perhaps we’ll go one at a time. It says, in subsection (7), “The following may act on behalf of the government under this section if authorized by the minister: (a) an independent contractor of the government,” and then it goes on to other persons from other jurisdictions “acting under a mutual aid arrangement.”

What are we trying to achieve here when we say that the following “may act on behalf of the government under this section if authorized by the minister”? Act on behalf of the government for what? What is the purpose here?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section and the addition under section 9 here of who may carry out fire control…. Really, what this does is make it explicit and clear who can carry out those activities and who has the authority to enter land for the purpose of suppression, for the purpose of control and for the purpose of rehabilitation. It really confirms existing practices but makes it more explicit in the legislation by making it clear, both for landowners and for the public, who can undertake those activities.

We do that now. We wanted to make it more explicit in the legislation. When there are questions from landowners or questions about who may be entering the property to undertake those activities, we wanted it more explicitly in the legislation than is currently the case.

H. Bains: We’re only talking about parts of the overall act here. This is only during the fire suppression time season, which would be prescribed by the ministry or the minister. Would there be some process to do this, or will it continue to follow the process that you had before?

Previously, contractors and firefighters from other jurisdictions have worked in B.C. As the minister said, we’ve done this before. So what was it that wasn’t explicit before, as the minister said we’re trying to make it more
[ Page 12239 ]
explicit here. Were there some challenges? Were there some issues? Where’s the need for this?

[1410]

Hon. S. Thomson: This section, as I pointed out, is really partly driven by some of the other changes that are coming forward where we’re looking for strengthened enforcement and strengthened ability to deal with interference and those things.

We just wanted to make sure, up front, that we had it clearly and more explicitly laid out as to who can undertake those activities. It doesn’t change the current operations. It doesn’t change the practices. It just makes it more explicit of the range of contractors, support that we have — whether it’s through contractors, whether it’s through mutual aid agreements with other jurisdictions, whether we bring in the foresters. We just wanted to have it clear up front.

As I said, it is there previously, but this just makes it more explicit, both for the public and for landowners and others that we’re dealing with in those emergency situations.

H. Bains: Just so we clarify, I think, in a simplistic way, you had that authority before. You have exercised those authorities before. But here, as the minister puts it, they’re making it more explicit.

It is during the fire suppression times, giving authority to these who are listed in subsection (7)(a) through (e). It gives them authority to enter private land. Is that what it is?

Hon. S. Thomson: If you look back to the beginning of the section, where it says: “The government may enter on any land and carry out fire control if an official considers that a fire on or near the land endangers life or threatens forest land or grass land.” Then it has some other provisions. You will also note that it says government enters on land to carry out fire control and that the government must compensate. Those provisions don’t change. It can be for the purposes of investigation following a fire.

So it isn’t necessarily just in suppression when the fire is happening. We don’t want to be frustrated in the process, to be able to go in and investigate causes. So all of those provisions are still the same. Really, we’re just adding the explicitness of who has the authority to do that when they’re acting on behalf of government.

Section 27 approved.

On section 28.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister would explain: what is the government trying to achieve out of this? It seems to me that it is a compliance order. Does this include something other than a stop-work order, or is there something else behind this?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section is…. Again, the purpose or the intent of it is just to strengthen our ability…. Now we have, under the legislation, the ability to issue a stop-work order. Adding the requirement that that order must be complied with will enhance the ability of the government to ensure compliance with the Wildfire Act and regulations.

[1415]

Verifying compliance with a written stop-work order is more straightforward than verifying compliance with an unwritten requirement. Really, what it does is just…. We have the ability to issue the order, but this section adds that when that has been put in place, you must comply. From a legal perspective, it gives us greater strength to ensure compliance with that order.

Sections 28 and 29 approved.

On section 30.

H. Bains: Again, there is quite a bit in it. It talks about a “person acting in an official capacity.” Let’s start and deal with (a) first, (a) through (b). Is this, again, to add to what we have already canvassed in the previous sections, authorizing government — call it agents acting on behalf of the government, as we described before…? Are we again, through this section, affording them authority to enter during, after investigation or suppression? Is that what this one is all about?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section is consistent with the steps we’ve taken before that we just debated, where we added or made more explicit the list of people and individuals that can enter and do that work.

This section deals with interference and non-compliance and providing misleading information. What we wanted to ensure is that by amending this definition, we’ve added the individuals, contractors and agencies that carry out fire control on behalf of government. It’s consistent, as I said, with the addition we made previously for the same purpose. There’s no operational change in who may assist government with fire control.

The intent of the amendment is to confirm existing practices, but it also makes sure that when we have those situations of interference or non-compliance, you’re not limited to people who are interfering with someone who is a regular employee of government, a member of the Forest Appeals Commission, Forest Practices Board, a temporary employee hired for fire control.

We wanted to make sure that if somebody is interfering — if they’re interfering with a contractor, who is working for us, to go in and do that work — then we have the strengthened ability to deal with that interference. Currently the section is written in a way that limits our ability. So we wanted to, in this section, be consistent what we’ve done previously.
[ Page 12240 ]

H. Bains: So you actually can go after the employee of the organization, rather than just dealing with the organization who may be involved? In this section, you are trying to…. It does talk about: “…as it applies for the purposes of this Act, or is a temporary employee hired under section 15 of this Act; and (ii) is exercising a power or performing a duty or function under this Act.”

[1420]

Maybe to just go over it again: who are you trying to target here that wasn’t included under your jurisdiction before?

Hon. S. Thomson: No. I think the member opposite has got this reversed in the discussion here.

This purpose is to be able to deal with a person who intentionally interferes with that group of people, which we’ve now broadened and enhanced. Currently, now, if it’s regular fire service working…. We can deal with it if it’s any of those others. But if you have a contractor working and somebody, for example, parks their boat where you’re dipping water or those sorts of things, interferes, and that person is a contractor of the government or is Canadian Forces or any of the other ones that we’ve made more explicit in the definition…. It’s really enhancing our ability to deal with those people who are interfering with our efforts.

H. Bains: Thank you for that explanation.

Let’s move on to (b). It talks about amending by striking out “intentionally.” Then it continues and goes on to say that…. Again, it talks about “intentionally not comply” and substituting “fail to comply.”

I guess I could look at the argument being made. Somebody could say: “I wasn’t intentionally trying to do this.” Now it is changed to “fail to comply.” So the judgment is already given. If they fail to comply, they fail to comply, whether there’s intention behind it or not. Is that what you’re trying to achieve here?

Hon. S. Thomson: This, again, is strengthening our ability here. What we don’t have to prove now is the interference was…. Previously, it said: “without lawful excuse, intentionally interfere with a person acting….” So you could get into the argument with the fact that the boats are all, in those areas, interfering with critical activities. They all come in with the argument: “Well, I didn’t mean to be here. I just drifted in. It wasn’t intentional.” That kind of thing.

What we’re saying is that, in these critical situations where we’re having that, we need to be able to act without having to determine whether that person was doing that intentionally or not. Having the standard of having to be able to deal in those circumstances and say you’re intentionally there was limiting. We needed to strengthen our ability to deal with those situations.

If a bunch of people drive into an area where you’re working and disrupt roads or disrupt access and things like that, we can deal with it. Previously, you could have had the argument that says: “Well, I didn’t intentionally drive in here. I was just out for a Sunday drive and got in the way.” That sort of thing.

We want to be able to strengthen our ability to deal with those situations. Not having to have the definition of it being intentional strengthens our ability. The legal advice is that this will give us greater ability. There will still be people…. If you end up in the process, people will, potentially, still argue about it. But now we don’t have to have the onus of saying whether you were there intentionally or not intentionally.

[1425]

H. Bains: I agree with what we’re trying to achieve here. I, for one — I’m sure like all British Columbians — view our forests to be a very precious resource, not only for economic reasons but for our social activities and leisure life, and hold forests to add to our quality of life. We don’t want to have our forests destroyed because of some act, wilfully or not.

I think, at the same time, there is a question here. You know, someone could just be there, not even knowing what’s going on around them, and is charged now and is held responsible. There’s no room now, it seems to me, here under this language.

I guess it’ll be up to the lawyers to decide what “fail to comply” means — whether there was an order given that they failed to comply with. Or is it that they must know that the order is out there?

I mean, all kinds of arguments are there, but I think you need to have a balanced approach. On one hand, we want to protect those who are working to protect our forests during fire suppression or prevention or investigation. But at the same time, somebody could legitimately be in this situation and get charged. I think there’s that issue, so I hope the minister has looked into that.

I want to just ask the minister: what is the purpose behind (d)?

Hon. S. Thomson: I agree with the member opposite. I think, from my perspective and having been through these situations, I would rather err on the side of having the strength and ability to be able to deal with those situations and not be constrained in that way by having to, when you’re providing a ticket or when you’re getting people to comply, have the argument at that point about whether it was intentional or not intentional. I think this is a positive step forward.

With respect to (d), what this really does is make it explicit that it’s not just the person. It’s also equipment or others that that the person may be operating — for example, the drone that is in the air over the area or somebody working with equipment in the area that gets in the way and those sorts of things. It just adds more explicitness to it. We’re not just dealing with the person. We’re also deal-
[ Page 12241 ]
ing with the person and equipment, machinery, vehicle, vessel, boats — those kinds of things. It’s just more explicit.

H. Bains: I think, when you look at…. In the act we’re talking about, I guess there’s a lot of stuff that will be decided through regulations, as far as the fines and what the consequences are of not complying or failing to comply.

[1430]

Maybe, generally, I could ask the minister…. This is to deal with situations where someone (1) failed to comply with the fire season, (2) failed to report fire and (3) is interfering with fire suppression. That’s what the press release from the government says: “Failed to report fire.”

All those areas are covered in here. Those are outside of this act that the minister’s press release described. Even there, they talked about what the fines would be, increasing the fine from a certain amount to a higher amount. Can the minister explain if those are the three scenarios you’re trying to strengthen your ability to deal with through this act? Or is this something different than that press release?

Hon. S. Thomson: As the member points out, in the legislation, we’ve taken these steps to strengthen the legal framework behind our abilities. Separately, as was pointed out, we have announced, as part of the suite of tools, significant increases in penalties for a range of penalties, all the way from failure to comply with an order, to failure to comply with a control order, to failure to stop a vehicle or a vessel, intentional interference, interference non-compliance and false statement. That’s $100,000 maximum or one-year imprisonment. That hasn’t been changed in the reg.

As we’ve pointed out, we’ve significantly increased fines for failing to comply with campfire regulations and other aspects. This strengthens our legal ability in the legislation, in the act. It gives us a stronger ability there. Then the other steps that we’ve taken within the regulation that are already provided for in the act are the second suite. The third suite is increased education, work with the communities and public, and everything like that around their responsibilities. Where they don’t comply with the current regulations, we’ve significantly increased penalty provisions.

H. Bains: The regulations are the result of the act enabling the minister to come up with those regulations. I see, through the press release of the government, that they do talk about three things. One is to deal with a situation like drones interfering with the fire suppression, and there could be a whole bunch of other things. Also penalties for ignoring fire bans and also failing to report a fire — the fines are increased. This one gives you better tools to strengthen those regulations and make it much more explicit, as the minister has said, to enforce the act through those regulations.

My question is…. When we say that the wording such as…. You know, take the intentional part, to “fail to comply” part. If you’re driving by and you did not notice a fire, you now will be deemed to have failed to comply. The fine is automatic, it seems to me. How do you justify that?

[1435]

I understand all the other things — that somebody is interfering; equipment is left in the area; drones; don’t comply with the fire bans, season or period. I understand that part. But here you’re also going to charge people who fail to report. I mean, it seems to me that’s what your press release says — that your fine will be increased from $115 to $383.

Those are from the regulations, but it comes from the act. You’re strengthening your hand here to deal with those situations, it seems to me. That’s the way I see it, unless the minister can explain differently.

Hon. S. Thomson: The provisions that the member is talking about — for example, failure to report, failure to comply with a campfire order — all currently exist in the act. Under section 2, we have all those provisions. We have a suite of tickets, fines and administrative orders that can be all part of that. Nothing has changed there.

The section that we’ve dealt with around intentional versus non-intentional was dealing with interference, which is where we wanted to have the strengthened provision. We don’t have a situation where we would argue about whether a person intentionally or not intentionally didn’t report a fire or intentionally or not intentionally didn’t comply with a campfire ban. If the bans are in place or the provisions are in place and somebody doesn’t comply, then they’re fined.

It’s not an argument of, “Well, I didn’t intentionally not put out my campfire,” or “I didn’t intentionally keep a campfire to a certain size under the restrictions,” or whatever burning restrictions may be in place. Nothing has changed in those provisions except increased fines for non-compliance.

I don’t think I’m hearing…. I hope I’m not hearing that the member opposite is opposed to those increases in fines and increased consequences of not complying with the suite of regulations and provisions that we’ve had in place previously.

We had my parliamentary secretary at the time go out and consult across that and bring recommendations. There was strong public support for increasing penalties and increasing consequences, and these changes to the fines are a result of his recommendations.

I just want to make sure that we separate that, when we were dealing with the intentional side of it and removing the word to “intentionally” interfere, we were dealing with interference, not dealing with the other provisions, which we have a long history of and a suite of provisions in place. We’ve increased the consequences for failing to comply with that suite of regulations.
[ Page 12242 ]

H. Bains: So that we clarify, this section, when we are making an amendment from “intentionally” to “fail to comply,” only applies to a situation where there is interference to fire suppression. The minister also mentioned, though, if they fail to properly put out the campfire. Those are the situations. So it means starting a fire and interfering — not the reporting part of it. This section only applies to the other two, which are starting a fire or interfering during the suppression, not the third portion that the press release talked about: failed to report. So “failed to report” is not part of this, then. It’s not covered here.

[1440]

Hon. S. Thomson: The sections that we’ve dealt with in terms of the provisions around intentionally…. That’s related to interference. The other sections remain the same, except under the ticketing and violation and regulation, everything like that. We’ve increased the penalties and the consequences of not complying with the existing suite of regulations that are in place that have been developed over time.

H. Bains: How will this apply? The minister knows well, and the staff probably knows that we have situations where there are logging activities, sometimes under extreme weather conditions, hot conditions, that have proven to cause fires. How do you deal with that? I’ll give you an example here, in Lake Cowichan, the fire on Hill 60 in 2015. It seems to be still under investigation. It doesn’t feel like the investigation is completed.

Here is a situation where maybe a contractor, knowingly or unknowingly, ignored these very, very extreme hot conditions, the weather conditions, and caused a fire. I don’t want to prejudge the investigation, but everyone around there kind of points fingers to one thing — that the fire was caused by the logging contractor. As a result of that, the town of Lake Cowichan was under a boil-water alert for most of the winter, even, due to an unprotected watershed.

There are those situations…. I understand they’re very clear-cut situations that the minister talked about. You could have a campfire. You left it completely out, and it started a fire. Or you have drones, for whatever purpose you’re doing it, during fire suppression. I get that. But there are these conditions. How do you deal with those situations? Those are also, I believe, with dire consequences, and the end result will be the same.

Have you delved into that and how these new acts and the changes and the amendments to the act will give you authority to deal with those situations?

[1445]

Hon. S. Thomson: Going back to section 28, it amended section 34 to give us the additional strength around complying with an order. So if an order is put in place to cease activity or stop work, then that gives us added strength there.

Ultimately, in the case of an investigation — I’m not going to comment about this specific case, because it is under investigation — the existing legislation provides us the ability that if, through the investigation and the process, it was determined that that was the cause of the fire, then we have the ability to recover costs, to levy fines, if there are licence provisions. So the legislative changes don’t deal with that specifically, other than giving us additional legal strength by amending section 34.

H. Bains: Let me, then, zero in on 30(d), because it does talk about…. The way I read it, you’re adding the language here saying that “without lawful excuse, operate equipment, machinery, a vehicle or a vessel or act in a manner that interferes with fire control that is being carried out.” It goes on to say the causing of a fire. It says, “(e) without lawful excuse, operate equipment, machinery…” and (i) says: “the causing of fire on, or the introduction of fire onto, Crown land, as authorized under section 18, or (ii) the control of a fire authorized under section 18.”

Does this section deal with the situation that I just described to the minister?

Hon. S. Thomson: To clarify section (e), just so the member opposite understands, because it relates back to section 18. Section 18 is where the government can utilize fire as a prevention activity — when we go in and do controlled burns and prescribed burns — and the control of those prescribed and controlled burns.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

What we’re also saying is that this provision applies to people who would interfere with those activities. It’s dealing with our suppression activities, but it’s also dealing with not interfering with our ability to use prescribed and controlled burns and to control those when we undertake those activities. You could have a situation where we’re managing a controlled burn, and somebody comes in, gets in the way and interferes with our ability to do that. It may, ultimately, result in that getting out of control in some way, or something like that.

So the provision covers both suppression and our activities around prescribed and controlled burns, as provided for in section 18.

Section 30 approved.

On section 31.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister could explain. Repealing section 11(7) of the Wildlife Act, RSBC 1996, c. 488 — what does that mean? What are we repealing?
[ Page 12243 ]

Hon. S. Thomson: We’re just changing some staff, but we’ll do this on the fly.

[1450]

Actually, it’s a very simple answer, because if you look forward into the bill, to section 41 of this bill, that provision is brought back in. It’s repealing it out of this section, and it’s replaced in a section farther on in the bill. It simply is a repositioning of this provision to make the legislation more readable and to put this in a section where it more appropriately lines up.

It’s not removing it at all. It does no change in policy, no change in provisions. It’s simply going to be in a different place, in a different position, in the act.

H. Bains: No attempts are made to ensure that B.C. residents have a priority?

Hon. S. Thomson: There is no change in policy.

H. Bains: I just want to say my piece here. Here was an opportunity for the minister. If we are going to change this act, the minister could easily have made provisions that B.C. residents would have a priority in this area. I think failing to do that, again, is a failure of this government to ensure that the B.C. residents come first, when it comes to access to B.C. wildlife.

Well, if nothing changed, nothing changed. I guess we’ll move to the next section.

Section 31 approved.

On section 32.

H. Bains: Let me ask this question. What are we trying to do if section 14 is amended by striking out “is in possession of” and substituting with “holds”? What does that mean?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section, and as we move through many of the other sections…. The member opposite will know or may be aware that much of the changes here is all about creating the changes and the provisions in the legislation to provide for the electronic licensing of hunting licences and permits and things under the process.

We’ve been working with the B.C. Wildlife Federation, the Wildlife Stewardship Council, the Guide Outfitters Association all around a project and a process to move to electronic or on-line licensing and permitting.

The change here supports the development of that. It replaces the phrase “is in possession of” with the word “holds.” The phrase “in possession of” implies possession of a physical licence, and the word “hold” more accurately reflects what’s going to occur when the licence is issued electronically.

All of this and now many of the other amendments support the implementation of that direction, all in cooperation with wildlife organizations and groups that have been working very, very closely together in implementing this project. We are looking forward to having the legislation in place and then looking forward to being able to bring that system live in the near future.

H. Bains: I understand we are moving into the electronic age. Still, there are parts of B.C., there are people whose ability…. It may not be that they have access to the Internet or even are computer-literate.

[1455]

My question is: is there a timeline to transition from the current system into a new system? Also, what provisions will there be for those situations that I’ve just described?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section…. Again, it probably doesn’t directly relate. The general question the member asked is around: what about those situations with people who don’t have computer access? What about remote areas where Internet access may not be in place? We’re certainly aware of that. It’s been part of the consultation with all the groups as we move to this. This will be implemented over a two- to three-year time frame as we fully implement it.

Hunters will still be able to go into FrontCounter B.C., into local vendors, to get a direct application, so that provision will still be there, along with the electronic process. Even once we get all of the provisions of the system in place, there’ll still be that ability. We’re not intending to move to a situation where it will be the only option, at the organizations’ request. They see this as added convenience and process. That’s why they’ve been fully supportive of the project. We will continue to have those provisions.

I’m sure there are some other questions, potentially, around this. I have talked to the member for Kootenay West about this as well. The question came up around: what happens if you’re out in an area, and you do your licence electronically? You have that permission. You’ve maybe got it saved on your iPhone, and you’re in an area, and a conservation officer comes along and says, “Where’s your licence?” and you can’t get it up on your phone.

As part of the process, there will be a user ID number. All the person will have to do is provide their user ID number and the natural resource officer or the conservation officer will have a non-on-line database, and they’ll be able to look at that number and say, “Yes, that person has a valid licence and these authorizations,” and things like that.

We’ve accounted for the nature of the industry in implementing the system. A lot of input from the organizations, from the groups in helping us develop it. It’s been a real partnership approach. We will implement it over time and fully, but we’ll still provide the ability for that person who wants to go into FrontCounter, apply for
[ Page 12244 ]
his licence in that way, get a paper copy of it and carry it around. That ability will still be there.

H. Bains: I’m glad that there will be that transition period and people will be brought along, those who have those difficulties, whether it’s an access issue or their own ability of not having a computer, even. I’m glad that will be looked after, but I do have a concern here.

[1500]

We’ve seen the experience of this government in Education and in Health when those new computer programs were brought in and introduced. It was a colossal mess and cost hundreds of millions of dollars. My question to the minister would be: how will you ensure that we will not have the mess that we saw in health care and in education when the new computer system was brought in?

Hon. S. Thomson: We’ve been working…. This has been a partnership approach, and it’s a phased approach to make sure that as we bring in elements of the system, we’ve got it all tested and working. We’ve got LEH authorizations on line currently. We have had the experience with fishing licences through the on-line process.

So I’m confident, given the partnership approach and…. We’ve had technical work, but we’ve also tested it with all the users and the groups. We’ll do it in a phased approach. We’ve provided the provision for people who don’t have that access to be able to do that, to access it. I’m confident that this will be implemented smoothly.

It is something that the organizations, the members of those associations, are really looking forward to and want us to get in place. They’ve probably been a little bit frustrated that we haven’t done it quite as quickly, but we’ll get there. This will be a key discussion at the upcoming Wildlife Federation annual meeting in Nanaimo next week, because they are very excited about moving to this step, and they’ve been part of the process all along the way.

Section 32 approved.

On section 33.

H. Bains: Let’s talk about these two different subsections. For (a), it is amending, to say “…striking out ‘in the form, with the content and valid for the term’ and substituting ‘with the conditions, and valid for the term.’” So what will that actually do to the act that we have currently? How is that being changed? What’s the purpose?

Hon. S. Thomson: The intent of this section is to provide the provisions that authorize the director to set the forms and manner in which licences must be issued. Limiting this authority to the director ensures that we’ll have consistency across the province.

[1505]

It’s really one of the steps that helps ensure that as we move to this system, it operates smoothly and is consistent. So again, it’s another piece that helps support implementation of the electronic system.

Sections 33 and 34 approved.

On section 35.

H. Bains: Just again, section 17(2) is repealed. Why?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section. Previously this required the person to show up, for the first licence, in person or show up with an official of the ministry. Moving to the electronic system, we’ve removed the requirement to have to appear in person. The system builds in the provisions that confirm the person has successfully completed the core program, those kinds of things.

The same provisions are built in, but it’s just if we’re moving to an electronic system, we don’t want to have an electronic system that forces people to have to come in. This was a key piece from the Wildlife Federation. They didn’t want to have to serve a different restriction just because the person had taken the course, and it was the person’s first time at it. They didn’t want to frustrate him in the process.

Sections 35 to 37 inclusive approved.

On section 38.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister could explain. By repealing section 24(3), (4) and (11), what is the government achieving?

Hon. S. Thomson: Again, this is a section that supports the electronic system that is coming in place. What this does is take out the requirement that requires a person to surrender or return their licence to us in paper form. Their licence can now be cancelled electronically. If they’ve got an electronic licence, it’s kind of hard to have them be required to return a paper form for it or to surrender it, surrender their licence. It’s simply, again, another section that supports the electronic process.

Section 38 approved.

On section 39.

H. Bains: It talks about giving authority to a regional manager to “issue a trapping licence to a person who is a citizen of Canada or a permanent resident of Canada.” Wasn’t that allowed before?

Hon. S. Thomson: This relates back to the previous discussion where the section earlier was repealed. This
[ Page 12245 ]
brings back in the policy around it and provides for the explicit authority that the regional manager may issue a trapping licence. No change in policy as far as requirements and eligibility.

H. Bains: That would be in person or electronically or both?

[1510]

Hon. S. Thomson: Both. It will have the same provisions — electronic access or the other. The same way we would with…. It’s part of the licensing project.

Section 39 approved.

On section 40.

H. Bains: It seems to me there are regulations being talked about here, so my question would be: who is developing the regulations for licensing assistant angling guides, and what requirements will be necessary?

Hon. S. Thomson: There are two aspects to this section. The first change is under (c), amending subsection (1) and bringing in the other prescribed qualifications for an applicant prior to the issuance of an angling guide licence. For example, the regulations will require that the applicant must demonstrate that they’re familiar with the Fisheries Act of Canada and the regulations that apply to an area they intend to guide in. It corrects an omission. It wasn’t in the previous legislation in the test for a licence issuance.

The second part of it is, again, a section that supports the electronic licensing. It’s now requiring a written record signed by the angling guide who has employed that assistant guide in order to validate his licence. With the previous licence, you would actually sign the back of the licence. Now the assistant guide will have proof of that record while guiding. That would be simply a signed authorization from the angling guide. Because we don’t have the paper licence, it’s again, a step to support the implementation of electronic licensing.

H. Bains: Is there going to be any flexibility in this? If there is, how will that work? Maybe you could explain, while you’re up: what’s the difference between record and signed licence?

[1515]

Hon. S. Thomson: Yes, there will be flexibility. First of all, there’s the flexibility of the current system, through the existing system. If you utilize the electronic system, there will be flexibility.

What we will require from the assistant angling guide is that proof that he is working for that guide. If he doesn’t have that proof, then his assistant angling licence would not be valid. We’re not specifying in this the type and form that that validation or proof must take. It could be in the form of a letter, in the form of a written statement — those kinds of things. There will be flexibility there.

Section 40 approved.

On section 41.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister could explain in section 41 what the parameters are around this regulation. Does the agent have to be part of the hunt?

Hon. S. Thomson: What this change provides is…. We have the situation where the hunt may be guided by an assistant guide. The current requirement is that the report can only be filled out by the guide. The requirement is that it’s to be done at the time and completion of the hunt.

What we’re doing is providing the ability here for the assistant guide, agent of the guide, to complete that report at that time, and it’s to be provided right away. The situation we have now is that it’s only the guide who can do that, which means that the guide has to go to where the hunt may be and fill out the report and form and everything.

This doesn’t change the requirement or the provisions for a report. It simply streamlines the process and makes it more efficient so that the assistant guide can complete the report as an agent of the guide-outfitter.

Section 41 approved.

On section 42.

H. Bains: In this one, I’d just like to ask this. “A guiding territory certificate issued under this Act must be issued in a manner and form, if any, and with the conditions, if any, specified by the director.” The question here is: can this be applied anywhere? Are there any restrictions on that? Also, is there any priority given to B.C. residents, or does it continue to apply non-residents to purchase guiding territories?

[1520]

Hon. S. Thomson: Again, as we commented earlier, this section is to support the electronic licensing process. What it means is that the terms and process for issuing it in a specific manner, meaning…. It could be issued from the electronic system.

There’s no change in policy here. It is simply a provision — again, consistent with all the other changes we’ve made — to support the electronic delivery system of licensing and certificates. No change in policy.

H. Bains: There is a difference now. I mean, being in person means going to the office. When you allow appli-
[ Page 12246 ]
cations to be made on line, someone from Germany can make an application, from Sri Lanka, from anywhere in the world.

My question is: can these applications be made from anywhere in the world? Also, I ask this again: is there a priority for B.C. residents, that they go first in the lineup before guiding territory is issued to out-of-country or out-of-B.C. applicants?

Hon. S. Thomson: This section, again, is about the process for issuance of a guiding territory certificate supporting the electronic system. There is no change in policy.

H. Bains: I hear that, but before, if it wasn’t on line, you’d have to go to an office here to make an application.

My question is: by changing to on line, would you allow someone out of the country to apply and be issued a guiding territory?

Hon. S. Thomson: Again, to be clear here, this section is about issuance of the permit, the process for issuing a certificate after an application process has been completed. There isn’t a change to the application process. That’s in a separate section about the requirements in applying, the process for bidding, if there’s an opportunity — all of those kinds of things. Nothing changes there at all. No change in policy.

This section is really, when there is a certificate, after all of the application process and that, this is how…. It provides the authority for that certificate to be issued through the electronic process, as opposed to having to be in person. This is all being worked through with the groups. Just again, it’s simply about issuance, not the application process.

Section 42 approved.

On section 43.

H. Bains: Can the minister explain why section 61(2.1) is repealed?

[1525]

Hon. S. Thomson: This section is being taken out of the act to be able to deal with this through the regulation process and to be able to support the electronic system again. All of the notification requirements will be moved into the regs. It authorizes the regulations to be made, specifying the manner in which notice is given. It will provide the consistency as to whether notification would be provided in terms of the licensing and all of those provisions under the electronic system.

Again, consistent with the other steps, this is a step to support the phased implementation of the electronic system.

Section 43 approved.

The Chair: Shall section 44 pass?

Some Voices: Aye.

The Chair: So ordered.

Member.

H. Bains: I think both of these here, 44 and 45, seem to talk about, first of all, eliminating minimum fines. Can the minister explain: if you remove the mandatory minimum fines for first-time offenders, is that at the discretion of the CO? Or how do you determine that?

Hon. S. Thomson: Can I just clarify which section we’re on?

The Chair: On section 45.

H. Bains: I was going back to section 44, actually.

The Chair: Okay. On section 44.

On section 44.

Hon. S. Thomson: This section is to give some greater tools to our conservation officer and natural resource officer services. The situation now is that they have an option: a warning or a process that would move it to where there has to be prosecution and the process for the current fine to be administered.

[1530]

What we’re doing here is moving to bring in the ability for a ticketing violation process for those conservation officers where they can issue. Once we get the legislative provision here, then we’ll develop the ticketing provisions under the violation and ticketing regulation process. That will then give them the flexibility to be able to issue tickets, with a monetary process on those tickets for those more minor offences.

Right now they don’t have that ability, so it’s sort of all or nothing. Now, with these provisions, we’ll have that step in between. We’ll be able to have violation tickets administered, which will mean that less warnings will be given and more tickets will be provided. Then the serious offences would still move through the prosecution process.

H. Bains: I don’t see a difference between having a minimum fine — and you’re removing that here — and then going in the direction that you just explained. What’s the purpose of removing the minimum fine, as your explanatory note suggests here? How do you see that the new provisions will be better to manage and will bear better results?
[ Page 12247 ]

Hon. S. Thomson: Right now we can’t issue a ticket for $2,500. That has to go through the prosecution process. So we’ve removed the minimum fine process. Through the prosecution process, we’ve retained the upper limit. What that does is let the courts determine the appropriate level of fine in those processes as it moves through that process.

What we will be bringing in through this is a ticket violation system, which will provide the ability for natural resource officers and conservation officers to provide or to assess tickets in the field, which will be in a range from…. That process will be set out.

Right now the only tool they have is a warning, or it has to go the prosecution route. We want to bring in a process that provides the ability to deal with those more minor infractions in the field, which we know we don’t want to put into the prosecution process but you need a penalty. We also want to remove the minimum penalty and just let the courts determine what is the most appropriate penalty, retaining the upper limit.

Section 44 approved.

On section 45.

H. Bains: My question here is…. Under this section, there are a number of changes being made. I think the question comes to: how are the conservation officers going to check if people have a valid hunting licence if everything is on line or electronic? How will they be able to do that? Wouldn’t this require additional conservation officers to enforce all these regulations? Will you be hiring or adding more resources to do this?

[1535]

Hon. S. Thomson: I think I’ve answered this previously. The system is not going to be dependent upon clients having continual cell phone coverage in the field. It’s to give the clients the option of producing the licence. It does give the option of the client producing the licence electronically. It doesn’t mean they have to have cell coverage to produce it.

Clients will be able to print and store their licences electronically — a PDF or a photo of the licence, a screen shot. They would have that ability. They will also have an identification number, to our clients, which they can provide to a conservation officer upon request. That will allow the conservation officer to access a database that has off-line functionality, where the ID number will be linked to all of the licences and authorizations.

This maintains the flexibility and supports the electronic system. It has that functionality and will be more efficient. Again, as I’ve commented previously, it was supported and developed in partnership with all of the key stakeholder fish and wildlife organizations in the province.

Section 45 approved.

On section 46.

H. Bains: I just want to make sure that this is…. Again, we are talking about someone producing a record on their electronic device, whether it’s a computer or an iPad or something, unless they have a written copy. Is that what we are saying — that that person will be deemed to comply with the section here, or the requirement, provided that they have that electronic record or a paper record?

Hon. S. Thomson: Yes.

Sections 46 to 48 inclusive approved.

On section 49.

H. Bains: Perhaps the minister…. I just want to leave it here. It’s not a question here, but there are a number of questions around this Wildlife Act. I think we had a discussion outside of the House. The minister agreed to provide further briefing to myself or other critics, especially Kootenay West, on some of the questions that they may have.

Hon. S. Thomson: I’d certainly be prepared to do that.

Sections 49 and 50 approved.

Title approved.

Hon. S. Thomson: I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 3:38 p.m.

The House resumed; Madame Speaker in the chair.

Report and
Third Reading of Bills

BILL 12 — FORESTS, LANDS AND
NATURAL RESOURCE OPERATIONS
STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Bill 12, Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Statutes Amendment Act, 2016, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

Hon. M. Polak: I call second reading debate on Bill 16.

[1540]

Second Reading of Bills

BILL 16 — COMMUNITY CARE AND
ASSISTED LIVING AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Hon. T. Lake: I move second reading of the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act.

[R. Lee in the chair.]

Assisted living is a semi-independent type of housing with extra supports to help with the activities of daily living. The majority of residents are seniors. Assisted living provides residents with hospitality services. Essentially, it’s their home. The meals are provided and, also, what are known as prescribed services. These include regular assistance with daily living activities, assistance with medication, therapeutic diets, financial management, structured behavioural management and intensive physical therapy.

Currently if a resident’s health status changes and they require more than two of the prescribed services, they no longer qualify to stay in assisted living. What that generally means is they are expected to move into a residential care facility.

Residential care facilities are for people with complex care needs who require 24-hour professional care and supervision in a protective and supportive environment. While they provide a critical service, they are more institutional than the quite independent, home-like setting of assisted living.

In her housing report last year, seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie said there were many cases where people in assisted living were having to transfer to residential care sooner than need be because of the rules in place. We listened and are making a change.

Amendments that we are presenting in this bill remove the reference to the specific number of prescribed services a client may receive in an assisted-living residence. This means they would be able to continue to remain in assisted living as long as it is safe and appropriate for them to do so, retaining their independence rather than having to transfer to a residential care facility.

The amendments, importantly, also expand regulatory oversight, offering further protection for residents. The assisted-living registrar, whose mandate is to protect the health and safety of assisted-living residents, will be able to inspect a residence at any time if they feel there is a risk to the health and safety of a resident. Currently the registrar may only inspect a residence if there’s a complaint.

Improving care for seniors, no matter where they live, is an ongoing priority for the government. We have created a wide range of supports for seniors, including home health, assisted-living services and residential care services. We have also heard from seniors that they want care and supports in their local community to help them live in their own homes longer.

The Ministry of Health developed Setting Priorities for the B.C. Health System in 2014, which is an overarching strategy to create a more sustainable health system, and seniors are a significant focus of these priorities. In this work, we understand that the patient or the client must be the focus as we look at better designing our services to meet the needs of an aging population. This legislation reflects those goals.

We will be consulting with assisted-living residence operators as the regulations are drafted, and these discussions will take place over the spring and summer. For those individuals who are able to make decisions on their own behalf, assisted-living residences provide a home-like environment and independence. These amendments will provide further supports for residents and help them avoid having to move to a residential care facility before they actually need to.

I am pleased to move second reading of the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act.

S. Robinson: I am pleased to rise in the House and speak to Bill 16, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act. Ensuring that we have a range of housing available for seniors is critically important. These are the people who have built our province, the people who have paid their taxes. These are the people who raise the next generation, and as the next generation, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that they have the housing and the supports that they need as they live out their remaining years.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to rise in this House and move a private member’s motion calling on the government to take immediate action, ensuring that all licensed and regulated care homes are meeting all government standards of care. I opened my remarks using Hubert Humphrey’s quote that bears repeating here, because this legislation and the regulations that come out of it will be the measure of this government.

Hubert Humphrey once said that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” The legislation that we’re looking at today needs for us to keep that quote in mind, because that’s exactly what we’re doing here.

The legislation that we are considering takes a look at expanding some of the housing and care options available to seniors in British Columbia, and it is important that we have a range of housing options and supports available as we age.

[1545]

Aging is often a process where we find ourselves not able to do the same sorts of things that we were once able to do. I have started that process. I can’t run the way I used to, and I certainly need my spectacles in order to read just about anything if it’s under 20 font.
[ Page 12249 ]

As we continue to age, there are other things that are likely that we’re going to have to adapt to manage. Things that I know that I’ll be having to give up or do a little bit differently are things like caring for my home, gardening, small repairs, maintenance and upkeep. Or dealing with my affairs, paying bills, banking, paperwork, appointments. Whether I can care for my health, like taking my medications, manage my social relationships, track doctors’ instructions and keep those appointments. Managing my own chores. Will I be able to do my laundry, clean my house? What about my own self-care — taking a bath or even going to the toilet?

Now, most of us, I think, in this House would like to age just like my Auntie Sarah did. Auntie Sarah was one of these people who became a widow in her early 70s and was able to manage really well on her own. Then one day she went to bed, curlers in her hair — that was the age and the time when you did you that, while you went to sleep — and she didn’t wake up. Her aging and her dying were done very gracefully. She never needed anyone to care for her.

However, most of us won’t have the opportunity to age like my Auntie Sarah did. Most of us will find that there will be a transition from a fully robust and independent life, one that’s rich with activity, friends and opportunity, to a life where we have aches and pains, some physical and, perhaps, some emotional challenges. Overall, there will be a transition from independence to dependence, and that will likely take several stages.

When I was preparing my thoughts for comment on this bill, it wasn’t my Auntie Sarah that I kept in mind. It was my grandfather, my Zaide Max. His experience of aging was very, very different from my Auntie Sarah. His experience of aging went from being very, very fiercely independent and having his own home to being a widower twice over and finding that, as he was aging, there were things that became more challenging for him. He did wind up in assisted living. That had certain implications for him. He lost his eyesight, and he needed more and more care until he eventually passed away at the age of 89.

When I think about some of the challenges that my grandfather had as he aged and I think of our seniors, I recognize the Bette Davis quote — I think it was Bette Davis — where she said that getting old isn’t for sissies. My father says getting older is certainly better than the alternative. So while aging is not always graceful and it isn’t for sissies and it is better than the alternative, it really says that there is a role for government and for our community to play as we age and that we all ought to try to make life as comfortable and as supportive as possible for our seniors.

It’s the least we can do for those who have paid their dues. They’ve paid their taxes, they’ve built this province, and they have raised us, the next generation. So I stand here, as the next generation, feeling very obligated to do the best that I can — I think the best that we all can — for our seniors.

We all know that home is the place where we all want to be as we age. It’s the place where we want to age. I know that when I go home at the end of the week…. I suspect for all of the members here, when we go home at the end of the week, there is something very special about climbing into your own bed, the familiarity of the space and the comfort of my things being around me. It’s this sense of belonging and comfort that we need to think about as we pay attention to the special needs of our seniors.

If home is best, then it makes sense to ensure that our seniors can stay home as long as absolutely possible. Seniors homes can vary widely. I think it’s important to talk about how the amendments in this bill fit into the notion that seniors are better off at home. I think it’s important to talk about it in a context, so I’d like to take a few moments just to set the stage for that conversation.

When I think about seniors staying in their homes as long as possible, I think about what it would take to make that happen for as many seniors as possible — in their own homes, before they have to go into care. I thought about how we ought to be ensuring that they have the supports they need and access to the resources they need so that they can stay as long and as safely as possible in their own homes and in their own communities.

[1550]

If we think about it…. I think about my own community in Coquitlam-Maillardville. I think about: how, as a community, are we living up to this? I worry about this, and I’m concerned about this. By 2031, just 15 years from now, B.C. is expected to be home to more than 1.5 million people over the age of 65. That’s almost 25 percent of the population, and 15 years is not that far away.

I do want to acknowledge that the government does have a program called age-friendly communities. It’s a great program, because if we want people to age in place, we need to make sure that their communities can adapt and have the resources that they need. There’s a list of eight things that’s on that list.

Outdoor spaces in buildings. Are they age-friendly? Does a natural and built environment help the older person get around safely and easily in their community, and does it encourage community participation, which is really important?

Then transportation. Can older persons travel wherever they want to go in the community, conveniently and safely. Another important piece about aging in place and aging in our homes.

The third is housing. Do older persons have housing that is safe and affordable — an important point — and that allows them to stay as independent as possible as their needs change?

The list goes on to include social participation, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment,
[ Page 12250 ]
communication and information, and community supports and health services.

I think it’s important that communities pay attention to this, not just this level of government, but certainly other levels of government. We all have to work together. There is only one taxpayer. We all pay taxes to all three levels of government. It’s important that we’re all working in the same direction to ensure that our seniors have a place to stay.

I have to say, in preparing my comments for this bill, certainly what I came across is that not all seniors actually have appropriate housing in their communities. I think it’s important to sort of recognize that, because it puts a burden on some of our other resources — like the bill that we’re debating right now, in terms of assisted living. I think we need to recognize that we have particular housing concerns for seniors in general.

I just noted that there’s a seniors housing update from 2014 that comes out of SFU, the Gerontology Research Centre. They note here: “There has been a significant decline in the supply of low-cost housing across Metro Vancouver” and “many seniors find themselves increasingly displaced from the community that they have currently lived in as a result of high rents, leading to the loss of meaningful social networks and challenging their sense of home and community.”

The authors go on to say: “There’s an identified need for low-cost housing designed for keeping seniors in the communities where they wish to live. This is seen as a key component of supporting aging in place and designing for age-friendly cities.”

I’m thinking, in that context, about some of the things that we’ve been hearing more recently about seniors and their need for appropriate housing that meets their needs as they age. We certainly hear from the government, from the Liberals, that it’s really important for seniors to age in place and stay at home as long as possible. I completely agree. I support that. I think it’s important that we acknowledge that. And it’s important that we have resources in place to make that happen.

What I find a little bit distressing is that we are seeing more and more of our seniors, people whose health is starting to fail them, in our homeless shelters. That is, I think, cause for concern.

We’ve learned…. For this, I’m just quoting from an article from thunderbird.ca. It’s 2014. It comes out of UBC: “Vancouver Shelters Overwhelmed by Increase in Homeless Seniors.” They note that the number of homeless seniors over 55 in the Lower Mainland is creeping upward. It’s doubled, to 264 from 121, over the last eight years just in Vancouver alone. They note that low-income seniors are finding it increasingly difficult to get apartments they can afford.

I appreciate the amendments that we’re debating here, but I think it’s important to set a context around where the pressures are coming from, what the challenges are and the importance of recognizing that there’s a housing continuum, and that this bill speaks to a tiny, tiny little piece on that housing continuum. We need to always keep in mind, as we talk in this House about seniors, that we keep that whole continuum in mind — about what’s going on or what’s not going on.

The authors go on to note that waiting lists for seniors social housing are miles long, as the rents in private buildings have gone up faster than their incomes.

[1555]

Now, there’s certainly lots more here. Lookout is a well-known shelter in Vancouver. They note that they’ve seen a steady increase of people aged 45 to 64 in all their shelters, that seniors grew to 42 percent in 2014 from 31 percent in 2009-10.

They also note that B.C. Housing has acknowledged the need for more senior housing. I think it’s important that we keep in mind that not all seniors even have housing. We’re talking about a piece, but there’s certainly this group of seniors that aren’t even in that part of the system.

I want to note that just this week there was an article in the Vancouver Sun that spoke about the number of seniors that are homeless. It said that in 2014 in Metro Vancouver, the homeless count was 371 for seniors. So 371 seniors who don’t have a home.

I will remind members of this House that we certainly heard about Fran Flann in the fall, who wound up in a homeless shelter because of housing challenges, and that was very heartbreaking for all of us. I know that there were some decisions made, and I know that she was housed, but this whole challenge of housing all of our seniors is just a broader challenge.

We have a bill before us that’s paying attention to assisted living, but I think it’s important that we recognize that there’s a whole structure in place and that each piece is connected to the other — that these are not stand-alone, silo pieces of housing. There is a continuum of housing. I think it’s important that we recognize where this bill fits in on that continuum.

There are also seniors, certainly, in our communities, who might be property-rich and cash-poor. It’s certainly a problem I’ve seen in Coquitlam-Maillardville, and I suspect it’s an issue that the Speaker has seen in his community as well.

They might have a pension or savings of some sort, but they have a home that needs repair or upgrades. They have property taxes that are increasing, hydro costs that are increasing, ICBC rates that are increasing, and their pensions just aren’t keeping up with these increased costs.

There are certainly some government programs to help out. I think that’s a good thing. But as the seniors advocate noted in her policy options paper last year…. She said, “Most startling was the number of low-income seniors reporting that they were unaware of the guaranteed income supplement” — the GIS. She said 23 percent were unaware that it existed.
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Many of them didn’t know about the MSP premium assistance. That’s 60 percent that didn’t know about it. SAFER rent subsidies — 42 percent didn’t know about it. PharmaCare — another 42 percent didn’t know about it. These are long-standings programs and subsidies that are aimed directly at low-income seniors, yet she says it seemed that these benefits are not reaching their intended target. We do have a lot of work to do around making sure that seniors are aware of the ways in which there are some government resources to help them when it’s difficult.

As I was thinking about my grandfather and thinking about this legislation and about the continuum of housing, I was thinking about those seniors who own their own homes, because we do have a fair number of seniors who own their own homes.

Some would say that they should just sell their asset and use these to help offset the costs of their care, which they can do and I’m sure some choose to do, and it may not be a bad idea for some seniors. The challenge, of course, is: where would they move to?

I recall that when I was on city council, I was a strong advocate for encouraging developers who were coming before us to develop housing that was oriented for seniors. I’m not talking anything about subsidized housing, but really making sure that we had the stock. Seniors who lived in a 2,500-square-foot home were not going to be comfortable, necessarily, moving to a 600-square-foot box.

We need to make sure, at all levels of government, that we find ways to create a diversity of housing. When I think about those seniors who are in their own homes, I think it’s important that we recognize that there are some options for them to adapt their homes, as they need some changes to make their homes more age-friendly.

[1600]

Whether it’s widening some door frames so that they can get a walker through or putting in a ramp so that they don’t have to go up stairs or if they have one of those lifts that takes you up…. There’s that commercial. I’ve seen it a number of times. It would take you up the stairs — those built-in elevators.

I think it’s important that we have all of those tools in place. Like the minister said, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, it is important that we help people stay as independent as possible for as long as possible. We all know that having seniors stay in their homes is what they need, but I worry. I worry that we don’t have enough resources to help make it so.

Now, we all agree that there’s also great cost savings to having seniors in their home as long as possible, but it has to be an appropriate home, and it has to have the appropriate support. When I think about the range of housing and all the pieces that come together that help keep seniors in their homes as long as possible, I think of our home support program.

Home support is when a senior or someone with a disability needs help with daily personal care activities. It might be bathing or dressing or toileting or eating. It used to include assistance with laundry and cleaning and some meal preparation, but now the government no longer provides that. That’s left to other groups, mostly Better at Home, which is a government-supported, United Way–managed and volunteer-based assistance. I have some concerns about the program, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

Now, case managers assess potential home support clients to determine services and hours for which these seniors are qualified. The service is delivered by community health workers and paid for by the health authority. It is a way of supporting seniors so that with a little bit of assistance, they can stay in their homes.

According to the seniors advocate, in her Monitoring Seniors’ Services report from January 2016, 41,223 British Columbians were registered for home support services in 2014-15. Overall, that’s a 2 percent increase in the number of clients over the previous year. Now, the population aged 75 and older — this is the group that makes the most use out of home support — increased by 4 percent.

The total number of clients increased in four of the five health authorities and just decreased in one health authority. The total number of home support hours in 2014-15 was just over 11 million hours, an increase of 1 percent over the previous year. Those numbers increased in two of the health authorities and decreased in three of the health authorities.

The numbers don’t quite jibe, that people are actually getting the hours that they need. That’s sort of what these numbers are suggesting. In 2014-15, the average hours delivered per client per year was 268 hours, or 5.1 hours a week, a decrease of 1 percent in the provincial average from 2013-14.

What does this say? In spite of a commitment from this government to keep seniors in their homes as long as possible, we’re seeing that the overall home support hours have decreased, while the number of clients has increased.

What does that mean for our seniors? Well, it means that while they’re eligible for services, seniors just aren’t able to get the services they need to be comfortable at home for as long as possible. It means that they might not be able to get a bath as often as they should, or they can’t get assistance with meal preparation so they can eat proper, healthy foods. As a result, they now eat prepackaged food with high salt and sugar that might lead to greater health problems.

This government says it has aspirations to make life better for our seniors, but as our seniors population grows, we’re actually seeing a reduction in the home care hours. It’s more of saying one thing and doing another. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do, but I do think we have an obligation to fix that.
[ Page 12252 ]

The next stage of care along the independence continuum is assisted living. This bill before us changes legislation so that we can have a broader range of services and greater oversight for those needing an assisted-living arrangement. Assisted living is a housing option that provides seniors with a range of supports so that they can live mostly independently.

My grandfather had this. He had macular degeneration. He lost his eyesight, and he lived independently for a long time, being mostly visually impaired. But it did get to a point where it was hard for him to see the numbers on the dials of his stove, and even though they put, in big black markers, the numbers, it just became more and more difficult.

Assisted living seemed to be the solution, because he was going out to eat too often, which wasn’t good for him, and he needed help with the cooking. He needed help with some eye drops, and he needed help with some medication. Otherwise, he was pretty independent.

[1605]

Now, the current legislation says that in assisted-living facilities, residents can only make use of two out of six prescribed services. Assistance with daily living, like getting dressed or help with medication, are the kinds of assistance that would be available. The amendments contained in this bill would drop the limitation of two services so that seniors can add services as needed without having to worry about moving to residential care.

Currently, if a senior is needing more than can be offered by home support — a system where currently demand is up and resources are down — and if that senior can primarily live independently but they need a couple of regular additional services on a daily basis, they are eligible for assisted living, if they can afford full pay.

We know that there is a significant waiting list of over 940 names waiting for subsidized assisted living across the province. I just want to comment on that, because I think it’s important to acknowledge that while this legislation will provide opportunities, it will also, perhaps, increase greater demand for care where there is already a significant wait-list.

I just want to read into the record what we currently know based on the seniors advocate reports. In 2012, we had 4,389 subsidized registered assisted living units in this province. In 2013, it went up to 4,472. That’s good. It’s an increase. But from 4,472, we went down in 2015 to 4,430. So we’ve lost 40-some-odd units. We’ve lost 42 units just in the last couple of years.

It becomes a real challenge when the housing opportunities go up and then they go down. Now we’re going to be creating this greater expanse of opportunity, but we have this significant wait-list. I want to come back to this idea, because I think we’re going to see a significant crunch, and I think it’s important and incumbent on the government to address that.

In just completing my thoughts about this range of care — because I think it’s important to have the whole spectrum of care in mind as we debate this bill and as we think about where it fits in the continuum of care for seniors — I want to take a moment to talk about residential care. This is where you go when you need more care than an assisted-living residence can provide.

I think, as we get more frail, there comes a time when we’ll need 24-hour professional supervision where we, as seniors, any senior, can be safe and secure and have their needs met so that we do live out the remaining years in comfort and indignity.

About 3.7 percent of B.C. seniors live in residential care. The province subsidizes over 27,000 beds provincewide. Since 2012, there has been an increase of just under 1,000 additional beds added to the system — a 3.5 percent increase. Now the challenge is the increase in the over-75-year-old population in this group — the group that’s mostly going to, in all likelihood, need residential care. Well, the population has grown by 10 percent. We have this potential growth of 10 percent in demand and a 3½ percent growth in support.

We know that it’s only going to get more difficult as time goes on. In fact, the seniors advocate ran the specific numbers to see if this growth in population is being matched by a growth in demand for residential-care beds. What she learned is that there has been a 6.8 increase in seniors admitted to residential care from 2013-14 to 2014-15. So we know that we currently don’t have enough residential-care beds for those seniors needing 24-hour access to care.

I can appreciate that the changes being proposed here in this bill are intended to help alleviate some of those pressures. You see, under the current legislation, if you needed more than two services, then you needed to go into residential care. I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think people should go into residential care before they absolutely need it. But there’s certainly going to be this bulge now that we’re going to see around assisted living, because people can stay in assisted living longer.

[1610]

A few weeks ago, the seniors advocate released an on-line directory of the 292 publicly funded care facilities in the province. The directory is a comprehensive list with details that note the size of the facility, number of licensing complaints, kinds and amounts of care services provided and other details that families would want to know about when putting their loved one into a residential care facility.

Now, the directory also lists the number of funded hours the care facility gets from this government. Most people would recognize that not all residents are going to need the exact same level of care, but we recognize that our care facilities are really home to our most vulnerable seniors. As a result, this government established a minimum standard of care hours so that there is some assurance of a minimum standard of care.
[ Page 12253 ]

That’s a good thing, because then we can rest assured that we know there’s this formula in place to ensure that there are enough hands on deck to support seniors. Government has set a rate of 3.36 hours per resident, per day to ensure that there are enough hands to do the work of caring for our seniors.

We know that it’s not just hands that care for our seniors; it’s hearts as well. We’ve all seen the care providers in residential care centres who have the patience of Job, who sit and take the time, when they can, to comfort someone who’s in distress, to make sure they are comfortable, to do the most intimate of care, the most intimate of acts to ensure that people are comfortable.

I can’t imagine that there would be anyone in this House who did not think that it’s important, as our seniors are becoming more and more frail and as they are dying, that we ought to be making sure that they have the emotional comfort and the spiritual comfort they need in their twilight hours.

We have this 3.36 hours of care per resident as a minimum standard. It’s not the fully loaded model; this is a bare-bones standard. What the directory revealed, with great concern, is that most of these funded facilities aren’t even funded to the minimum standard of care. I thought: “Well, let me pull up, in my community of Coquitlam-Maillardville, and just take a look.”

We have assisted living facilities, and I think it’s important that people can stay there as long as possible. We also have residential care facilities that they will be going into when they can no longer stay. I want to make sure that in the continuum of care, there’s a wraparound to ensure that our seniors are treated with respect and dignity and comfort in their later years.

I pulled up three care facilities in my community — the Belvedere Care Centre, the Madison Care Centre and Cartier House. While government has set a standard of 3.36 hours of funded care, I noted that Belvedere Care Centre, for 2014-15, is getting only 2.78 hours of funding. Madison Care Centre is a beautiful centre. In that same year, they were getting 2.77 hours, and Cartier House was only funded for 2.64 hours.

I mention that only because I worry about the context of this bill and the changes it’s going to make and the pressures it’s going to put on either side of the housing continuum. It’s important that we not think in silos — that it’s not just about assisted living, that there are changes being made to assisted living. It’s important to think about the impact it’s going to have on either side. It’s the middle piece, right?

People go from their own personal homes, so government has some supports in place, home support. Then you go to assisted living, and then beyond that, there’s residential care. I think it’s important that we always think of these pieces of legislation not in isolation, because it’s connected. People’s lives are connected. They don’t just live in these little silos. It’s in that framework that I think it’s important that we keep in mind what the whole picture looks like.

Clearly, we have a significant problem, when we have a recommended level of funding for direct hours of care for our most vulnerable — our most vulnerable. These are not the people on assisted living. These are people in residential care facilities. And we have a government that chooses to provide tax relief to B.C.’s wealthiest, while severely underfunding care for our most vulnerable. That worries me. I think that’s something that should concern everybody in this House.

[1615]

The impact, though, to seniors means that there aren’t enough hands to provide those who are most vulnerable and need assistance — assistance with toileting, toileting in a timely manner. The indignity of sitting in soiled clothing is heartbreaking. I’ve heard stories of care providers trying to find ways to spread care so that situation does not happen, so that there are no soiling incidents.

I know of some facilities and have heard stories where they do a toileting regime where it’s almost like an assembly line. I remember the minister saying a couple of weeks ago that people aren’t widgets, and I completely agree. But I’ve certainly heard stories in care facilities where it is like an assembly line, right? They have to care for eight residents, so they get put on the toilet, and then they get taken off. Depending on what’s going on, some people can sit there for a while. I don’t know where the dignity is in that. That’s not the kind of care I would want for myself. I think we have to do a better job. I think that’s really important.

Bill 16 is a teeny, tiny baby step to create a bit of a shift away from prematurely placing seniors in residential care before they actually need 24-hour-a-day care. How will the changes in Bill 16 actually change seniors care in this province?

The specific amendment here says that in assisted living, seniors who need additional supports beyond the two prescribed supports can sort of shop from a list. They can get assistance with the activities of daily living, including eating, moving about, dressing, grooming, bathing and other forms of personal hygiene. They can get assistance with managing medication. They can get assistance with the safekeeping of money and other personal property. They can get assistance with managing therapeutic diets. They can get assistance with behavior management, with psychosocial supports and with other types of prescribed assistance or support.

That’s good. That’s a really good thing, and I’m glad to see that we’re moving in this direction. This was a recommendation made by the seniors advocate. I also want to note that the legislation does also increase the oversight, which is another important feature to include in this legislation.

If the intent of the legislation is to provide seniors with more support so that they can stay in assisted living long-
[ Page 12254 ]
er and keep them out of residential 24-hour care, which they don’t really need yet, then the result of that is that we’re going to actually see more frail seniors in assisted living. I think it’s important to acknowledge that they are going to stay there longer. So they’re going to need more supports, and that’s fine. But it means that you then need to have more oversight.

That’s not a bad thing. We need to ensure that there’s enough regulation and oversight, because when people become more frail, we become more vulnerable. As we become more vulnerable, the risks to our health and to our safety increase. So it does make sense that we ensure that those who are most vulnerable are properly protected.

I agree that more oversight is a good thing. I’m glad to see it in this legislation. I am pleased to see this government act on the recommendation by the Ombudsperson and the seniors advocate, but it also looks like there is so much more to do, and that could have been done here.

Now, the seniors advocate has reported out and talked about seniors who don’t have disposable income and the impact that has. So if we’re going to see more seniors in assisted living, we need to talk about their ability to sort of live there and pay for it. The seniors advocate notes that a lot of seniors don’t have the disposable income they need to remain socially active, income that would go to paying for, perhaps, a bit of transportation, a taxi, a cup of coffee with some friends. As a result, they become more isolated.

I do want to point out that when seniors who are frail spend money, it goes right back into the local economy. They don’t take their money out to the Cayman Islands, and they don’t take their money to Mexico. They’re just not able to do that. So I actually think that having seniors have money that they can spend locally is a very good thing.

[1620]

The seniors advocate, in her seniors housing report last year, recommended that the minimum amount of income with which a resident of subsidized assisted living is left with after they contribute their share of the cost of assisted living should be increased to $500 a month from the current level of $325 a month.

Seniors who are on assisted living and are needing some subsidy only pay 70 percent of their income, and the seniors advocate thinks they should have a little bit more money in their pockets so that they can participate more fully in the community. We need to remember that that money definitely stays local.

It’s disappointing that there was nothing in this bill to help these seniors to continue to participate in their communities, to go beyond the walls of their home, nothing to assist them in maintaining relationships with their friends — I’m sure everybody here has seniors who gather in their community, in the local McDonald’s, just for a cup of coffee — nothing to help them go to their local bridge game or the lawn bowling tournament at the local seniors centre, perhaps where they sat on the board back in the day when they had the energy and the strength to do just that.

It’s really unfortunate that that wasn’t included in this legislation. It’s disappointing that the government chose to give a $236 million tax break to B.C.’s wealthiest instead of helping seniors stay connected in their own communities.

[R. Chouhan in the chair.]

While government is making it easier to stay for a longer time in assisted living, I do think it’s rather important to talk about access to subsidized assisted-living care.

In this part of my comments, I want to note two things here on this. There is a need for access to subsidized registered assisted living. We have a wait-list right now, so I want to focus some comments there. The other thing that I want to comment on is the increased cost for more care at assisted-living residences, because I think this bill is going to have some impact there.

First, I just want to talk a little bit about access. As of December 2015, there were 943 individuals waiting for subsidized registered assisted living. Beds in these facilities right now often get freed up today, under the current legislation, when seniors need more than two prescribed services. Well, if they can access more than two with this change in legislation, which is a good thing, that means they’re going to stay in those subsidized services, in those subsidized beds, longer, right?

As they get more frail, they start off needing one, and then they start off needing two, and then they start off needing three, and then they might need four. Before, they used to move on to 24-hour residential care. But now they’re going to stay longer, and that’s a good thing. I don’t want anyone in this House to think that I think that’s a bad thing.

The more people move, the harder it is for them. I will say that my dad, God bless him, is 75 years old. He just moved this week. I coached him a little bit, long-distance, about checking in with him. He was absolutely exhausted. He’s well. He’s healthy. He downsized from a townhouse to an apartment, but he was exhausted and overwhelmed. I could tell that some of that’s just about aging.

Sorry, Dad. I don’t mean to upset you about that, but it’s true.

I don’t want him to have to make a whole lot more moves in his life. My sister and I have shared with him that we want this to be his last move, ultimately. This should be, I hope, I pray, his last move and that he’ll have the experience of my Auntie Sarah that I mentioned earlier in my comments, because getting old isn’t for sissies.

I don’t want to see…. I think it’s good policy to not move our seniors that often, so this is a good step in the right direction. But I do think we need to have a plan, this government needs to have a plan, about what to do.
[ Page 12255 ]

I want to take a look at the current resources that we have for assisted-living units, because I think it’s important that we understand what we currently have in terms of stock. I mentioned earlier that we have some limited stock, and I’m concerned about what the changes in this bill are going to do to that stock. I think it’s important that government has a plan for how to address the bulge.

[1625]

In 2015, there were, according to the seniors advocate, there were 142 subsidized registered assisted-living residences in British Columbia.

Interior Health, went from 925 units in 2012 to 931 units in 2015. They increased by six. Interior Health increased by just six.

Fraser Health, in 2012, had 1,350 units. In 2013, they had 1,395. But then in 2015, they had 1,393, so they actually lost two units. I’m not sure how that happens, but it only went up by 43 units in those four years.

Now, Vancouver Coastal had 838 units and, by 2015, went down to 798 units. They lost 40 units of housing. This is subsidized assisted-living units.

Now, Vancouver Island went from 986. Then in 2013, they had 1,036 but then dropped down to 1,018. So again, we have this fluctuation. But really, over those four years, we gained just 32 beds.

In Northern Health, it stayed at 290 units straight across.

Overall, we have a 0.9 percent increase in four years in subsidized assisted-living units. In 2013, there was a total for the province of 4,472. Then it went down to 4,430 in 2015. I would argue that it’s not really…. We had a better increase earlier on, from 2012 to 2013, and then it dropped off. I think that’s a significant problem.

Now, not all the units in this province are subsidized. I’ve just talked about a certain section of it. In 2015, there were 3,247 units of private registered assisted-living in B.C., and that’s an increase of 25 beds from 2012. That’s a good thing. There had been an increase across the board, except in Northern Health. They went from 33 beds to 24 beds. But again, across the board, Interior saw an increase of 45 beds over the four years. Fraser Health saw an increase of 256 beds. Vancouver Coastal saw an increase of 98 beds. And Vancouver Island saw an increase of 260 beds.

Now, I want to just point out that these are where people do full pay. I’m going to talk about the cost because I think it’s important that when we talk about this bill and the assisted living that people are going to need and preparing for the demand, we need to appreciate that not everyone can pay for it. And if they are going to pay for it, how much money are you going to need so that you can stay comfortable as you age?

I think people…. We all ought to be preparing. I hope that everyone in this House is preparing. But not everyone is prepared. Not everyone has the opportunity to prepare. Sometimes we just never earned enough in order to make it as comfortable as we would like.

The big growth, though, in assisted-living beds in the province…. The biggest chunk is in private assisted-living non-registered units in British Columbia, where we have over 16,000 beds, 16,000 units. What’s interesting here is that while the number of units has increased from 2012 to 2015, by 1,267 units, the vacancy rate has dropped 3.5 percent. So we’re seeing that the demand is increasing. We know that the demand is increasing. The private sector is certainly there, ready and able and prepared to do that. That’s a good thing because I think there are people in this province who can afford to do that.

But I worry about those who don’t have the capacity to pay. Right now, as of December 15, 2015, 943 individuals were on the wait-list for subsidized assisted living in this province.

[1630]

So 237 were waiting in the Interior; in Fraser Health, 251 were waiting; in Vancouver Coastal, 188; on the Island here, 122; and in Northern Health, 145. That’s significant, and I worry that that number is only going to grow with this bill.

We need to make sure that we’re making investments simultaneously, and if we’re not making investments and ensuring that we have subsidized units, then we’re going to see a backup in the system.

We could change this legislation. I imagine that it will pass. I can’t imagine anyone saying no to this piece of legislation. But it’s not going to change anything if the wait-list keeps growing. Perhaps for those people who are already in, it would change. It means that they don’t have to move. But people won’t be able to access, and I think that’s a critical piece that we ought to be debating in this House and ensuring that there’s access to assisted living.

It’s a good thing for seniors to have this. I want seniors to be able to access it, but I’m not convinced that this government is prepared to make sure that that’s available for all seniors.

One of the consequences of this bill, and I mentioned it earlier, is that seniors will be staying in assisted living longer, and because they’re going to be staying in assisted living longer, they’re going to be more frail. And because they’re going to be more frail, they’re going to be more vulnerable. Because they’re going to be more vulnerable, there is going to need to be more oversight.

Well, part of the mix in all that is that they’re going to need more staffing. As seniors become more frail, their need for more hands, more support, more help is going to increase. So the current staffing levels that we see in assisted living — that’s probably going to have to increase a little bit. Maybe not a lot, not like 24-hour care, but it’s going to have to increase. What’s that going to do to the cost?

Again, we have some really good public policy here. I’m not saying this is bad public policy. This is good public policy, but we can’t look at it in isolation, that we’re just going to do this and somehow it’s going to magically fix everything. We have a significant problem here. We
[ Page 12256 ]
have a backlog. We don’t have enough resources. We’re making a good piece of public policy decision here, but I’m not sure that we’ve thought of all the pieces that are going to be impacted with it.

So while it’s good for people to stay longer, if we don’t put more resources into making that happen, then I’m not sure that we’re actually going to be doing a great service to anybody. Frail seniors in assisted-living facilities — I worry about them. Are they going to be able to stay? Are they going to be able to financially afford it? I worry that we’re going to see the same issues in assisted-living facilities, where we don’t have enough funded hours, just like we’re seeing in residential facilities. That has impact on their level of care. It has impact on their dignity. It has impact on their health. It has impact on their twilight years.

I want to just reflect on what the cost is. It’s not just the cost of subsidized units. It’s the cost of the private units as well. Those costs are going to go up. In 2015, 60 percent of private, non-registered assisted-living units cost $2,500 or more a month. It’s a lot of money. I would like to have seen a breakdown for another leap, because I think that there is actually….

And 60 percent is a big lump. I would be very interested and will certainly be following up with the seniors advocate to see if she can break out some of those numbers a bit more. That’s pretty expensive.

Those units where people can pay less than $1,500 a month…. That’s only 7.8 percent of the total number of units that’s available for that. Of the rest in between, about 30 percent are between $1,500 and $2,499 a month.

Now, there are seniors who can afford that. There absolutely are. I’m not saying that all seniors need subsidized. But we all have seniors in our lives who just can’t. They’ve perhaps run out of money.

[1635]

I know that my grandfather did, God bless him. He smoked like a chimney. He drank rye. He loved his rye. He lived a hard life, growing up in the Depression. He survived cancer. He outlived two wives. He was a tough guy. Man, I loved him so much.

He ran out of money. He never thought he would live to almost see his 90th birthday. He ran out of money. It’s not like he was extravagant — I mean, he would go to Florida in the winter for a few weeks — but he ran out of money, and he worked so hard. He was an upholsterer by trade. He fed his brothers and sisters.

He certainly told me stories that during the Depression, when he was 12, he went to work. He was an upholsterer’s apprentice. He worked, and he got paid, in his first job, a smoked meat sandwich, two pickles and two Cokes. He ate half the sandwich, he ate one pickle, he drank one Coke, and he brought the rest home for his family. Now, that could be legend, but it’s a good story that he told me, and I loved that story as a child.

He was a hard worker. He ran his own business. He bought a house. He raised a family. He did all the right things. He didn’t buy fancy cars. He didn’t travel extensively. He was a modest guy of modest means. He used his hands to make money to feed his family. And he ran out. He just ran out. He just said: “I didn’t expect to live this long.”

Now, fortunately, for all of us, there were enough people in his life to say: “We got it.” I actually don’t know if my grandfather knew that he ran out of money, because I think it would have been humiliating for him. I think my uncle just said, “Don’t worry, Pop. I got it,” because my uncle was taking care of his finances. But it meant that my aunt and my mom, everyone, threw in a few hundred dollars a month just to stretch until my grandfather passed away.

We all have those people in our lives who’ve worked hard. They did the right things. Sometimes it happens. They just didn’t put enough aside, or they just couldn’t put enough aside, or they just outlived their nest egg.

When I think about this bill and I think about those seniors like my grandfather, I wonder about how the private facilities are going to be changing their fees. This table that the seniors advocate put together. That’s going to bump up, and it’s going to put more pressure on those who can’t afford it or who thought they could afford it or who put money aside so they could afford it. Now it’s going to put more pressure.

Again, I want to just remind the House: I am not upset or think this is bad legislation. I think it’s good legislation, but we have to think about what the implications are all the way down the line. We can’t just see it as this little tiny piece of legislation, and it’s all fine and good. It has real impacts for real people, and we need to be able to reflect on that.

I just want to comment on the kinds of things that keep me up at night. I just have a few more comments before I take my seat here.

Currently we have seniors in residential care who are getting frailer and frailer, and they’re not getting the care hours that meet the government’s own standards. Unless the government makes other choices, this is only going to get worse; it’s not going to get better.

With this new legislation, which is a small step in the right direction, we’re going see seniors in assisted living who will be less able to afford private care, because the costs are going to go up. The government is continuing to choose not to invest in subsidized care, because they’d rather give a tax break to the wealthiest in our province.

We’re also going to see seniors who are in their homes and need home support not get the support they need, given that the number of requests for home support is increasing and the available number of home support hours is decreasing. It’s really not the kind of care these seniors deserve.

I worry that we say the words that these people who built the province, these people who raised all of us, deserve to live out their lives with dignity and with the
[ Page 12257 ]
proper supports that they need, and that with this government, we’re just not going to be able to deliver.

[1640]

L. Reimer: Thank you for the opportunity to speak about seniors care in British Columbia. This debate follows Monday’s private member’s motion on standards for care homes. We covered a vast range of issues in that debate, but perhaps the most revealing fact was that 90 percent of all seniors in this province want to stay in their homes for as long as possible — and for good reason too. People want to remain in their chosen community with their family and their lifelong friends.

It’s a fact that seniors in British Columbia are living longer and better than any generation that came before. Perhaps it is due to a more active lifestyle that we enjoy here in British Columbia. It may also be due to the fact that we are redefining the way we age.

Eventually, all of us will likely require assisted care at some point in our lives and, as we age further, residential care. This legislation, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act, does change the way in which people receive assisted-living and residential care.

Assisted care usually consists of a residence in a semi-independent type of housing which provides residents with some assistance with daily living as well as meal provision and laundry. Accommodations range from private rooms in a home to an apartment-style building with suites.

As we get older, residential care facilities provide 24-hour professional care and supervision in a protective and supportive environment. It is for those with complex care needs who can no longer be cared for in their own homes or in an assisted-living residence.

Currently, assisted-living residences offer assistance to residents, with a variety of supportive services, including no more than two prescribed personal services. These include regular assistance with daily-living activities like eating, hygiene, mobility or dressing, as well as medication management, financial management, behaviour management and intensive physical therapy or psychosocial therapy.

Currently, if a client’s care needs require more than two of these prescribed services, they are no longer eligible for assisted living. The next option is quite often a move to a residential care facility that delivers higher levels of care. As I mentioned on Monday, this can be an agonizing decision for the family, and it can be quite sudden for the person in question. Each individual is different, and it may not be appropriate to move an individual into residential care until he or she actually requires the services offered at this kind of facility.

Bill 16 will make some significant changes, including amendments to remove the limit on prescribed services in assisted-living residences and amendments to increase oversight and protections for residents of assisted living. In addition, at the present time, the assisted-living registrar may only inspect a residence if there is a complaint. Legislative changes will permit the registrar to inspect a residence at any time if they feel there is a risk to the health and safety of a resident.

These changes are about recognizing the varied needs of people in assisted-living residences and being flexible to accommodate the range of services they may require. The purpose is to ensure that seniors can stay in the more independent assisted-living setting for as long possible. The legislation allows clients more services without having to transfer to residential care, helping them to retain their independence longer. This is of extreme importance.

J. Darcy: I’m pleased to take my place in the debate on Bill 16, Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act. Certainly, if there are two paramount issues that we need to really put at the centre of our public policy — of our social policy, in particular — it’s how we care for our children and how we care for our elders.

I’m pleased to see that the government is acting on one of the recommendations from the Ombudsperson’s report in 2012 and also acting on some of the elements that have been laid out in reports by the seniors advocate. Certainly, those steps are welcome steps forward and ones that we on this side of the House will be supporting — amendments that will enable seniors to remain in assisted living longer, amendments that will remove current limits on the prescribed services that can be offered in assisted living, amendments that will increase regulatory oversight as well as inspections if there is considered to be a risk to the health and safety of a resident. It certainly does encompass one of the recommendations from the Ombudsperson back in 2012.

[1645]

We need to understand that there certainly will be several consequences to this change in legislation, to this change in policy. People will be in assisted living for longer periods of time than they are now, and we will certainly see more frail elderly people living in these care situations.

The second consequence is that we are, no doubt, going see longer wait-lists for assisted living, especially subsidized assisting living, unless government really considers it and acts, as a priority, to ensure that there is considerably increased access to publicly funded or subsidized assisted living.

I want to focus my comments on two particular areas of concern. I hope that when we get to committee stage on the bill, we will see some openness from the Minister of Health to actually engage back and forth on some of these issues and perhaps consider amending the bill to include some very, very critical issues. The ones that I want to raise today very much flow from recommendations made by the Ombudsperson in her report The Best of Care, from 2012. Let me refer, first of all, to her recommendations. We’re going back four years now.
[ Page 12258 ]

The Ombudsperson said in her report, in 2012, her specific recommendations on assisted living were that it was “critical to ensure fair and equal treatment by ensuring immediately that no seniors are charged extra for services and benefits that are included in the assessed client rate.” She said: “Very importantly” — I think this is perhaps the most critical issue of all when we look at this bill and what’s not there — “ensure objective and enforceable standards of care for assisted living. Also, provide legally enforceable tenancy rights to assisted-living residents, and enhance protection of seniors by establishing a single accessible process to respond to all complaints.”

She had a number of other recommendations, but those are some of the key ones.

On this critical issue of establishing and enforcing standards of care. It has, as the minister knows, as the Speaker knows, been a subject of considerable debate in this Legislature and this House earlier this week and for four days last week — the issue of the staffing levels and the quality of care and the standards of care, on the lack of enforcement of standards of care, for seniors in residential care.

I think it’s important to revisit some of those because we’re talking about now expanding access to a different level of care, a very important level of care, in the continuum of care. We need to make sure that we don’t make the same mistakes and fail our seniors in the same way that we are failing them far too often today in residential care.

In 82 percent of care homes, we are not meeting existing guidelines regarding staffing levels. What that means in human terms for our frail elderly we have spoken about time and time again.

It means that large numbers of seniors without a diagnosis of psychosis are on antipsychotics, chemical restraint. It means that we get them up too early in the morning, and they often need to wait for hours to be fed. It means that the care aides who care for them are rushed feeding them and often leave food on the plate. It means that they don’t get the kind of support they need for toileting, which is so central to a person’s sense of dignity. They are not getting sufficient rehab.

If we compare ourselves, as the seniors advocate has done, to other provinces, our record is abysmal in that area, and that’s all about quality of life for our seniors, keeping them active longer. That’s surely what our objective is, whether it’s in home support, whether it’s in assisted living or whether it’s in residential care.

In British Columbia, only 11.7 percent of seniors received physio in the last seven days, compared to Alberta at 25 percent — more than double — and Ontario at 58 percent. That’s about keeping seniors active and healthy longer.

[1650]

When it comes to occupational therapy, the figures are also atrocious: 8.9 percent of seniors received occupational therapy in the last seven days in residential care, 22 percent in Alberta.

I think it’s really important that we think hard and that the minister seriously considers — now that we have this opportunity, now that this legislation is open and up for debate — that we go back, and we take a hard look at what the Ombudsperson recommended: ensure objective and enforceable standards of care in assisted living.

We absolutely want and support seniors being able to stay on assisted living longer and, certainly, to access more than two services and the change from what is presently prescribed for, provided for, under the act.

Let’s just review for a minute. I think it’s important for those — I’ll take a guess — tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people paying close attention to this debate out there to understand what it is we’re talking about exactly.

Presently, when we’re talking about services that are available in assisted living, we’re talking about assistance with daily living activities, such as eating, mobility, dressing and personal hygiene. We’re talking about medication management. We’re talking about therapeutic diets. We’re talking about financial management. We’re talking about intensive rehabilitative therapy and behavioural management. That’s all spelled out in the existing legislation.

I want to speak for a minute about who the folks are who are in assisted living and what their needs are. I want to refer to a presentation that the seniors advocate made last year when she made a presentation to the Select Standing Committee on Health, about a year ago now.

It is certainly the case that our seniors who live in assisted living are not as ill, not as frail, don’t have as complex conditions as those who are in residential care, but they have pretty serious care needs, and they should not be underestimated. I’m talking about right now, and this is without amending the legislation to say that they can access a wider range of services — more than two.

So 60 percent of people who live in assisted living are over 85; 45 percent of them have a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or other dementia; 20 percent have a diagnosis of psychiatric or mood disorder condition.

Fully 90 percent need assistance to complete personal care activities; 82 percent have mild cognitive or memory impairment; 63 percent have a combination of complex conditions; 11 percent exhibit aggressive behaviour; 42 percent receive nine or more different medications in the last seven days; 15 percent are on antipsychotic medications; 25 percent on antidepressants; 28 percent on hypnotic or pain medications.

Why is that important? Because these are already a high level of needs, and we are going to see seniors who have an even greater level of care needs with these changes in legislation. We need to make sure that we are ready to care for them in the way they deserve to be cared for.

I want to continue with some of the comments, some of the recommendations, made by the Ombudsperson,
[ Page 12259 ]
again almost four years ago. She made very specific recommendations to ensure that residents in assisted living get the kind of care that meets the needs, that meets their requirements.

She says: “I have recommended that the Ministry of Health, after consulting with stakeholders, establish legally binding minimum requirements for assisted-living residences in key areas.” And she spells them out — no ambiguity: “staffing, residents rights, food safety and nutrition, emergencies, record management, assistance with activities of daily living.”

She’s also recommended that the Ministry of Health provide clear and accessible information to residents on the standards that assisted-living operators are intended to meet.

[1655]

It is a missed opportunity, if we take the time to debate this bill and make changes to it, if we do not go back and say: “Yes. After four years, we are finally going do what the Ombudsperson recommended that we do to ensure that our seniors in assisted living truly do get the quality of care that they need and that they’re entitled to.”

I know that the Ombudsperson also made very, very clear recommendations as it related to residential care. That included exactly the same recommendation about clear and enforceable standards and guidelines when it comes to assisted living. Exactly those same words were used in the case of residential care, but in the case of residential care, she also said explicitly that she recommended to the Ministry of Health that there are clearly established staffing levels that absolutely should be met.

The government did not do what the Ombudsperson asked them to do. We have seen the consequences today in residential care. Surely, this time the government should heed the advice of the Ombudsperson, who studied this issue for three years — a comprehensive review of seniors care.

Surely, we should keep our trust with what she recommended and with all of the directions in which the seniors advocate is pointing us when it comes to staffing levels and standards of care for our seniors. They deserve it. This government should ensure that they make it a priority that our seniors get that kind of care.

The second major issue that I want to touch on has to do with affordability and access by low-income seniors — who are, in fact, the majority of seniors in the province of British Columbia — to the highest-quality assisted living. We need to make sure that high-quality assisted living really is an option for our seniors population.

Again, I want to refer to a presentation that the seniors advocate made to the Select Standing Committee on Health last year, where she really presented to us, in a very visual way and factual way, the face of British Columbia’s seniors — 820,000 seniors in British Columbia today. That’s 17 percent of the population. And the seniors population is expected to grow to 1.35 million, or 24 percent, by the year 2031. That’s just the demographics. That’s just the numbers, the statistics, about how our seniors population is going to grow.

She also painted a pretty powerful picture for us — as any study, any survey, any stats will do about our seniors population — about their income level. The median income for seniors in British Columbia today is $24,600, but fully 52,000 of those seniors earn less than $16,200 a year. So 52,000 seniors in this province earn $16,200 or less a year. We need to keep that in mind. We need to keep that foremost in our mind when we’re talking about the very important issue of access to assisted living.

We absolutely need to expand and improve access to assisted living. We need to provide a wider range of services there. The care needs to be of the highest quality, because our seniors deserve nothing less, but it also needs to be affordable. Most seniors in this province cannot afford the kinds of rates that they are expected to pay today or tomorrow or next year for private assisted living in the province of British Columbia.

[1700]

We’ve talked about this as one option along the continuum of care, and it’s a critical one. I agree, absolutely, with the member opposite who talked about: “Our objective is to keep people living independently in their own homes as long as they possibly can and before they need to go into assisted living, or before they need to move into residential care.” But if that truly is the objective of this government — and it certainly is the objective of those of us on this side of the House — we need to be making the investments in home support to ensure that that is indeed where people can live as long as they possibly can, to live independently as long as they possibly can.

The member for Coquitlam-Maillardville, who spoke earlier…. I won’t repeat in detail the figures that she referred to, but the number of home support hours delivered to all clients in British Columbia only went up by 1 percent last year, yet the number of seniors over the age of 75 went up by 4 percent. The government says that’s its priority — to keep seniors in their homes and independent as long as they can — but they’re certainly not putting their money where their words are.

When you look at the average hours of care delivered per client, it actually went down by 1 percent. It went down by 1 percent, even though the increase in the seniors population is going up significantly every year — 4 percent in this case, even though the hours went down by 1 percent.

When we look at home care professional services, the picture is a little bit better but not an awful lot better. We are still not keeping up with the growth in population of seniors over the age of 65 or over the age of 75, as far as our home care professional services.

As far as access to residential care, the increase in the number of publicly subsidized beds in residential care has only increased by 3.5 percent since 2012, when we’re seeing a change in the seniors population of 10 percent.
[ Page 12260 ]
So the number of seniors over the age of 75 has gone up three times higher than the rate of increase in the number of residential care beds.

What does that mean? Seniors waiting in acute care beds. Seniors waiting in acute care beds, when those beds are so badly needed for people on our very, very lengthy wait-lists, especially in areas like Fraser Health and other health authorities across the province, and when we see such backlogs in emergency rooms. People are not being able to get into acute care beds because of the number of alternate-level-of-care beds — meaning beds that are occupied by seniors who really could be cared for much, much better and far more cost-effectively elsewhere.

Now let’s take a look at the picture with assisted living. That’s certainly a more affordable option for seniors — if they can get access to subsidized assisted living — and certainly a more affordable option for government. If we look at that picture, the reality is that the increase in subsidized assisting-living beds is less than 1 percent in the last three years.

And if you look at some of our more rural and remote areas, things are even worse. In Interior Health Authority, there has only been an increase of 0.6 percent in publicly subsidized assisting-living spaces. In Northern Health Authority, there has been no increase at all — zero. And in Vancouver Coastal, we’ve actually seen a decline of 4.8 percent of publicly subsidized assisted-living beds.

If we want to see this as a serious option, a good option — and, indeed, it should be — we need to do something to ensure that our seniors, many of whom are living on low incomes, are actually able to access assisted living when that is the preferable option and the desired option.

[1705]

If you contrast the growth in publicly subsidized assisted living with what we see in private assisted living, there is absolutely no comparison. If you look at private, registered assisted living, we’ve seen a 25 percent increase in assisted-living beds there since 2012 — 25 percent in the last three years. There are seniors that can afford to pay the rates, but not a whole lot. Not an awful lot. If we look at private assisted, non-registered, we see an increase of about 8 percent in the number of those beds.

Where the growth clearly is, when it comes to assisted living, is in the private sector, out of reach financially for hundreds of thousands of elderly British Columbians, and less than 1 percent growth overall in the province for publicly subsidized assisted living. In some regions of the province, it’s negligible or the access has gone down. We need to tackle that issue.

That’s not about an amendment to this bill. I understand that. But this bill, if it’s going to be meaningful, needs to be accompanied by the government investing in access to assisted living for low-income seniors, and that’s a very, very large number of our seniors.

My colleague from Coquitlam-Maillardville has spoken about the wait-lists that we have for publicly subsidized assisted living, and I don’t think there is any question that those numbers are going to increase significantly, especially when we see that there are more services that can be provided. That means that there will be more frail elderly — not as frail as in residential care, not as complex.

Certainly, from the report that I read an excerpt from earlier from the seniors advocate, the level of frailty, the level of complexity, the numbers of people who are on nine medications or more, the numbers who need significant assistance with daily living — those numbers will only increase, and we need to be able to support them in a way that is affordable and accessible for low-income seniors in this province.

When we speak about what those rates are, the seniors advocate also spelled those out. The reality is that when we’re talking about private assisted living, for the overwhelming majority of those spaces, people are paying over $2,500 a month — over $2,500 a month. It goes up to $3,000, $4,000, even higher than that.

Those are not sums of cash that the majority of seniors are going to be able to access in order to pay for private assisted living. What that underlines is that if we’re serious, if we’re serious about expanding access to a different level of care, assisted-living care, for people with more frailty and more complexity than has been allowed presently, we absolutely need to ensure that they are also able to afford that on their limited incomes.

One of the recommendations that the seniors advocate made in another one of her excellent reports from last year, Seniors Housing in B.C., from May of 2015…. She also recommended very strongly that it was critical that we address the minimum amount of income with which a resident of subsidized assisted living is left after the 70 percent of their income is put to pay their share of subsidized assisted living.

She recommended raising the minimum amount from $325 to $500 a month, because we’re talking about seniors who still can be quite active, who can enjoy a good quality of life. If they’re going to be able to enjoy that quality of life, they need to be able to have some money left over after they have paid their share of the subsidized assisted living.

One final issue I’d like to touch on before I wrap up my remarks has to do with the issue of consultation. The minister does indicate in the documents that accompanied Bill 16, the press release that was issued with it, that there would be consultation with stakeholders about the regulations.

[1710]

It specified, in particular, consultation with assisted-living stakeholders — assisted-living residence operators. I want to very, very strongly urge the minister that when he conducts those consultations on the regulations, everyone who is part of the big community that cares for our seniors is part of that consultation — absolutely, the
[ Page 12261 ]
assisted-living operators who provide a critical level of care to many of our seniors and who will be providing that critical level of care to far more seniors, no doubt, in the future.

They absolutely need to be consulted, but there are many other organizations who have an awful lot to say that is very valuable that should also be consulted. I’m talking about seniors’ organizations like COSCO. I’m talking about retirees’ organizations. I’m talking about people who work in assisted living, people who also work in home support and residential care, if we’re really talking about this as one place in the continuum of care. We also should be talking to some of the workers who work on the front lines caring for seniors in assisted living, as well as the trade unions that represent them.

In conclusion, I’d like to say, again, that I do think that this Bill 16 represents an important step forward. But I would also say…. I would urge the minister to take a look during committee stage, third reading, at amendments that would strengthen this bill considerably, because it does, indeed, fall far short of the recommendations made by the Ombudsperson four years ago. It also does not meet some of the directions that have been pointed to by the seniors advocate in numerous reports, numerous excellent reports, that she has issued.

Let’s not miss this opportunity. Let’s do the right thing for our seniors. Let’s say that they really and truly are a central priority for this government. Let’s do something about staffing levels in residential care, and let’s also do something about staffing levels and skill mix to meet the needs of the increasingly frail population that we will see in assisted living. Let’s ensure that our seniors really do have the quality of care that they deserve.

Let’s also ensure that there is availability of subsidized assisted-living units in order to meet the needs of our low-income seniors. Let’s also put a really important priority on rural British Columbia, where, today, access to home support, access to assisted living, access to residential care is far, far more limited, even than the overall figures that we see for the province.

I know when I talk to people in my community — no matter what age they are, because we have many seniors in our community, but we also have a lot of young families whose parents are aging, whose grandparents are aging — it is certainly one of the top concerns that I hear over and over and over again, both in my community and from people that I hear from across the province in my capacity as spokesperson on health. That is that high-quality care must be there for our seniors when they need it, where they need it.

I implore the government to act to amend this bill to ensure that they get the highest quality care that they deserve.

D. Bing: On behalf of my constituents of Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, I rise today to speak on Bill 16, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act. These amendments will mean better care options for seniors and added protections for those living in assisted-living residences.

Seniors built our province, and we want to ensure that they have safe, high-quality care. We also want to make sure they stay independent as long as possible. The proposed changes in this legislation will allow for seniors to live in their home-like assisted living longer than they can right now.

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Currently, assisted-living residences offer assistance with a variety of supportive services to help residents, including no more than two prescribed personal services. These include regular assistance with daily living activities, like eating, hygiene, mobility, dressing, medication management, financial management and intensive physical therapy or psychosocial therapy. Currently, if the client’s care needs require more than two of these prescribed services, they are no longer eligible for assisted living.

Most often, the next option is moving to a residential care facility that delivers higher levels of care. The amendments remove the limit on prescribed services in assisted-living residences. This will allow assisted-living residents to remain in their home-like setting and access a variety of care for longer. These changes will provide more flexibility and help provide even more quality, client-centred care.

These changes are about recognizing the varied needs of people in assisted-living residences. The changes are also about being flexible to accommodate the range of services that seniors may require so they can stay in the more independent assisted-living setting as long as possible.

An assisted-living residence is a semi-independent type of housing, which provides residents with some assistance with daily living, such as meal provisions and laundry. Accommodations range from private rooms in a home to an apartment-style building with suites. By removing the limit on the personal prescribed services, seniors living in assisted-living residences will be able to stay there longer.

In 2015, there were 142 subsidized, registered assisted-living residences in B.C., with a total of 4,430 units. As well, there are 3,247 units of private, registered assisted living.

In the seniors advocate’s report on housing last year, she noted that many seniors have had to transfer to residential care sooner than they needed to because of the current rules. Her report states that around 5 percent to 15 percent of current residents in residential care could be living in the community with home care or in an assisted-living residence. By making these changes, we are helping seniors to live in the more home-like and independent assisted-living facilities, rather than moving to residential care earlier than needed. This is better for seniors’ lifestyle and abilities.
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Residential care facilities provide 24-hour professional care and supervision in a protected, supported environment. Residential care facilities are for those with complex care needs who can no longer be cared for in their own homes or in an assisted-living residence.

In 2015, the seniors advocate released the report called Seniors Housing in B.C.: Affordable, Appropriate, Available. These were recommendations to improve options for seniors who live in registered assisted living and who require additional services. Specifically, allowing for a greater range of seniors to be accommodated and age in place as much as possible would reduce the number of admissions to residential care of higher-functioning seniors.

The changes proposed in this legislation recognize the varied needs of people in assisted-living residences and provide more flexibility so they can stay in the more home-like setting longer. This legislation will mean better care options for seniors and added protection for those in assisted-living residences.

Amendments will also increase oversight and protections for residents of assisted living. These changes will permit the assisted-living registrar to inspect a residence at any time if they feel there’s a risk to health and safety of a resident. Currently, the registrar may only inspect a residence if there is a complaint.

We want to ensure that we have safe, high-quality care for our seniors. Seniors are the ones who have built this province, and now it is our responsibility to make sure we have the best care in place. I am pleased to support Bill 16, the Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act.

Deputy Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister will conclude the debate.

Hon. T. Lake: It is my pleasure to close debate on Bill 16, a bill that will allow seniors more independence to live in assisted living longer, while ensuring that they get the quality and type of care that is required in a more flexible manner.

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This will not only increase the quality of life for seniors in assisted living. It will allow them to stay there longer than under the current act, which says that if they need more than two of the prescribed services, they must move on to residential care. It is, of course, more complex care and not needed for a number of people that are currently in assisted living and need more than the two prescribed services that we have on the legislation today.

I’ve listened carefully to the comments during the debate here this afternoon. I’m somewhat disappointed at some of the comments. First of all, let me say I don’t doubt that every single person in this Legislature wants to improve the kind of care we can offer to vulnerable people in the province of British Columbia, and that includes seniors.

The seniors advocate has done some very good work. Some of her work has resulted in this very legislation. I am somewhat disappointed, though, to hear remarks such as we heard from the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville that this is a teeny, tiny step forward.

The seniors advocate has shown that up to 15 percent of seniors in British Columbia that are placed in residential care could actually live in assisted living, so I don’t think this is a teeny, tiny step forward. I think this is quite a large step forward. Not only does it allow the flexibility for people to stay in assisted living longer; it provides safeguards and the power to inspect not just assisted-living facilities but community care facilities and residential care facilities to protect vulnerable seniors.

There’s a lot of discussion about increased investments. I’ve stood in this House many times and talked about the huge increase in investment that we’ve made into both assisted-living and community care facilities — 6,500 more spaces since 2001, far more than were there when this government took power.

It used to be that people would wait two years to get into residential care, for example. That is down to a matter of, in most cases, a couple of months. Many of us, of course, with parents that are aging, are concerned about our parents. That is very important that we can find care for them when they need it.

I appreciate the words because I do know that each and every one of us in this House wants the same thing. I think this is not a teeny, tiny step. I think this is an important piece of legislation that will make life better for seniors who are able to be in assisted living and for those who are in residential care and need the protection that this bill will provide.

With that, I will move second reading of Bill 16.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Stone: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 16, Community Care and Assisted Living Amendment Act, 2016, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. T. Stone: Next up I call Bill 6, intituled the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act, 2016.

BILL 6 — PHARMACY OPERATIONS AND
DRUG SCHEDULING AMENDMENT ACT, 2016

Hon. T. Lake: I am pleased to move second reading of the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act.

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These amendments to the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act will require community pharmacy owners, officers, directors and shareholders of private corporations to meet certain standards in order for their pharmacies to be licensed by the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia.

With these amendments, the college will be able to refuse to license a pharmacy or impose conditions on a licence if its owners, managers, officers, directors or shareholders have been convicted of a recent relevant crime, have been recently sued in relation to community pharmacy practices or have broken PharmaCare billing rules.

The regulation change also allows the college to refuse to issue a licence if someone involved in owning or operating a pharmacy has recently had their registration as a pharmacist suspended or cancelled or has had limits or conditions imposed on their registration as a pharmacist by a regulating body such as the College of Pharmacists.

The amendments are necessary to help the College of Pharmacists better regulate those people involved in community pharmacy who are not registered pharmacists. This legislation will help us achieve our goal of protecting patients and making patients the centre of health care in British Columbia. It will also give greater tools to the College of Pharmacists to protect the good name and reputation of the vast majority of those involved in community pharmacy in B.C. It will allow the college and the Minister of Health to continue to work together to eliminate unscrupulous pharmacy practices from community pharmacy in B.C.

Over the last two years, this government’s Ministry of Health has made protecting patients and focusing on patient-centred care a priority for the health care system in British Columbia. That priority is clearly laid out in our Setting Priorities for the B.C. Health System, a document released in 2014. B.C.’s health care system is working hard to make the patient the centre of every single interaction.

That work does not end when a patient leaves the hospital or walks out of the doctor’s office. In fact, the community pharmacy is, in many way, on the front line of community health care. Patients can receive many essential services at pharmacies, including prescription dispensing, vaccination and medication counselling. For some of the most vulnerable clients, such as those struggling with opioid addiction, those services can include methadone maintenance therapy.

Quite often the owners and people involved in running pharmacies are not pharmacists themselves and, therefore, are not currently regulated by the college. While the vast majority of people involved in community pharmacy are honest and ethical, the college has noted an increase in recent years of unscrupulous pharmacy owners and operations.

The college has always had responsibility for licensing pharmacies in addition to registering pharmacists. However, the college currently doesn’t have the ability to get complete information about the very people who apply for those site licences as owners of the business if, in fact, they are not a pharmacist. Nor can the college access information about any other people attached to the pharmacy’s operations who are not pharmacists.

The college has a responsibility, since it licenses pharmacies, to ensure the people operating it are of good conduct and have a good record as it relates to the operation of the pharmacy. In much the same way, the government ensures owners of liquor stores and casinos are fit and proper to operate those kinds of facilities. These amendments to the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act give the college the tools it needs to fulfil these responsibilities and deal with instances of unscrupulous behaviour.

They also dovetail nicely with the work the Ministry of Health has done in the past year under the provider regulation of the Pharmaceutical Services Act. That provider regulation allows the ministry to better enforce the rules around pharmacies billing PharmaCare — that’s the publicly paid system of coverage — and to stop doing business with pharmacies that don’t meet these standards.

The College of Pharmacists has done excellent work over the past several years on supporting pharmacists and community pharmacies to increase patient safety and service. These amendments are necessary to help continue that work.

The B.C. government has established this form of oversight for businesses before. For example, the Liquor Control and Licencing Act establishes oversight for people and businesses selling alcohol, while the Gaming Control Act does the same for casinos and other gaming businesses. It stands to reason that we should also have the same kind of oversight of people selling controlled and potentially dangerous substances such as prescription narcotics.

Currently, the college registers and regulates pharmacists and has the ability to investigate cases of alleged misconduct or errors. Out of that, it has the ability to educate or discipline pharmacists, and that discipline can include suspending or revoking a pharmacist’s registration to practise in the province of British Columbia. Those powers are essential to protect patients and to uphold the professional standards of pharmacy in B.C. But at this point, the College of Pharmacists has only limited authority and mechanisms to regulate pharmacy owners, managers, directors or shareholders of private corporations if, in fact, they are not pharmacists.

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The college also issues licences to pharmacies in B.C. and can revoke a pharmacy’s licence for not meeting standards of cleanliness, safety or pharmacy practice. For example, the college shut down two pharmacies in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside last year due to these issues in order to protect patients.
[ Page 12264 ]

As the members of this House well know, many of B.C.’s most vulnerable pharmacy clients live in the Downtown Eastside and rely on ethical service from local pharmacies to meet their health care needs, especially those working on recovery from opioid addictions. However, up until now, the college has had no ability to discipline or educate the owners, officers, directors or shareholders of problem pharmacies unless, in fact, they are registered pharmacists.

At present, the college can revoke the licence of a problem pharmacy, but an unscrupulous owner or another person involved in running a pharmacy can simply set up a new one and apply for a new licence. The college finds this understandably frustrating, as it limits the ability to protect patients and the good name of the vast majority of those involved in community pharmacy in B.C.

With the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act, the college will now be able to refuse to license a pharmacy or can impose conditions on the licence under certain additional circumstances. Under these amendments, owners, directors and officers of pharmacies, as well as shareholders of private corporations owning pharmacies, must meet certain criteria before the College of Pharmacists will issue, renew or reinstate a pharmacy licence.

For example, the college will be able to refuse to license a pharmacy if its owners, officers or directors have limits that have been imposed by the college’s discipline committee that prevent them from owning or managing a pharmacy if they have been convicted of a recent relevant crime, recently been successfully sued in relation to the pharmacy industry, broken PharmaCare billing rules, recently had their registration as a pharmacist suspended or cancelled by the college or any other regulating mechanism for pharmacists, or recently had limits or conditions imposed on their practice of pharmacy by a governing body due to disciplinary action.

These amendments will help the college prevent unsuitable people from owning or managing, directly or indirectly, community pharmacies in British Columbia.

The college and this government are committed to making sure that the pharmacy industry is engaged. Consultation with the pharmacy industry, including the B.C. Pharmacy Association, is ongoing. The consultation period will continue for some time before the changes are implemented, and the implementation will be via college bylaws, bylaws which the Ministry of Health will have the authority to review before implementation. It is expected that will take 12 to 18 months.

In closing, I want to emphasize that these amendments serve to protect the people of British Columbia, especially the most vulnerable. British Columbians expect the highest standards of conduct from their health professionals but also from everyone who works in health-related fields. We trust these people with our health and our well-being and those of our families — our parents, grandparents, children and spouses.

The vast majority of people, as I’ve said, that work in the pharmacy community, pharmacy area, including owners, officers and directors, are ethical, diligent and focused on our safety and our well-being. These people who own or run pharmacies and offer excellent services to clients deserve protection too. They deserve to be protected from the small minority of those who do not live up to these standards and sully the reputation of community pharmacy as a whole.

The Ministry of Health and the College of Pharmacists are determined to continue to work together to protect patients and the good name of the vast majority of those involved in community pharmacy.

Hon. Speaker, I am pleased to move second reading of the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act.

J. Darcy: I welcome the opportunity to rise in this House to speak to Bill 6, the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Act. I certainly concur with the remarks of the Minister of Health, who just completed speaking now, that this bill is absolutely necessary in order to crack down on the unscrupulous pharmacy owners, which the College of Pharmacists and the government have had no ability up until now to be able to take on — certainly, with pharmacists themselves, yes, but not pharmacy owners.

I also would like to underline that the overwhelming majority of pharmacists are honest and compassionate and do a wonderful service in our communities. They are engaged, I know, right now in a campaign that says they’re about more than just pills.

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I think that they’ve really captured well, in a public education campaign they’re engaged in, the kind of expanded role that they are playing in our community, whether that is vaccination, whether that is them being proactive about medicine checks with customers, with clients, in order to deal with potential issues of drug interactions and overmedication, and so on, and also with some of the new types of drug therapies, including for cancer — a very targeted therapy that they’re involved in.

I absolutely want to affirm that the majority of our pharmacists in this province work hard and do a wonderful service to the community, and their ethics are beyond reproach. But this bill is absolutely necessary in order to deal with the bad actors. Certainly, we have heard far too many times about unscrupulous, dishonest, fraudulent pharmacy owners who have been preying on some of the most vulnerable people in our communities — people on methadone maintenance programs, in particular, whether that’s in the Downtown Eastside, whether that’s in Surrey or wherever it is across the province.

There is very, very good reason to be concerned about some of the practices that have gone on for far too long and that this bill certainly makes an important step forward in addressing.
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I was digging into some of my files on this and remembered a story of one of the worst of these bad actors, a former Vancouver pharmacist, who spent four months in jail after pleading guilty to defrauding the government’s drug program of $471,000. He had, in this case, been grossly overcharging the province for methadone. Certainly, he’s not the kind of person, not the kind of operator that we want to see functioning in our community in a position of trust — in a very, very important position of trust.

The fact that we have had some of these unscrupulous owners certainly contributes to the fact that methadone and its associated fees are the second-biggest drug expense for B.C.’s drug plan. It’s very much clustered around methadone-dispensing pharmacies in parts of Surrey and parts of the Downtown Eastside, but not limited to those. Pharmacies can charge almost $6,500 a year per patient in dispensing methadone and up to an additional $13,800 a year dispensing other drugs to the same patient, all of which was a subject of a review just over a year ago now.

British Columbia features one of the highest fees in Canada for dispensing the drug at $10 a day, and it’s only one of three jurisdictions in Canada that provides a fee of $7.70 a day for witnessing injections. Saskatchewan pays $3.50 a day, and a federal non-insured health benefits program, $4.60 a day for witnessing injections. The review that was conducted a couple of years ago said that methadone-related PharmaCare costs have grown an average of 7.6 percent a year since the methadone payment program was introduced in 2001. It now makes up the second-highest drug expense for PharmaCare, amounting to $44 million in costs last year.

It is certainly long overdue that we crack down on these operators. The ministry has had the capacity to crack down, or the college has, on pharmacists themselves but not on owners in the past, on operators who are not pharmacists. This legislation will give them the ability to do that — critically important for very vulnerable people in our community.

[Madame Speaker in the chair.]

I will just conclude by underlining that with some comments that were quoted in the Vancouver Sun about a year ago. It says: “They are preying on us, those of us who live in poverty, and they get rich.”

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Hopefully, this bill will be an important step forward in ensuring that unscrupulous owners like the pharmacist in the Downtown Eastside who preyed on people like Ariana in order to fill his pocketbook — at the expense of people who need support and counselling, not to be exploited…. Hopefully, it will be an important step forward in closing that gap.

M. Hunt: It’s a pleasure to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Surrey-Panorama and speak in support of Bill 6, the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act. Our health care system is one of the best in the world and has consistently delivered impressive, positive results to our patients. A key part of our health system is the many community pharmacists across B.C.

British Columbians depend upon their pharmacies for a number of important medical services: vaccinations, medication advice and information on drug safety. They’re at the front line of community health care, and their expert advice plays a vital role in the patient-centred care our province is shifting towards.

It’s important that British Columbians always have trust and confidence in their local pharmacists. Patients need to know that these professionals have their best interests in mind when they seek advice and services from them. That’s why the College of Pharmacists of B.C. monitors and upholds the high standards pharmacists are held to, and it has done a commendable job thus far.

Now, while the vast majority of pharmacists are dedicated and ethical professionals, in recent years, the college has noticed an increase in unscrupulous activities among a minority of pharmacy owners. It’s simply unacceptable that dishonest and deceitful practices among a few pharmacists or owners may undermine the reputation and trust we have with the profession as a whole.

We have seen this happen, certainly, in Surrey. That’s why this government is introducing Bill 6, which will address a number of important accountability gaps in the current regulation regime.

With the amendments this legislation proposes, owners, officers and directors of pharmacies will be required to meet certain criteria before the College of Physicians will issue, renew or reinstate a pharmacy licence. This most stringent requirement will prevent those who misuse their position from owning or managing community pharmacies in B.C.

Among the criteria that will be used to exclude individuals from obtaining a pharmacy licence are a conviction of committing a relevant crime; having committed a billing contravention against PharmaCare; having a civil judgment issued against them connected to a pharmacy practice, drugs or devices; having had their registration as a pharmacist suspended or cancelled by the college; or having recently had limits or conditions imposed on their practice of pharmacy by a governing body as the result of disciplinary action.

The amendments proposed in Bill 6 give the college the tools it needs to strengthen and uphold the standards to which we hold pharmacists and pharmacy owners in this province.

As it stands right now, the college does not have the ability to prevent owners, officers or directors who have behaved poorly from opening a new pharmacy or continuing unethical practices. This has led to frustration and unnecessary mistrust between a small number of
[ Page 12266 ]
unethical pharmacists or owners and the patients that place their trust with them.

With these amendments, the college will now have the ability to effectively enforce the rigorous standards to which it should hold its members. This will benefit the network of pharmacists and pharmacy owners across the province. It will benefit the association that oversees them, and most importantly, it will benefit the public who put their trust in our medical professions. That’s why I am pleased to speak in favour of Bill 6 today.

B. Ralston: This is an issue which is of particular concern to me and my constituents. This has been an ongoing issue within the constituency, raised by the Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association, raised by the Surrey Board of Trade.

I want to stress, as others have done, obviously, that this is a very small group of completely unscrupulous business people who have used some of the loopholes in the act to mine money from the Ministry of Health in terms of fees for methadone dispensing, which are very, very profitable.

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I can think of a former pharmacy, just across the street from my constituency office. It’s unlike any other pharmacy you’ve ever seen. It’s not bright lights. It’s not advertising. It’s not aisles full of products. If you went in or you looked in, as I did, it was simply a very small, dingy room with a counter, nothing on the racks and a person behind the counter who was there solely to dispense and fill methadone prescriptions. That business has, fortunately, either gone out of business or moved.

This is an example, I think, of what one might call smart regulations, sometimes called red tape. Clearly, there were gaps in the regulatory regime which prevented the College of Pharmacists…. They fought in a very determined way. I met with them in the past. They fought in a very determined way against this very small group of people, but they didn’t have the legislative authority, the regulatory power, that they will get from this legislation.

I think it’s a very good example of how sometimes red tape or effective regulation, smart regulation, is essential to public order and public health. This is a very good example. I commend the minister for listening to the College of Pharmacists, because I know they’ve been intensely frustrated over the years. These investigations they conduct against unscrupulous operators are very difficult and time-consuming and require, sometimes, resources that they are very reluctant to part with — requiring undercover activity to gather the kind of evidence that’s necessary to prove a case against some of these operators.

The biggest loophole was that even if you were no longer a pharmacist, you could go out and open a new business if the one that you were running was shut down.

Our Health critic, or Health spokesperson, the member for New Westminster, has pointed out that methadone is now the second-highest drug expense of the pharmaceutical division of the Ministry of Health. There’s a reason for that. It’s because it’s being dispensed in sometimes dubious circumstances solely for the purpose of making a profit.

There’s a whole other story about a linkage between some of these unscrupulous pharmacies and unscrupulous drug therapy houses, as well, where people are trucked or bussed in every day for the $6- or $7.50-a-day dispensing fee. Every single day.

It’s a condition of living in that particular residence that they have to get in the truck and go to the single pharmacy that’s chosen by the operator. The suspicion is that there’s a kickback from the unscrupulous pharmacy owner to the owner of the so-called residential drug therapy place and there’s no therapy whatsoever.

I commend the Minister of Health for taking this up after all of these years. I know residents and businesses in my part of Surrey will be pleased with this very positive step.

D. Plecas: On behalf of my constituents of Abbotsford South, I rise today to speak on Bill 6, the Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act. Under the amendments introduced in this bill, owners, officers and directors of pharmacies must meet certain criteria before the College of Pharmacists of B.C. will issue, renew or reinstate PharmaCare pharmacy licences.

These changes will strengthen the college’s ability to protect the public, since it cannot act against pharmacy owners or directors who are not registered with the college as pharmacists. This bill is another aspect of the government’s priority of protecting patients and focusing on patient-centred care for the health care system in British Columbia.

Community pharmacies play an important role in delivering health care services and meeting patient needs. Pharmacies provide a variety of services to members of the community. People go to pharmacies to fill prescriptions, get vaccinated, receive medication advice and get support while recovering from opiate addictions through methadone maintenance.

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Pharmacies also offer advice through pharmacists on properly taking medications, drug safety and other topics. Community pharmacies and their pharmacists are certainly an important part of the front line of our health care service. We want to ensure that pharmacies are held to the highest standards.

The College of Pharmacists of British Columbia already upholds those standards for pharmacists throughout B.C., and they have done a commendable job. The college has noted an increase in recent years of unscrupulous pharmacy owners.
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Madame Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, the minister closes debate.

Hon. T. Lake: I want to thank all the members who rose to speak. I know that everyone — likely everyone — would speak in favour of this bill, which, I think, will do a lot to help protect vulnerable people in the province of British Columbia.

With that, I’m pleased to move second reading of Bill 6.

Motion approved.

Hon. T. Lake: I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Bill 6, Pharmacy Operations and Drug Scheduling Amendment Act, 2016, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

Committee of Supply (Section A), having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. T. Stone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

Madame Speaker: This House, at its rising, stands adjourned until Monday morning a week hence, April 25. See you then. Safe travels.

The House adjourned at 5:51 p.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE
DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

Committee of Supply

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
CHILDREN AND FAMILY DEVELOPMENT

The House in Committee of Supply (Section A); M. Dalton in the chair.

The committee met at 1:36 p.m.

On Vote 17: ministry operations, $1,451,160,000.

Hon. S. Cadieux: We’ll get right underway. I don’t have an opening statement today.

D. Donaldson: Thank you to the minister for not having an opening statement. It’s appreciated, because the time is always tight. I thank her for the staff that here today as well. I know you will introduce them later.

In opening, I would just like to thank the team that helped support me to do these estimates — that is, our staff, Jennifer Jones and Paula Gunn, and our intern researcher, Rowan Laird. As well, the different agencies that I was able to consult — I thank them for their time before coming into estimates today.

I also want to say that we are going to be talking a lot about going forward with this budget and what has transpired in the last year, since we were in this room a year ago, to influence what the minister has put forward in this budget.

Before we get into that, I just want to thank the social workers in the province, as I’m sure the minister would like to as well. Since we last met in this room, in budget estimates, I know that they have assisted thousands of youth and families across the province. They have a very, very difficult job, and they’re very special people. I know that social workers in the ministry but also social workers in other government ministries as well as in the agencies and private organizations across the province have done an amazing job overall.

Despite their best efforts, we have had, over the last year, a number of very high-profile cases, and I’ll be talking about some of them today with the minister, in relation to the budget. I believe that some of these cases…. I’m going to list them, because I think it honours what these people have faced, and many of them aren’t with us today. I think I’d like to read some of their names into the record.

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Alex Gervais, we know very well, and his situation has influenced what we’re going to be talking about in this budget in a positive way, so that’s good. Patricia Evoy; Danny Francis; Carly Fraser; Paige, of course; Nick Lang; the young Métis girl, whom we can only refer to as S.S.; the mother that we can only refer to as J.P.; Alex Malamalatabua; Isabella Wiens. These all, despite the social workers of this province and the good work the ministry has done, have encountered horrific situations, and some have died.

Because of that spotlight and because of the families’ advocacy, I want to say that I’m happy to see that there is an increase in the budget. I say that because of the work that was done and the spotlight that was put on these situations.

I also have to point out that $100 million, according to the Representative for Children and Youth, was lost in the ministry between 2008 and 2012. Despite this increase, we know that there’s always more that’s needed. In the first three years of this government, 2001 to 2004, there was a 27 percent cut in the ministry. What is being proposed over the next three years reduces that to about an 11 percent cut.

The need hasn’t changed. The need is still there. We will be getting into staffing numbers and social worker numbers. We know that even with the figures that we
[ Page 12268 ]
see today, we still have fewer social workers than we had in 2004. As I said, the need hasn’t changed to a great degree. When we look at indicators like the recurrence of neglect or abuse of children, we have been at around the 20 percent mark at least since 2004-05, so the need hasn’t changed.

A couple of other events in the last year have impacted what we’re talking about today. One is that Truth and Reconciliation came out with their report in the early summer. The number one recommendation, as the minister knows, is to reduce the number of aboriginal children in care and urge the federal and provincial governments to focus on that. And we had Cindy Blackstock’s Human Rights Tribunal decision just in January, I think it was. It found that the federal government discriminated against children living on reserve, because of the issues of the financial support that they receive.

Those are important factors, I think, in what we’re going to talk about over the next few days around this budget. The service plan and the mandate letters of the minister discuss this quite a bit, around partnerships with First Nations. Of course that’s needed, because we know that approximately 63 percent of children of aboriginal ancestry in care is way out of line with the representation in the overall population, which is around 5 percent.

Partnerships are only doable if the tone at the top is set. I have to point out that comments like the Premier put forward earlier this year, about people who disagree with her — First Nations and Hereditary Chiefs…. Calling them ragtag does not help with developing positive partnerships, especially when it comes to the TRC recommendations and the Human Rights Tribunal recommendations.

Finally, in this opening part, I want to talk about a lens — the lens that we view our work through — around children and families in this province. The lens that the government has chosen, as typified in the service plan, put it in the terminology of strategic context, and that’s around balancing a budget. That’s the lens that the service plan is viewed through: balancing the budget.

I think that — especially in a presentation we had from the Representative for Children and Youth this morning in the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth — the unifying factor in many of the issues that we’re addressing in this budget is poverty.

One in five children, we know, is living in poverty in the province. That’s 20 percent, and that means families living in poverty. It’s often grinding poverty. Even in the numbers that we were presented with this morning…. There are 15,000 households that are facing food security issues in this province. That’s totally unacceptable. That means there are children going hungry, and 7 percent of children who, in their families, have had interactions with the Ministry of Children and Family Development go to bed hungry.

[1345]

I think the fact that we have impoverishment should be the lens that we look at, rather than balancing the budget. This would be the approach where you could say: is balancing the budget for this ministry the lens, or is it eliminating and reducing poverty, which is the unifying factor in many of the performance measures and other things that we address? It’s a better lens, I would say.

With that start, I’d like to enter into some discussion. We’re going to have lots of discussions over the next little while — not enough hours but lots of discussions.

I’d like to talk a little bit about the subject area of foster care. In the service plan, there are some very strong statements around strengthening the system of care for children and youth, including foster care, and around strengthening the provincial campaign on awareness and recruitment of foster caregivers, with an emphasis on aboriginal caregivers.

As a starting question into this line of inquiry, I’d just like to ask the minister…. The latest information I got off the Internet, off the ministry site, regarding basic monthly family care rates was only current up to 2009. Just a question: have the foster care rates increased since 2009?

Hon. S. Cadieux: First off, as I didn’t make opening comments, I will introduce the staff. With me is deputy minister Mark Sieben on my right; to my left, ADM of money Reg Bawa; and behind, ADM of service delivery Allison Bond; a former ADM but sitting in for the purposes of estimates, as she has just left us — former ADM of strategic priorities and the provincial office of domestic violence Bev Dicks; Tami Currie, who is the acting ADM for that office; Alex Scheiber, the deputy director of child welfare; and Cory Heavener, the provincial director of child welfare.

The member is right or has correct information. The rates have not increased since 2009, except for a small mileage rate increase in 2014.

D. Donaldson: So that’s seven years, if my numbers are okay at this point in the budget estimates — seven years and no rate increase. I would say that just like any family, foster care families are seeing increasing pressures on household costs. One of them has been highlighted quite a bit lately — the cost of hydro jumping 28 percent in the last little while under this government.

Up where I live, there are many households that use hydro not only for heat but also for hot water. If you are a parent of teenagers and have foster kids, you know that hot water can be run through pretty quickly. My point is that there’s been a lot of pressure on household costs. ICBC is another one, if a foster parent is having to insure a vehicle to drive their foster children around. That has gone up significantly in the last number of years.

One area I also want to ask the minister about, under cost pressures, is that some school districts are having to revert to charging for busing children to school in order
[ Page 12269 ]
to meet some of the cost pressures that they’re witnessing.

Have foster parents who are living in school districts…? For instance, Chilliwack is one school district that has decided to charge for busing children to school.

[1350]

If foster parents are in that school district or other school districts facing that situation — and it can be quite costly — is their monthly family care rate increased to cover that cost of the busing?

Hon. S. Cadieux: As I said, while there hasn’t been a rate increase for foster parents, there has been a moderate mileage rate increase. That mileage is provided to foster parents for things like driving kids to and from school or medical appointments or things that are necessary.

However, if in fact, that family lives in an area where busing is how the children get to school and there is a charge for that, that would be covered under supplemental budgets, which is not in the base rate for foster parents. Those are things that are worked out on a case-by-case basis with families, through their social workers.

Just for a little more context as well. As we are talking about foster care —and as the member referenced this broadly — in my accountability letter this year, we have an accountability to review and recommend to cabinet changes to the current foster parent system in the province. The realities are that it hasn’t been looked at and changed — no real change in the structure — for a long time.

The model that is used — not the rate, specifically, but the model of how we structure our foster care system — hasn’t been looked at or changed since the 1990s. A lot has changed since then. There is a lot of work to do, I think, to update it. I have directed that that work be undertaken so that we can take recommendations to cabinet.

D. Donaldson: Back to the topic of school districts that are now having to charge for busing and foster families that live in those school districts. I’m going to go back to the example of Chilliwack. Because of the administrative savings plan that was foisted upon the school district, they’ve had to come up with about $2 million in savings.

[1355]

One of the ways to do that, at least to recoup about $2 million in savings, was to start charging for busing. The busing fee is about $21 per month per child. I’m not sure that if there’s more than one child, that rate might go down. For the first child, anyway, it’s $21 a month. So, we’re talking, potentially, over $200 for a foster care family that has one child.

If we look at the 2009 rate for children aged 11 and under, it’s around $800. We’re talking almost about a quarter of the monthly…. Or at least, that’s $200 per year. But if you look at that over the year, it’s pretty significant when you look at the monthly charge.

What I’m wondering…. The minister says each family can go to their social worker. There are supplemental budgets for that. Is a social worker, then, able to automatically grant an increase of over $200 a year to a foster care family to support that busing? If not, then what are the considerations? This would be, for instance, if a foster care family doesn’t have a car for mileage rates.

Hon. S. Cadieux: The short answer is yes. That is within the social worker’s purview to ensure that foster parents have access to fulfil whatever transportation needs are necessary for foster children.

To add to that, though, I will mention that just joining me, behind me, is the EDS responsible for Chilliwack, Holden Chu. We are aware, on a case-by-case basis, of families perhaps needing access. But it is not something that has been brought forward as a broader issue at this time. It is being dealt with family by family.

D. Donaldson: Could the minister inform where in the budget lies this pot of supplemental dollars that social workers could consider granting, under circumstances, to foster families?

[1400]

Hon. S. Cadieux: It is held within, for the purposes of the budget and the blue book, “Child safety, family support and children in care.”

D. Donaldson: Under what STOB would that be, that line item?

Hon. S. Cadieux: To the member: sorry for the delay. We just wanted to make sure we were 100 percent certain.

It is not tracked under a STOB. It’s tracked at the program level under foster care — in child safety, family support and children in care — as a program expenditure. In ’14-15, we drilled down to look at what was spent specifically on that area — it was about $18 million — but we don’t track that specifically every year because it is not a budget-based process. It is a needs-based process, and if the need is there, we fund it.

D. Donaldson: That $18 million was the entire total for the…? Oh, it was the supplemental only? Okay, thanks. The minister nodded; it was supplemental.

Before I leave this topic area, I would just ask if the minister could provide data on how many…. I don’t expect she would have this at her fingertips.

[1405]

I know we touched on Chilliwack, but there are many school districts now that are going to be considering this kind of fee, especially when we consider the number of school districts that are going to have to start shutting schools because of the administrative savings plan, for instance. So I’m anticipating that there will be more busing and then more foster families impacted.
[ Page 12270 ]

Could the minister commit to supplying data on how many foster parents have applied for this supplemental increase to the base monthly budget — up till now, because there have been school districts that have implemented this already? Then, in order to set budgets and anticipate, I would imagine that there was some — this is estimates — estimate of how much that might be by the end of this fiscal year, because many of the schools will be closing in the fall.

Hon. S. Cadieux: While I think I understand what the member is trying to get at, what I will say is that we don’t track it that way. It will be impossible for us to give him an accurate or definite number.

What we could do is ask our executive directors of service to give us their sense of what it is. But because we don’t track the supplemental expenditures based on what the supplemental expenditure was, it is tracked as supplemental, whether that be for bus transportation to school, whether that is for swimming lessons or some other extracurricular requirement or need. There is no way for us to break that out.

I think, if the member is looking for more information regarding which school districts are charging for busing, that would be better canvassed with the Minister of Education.

D. Donaldson: The supplemental line item — for lack of a better word — the minister has said, is $18 million. There’s no tracking of supplemental expenditure. So I’m not sure how the minister can say, if it’s needs-based, it’s $18 million. That number has to come from somewhere. I would expect that they know, or the ministry should know, where the $18 million is being spent.

Maybe the minister can comment on that. How do you come up with an $18 million figure for last year and then going into the future if you don’t track supplemental expenditures?

My other question would be…. That $18 million figure is out there. In relation to the $18 million, what was the cost in that year for actual foster care — the basic monthly foster care rates? What did that add up to? In other words, what was the $18 million in supplemental in relationship to the overall foster care monthly rate cost?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I think I need to clarify for the member. I don’t think he understands what I’ve said. What I’ve said is we track supplemental expenditures as supplemental expenditures but not specific to what the individual expenditure might be, because they will vary, depending on the needs of the individual child or family. But the supplemental budget is tracked. We know what we spend, approximately, every year.

[1410]

The reality is, however, that we don’t have a set budget for it. Whatever the need is, is what we will spend. If the need next year ended up being $20 million, that would be the expenditure. I think, for the member, it is important to understand that that is separate and over and above the rates that we pay to foster parents.

D. Donaldson: And then, the second part of the question is: what was the overall total for that part?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The total expenditure for foster care — not supplemental but just the rates — in ’14-15, was $215 million. In ’15-16, the forecast at the end of December is $223 million.

D. Donaldson: As the minister has described, the supplemental was $18 million in ’14-15 and it’s needs-based. I believe she said that, therefore, if it’s $20 million, that’s how much gets expended for this coming year.

Does this mean that the minister needs to apply for contingency funding if that kind of figure rises, if it’s needs-based?

[1415]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Hon. Chair, I will correct my last statement. I said that the supplemental wasn’t included in that total, and it is. I was incorrect.

What the member does need to understand is that this part of our budget is needs-driven. When a child comes into care, we need to care for them, and we can’t necessarily estimate exactly what those numbers are going to look like year over year. What you can see if you look at the budget year over year is that as the budget has necessarily increased in terms of expenditures, so has the budget for that area for the next year.

For child safety, family support and children in care this year, there’s a 34.9 percent increase in the budget. That reflects the reality that we have an increasing need in this area. Just as I said before, the reality is that with this area of work in the ministry, the model hasn’t changed since the 1990s. We are experiencing cost pressures in this area, which is why I’ve directed that we take a good, solid look at it and take a request to cabinet for adjustments, as we see necessary, in how we operate in this area.

That said, we have a budget as a ministry across all of our service lines, and there is expectation that I work within that budget and prioritize where the dollars need to be. It would be incorrect to suggest that any one particular thing would influence an ask on contingencies. In fact, that would necessitate a lot of other things moving within the ministry at the same time so as not to be able to manage — or for something new. We are expected to manage the growth in our ministry and forecast accordingly.

D. Donaldson: If the supplemental budget is needs-driven and the issue of making foster families whole for busing costs in their school districts is something that’s based on need, would the minister be able, then, to make
[ Page 12271 ]
a definitive statement today that in this coming budget year, those foster families applying to the ministry to have their busing costs covered will be made whole?

[1420]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I apologize. I misspoke again in the last answer. I said a 34 percent increase. It’s a $34 million increase. Obviously, the member is about as sharp as I am today in not catching that right off the bat. I do apologize for that.

To the member’s question about specific financial pressures for foster families. Should the need be there to address transportation needs for a child to get to school, they are done on a case-by-case basis with the social worker, because not all families will solve this issue the same way. Some may use the mileage or may drive their children or other things. It is case by case. But yes, no family will be left without support to get that child to school.

D. Donaldson: I’m going to move on to another topic within foster families. This is, again, another specific topic that has arisen lately in the Legislature, and it involves diabetic children. The minister knows that 63 percent of children in care are of aboriginal ancestry. This isn’t specifically about type 2 diabetes, which is exploding in the First Nations population in this province and is a major concern — not only for health but impacts on budgets. This one is specifically about insulin pumps, which are available to those in the province 25 years of age or younger that have type 1 diabetes.

My question is to the minister Under this budget, are children in care — or foster care, anyway — with type 1 diabetes eligible for medically necessary insulin pumps?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The answer is yes, they are covered.

D. Donaldson: I had a look quickly at the application form. Who applies for a foster child — to the province, I guess — for an insulin pump? Would it be the foster parent or would it be the ministry staff?

[1425]

Hon. S. Cadieux: If a child is in need of an insulin pump or other — well, we’ll tackle that separately, I suppose — the social worker would apply on behalf of that child.

The first method would be to determine whether or not that child is eligible for the ministry’s At Home program, which is our program that provides medical benefits for the extraordinary costs for children living with disabilities. That is not just for kids in care but, of course, also for kids who are not in care — but run through the ministry.

If that child does not qualify under that particular program for an insulin pump, then the social worker would pay for that through the supplemental benefits, as we were mentioning earlier are available for all sorts of extraordinary needs.

D. Donaldson: As the minister knows, once children age out of care, after 19, we have an unfortunate statistic that almost half of them — approximately 48 percent — are on welfare or social assistance within six months.

Given that and the fact that the current program under the government only covers insulin pumps up to the age of 25, would the minister be an advocate for former youth in care having the insulin pump covered after the age of 25, considering that there is a large percentage of them who face extreme financial hardship after aging out of care?

[1430]

[M. Hunt in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: While I understand the challenges, certainly, for youth who are aging out of care…. To break that down for the member, of the 50 percent of youth who age out of care who end up receiving some form of income assistance, 18 percent of those youth end up in the expected-to-work category with SDSI. The other 32 percent fall under the categories of either persons with disabilities and/or CLBC-eligible clients.

Just for some context to that, certainly, then, the number of youth that might also be youth who would have diabetes or find themselves potentially in need or hoping for an insulin pump…. I think the numbers are probably relatively small.

That said, we’re here to discuss the estimates of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, and what I can tell you is that if there is a child in our care who is in need of one of these services, they are provided for.

D. Donaldson: I’m going to move on to some of the performance measure numbers related to foster care. But first, I wanted to thank the minister’s staff for providing a pre-estimates briefing this week and making themselves available for a full hour that we didn’t even use. So thanks very much for that.

The number I have written down from that meeting is that the number of foster homes in 2015 was 3,035. I can be corrected on that, because there were a lot of numbers flying around. I just wanted to verify that and whether the minister believes that that is an adequate number considering demand.

Hon. S. Cadieux: You are correct, Member. The total number of foster homes is 3,035 with active contracts, but there are at this time 2,465 homes with active placements, meaning we do have enough capacity in the system. The reality, however, does remain that we, from time to time, are challenged to ensure that we have the right placement for the right child in terms of skill set of the foster parents, and so on.
[ Page 12272 ]

We don’t, at this time, have a simple, centralized way to see where all of those empty placements are and what those might…. We are working actively right now to create that centralized resource.

[1435]

D. Donaldson: Would the minister be able to tell me, then, for instance…? Given that she indicated there is different demand for different foster care levels — 1, 2 and 3 — would the minister be able to tell me, then, how many spaces are available or how many foster homes are available under level 3, for instance, and how that is or is not meeting demand?

[1440]

Hon. S. Cadieux: This is where part of the challenge is, certainly. We know who the kids are, what their needs are and where they’re placed. What we don’t know — or can’t track in real time, or effectively — is where the vacancies are. That’s what we’re working on — having that centrally located, so that when we take a child into care, we can see immediately where the appropriate level or space is available for that child, beyond an individual community.

What I can tell you right now is that there are 1,374 active placements within level 1, 2, or 3 homes. That doesn’t track the number of individual placements at level 1, at level 2 or at level 3 specifically; nor does it track how many of those homes have more than one child in them or how many of those homes have more than one vacancy. But as we move forward on better, centralized tracking and once we have that in place, I will commit to sharing that information with the member.

D. Donaldson: Well, I would look forward to having that information forwarded. Just to clarify, when I asked how many foster homes, was it 3,035? That was confirmed.

Then the minister said 2,465 active placements, and now she’s saying 1,374. Could she just clarify those two numbers for me?

Hon. S. Cadieux: There are level 1, 2 and 3 homes, but there are also MCFD regular homes, MCFD restricted homes, contracted resource homes, First Nations foster homes. The total, together, of active placements is 2,465.

D. Donaldson: I was curious — perhaps I’ll get some more clarification from the minister on this — about the province not tracking the homes, how many children there are in them or perhaps even where the vacancies are.

There was a situation in Prince George just around Christmastime where it was discovered by the RCMP…. I’m sure the minister will remember this case. It was the Prince George home that had 10,000 used needles in it, and the home was found to be frequented by children who had had contact with MCFD.

It was purported that there wasn’t capacity for these children from a foster care perspective and that that was why they might be basically, some of them, living at this house — which is not the most ideal situation — and they were exposed to a lot of risk factors. The minister said that there was capacity for these children at the time and disputed that with the Representative for Children and Youth in the media.

Could the minister inform…? If the vacancies aren’t tracked or are unknown, or if where the vacancies are is unknown, how can the minister make a statement saying there are foster beds in a certain region?

[1445]

Hon. S. Cadieux: We do track the overall utilization rate. Provincewide, we know we have a 91 percent utilization rate between the available spaces and the active placements. What I said was that we don’t have a real-time, centralized tracking system.

Within each community, each SDA, they are aware of the resources available in their own communities. We do have access to that information, just not centrally in real-time at this point, which is what we are working on. Once it’s available, I’ll share it with the member.

That is why in a situation as was the situation in Prince George…. We were aware of the number of vacancies that we had in that community at that time. Certainly, I’m sure the member knows, the ministry works with any child or youth who is vulnerable and needs our assistance. We work to put them into the most appropriate housing arrangement or support for them.

That said, the reality also is that, around the province, the youth that we are dealing with, the young people that we are dealing with, in their teens, are less than receptive at times to the help. We continue to be there to support them and to offer that help and ensure that they are safe and protected.

D. Donaldson: From the ministry’s website about levels of foster care, the highest level, level 3, is for children who have extensive needs — correct? — lots of health issues, possibly behavioural issues, requiring a lot of support and intervention. On the ministry’s website, under specialized level 3 homes, it says “an approved family who provide care for a maximum of two children in care.”

The minister said that the ministry doesn’t track the foster homes that have more than one child in them. So how would the ministry know if a level 3 care home has more than two children in it?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The member is confused by what I’ve said, obviously. The reality is that we don’t track centrally, in Victoria, which placements are where. The tracking of which homes have which children is done at the regional level where the decisions are made. They keep track of that information. But what we don’t have at this time is
[ Page 12273 ]
a real-time — because, obviously, these are changing on a daily basis — central repository for all of that information. It is what we’re working on so that we have even better and more rapid access to that information in Victoria.

[1450]

We do track which homes have vacancies, which homes have children. It is just done at the regional level, not centrally in Victoria.

D. Donaldson: I’ll try to make it a little simpler for the minister. How many level 3 homes in the province have more than two children in them? How many level 2 homes in the province have more than three children in them? How many level 1 homes have more than six children in them? For whatever numbers the minister can give me…. Not real time; I want figures.

Perhaps she has them for the last year. I hope she would have them for the last year. Otherwise, how does she know about quality assurance — whether standards are being met?

Hon. S. Cadieux: We don’t have that information here. I can get that for the member.

It is known locally. As I’ve said, it is just not central. We don’t have, provincially, a mechanism to track that, which is exactly why we are working to develop that central tracking mechanism. I think that needs to be in place. It’s one of the reasons why I am taking options to cabinet on changes to the foster care system and looking at the whole system and how it operates in British Columbia.

We do have confidence, or are able to have confidence, in our service delivery areas and in our contracting processes because of auditing, which happens. I’m sure the member will want to get to that in estimates in terms of what audits are completed where, as we have in previous years.

There are standards in place in terms of what is acceptable in foster homes. The only time that that would vary would be if an exception is necessary and made by and approved by a community service manager in a local area.

D. Donaldson: Well, this is a bit of a concern, when the minister says it’s known locally, just not centrally. It reminds me of when the minister said the policy was being followed when it came to hotel stays. The next day she had to say it wasn’t because that, I guess, was known locally but not centrally, not by the minister.

Would she not simply be able to ask the executive directors of the service areas what the number is of level 3, 2 and 1 care homes that have exceeded their maximum standards that the ministry has set?

Hon. S. Cadieux: That’s what I said. We don’t have it here, but we can get that for the member. The information is held locally.

[1455]

D. Donaldson: Would the minister, then, also supply the information about how many exceptions — she talked about exceptions that might be necessary and are made — there are in that data as well?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, we will.

D. Donaldson: One of the numbers the minister gave on foster care homes was 2,465 active placements. How many of those homes would be categorized as foster parents of aboriginal ancestry?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I don’t have…. Well, what I have is there are 422 foster homes with an aboriginal foster parent. That is of the 3,035 active contracts.

What I can’t tell you is what subset of that currently has an active placement.

D. Donaldson: So roughly a third of the foster homes in the province have a foster parent of aboriginal ancestry, and we have 63 percent of the kids in care of aboriginal ancestry.

[1500]

I see that there could be a gap here, and perhaps that’s what is trying to be addressed by the strategy and the service plan focusing a special spotlight on recruitment of foster care givers, with an emphasis on aboriginal caregivers.

I’m curious about that. I know from the correspondence from just six or seven months ago, at the end of August, that the ministry terminated its service agreement with the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents — the only association of its kind that had an aboriginal governance and specifically delivered services to try to recruit and train and support aboriginal foster parents.

The service agreement was terminated before it was due, which was March 31 of this year. The Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents called this a bad-faith termination of funding and asked the ministry to honour its dispute resolution process, including arbitration set out in the agreement.

Given that, in this budget, there’s an emphasis on recruitment of aboriginal foster parents, why would the ministry be terminating its contract even before its due date with the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents, which is the only foster parent association in the province that’s governed by aboriginal people?

[1505]

Hon. S. Cadieux: We did speak with the aboriginal foster parent group. We did give them notice. We then, through more conversations with them, reconsidered but have since informed them that we would go to RFP for this program. We’ve invited them to apply to that RFP process.

We are fully committed to the objective in the service plan and to move forward on that with a strong aborig-
[ Page 12274 ]
inal partner to provide these services to aboriginal foster parents.

D. Donaldson: We have this strategic goal as part of objective 4.2 in the service plan of recruitment of aboriginal foster parents. We have this organization in the province, the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents. They were told at the end of June to work on their governance structure, by the ministry, under the Society Act — nothing to do with the level or the quality of service they were providing, which was to recruit, train and support foster parents.

Then, by the end of August, a couple of months later, they received termination notice from the ministry to terminate their contract months before it was supposed to be up. It was supposed to be up at the end of the fiscal year, March 31 — a contract worth over $850,000.

Again, the organization typified it as a breach of contract and said that they wanted to try to continue and go through an arbitration process or dispute resolution process, because there wasn’t any indication from the ministry’s correspondence that they were doing a bad job.

This kind of action flies in the face. We know that the 63 percent of aboriginal children in care do better when they’re immersed in their culture and are placed with aboriginal foster families. In fact, that is part of the standards of the ministry.

Again, it’s been seven months since the termination of that contract. What has the ministry been doing? In the absence of having an aboriginal-governed organization, what have they been doing in the last seven months to take up that slack around finding aboriginal foster parents, from the perspective of partnering with an aboriginal organization which is in charge of that?

[1510]

Hon. S. Cadieux: For the benefit of the member, the responsibility for recruiting foster parents and aboriginal foster parents is a shared responsibility. It’s a responsibility of MCFD, of our delegated aboriginal agencies and of provincial-level organizations like the B.C. Federation of Foster Parent Associations and the B.C. Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents.

To correct, for the member, there was no termination. We did signal our intention to terminate but withdrew the termination notice after further consultation and conversations with the agency. That contract did run to term. We informed them that at the end of that term, in conjunction with the end of that term, we would go to RFP on this contract. We invited them, should they wish, certainly, to respond to that RFP, while we are also seeking other responses to ensure that we have the best and most robust supports available to our aboriginal foster parents, moving forward.

We’re committed, absolutely, to the objective in the service plan. We are preparing for a recruitment campaign, and we do wish to move forward with a strong partner to support our aboriginal foster parents.

[1515]

D. Donaldson: Just to be clear, the letter of August 25, 2015, from the ministry to the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents saying that the termination of the service agreement, “I’m writing to provide you with formal written notice,” would happen…. It did not take place. The federation’s funding, which they had received, was left in place for them to continue their efforts to recruit and support aboriginal foster parents until March 31. Is that correct?

Hon. S. Cadieux: That is correct.

D. Donaldson: Thanks for the clarification.

Then, going forward, you talk about an RFP. So now we’re talking about the upcoming budget cycle. What is the ministry’s plan about finding a strong…? The minister talked about finding a strong aboriginal partner. The B.C. Federation of Foster Parents is a great organization, but they’re not an aboriginal organization such as the Federation of Aboriginal Foster Parents.

Did the RFP not include criteria for an organization that is governed by First Nations in order to provide recruitment services for First Nations foster parents?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Yes, the RFP includes that it needs to be an aboriginal service provider who applies for this RFP. The RFP itself was informed by consultation with all of the executive directors of all of the delegated aboriginal agencies in terms of what services were needed and would need to be provided. Therefore, that has all been incorporated into the RFP that is currently out.

D. Donaldson: That’s one element of fulfilling the strategy in the service plan of recruiting with an emphasis on aboriginal caregivers. Can the minister inform what other strategies under this budget cycle the ministry is undertaking to recruit aboriginal caregivers?

[1520]

Hon. S. Cadieux: There’s a number of things that go into recruiting foster parents, be they aboriginal or non-aboriginal.

Some of that work is an ongoing survey within the service delivery areas of what the needs are in that particular area. That’s a part of an ongoing process with the SDAs and our delegated agencies — looking at what they need and then recruiting specifically for those needs at a community level.

Beyond that, we are also developing an awareness campaign for Foster Parents Month. Part of that is about bringing awareness to what it means to be a foster parent in British Columbia, what it means to be a foster child in
[ Page 12275 ]
British Columbia, and raising the profile about how great both of those things are or how great the need is for those.

[1525]

That campaign has been informed by consultation with a number of aboriginal communities or aboriginal-serving groups. That campaign will look similar to the adoptions campaign that the member will be familiar with in terms of social media, landing pages with information, posters and collateral, etc. We’re looking forward to that. That, of course, not being until October, allows for time for the RFP to be closed and a new contract to be awarded.

D. Donaldson: I would just echo my own comments from opening — and I’m sure the minister would agree — around the special people social workers are. I would also say foster parents are an amazing set of people in this province to take children into their homes and try to make them whole and provide the necessities for those kids to be successful. It takes a lot, and I tip my hat to all foster parents in the province.

I would also say that not having an increase in foster care remuneration since 2009 makes recruitment much more difficult. I look forward to the minister’s submissions in that regard. When we see Hydro rates going up and ICBC rates going up and, basically, the cost of living going up yet no increase since 2009, I think it makes the recruitment officer’s jobs more difficult in trying to get more foster parents into the system.

Under performance measure 11, “Foster parent retention,” it lists the proportion of foster parents aged 64 years or younger that continue to foster one year later as an indicator. Out of the just-over 3,000 foster homes or families in the province, how many are over 64 years of age?

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I almost had it in my memory. The number of foster care givers over the age of 65 is 14 percent, or 404.

[1530]

D. Donaldson: Getting back to the issue of how important it is to recruit aboriginal foster care givers, of that 1,222 the minister provided before, how many of those current aboriginal foster care givers are over 64 years of age?

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’ll just correct the member. He misheard me. The number I quoted for aboriginal foster parents is 422, not 1,122, which clarifies for me why he thought that was a third of 3,000. So that’s good. We’re getting there.

But of that, I do not have a breakdown by age.

D. Donaldson: Thank you for that. The acoustics sometimes are tough. That’s actually much more revealing a number and, obviously, why efforts need to be made to recruit aboriginal foster care givers. That’s a significantly smaller number.

Again, out of those 422, I was trying to get a sense of how many were seen that could be more elderly, 65 years or older — maybe not as much energy to take care of the foster kids and also who might be leaving the system. Is the minister unable to give me that information now, or is she saying that that’s information that isn’t tracked — how many of those 422 are 65 or older?

Hon. S. Cadieux: At this time, I don’t know if we can get that number or not. We will find out and let the member know either way.

D. Donaldson: In performance measure 10, “Placement stability for children in care,” I’m going to talk about this in relation to S.S., which is a child of Métis ancestry who’s been the centre of attention.

I’m going to talk about it in a way that the minister will be able to answer the questions, because it won’t be in regards to the current court action that’s underway, which was precipitated by the wish of the ministry to move the child to a non-Métis foster home in Ontario — where her siblings, who she’s never lived with, reside — and the foster parents who currently have care of S.S. wanting to permanently adopt the young girl. At the time that it was in the news, she was 27 months, so I believe that she’s maybe 28, 29 months by now.

Performance measure 10 would not capture a case like S.S. because, from my reading of it, it’s the percentage of children in out-of-home care for at least two years who have experienced no change in placement. In other words, they’ve been for 24 months in a foster care situation, for instance, and haven’t been moved.

We know that moving children a lot, especially at a young age, can lead to a lot of repercussions further down the road. So in the case of S.S., when the ministry felt that it was in the best interest of her to move her — against the wishes of her foster parents who’ve known her for her whole life — she would have been beyond the 24 months. She would have been, actually, a statistic that under this performance measure would show that there’s placement stability.

[1535]

However, the service plan does go on to say that “attachment to a caregiver for children under six can occur within as little as two or three months.” In other words, a child under six years of age can become very attached within a few months to the caregivers and, therefore, there can be a lot of separation anxiety and other symptoms that arise later in life if the child is moved.

In relation to this kind of situation, my understanding is that every child in care under five, by the ministry’s own standards, should have a permanency plan within 12 months.
[ Page 12276 ]

Obviously, in the case of S.S., who stayed 27 months in one place before it appears that a permanency plan occurred…. It did not occur. But regardless of that situation, can the minister inform how many children in ministry care under five have not had a permanency plan within 12 months of coming into care?

Hon. S. Cadieux: With his specific question related to children under the age of five and permanency plans, we don’t have that information here today, but I can endeavour to have that information for the member when we resume after the break.

D. Donaldson: The minister said…. Not after we take some kind of health break but after we return from our constituency week next week. Okay. Thank you for that.

In the mandate letter — and the minister has referred to this — that she has received from the Premier, point 12 is: “Review and recommend to cabinet changes to the current foster parent system in the province.” As I said, the minister has referred to this in this section that we’ve spent on foster care.

Many of the other items in the mandate letter have timelines attached to them, and milestones, dates when certain reports or reviews will be conducted by. This one doesn’t.

Can the minister inform when her review of the foster parent system will be complete and when recommendations will go to cabinet?

[1540]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I have begun discussions with my cabinet colleagues on this, and work is well underway. It is a big system, as the member opposite will understand, with a lot of different moving pieces, and there’s a lot of work to be done. But I look forward to continuing those discussions and recommendations that will follow in the near future. I can’t speak to a specific date because I don’t control the schedules in that regard.

D. Donaldson: The mandate letter talked about a review and recommendations on the foster care system. Once the review is done, will the minister commit to making it public?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Well, as the member will undoubtedly know and understand, the review and recommendations, as such, for cabinet are not something that will be shared. There are pieces of work that we’ve done — for example, cross-jurisdictional reviews of foster care in other provinces. That type of work that informs my recommendations to cabinet — that certainly can be shared, and we’d be willing to do that.

[1545]

Then, of course, once recommendations have been made to cabinet and cabinet has given direction, any changes that we’re going to make to the system would be made public through that process.

There’s a lot of work going on in the ministry over the next year related to the development of a multi-year plan that stems from the work in the Plecas report and the recommendations there.

Likely, that three-year plan that we will be developing will tie together a number of the other priorities and projects — areas of focus that the ministry has undertaken in the last while — and will continue throughout this year.

D. Donaldson: I’m just trying to ascertain the actions that will be taken under this budget that we’re considering today to actually address the recruitment issue of aboriginal caregivers, where it’s now been clarified there are only 422 foster care homes that fall into that category — quite a small number.

Without a timeline in the mandate to review and make recommendations to cabinet, it seems as if there won’t be any major efforts to address some of these issues until, likely, next budget year. So we’ll be in this position for another year.

Can the minister at least inform whether there are going to be additional dollars spent in this budget year compared to last budget year on some of the strategies that she’s mentioned — recruiting at a community level, an awareness campaign, the RFP? Does this represent an increase in budget for addressing the recruitment issue of aboriginal caregivers? And if so, how much?

[1550]

Hon. S. Cadieux: There is money allocated two separate ways — one centrally and, then, through the SDAs as well. The work on training, advertising and marketing, tracking and doing the home studies for foster parents is done throughout all of the SDAs.

We had $600,000, which was in last year’s budget, that covered both years for training and that focused, specifically, on aboriginal foster parents. And $200,000 this year for our recruitment budget, centrally, for foster parents is being spent and prioritized this year, specifically, to recruit aboriginal foster parents.

D. Donaldson: I’m going to move to a different focus area, although related. I’m not into silos in the ministry either, so most of the topics are very interconnected — and, I think, interconnected beyond the ministry, as well, into other government ministries.

This next line of questioning really relates to the circumstances around Alex Gervais, Patricia Evoy, Danny Francis, Nick Lang and Paige, all of whom had either been in receipt of services from MCFD, in care or shortly aging out of care or government services before they all died.

[1555]

The connecting factor that I’m going to talk about in these is that they all had aboriginal ancestry. We know
[ Page 12277 ]
that 63 percent, according to the briefing I received this week, of children in care are of aboriginal ancestry. The number I was given is 4,417 children — pretty staggering.

I mean, when I think about the towns that I’ve lived in, in B.C., almost all of them have been under that number in population. When you look at a town and you think, “This entire town could really be representative of the number of kids of aboriginal ancestry in care,” it’s really something that needs serious addressing. It’s not something that we should be complacent about.

The way I want to talk about this — and, I’m sure, the minister wants to talk about it as well — is through the recommendations in the Paige report, which was released in June of last year, I think. It was late in May or June of last year.

The minister has said that she has accepted all the recommendations in Paige’s report, which the Office of the Representative for Children and Youth released in response to a long and horrible story of the life of a young woman who ended up dying shortly after — 11 months, I believe — she turned 19 and aged out of care, an aboriginal woman.

I’d like to go through some of the recommendations and see where they are reflected in this budget, since the minister has said that all of them have been accepted. I’ll start with recommendation No. 1 from that report, which is focused entirely on the Ministry of Children and Family Development.

I know that the ministry put out their response, in the fall, to the Paige report. Sometimes it’s difficult to cross-reference the actual details of the actions that the Representative for Children and Youth has put forward and how they’re reflected in the detailed response from government about what they’re doing about it.

We’ll start with the bullet point under recommendation No. 1 that the ministry “develop a clear fund to support aboriginal extended family members to allow them to do kinship care.” We’re still moving in the same area of thought from foster care, but now we’re into kinship care. A little different, but it’s still trying to find places for children who need stability.

In this sense, Paige’s report pointed out that there was an opportunity for that to happen for Paige while she was still under the age of 19. She had an aunt — and an uncle, as well, I believe — that were willing to provide her with a more stable and secure environment. But it didn’t seem that the resources were there, from the ministry perspective, to allow that to happen. This is the genesis of this recommendation and this specific bullet point.

Under this budget, are there — and where are they? — the additional funds, the specific funds, the “clear fund” to support aboriginal extended family members to allow them to do kinship care? This is based on the fact that the minister has said she’s accepted all the recommendations in the report.

[1600]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Kinship care exists today. It is not specific to aboriginal families or non-aboriginal families. I can tell the member that, for the last two years, the spending in that area has increased by about $2 million a year. Our budget this year, again, sees an overall increase in our estimates — $34.9 million for all out-of-home options, which includes kinship care as well as foster care.

Again, for the member, the budget is not capped for any one of those options or the total. It is based on need — where the need exists and where we need to provide support.

D. Donaldson: I have many questions on the Paige report. But the minister often refers to…. The budget’s not capped, and it’s based on need. So why have a budget at all then? I mean, if we’re saying, “Oh well, we’ll generally ballpark this ministry at this many billions of dollars. Then if we need more, there’ll be more….”

It really brings into mind the question of how a social worker on the front line is able to make decisions about offering funding for something like kinship care — for instance, in the case of Paige, where it wasn’t offered — when they don’t really know if there’s a budget or not. I would like a little bit more clarification on that.

[1605]

Secondly, does the minister not feel that the recommendation to actually target aboriginal kinship care in her budget is necessary? The Representative for Children and Youth felt it was necessary, and the fact that over 63 percent of youth in care are aboriginal seems to indicate that it’s necessary as well.

[1610]

Hon. S. Cadieux: The member has noted, a number of times, the percentage of aboriginal children in care at 63 percent, which is absolutely correct. But I think it’s also important, for the record, to note that the overall number of aboriginal children in care has decreased over the last five years — not significantly, but it has decreased. The percentage, however, is higher and increasing because the number of non-aboriginal children in care is declining at a much faster rate. It’s a matter of statistics.

At the same time as we are decreasing the number of children in care, the number of children in out-of-care arrangements or kinship placements, both for non-aboriginal and aboriginal children, is going up. That’s a good thing because we know that kids get better outcomes when they’re with family. That’s a goal.

Overall, though, I think we do have to keep in mind that, while we see a decrease in the number of kids in care, the budget for providing services to those kids is increasing. I think it’s important also to note, as I’ve said, that we don’t make decisions on how to care for kids based on what the budget is. We make the decision based on what the need is for that particular child or youth.
[ Page 12278 ]

Kinship agreements, as any other arrangement for a child in care or in service of the ministry, are not decided on budget. It is based on an assessment by the social worker working with the family to determine what situation best meets the needs for that particular child.

The decision to place a child in kinship care, then, and to provide supports to that family are made based on the needs of the child, not on whether or not the Ministry of Children and Family Development has a set target for budget, because we don’t.

What we do have is a target every year that we make based on our best estimate of caseload projections, as we can follow the numbers in terms of the trends for kids coming into care, kids leaving care — our best estimates. That’s how we formulate our budget each year. Then, if we need to adjust it during the year because we are off and our numbers are not correct, we adjust.

D. Donaldson: I’ll just start this question by referencing what I said in my opening comments.

The ministry is actually down 11 percent in its budget, even with the projected three-year budget that we see under consideration in these estimates, compared to what happened from 2001 to 2004. Under the government that the minister represents, the actual budget, if you look at it over the last 15 years, has decreased by at least 11 percent.

The context in the service plan, as I talked about in the opening comments, is on balanced budget, not on needs of children. I just want to make sure the minister is clear on that.

I’m going to give the minister an opportunity, so I don’t have to keep coming back to this, to clarify and correct her comments that the recommendations from the Paige report have been accepted in full. Although they’ve been accepted in full, they’ve not been implemented in full, and the implementation, I think, is what people want to see. When someone says, “I accept your recommendation,” they assume that they will be implemented.

The recommendation regarding “a clear fund to support aboriginal extended family members to allow them to do kinship care” has not been implemented. The minister has described that.

Another detail under recommendation 1 from the report is: “Enhanced transition planning is offered for aboriginal youth who are aging out of government care, with the recognition that these youth may require particularly robust services, including foster care and other supports that extend beyond the age of 19. Aboriginal girls in care who are at risk of drug overdose, involvement in survival sex trade and poor school attendance to be offered extension of foster care to 24 years of age.” That is the recommendation.

[1615]

When I look at the government response to this recommendation 1, the only area that I can find that actually references this is that a scan has been done — conduct an interprovincial scan of extended foster care models and use the results to “inform service options…for high-risk youth transitioning to adulthood.” That was supposed to be completed in the fall of 2015.

This recommendation is not talking about a scan. It’s talking about actual action. Can the minister inform what the service options are that came out of this scan and how they’re going to be implemented in this budget year that we’re considering in front of us?

[1620]

Hon. S. Cadieux: As the member notes, there is a lot of detail in the recommendations. Some of that detail we’ve been able to do sooner rather than later. Others require more work. Some has already been addressed.

Specifically, in relation to the recommendation to extend foster care, our cross-jurisdictional review has been done. We’re of the view that the system in British Columbia is consistent with, if not more supportive than, what is available in the rest of Canada. We’re happy to share that with the member.

However, we are still looking to develop a support system for youth aging out further, and more work will be done in that regard. Our specific response to date, in terms of that recommendation, was to amend the AYA legislation last year to include life skills and to allow us the flexibility to adjust age and duration for those agreements in regulation, which we are working on.

Two things important with that. Firstly, that youth with life skills challenges and needs be able to access that support — not just in youth who are accessing post-secondary education — is the first improvement, certainly, in that regard. And we’ll look to further address the issue of age through regulation.

D. Donaldson: I’d welcome the ministry sending a copy of the cross-jurisdictional review over to my office.

I’d love to keep going on Paige, but I’m going to veer off a little bit, because the minister brought up agreements with young adults. One of the mechanisms she’s suggesting is the ministry’s response to this, being able to extend supports beyond the age of 19 to aboriginal youth — and especially aboriginal girls who are in these risky situations that we saw Paige was in.

What is the amount, in the budget that we’re considering here, allocated to agreements with young adults, if that’s one of the strategies that the minister is presenting to respond to this recommendation? That’s my question. What is the amount in this year’s budget for agreements with young adults?

[1625]

Hon. S. Cadieux: What I can tell you is that in 2014-15 we spent $3.2 million. In 2015-16, the budget was $3.7 million. What we will spend this year will depend entirely on
[ Page 12279 ]
two things: when changes in regulations come into effect; and how many youth want, and work with us to have, a youth agreement, because they are by agreement. We can’t force them. It does take willing participants. Depending on what the uptake is on the program, that will determine what we ultimately spend in this particular area.

That said, we do anticipate there will be an increase in this area resulting from both the fact that it’s an area that has been increasing, so knowing that we have sort of an annual increase in this area. Plus, with the changes that we’re making, we do anticipate that more youth will take us up on the extension, etc., and the addition of life skills, which will also add the availability of this program to more people.

That, again, is contemplated in the overall lift to our budget, but it is not, again, capped. It will depend on how many youth we need to serve.

D. Donaldson: I can just get a nod from the minister on this one. The numbers I believe I was supplied in our pre-budget meeting were…. There were 557 agreements with young adults. I think that would have been 2015-16. Is that reflected in the $3.7 million that you talked about?

Hon. S. Cadieux: That is the correct number at December 2015. But, yes, the $3.7 million spent in 2015-16 would include that number.

D. Donaldson: Continuing on the agreements with young adults…. I do recall the legislation because it was the last day of the sitting in the fall so it didn’t provide a great opportunity for lots of debate, but we did discuss it, and we had forwarded a few amendments.

My question is: are all youth aging out of care at 19 offered an AYA, an agreement with a young adult? The legislation said they may be offered. I know the minister has said, “Well, they might refuse,” but are all youth offered that AYA upon aging out of care?

[1630]

[M. Dalton in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: The answer to that is, historically, probably not, but CCO kids and kids on youth agreements would be eligible. With the changes that we made in the fall to the legislation and the regulations that will be coming into effect, there is training underway with all of our social workers to support the changes and the new eligibility. So we would hope, going forward, that that would be the case.

That said, we must keep in mind that it still requires agreement between the youth and the social worker on a plan and on what either their educational program or life skills program would entail.

Also to note, in case the member isn’t aware, what is also possible is that if a youth at that time isn’t ready to agree to that but changes their mind, they have the opportunity, had they been a child in care, to come back at a later date and work with us on that to ensure that they can take advantage of that up until they’re 24 years old.

The Chair: Member.

D. Donaldson: Thank you, Chair. Welcome back, Kotter.

I’m going to wrap three questions into one here on recommendation 1, because I want to turn it over to my colleague, who is going to be talking around the adoption service item.

What we have is the two details under recommendation 1 around establishing a clear fund to support the aboriginal extended family members. Kinship care has not been implemented, and the “aboriginal girls in care who are at risk of drug overdose, involvement in survival sex trade and poor school attendance to be offered extension of foster care until they’re 24 years of age” is not being represented. So we’re 0 for 2 on the recommendations accepted in full.

Now I’ll just touch on three others, all in one here. There was a recommendation, under recommendation 1, where a report looking at an immediate review of all of the files of the children in the Downtown Eastside that are being serviced by MCFD be presented to the representative.

[1635]

I notice a review was done, which I believe is touching on that recommendation. But phase 1, 2 and 3 of the review looks like it was done. My question is: was that report presented to the representative? The second is…. There’s a draft youth policy road map to assist youth practitioners. Would the minister release that to my office so we can have a look at what the road map actually entails on preparing youth practitioners to better understand the application of the various policies?

The third one is…. One of the final details in this recommendation is MCFD providing an annual report specifically on the reported abuse, neglect and maltreatment of aboriginal girls and young women involved with the ministry for each year, with a detailed breakdown by region, age and service provided. Where is that report?

Hon. S. Cadieux: The review is complete. The report is nearly complete and will be shared with the representative within the next couple of weeks.

The road map is complete, and we’ll be happy to provide your office with a copy of that following today.

The last thing was the reporting that the member referenced. We have discussed that with the representative, and we will be doing that within the performance management report that I know the member is familiar with. That will be added in an upcoming version and then will be ongoing from that point.

D. Donaldson: I will come back to the Paige report because there’s lots more there, and we know the min-
[ Page 12280 ]
ister’s enjoying talking about it because there are lots of recommendations.

At this point, I would like to ensure that we have time for the adoptions service item.

I turn it over to my colleague.

Hon. S. Cadieux: Just as we do that…. During the intervening time here, I have been able to get one piece of the information we have promised you, and that is the percentage of aboriginal foster parents over the age of 64. That number is 9 percent.

J. Rice: I just wanted to offer the minister a break, if she feels she needs a five-minute break.

Hon. S. Cadieux: It’s probably a good idea. Thank you.

The Chair: We’ll recess for five to ten minutes.

The committee recessed from 4:39 p.m. to 4:47 p.m.

[M. Dalton in the chair.]

J. Rice: I’m excited to be able to canvass adoptions for a second year in a row. We talked last year about the fact that it doesn’t have a history of being heavily canvassed. But lots of interesting changes around adoption, a very worthy line item in the MCFD budget.

I will just apologize in advance that if I do skip around, it is only because of the interest of time. I realize that that’s really challenging for ministers. I will try and keep it cohesive and in order, but we may flip around, depending on time.

The first question is a pretty straightforward question. I’m wondering if you could outline the senior staffing allocated to or focused on adoptions. Then the second question would be on the number of adoption social workers.

[1650]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Okay, so starting with Cory Heavener, the provincial director of child welfare, who has a role as the provincial director but then goes to Anne Clayton, who’s the director of guardianship and adoptions — who then has two directors, five registry staff, three workers who support guardianship around the province, five adoption consultants that work out in the SDAs, supporting the adoption workers, and five deputy directors of adoption, who also hold the title of executive director of service. Those are people like Holden, who’s here with us.

Then, out in the regions, 55 people are focused entirely on adoption — adoption is their role — plus about 90 other guardianship or integrated team workers who do adoptions as a part of their role in some of the SDAs.

J. Rice: Thank you to the minister. Could the minister provide the number of adoptions that were successfully completed over 2014-15 and 2015-2016 — those two years?

[1655]

Hon. S. Cadieux: This is one I know off by heart: 276 adoptions in ’14-15, and 368 in ’15-16, for a total of 644.

J. Rice: Well, I think congratulations are in order. I know that the goal was 600, so fantastic that you’ve been able to exceed that target.

According to Budget 2016, $3 million has been allocated over three years for adoption. The money is largely front-loaded, so I’m wondering if the minister can outline how the proposed funding will specifically be used to improve adoptions in B.C.

Hon. S. Cadieux: For the previous two years, we had found efficiencies and allocated $2 million in each of those years to help us reinvigorate the adoption process. Largely, that money was spent on contracts, some of which were over a two-year period. We have now reallocated within the ministry, according to my priorities, and have permanently added that $2 million to our annual adoption budget.

In addition to that, we have an additional $1 million a year over three years allocated in this budget, the $3 million the member is referring to, which is for post-adoption assistance, because we are anticipating and projecting more adoptions and, therefore, the need for dollars to support that.

The $2 million that has been added, on an ongoing basis now, to our budget for adoptions…. The way that that money will be allocated or spent is to basically continue on the work from the years before and focus on increased access to the adoption education program, to increase the number and quality of home studies, to support the delegated aboriginal agencies to focus on permanency planning, supports for higher-risk placements post-adoption, helping kids transition in higher risk placements from foster to adopt, and administrative practice support for the regions — as well as increasing child-specific recruitment, family-finder work and cultural connections.

J. Rice: I guess my question would be…. It’s not so directed. I’m just curious about the sustainability of the adoption efforts. Does the minister feel that she will be able to maintain a successful adoption program with this funding?

[1700]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Absolutely. I’m committed to this. Therefore, the team is committed to this. [Laughter.] It is the right thing to do, absolutely, for kids.

What I will say, though, is I would hope to continue the success we’ve had around adoption specifically — the
[ Page 12281 ]
work that we’ve done and are doing with Grand Chief Ed John to develop the conversation around permanency with our First Nations partners and to really focus in on First Nations kids. What does permanency mean in that context? What can we do?

Adoption is not the only option for permanency for those kids. We have other mechanisms within our act and other acts to achieve the same outcome — that lasting permanency for kids which we want to see. I expect that our work will broaden to include more of those options, as well, as we further develop those conversations with our First Nations partners.

J. Rice: That’s fantastic that you’re focusing on that. I absolutely realize that adoption is not the answer for everything, particularly when it comes to First Nations. I know the minister knows about the high percentage of aboriginal kids in care that we have. I think it’s somewhere around 4,000 aboriginal kids in care. Therefore, there are a lot of creative options that can be explored to give these kids permanency. Of course, that’s something that we welcome.

I wanted to just give the minister an opportunity to elaborate on the year’s work. Last year, when I canvassed adoption in the estimates process, an injection of funding was provided, and a new 1000FamiliesBC campaign was launched. This would be an opportunity for her to elaborate on the changes that have been implemented to improve the adoption process in British Columbia.

[1705]

Hon. S. Cadieux: Okay. This is going to take a minute. Obviously, regarding promotion of adoption awareness, the member is well aware of the 1000FamiliesBC promotion. The Adoptive Families Association of B.C. has deliverables in their contract to do recruitment all year long. They provide webinars and educational events, and so on. That’s ongoing work; it continues.

The 1000FamiliesBC website, just for information, had almost 7,000 visitors in November of 2015, during Adoption Month, and 1,700 in December as well. There was really good reach with the campaign. Definitely, as you can see from that, there is real interest in learning more about adoption — which has led, obviously, to interest.

In 2015-16, there were 176 home studies referred out to licensed agencies to complete, and 211 were approved or under study within the ministry or delegated agencies. Because we know that there was a backlog of home studies — the length of time for the adoption process and the things we’re doing to speed that up — the backlog of home studies has been reduced from 400 to 256.

[1710]

Of the 256 still waiting, 211 of those, or 82 percent, applied since 2015-16. We now only have 17 percent that have waited longer than a year. These families have generally applied to adopt younger children or those with lower needs. So they haven’t been prioritized, given the makeup of the children in our waiting caseload.

A lean project on adoption application and the home study process has also been completed. Solutions are going to be implemented through greater access to adoption education programs on line and a public portal for applicants to apply on line and track their progress. That is underway.

In addition, we formed a permanency steering committee that used aggressive project management skills to really hone down, track the work that was being done, to find and identify any issues and identify any solutions that could be implemented.

Two things that they identified were certainly the speed with which home studies and culture plans and court documents were being completed. They then sent the five adoption consultants out to SDAs and five to the DAAs to help them facilitate home studies, culture plans and court documents to shorten the time that it was taking to complete those for kids that had adoption plans and were waiting.

In addition, they really focused in on the individual kids themselves — what the plan is for this particular kid — and tracked that regularly.

With the work that Grand Chief Ed John has been doing with us, as well, we’ve identified and given notice to chiefs and nations about 890 specific children so that we can start having conversations about those specific children and the need for their plans to be culturally sensitive, to work with the nations to see if there is ability to find permanency within their nation.

Those 890 kids come from 73 communities that the Chief has been able to have those conversations with, to date. We’re looking to increase that number significantly before his contract extension is up. There’s a lot of work underway, certainly, that has gone into achieving the target and getting to where we are today but also that guides the work going forward.

In addition, we have additional training on broader permanency, as I mentioned in an earlier answer — not just on adoption but on the broader issue of permanency and how we best serve all of the kids that are in our care. Training is going to start and get underway this coming May, so next month, on that. That should also, again, support and enhance what we’re able to do over the next year.

J. Rice: Could the minister just elaborate on the permanency training. What does that look like?

[1715]

Hon. S. Cadieux: It entails four courses, with a total of approximately seven weeks.

Now, that would be offered in the first session. The first course is offered in a facilitated on-line course — a few hours per week, until that’s complete — which is about setting the stage on the principles and the four dimensions of permanency and really getting people ready.
[ Page 12282 ]

The next three sessions, which are three two-week sessions, are on skill-building, on child-specific recruitment, family finding, preparing kids for transition. Good care plans — how to prepare those. How to plan for kids. How to track that, and how to adjust those plans as there are changes or as things happen and need to be adjusted for educational attainment goals or whatever else might come up.

We are looking to start that in May. The first of it will end in October. We are looking to have two cohorts go through 48 seats in both sessions.

J. Rice: I’m just going to move on to talking a little bit about some of the adoption service providers. Some of the stakeholder adoption agencies had expressed concerns about the disconnect between completed home studies and actual adoptions.

Can she talk a bit about the current targets for completion of home studies?

[1720]

Hon. S. Cadieux: I’ll answer this as best I can. But if this isn’t what the member’s looking for, certainly, please try again.

There is always a disconnect, certainly, between the number of home studies and the number of placements, for any number of reasons. There’s also a disconnect between the number of home studies that start or are referred and the number that are completed. The reason for that is sometimes people enter the process and, partway through the process, decide this isn’t going to be for them. They voluntarily remove themselves from the process. Sometimes, through the process, a social worker will determine a family isn’t ready for this, so that will remove them from the process.

Beyond that, when there are completed home studies, at any given time, there are probably at least 130 families with a completed home study who have not yet been matched with a child. Just because the home study is done doesn’t mean a child is placed. We have to look for the appropriate match for the family and the child.

We want to ensure the greatest degree of success possible in this and make sure that both the family and the child are prepared for those matches. There’s a time lag there, but also, sometimes it’s just not the right match. So people, although they have a completed home study, will not be matched immediately, because of the needs or characteristics of the children that are currently in the queue.

J. Rice: According to some of the agencies, the numbers on the adoption backlog and the wait-lists are not made available to them, making it difficult to get a sense of current progress. Can the minister explain the rationale in why the service providers aren’t…? Essentially, are they able to find out if their hard work is being fruitful?

[1725]

Hon. S. Cadieux: We’re certainly open to providing information about the number of applicants for home studies who are waiting with the partners. We don’t have any challenge in sharing that information. We haven’t been asked specifically for that.

What I will say is that what we have previously done is we’ve entered into contracts with those agencies to fulfil a need to deliver those home studies for families. They’ve delivered on those contracts. We’re now looking again at those waiting families — what that number looks like, how we are going to address that going forward, how much we feel we can address internally through our own staff and how many we may need to address again through contracts. We look forward to, and are anticipating, having those discussions about the go-forward with those agencies in the near term.

J. Rice: I’m getting to that period of angst, so I’m going to skip around now, in the interests of time. This is just a question that’ll come out of left field, coming after the discussion here about the home studies, which I have more questions on.

Can a foster parent in British Columbia adopt their foster children?

[P. Pimm in the chair.]

Hon. S. Cadieux: The answer is yes.

[1730]

J. Rice: Can a non-aboriginal family living in an aboriginal community, or a community with a high percentage of aboriginal residents, adopt an aboriginal child?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Potentially.

J. Rice: Can she elaborate on what “potentially” means?

Hon. S. Cadieux: Under our legislation, if a child is aboriginal, the director must give priority to placing the child with the child’s extended family, the child’s aboriginal cultural community, with another aboriginal family and, lastly, with a non-aboriginal family if that’s not possible.

If a family who is not aboriginal wants to adopt an aboriginal child, the process then…. The ministry must then ensure that all of those other avenues have been explored and ruled out or that, in some cases, the extended family, who cannot for some reason take that child, agrees with and supports the adoption. The aboriginal community would also have to be in support of that.

Then a plan would be developed, including a cultural safety agreement for that child, which would then come to the exceptions committee.

[1735]

It is made up of the MCFD director of practice for aboriginal services, the provincial director of adop-
[ Page 12283 ]
tions, representatives from delegated aboriginal agencies, representatives from the Métis Commission for Children and Families, practice analysts from aboriginal services, and the deputy director of adoptions for the service delivery area representing the child for which the exception is being sought.

They would then review the plan for that child and the work that’s gone into ensuring that that is in fact the best option and that everybody is in agreement that the cultural safety plan is adequate and will support that child. If that is then approved, then that adoption could proceed to the next step.

J. Rice: I appreciate that thorough answer. I understand the reason for that, of course. I’m in agreement with the minister’s direction of placing aboriginal children with, firstly, their extended family and, as we go down the options, at least within the aboriginal community.

I raise the question only because I represent a community that’s almost half, 44 percent, aboriginal or First Nations. Some of the communities I represent are First Nations communities. Prince Rupert, where I live…. Almost half of the city of Prince Rupert is First Nations.

I’ve heard of struggles of non-aboriginal families that have been living in the community for extended periods of time, their entire lives, and are accepted and fit in with our First Nations culture and have had interest in providing those services for aboriginal kids, completely understanding the direction, yet they’ve had the barriers.

I couldn’t help but feel that in certain cases that was a missed opportunity. We’ve had aboriginal children in the north adopted in another part of the province, where we’ve missed an opportunity to keep that child within their extended family, with their culture, with their actual nation that they identify with.

I don’t have an easy answer to that, but I think it’s just important to highlight that it’s on that list of to-do things. It’s pretty short, what you have over there, Minister, through the Chair. That would be something worth addressing, because I do think there are opportunities there that still maintain and preserve the importance of a child’s culture.

Two more questions. I wanted to ask about adoptive services in rural communities. Does the minister feel that we have an adequate number of professionals or adoptive social workers able to facilitate adoptions in rural B.C? Is there a rural strategy to adoption in our province?

[1740]

Hon. S. Cadieux: To the member: first off, I just want to say thank you for your last comment and illustration. I think it’s an interesting one and something worth thorough consideration in terms of how we deal with that and deal with it through conversations, as well, with our First Nations partners in this process. Thank you for that.

Secondly, in response to this question: do we have enough support for adoptions in rural B.C? Probably not. I think there are a number of ways that we are already increasing that level of support and will continue to. I’ll outline those.

First off, do we need to increase the number of workers specific to adoptions? Perhaps. But more importantly, I think we have an opportunity, at least in the shorter term, to increase the number of MCFD staff who do work in adoptions. While there are MCFD staff in many communities, they may or may not be doing any work on the adoptions side. Part of what we will be able to do through some of this training is enhance their skill sets for them to do more of that work.

We mentioned earlier the lean strategy to really look at simplifying some of the procedure in order to speed that up, to look at what’s really necessary. Are we doing things that aren’t necessary as a part of that that we can change to give people, again, more time to do their work?

We have opportunities to centralize some of the services around documentation — court documents and that kind of work, some of the paperwork side that we could do centrally, which doesn’t have to be done specifically by the individual social worker — again, to allow the staff to focus on the social-work end of the adoption process.

As well, some of the OTO money that we did put out to contract, to the Adoptive Families Association in particular, is specific to supporting inter-rural communities through more of the on-line adoption training programs, to allow for people to have access to things they couldn’t before as well as enhancing their parent support model out in the rural areas.

[1745]

We haven’t called any of that a rural strategy. We do have a deputy director of adoptions that focuses entirely on the north — it’s certainly an area of focus in that regard — as well as the work that Grand Chief Ed John is doing in talking with First Nations about permanency and what needs to change to improve how we talk about permanency, how we achieve permanency.

First Nations youth. I think this is one of the areas of interest for him that I expect he’ll be commenting on in his report as well. I think it’s an idea we should probably explore more, as to whether or not there needs to be additional focus that is specific to rural parts of British Columbia.

Thank you for that question. I look forward to maybe having a further discussion on that with the member.

With that, I believe I need to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again, as the time is pressing on.

Motion approved.

The committee rose at 5:46 p.m.

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